Some questions about Silent Hunter 4

[cookiemonste]

Hello folks,
I don't know what it is, but the longer I play SH 4 the more I dislike it.
The thing I dislike the most is the damage controll system.
I just don't get it.
I was chased by 3 jap. destroyers after I hit a convoy, all bow torpedo tubes were damaged. As I shaked them, I submerged and ordered repairs. I draged and droped everything in order, compressors and bulkheads were a priority of course. However, my crew could not fix the bow tubes. I set the whole crew at battle stations, fat forwarded the time and 5 days later the tubes were still damaged.

They were not destroyed I think, the red bar next to the module said 0.52 or 0.6 depending on the tube. I waited for 2 weeks in game time and nothing changed. And how does flooding work in game, you could focus one compartment in SH3 when it came to flooding, it does not seem to be the case here.
At the end I tried to sneak into a japanese Port and event hough I rigged for silent runing 3 destroyers found me anyways. In fact they camge from about 20 miles to me, that means they could hear me. Did I do something wrong?

During the bombardment I tried to fire the stern torpedos. My ordonance officer simply said "torpedo is to damaged" And that was the nail in the coffin because all 4 torpedos were damaged aparently.

And now I get floating ships imune to torpedos because they float.
Edit: The floating ships seemed to be a one time thing, further observations are required.

For mods: I run the Tigger Maru Overhaul 2.5, Pacific enviroment, installed the way it told me in the guide and an fix for missing crew eyes.

Maybe somebody could help me.

[spccolts]

I'm learning too. There is still about 100,000 tons I need to learn.

I noticed in shallow water, the destroyers can spot you right away. I always go in at night. I once followed a cargo ship and hide under it to sneak into Osaka to avoid destroyer patrol.

[cookiemonste]

Yeah, I noticed that too, a oesky bathtub with aa guns kept following me, even at night, guess it just spoted my silouhete on the water. But still, my other points stand. And Silent Running is not silent aparently. I learned that in SH3 silent running is not modeled correctly, you have to manually set the RPM to 50. Maybt it's the same here.

[propbeanie]

Setting Silent Running ~AND~ the speed to 1 knot is almost requisite in TMO, and still will not make you "silent". Your "profile" matters too. Even still, a boat is bound to make noise... Also, TMO, while not the most difficult mod, is no where near the easiest either. If you want a bit of graphics improvement, but a slightly easier time of it, try Webster's GFO (Game Fixes Only) mod with the Real Environment #1 and patch. Much nicer. This is not to say that it's as easy as Stock, because Webster did tweak some key areas. In TMO, some of ducimus' DD buddies are seemingly clairvoyant, and can find you in the middle of a storm. As for your boat's damage - was your damage control team full, and did you happen to notice if the "efficiency" ranking was OK? That's that little area to the left of the team, where it'll light up green to signify the efficiency level. You need a "mix of talents" on the team, with some leadership, some mechanical, some weapons, some electrical, etc. Also, some of the systems are not repairable unless surfaced, or back at Home Port, and oftentimes, that would be torpedo tube damage. Another one like that is hull damage, which is only repairable back at Home. If you get 35% hull damage early in a patrol, it will do nothing but increase each time you dive, sometimes resulting in your demise prior to reaching periscope depth.

As for the "floating ships", it's most likely your torpedoes. The game simulates the US torpedo issue, and TMO cranks it up another notch. The magnetic detonators are iffy at best, sometimes detonating early, if at all, and the impact detonators - well, they might be worse... I've had times where firing 6 torpedoes, I'll have six duds. Other times, six fired, one dud. So that varies. ~IF~ you hit the target, that is, because part of the US torpedo problem was that they also ran deep. So if you're out prior to late 1943, you will have those issues, which definitely gives the impression that either you're completely incompetent, or the ships have skirts they can pick up and avoid the torps, when neither is the case. It's just the US torps malfunctioning... S-boats do not have near that much of the problem, since they use the earlier Mk10 torps, whereas the Fleet Boats usually had the Mk14.

[cookiemonste]

I picked the guys with the best mechanical skills.
The bar unter the controll team was full the other perpendilar one was half full? Don't know.
Guess I'll have to read up a bit.
But what about the "Torpedo to damaged to fire"? message?
My boat was intact, all compartments were green.

Yeah, the destroyers are sometimes like that. I got spotted from 6km one time. In a storm.
I did not sunk anything in that area as I tried to enter the port.
I know about the problems with the torpedos, my Chief has a skill that reduces duds and premature detonations a bit, but it still happens, I am fine with that, it's accurate.

And the ships really were foating.
http://up.picr.de/28840662rz.jpg

[propbeanie]

I see now the DD is barely skimming the waves, and that the props are out of the water... That is most likely a bad spawn. We've been encountering the same thing in Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate (FotRSU), which is based on TMOv1.7. We're re-working it, since the last version of FotRS wasn't compatible with v1.5 of Silent Hunter, and it was in German only. We're making it compatible and in English, which, your profile says you're in Hamburg, so you might want it left in German... I wonder if we can do a mod for that?... Anyway, what can happen, or what we suppose happens, is that the group spawned in a confined space, and / or shallow area of water, and that particular DD probably "bumped" the seabed, and "bounced" up to that level... we're supposing, since you can't "see" anything spawn. Sorry for not seeing that in your postings, but I are old, going blind, and the sun was in my eyes... yeah, dattz duh ticket... the sun was in my eyes...

As for the damage, with the torpedo tubes, damage to the doors would be something rather common, and they might have "jammed" partially open or closed. I don't know how the game models the tubes, whether individually, in groups (like Left and Right), or as a whole. Someone else would have to answer that... I do know that it seems a bit odd that usually speaking, you'll have the deck gun damaged and the AA gun damaged most often, with the torpedo rooms close behind in frequency. I've also had the battery rooms damaged too frequently, gas leak, and had to battle surface. I usually lose those fights... Like I said, I'd go for either stock or Webster's GFO to start off with in SH4, get used to the game, and then step it up. We're finding out in FotRSU that a LOT of the game is actually SH3, coding mistakes and all...

[cookiemonste]

Let's see what I'll do. I'll do some research about the crew system and how other stuff works. Another thing I noticed is how few ships spawn. I rarely encounter anything, mostly fisherboats.

[propbeanie]

As in SH3, SH4 has "shipping lanes", and finding them can be a bit of a bother. In TMO though, ducimus left some maps laying about in the boat, so look at the different stations and hover your mouse about. Seems to me there is one in the overhead above the chart table in the Fleet Boats... but also back in the corner of the control room is one, there's another up in the sonar / radar room, and I'm thinking there's one in the Captain's cabin... and I think there might be one in the ReadMe, but it's been too long since I looked... and, being an old fahrtt, I might be confusing mods, to say the least... In stock and GFO, you won't have a traffic problem.

[cookiemonste]

I got another question:
Do crew bonuses stack in SH4?
For example, if I hire two men with the passive ability to decrease the time it takes to dive, will it count double or single?

And is there something like an interrior mod like there is for SH3?
I haven't found anything so far with google.

[Sniper297]

Worst trouble with SH4 is it's actually SH3 with a super mod labeled as a new game. So finding the damage data for a fleet sub often requires hunting for what would be the equivalent U-boat in some files. I normally use a SARGO, which in the zones.cfg file translates to a type XXI U-boat;

[RudderXXI]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=1500
Destructible=No
Armor Level=250
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=Yes
Father=30
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None

I hacked that because I got tired of having an otherwise undamaged sub with the rudder blown off, you can't go home without a rudder because you can't steer.

UPropellersXXI1]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Armor Level=25
HitPoints=1200
Destructible=No
Critical=No
Father=30
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None

[UPropellersXXI2]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Armor Level=250
HitPoints=1200
Destructible=No
Critical=No
Father=30
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None

That ensures that even if one prop is destroyed I can still move with the other.

[BowTorpedoTubes]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=1200
Destructible=No
Armor Level=200
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=No
Father=36
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None

[BowTorpedoTubes2]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=200
Destructible=Yes
Armor Level=20
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=No
Father=36
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None

[BowTorpedoTubes3]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=1200
Destructible=No
Armor Level=200
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=No
Father=36
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None

[BowTorpedoTubes4]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=200
Destructible=Yes
Armor Level=20
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=No
Father=36
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None

I'm pretty sure the "Destructible=Yes(or No)" isn't actually used in the game, so the best prevention is to raise the armor level and hit points to something ridiculous on a couple of tubes so if you lose some you don't lose all.

[PeriscopeAttack]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=333
Destructible=No
Armor Level=13
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=No
Father=31
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None

[PeriscopeObservation]
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=4400
Destructible=No
Armor Level=400
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=No
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=None
Father=31

If the attack scope is destroyed I stall have the observation scope.

A lot of this is unrealistic, but if the game itself is unrealistic you just have to hack it in a way that feels as realistic as possible.

[cookiemonste]

All right, can somebody explain me how this fraking damage controll works?
I had a crew assinged to fix the damage we had, minor damage.
They did not TOUCH any of the damage. This is the reason my sub was lost, we ran out of oxygen - on the surface. Because my team did not repair any of the damage. And none of the water was pumped out even though the compressor and everything else, expect a bulkhead and a couple of torpedo tubes were damaged. What is this bullcrap. I compressed the time, they did not fix anything of it. What is that bullcrap!?

[propbeanie]

Can you get a screen shot of your crew page? One of the things to be aware of is that if you're under Silent Running, they don't fix anything...

[cookiemonste]

I was not on Silent Running, I was surfaced doing ahead flank fleeing out of an enemy harbour after a surface night attack. One subchaser spotted me and fired 1 round that hit.

[razark]

Were you at Battlestations, or had you activated the Damage Control Team?

[cookiemonste]

Yes, I was on battlestations the entire time during the night attack.
Later I send the crew to sleep and enabled the regular repair party. It never repaired. I looked it up, it seems like 2 bugs apeared at the same time. The CO2 bug and the bug where people are in the repairparty but are actually still on stations. Maybe I should just go back to SH 3.