Realism- and gameplay-related hardcode fixes for SH3.EXE

[h.sie]

@LGN1: If in reality windspeeds higher than 15m/s are possible, it's natural in my opinion to also have those in the sim, regardless of the question whether the player likes this or not. I cannot follow your argument, that higher windspeeds are not of interest, because the player won't be able to shoot torpedoes and thus would use high TC until wind slows down.

Are you really sure that waveheight in the Beaufort scale is peak-to-peak and not the amplitude??

I removed the limitation code and thus had a windspeed variable of 30m/s, but this had no effect on waveheight. Seems there are more limitations somewhere. More investigation necessary, but not now.

[h.sie]

Regarding the Torpedo failures

- Due to reapers tip, I can now access the pistol settings of the torpedoes. Thus, we can give impact pistol a higher failure rate than magnetic during the torpedo crisis time.

- I can model duds by either setting depth to 25m or randomly changing the torpedoe's course.

But I stopped programming, since I don't know how to interpret windspeed 15m/s. Hitman and LGN1 have different opinions, and I cannot decide which I like more and which I should implement:

Hitman: 15m/s is highest possible windspeed in game and thus should make firing torpedes nearly impossible.

LGN1: No storms simulated in sh3. According to the beaufort scale, 15m/s is a moderat gale and causes a wave amplitude of about 2,5m and thus only insignificantly affects torpedes.

I want tp program according to the current interpretation of 15m/s. Or: How do the different Supermods interpret 15m/s (e.g. regarding gameplay / sensors efficiency)? As storm or a moderate gale?

In situations like this - where I don't have an own opinion-, I like to ask others about their view.

What do you think???

[Hitman]

Just think of it this way: When I'm in the bridge on a SH3 storm of 15 m/s, is it believable that I can shoot torpedoes which can steer correctly their course in those conditions? I think no.

But LGN1 has a point in his reflections, so I guess we can actually arrive to a happy medium term: A high rate of failiure by steering off course, but not an absolute failiure as I suggested.

I would propose a chance of up to 75% veering of course for shallowest running torpedoes, and descending to a mere 25% the closer you get to the maximum depth you can put in the torpedo. What do you think LGN1?

[Anvart]

Wave height (m) as a function of wind speed (m/sec) and of the length of the dispersal of the wave (km).

[LGN1]

Originally Posted by h.sie

@LGN1: If in reality windspeeds higher than 15m/s are possible, it's natural in my opinion to also have those in the sim, regardless of the question whether the player likes this or not. I cannot follow your argument, that higher windspeeds are not of interest, because the player won't be able to shoot torpedoes and thus would use high TC until wind slows down.

Are you really sure that waveheight in the Beaufort scale is peak-to-peak and not the amplitude??

I removed the limitation code and thus had a windspeed variable of 30m/s, but this had no effect on waveheight. Seems there are more limitations somewhere. More investigation necessary, but not now.

@Anvart: Thanks for the data.

@all:
I think that storms are not modeled in any way in SH3 (probably because they do not add much to the game-play and require a completely new wave-mechanics (much longer wave length, not just scaled wave heights)). And I think it's a bad idea to implement storms afterwards by some adjustments. I'm also not convinced that the weather model is good. The only effect it has is that you hunt ships in different weather conditions.

I would like to have a better weather model with storms,... but in this case one should also have better storm waves,... anyway, it's just my opinion.

Concerning wave height, see e.g.,:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_height

Since we are trying to model different failures with the same mechanism, I would choose the wrong depth to achieve the effect. It has the advantage that you can't see/observe it on the attack map (if playing with map updates).

Cheers, LGN1

[Depth Charger]

Gentlemen.

It's all about scale, scale, scale, I say!

H.Sie is right - Odds of wind effect are too low in LGN's model and would only affect the smallest of ships. But we want this to be a bit more painful and so it should also impact ship sizes up to and including the mediums when the w/s is >= 15 m/s. Medium drafts run to a depth of about under 9 metres and so we need to extend the failure thresholds to that depth. (Max D1=3.5 and max d2=7 after adjusting for torpedo depth error of 2 meters)

LGN's excellent model however of calculating D1 and D2 easily by windspeed is also critical to player usability in that they can easily calculate the impact just by looking at the indicated windspeed. (D1/6 & D2/3 = 2.5m and 5m in his models.)

Anvart's chart seems to go up to about 20 m/s and it's also a nice round number that works with LGN's model and we can achieve the desired indicated w/s by using Stiebler's excellent idea to simply adjust the indicated/displayed wind speed by multiplying the stock speeds by 4/3's...

2 examples on a simple linear model with 1 to 20 indicated w/s on the x axis versus 3.5/7 wave height/affected depth on the y axis -

SH3 w/s = 7.5 and indicated w/s = 10 then D1=1.75 & D2=3.5
SH3 w/s = 15 and indicated w/s = 20 then D1=3.5 & D2=7

In the first scenario where the weather is not too bad, small ships are out but for some mediums and above I can still use an impact pistol.

In the second, I can only use impact pistols on the really heavy stuff where the draught is greater then 9 meters but I still got quite a bit I can choose from. (d2 plus 2m torpedo depth adjustment.) Anything smaller is magnetic or waits for better weather as LGN says...

This would make it easy for challenged folks like me to have a chance in that I can rapidly translate the impact of wave height by dividing the indicated w/s by 2 and multiplying it by 7 when checking against the target's draft. (Given that I use IABL's cargo mod, this is going to be a tall order when trying to identify the exact ship I am facing in a storm.)

It's not quite right but with a bit of magic from H.Sie, it might get us to our goal of forcing the player to either adapt his pistol or face failure...

Hope this helps.

DC

PS - On another point, is their any way to link the choice of a magnetic pistol during the emergency so as to possibly dock negative reputation points if we choose to use the magnetic pistol in defiance of orders? That would be beautiful if it then failed as well. I could go insane if that happened...

[andqui]

It seems the mediafire link in h.sie's signature is dead- can anyone confirm this? It's returning a 404 error for me.

[Buck_O]

andqui
yes, I agree its a dead link... maybe h.sie is working on an upgrade... thus the dead link..

[Hitman]

@Depth Charger: That is a well thought proposal It would certainly be a reasonable solution

[h.sie]

I also like the compromise from DepthCharger: Treating 15m/s windspeed as 20m/s regarding torpedo failures.

The impact of LGN1's values on gameplay are so weak, that it's IMHO not worth the programming effort.

But scaling up the reported windspeed by a factor of 4/3 and display 20m/s instead of 15m/s???
I don't know if that's a good idea???

I've found the code for the 1WO weather report and could scale the reported windspeed up by a factor of 4/3, BUT I fear to do this, because sh3 internally still works with windspeeds from 0 to 15.

I don't like screwing up this......could cause confusion regarding the storm-condition settings....

Hm????????

Question: Does the windspeed occur in other places than weather report which I would have to consider (captains diary / status log or similar) or is the weather report the only place where windspeed is displyed to the player?

Ops, my mediafire page is down. The files are still there if I login to my account with my password, but for others my site is not accessible. Do I need to upgrade to pro-version?

[Depth Charger]

Question: Does the windspeed occur in other places than weather report which I would have to consider (captains diary / status log or similar) or is the weather report the only place where windspeed is displyed to the player?

I cant think of anywhere else that we see it.

In my mind, we would be leaving the stock SH3 wind speed range from 0 to 15 unchanged. Only the message displayed to the user from the W/O would have the 4/3's applied to it...

Edit - Also your failure calcs would do the same ie -

stock w/s * 4/3 * 3.5 = D1
stock w/s * 4/3 * 7.0 = D2


Or is that not possible?

[h.sie]

@DC: Yes, that is possible, already found the appropriate code. Easy to fix. But then we would have to differ between internal and external windspeed. I fear a certain percentage of the players will be overstrained with that solution.

I personally like that idea and would use it together with the wave height factor 1,5 from SH3-Commander.

Edit on your edit: For the failure calcs I'll always use internal windspeed (0-15), thus it does not matter whether we scale external windspeed or not.

[LGN1]

Originally Posted by Depth Charger

...
But we want this to be a bit more painful and so it should also impact ship sizes up to and including the mediums when the w/s is >= 15 m/s.

I don't think that the idea should be to just make it more painful without any historical evidence. If that is the case, I agree with Papakilo that the mod is not a good idea.

Originally Posted by h.sie

The impact of LGN1's values on gameplay are so weak, that it's IMHO not worth the programming effort.

Well, h.sie, in this case I would say it's better not to code it than to change things just to have an impact. Just keep the higher failure rate without the dependency on torpedo depth and wind speed.

There are enough other things to improve...

Cheers, LGN1

PS: Dönitz mentions 4m in case of bad weather in the Atlantic. If you add the 2m from the deeper running torpedo it's 6m. I don't know any indication that commanders had to shoot torpedoes deeper than 6m.

[Depth Charger]

PS: Dönitz mentions 4m in case of bad weather in the Atlantic. If you add the 2m from the deeper running torpedo it's 6m. I don't know any indication that commanders had to shoot torpedoes deeper than 6m.

There are enough other things to improve...

Hold on LGN, this is some inspired stuff you got going here.

How about if we dial it back to 6 then? That would still impact quite a few ships in a storm situation...

It wont be perfect, but it would be close which is all I can ever think we will get to in SH3.

Currently, anything before 1943 is like a turkey shoot in SH3 and this would up the challenge for all of us in a great way and whilst not quite accurate, it would deliver some form of the torpedo crises into our campaigns and make the earlier years a challenge again.

If 6 doesn't do it for you, would half a dozen suffice???

[LGN1]

Hi Depth Charger,

from what I've read I think that below a torpedo depth of roughly 6m the wind speed / wave height should have no influence anymore on the torpedo failure rate, i.e., we get our standard torpedo failure rate p0 (probably for higher waves the torpedoes could also not be shot anymore, see the submarine commander's handbook).

Let's say we want to play it save and set the running depth to 6m. Now if you take the curved hull and the changing draft of the ship (due to the waves) into account, I think that in the period between June '40 and middle of '42 (when only the contact pistol was used) you cannot attack ships with a draft of roughly 8m. Looking into the recognition manual, I can see quite a few ships that can't be attacked anymore at 15m/s wind speed (in-game).

And don't forget, even below D2 we have the generic failure rate p0.

To cut a long story short, your proposal of 6m at 15m/s wind sounds fine

Regards, LGN1