Torpedoing the Propellers

[YonMaruIchi]

I've had more than a few hits around the stern of a ship and a couple torps that exploded just about exactly as it met the rudder, yet I rarely see a ship's movement disabled because of this. What's with that? With how well they did the ship sinking mechanics in this game (I know they're not perfect, I've had ships that were completely submerged in open ocean not sink) it seems that visible damage on the stern only rarely actually affects the movement of the ship. It'd be cool if there were rudder jammings and stuff like that.. to my knowledge the torpedo that struck Bismarck wasn't close enough to damage the props but still caused the rudders to jam leading to her immobility and destruction.



http://imgur.com/Ny7zSA5

^completely mobile merchant ship, managed to continue fish tailing away at 12 or so knots until I brought her down with deck guns.

That one was unescorted, but I've had many ships manage to steam away at 20+ knots with visible prop and rudder damage..

Do any of the supermods fix this? This was stock+RSRD.

Ships get away all the time but when they do it like this it's a little disappointing

[Rockin Robbins]

First of all, you have to realize that the way SH4 is set up, what you see is only eye candy. It's not even hooked up to the damage system. If you put a ship together without the damage modeling system (several add-on ships are that way) you can put the normal number of torpedoes in it and/or deck gun shots, it will still sink the way you expect, regardless of the fact that it's factory new looking without a scratch!

Gameplay ship damage is strictly a mathematical process, not hooked up to the eye candy. If you see the propellers blown to hades, they aren't necessarily damaged at all! Many times bright shiny propellers, spinning away blissfully are totally destroyed and the ship stopped.

It DOES seem that the propellers are too hardy and that the easiest way to stop a target is to hit the engine room. The bow of the ship also has a nearly indestructible zone, making destroyers very difficult to kill with a down the throat shot. This is built into the stock game and has resisted modding attempts for nine years.