Damage control renders game unplayable

[GoldenRivet]

I have read numerous "tutorials" on how to use damage control, but as soon as all the damage is repaired the boat is suddenly destroyed... this has been my experience with damage control EVERY TIME regardless of depth or level of damage.

one time i had the deck gun damaged - repaired it on the surface - dove to periscope depth - the deck gun suddenly re-damaged itself and we sank like a stone.

is this a known issue or am i doing something wrong here

first i assemble a team in port and assign them to damage control, then when i receive damage i activate the damage control team by clicking the icon on the bottom of the screen... then i prioritize the repairs. they almost always get it fixed but it doesnt matter - as soon as it is fixed the boat suddenly experiences multiple failures and we sink. :down:

[-Pv-]

This has been widely discussed in other threads. If the damage is too severe the crew cannot repair it even though all the indications the game provides show you are repaired. The devs stated in the readme that came with the game that submerged depths are increasingly limited depending on the damage you get.

On minor damage I've been able to submerge to parascope depth, sometimes not even that.

Watch your crew test reports for bulkhead damage. You cannot submerge at all after getting that.

In this game it's not safe to assume to you can take damage from fighting it out with surface units and expect you can walk away from it fully functional. Best to avoid damage altogether for now.
-Pv-

[GoldenRivet]

ok so its a known issue then.

Once in a while it is just going to happen - an aircraft catches you off guard. a bomb doesnt hit you but it lands a bit close. your deck gun is damaged. so you shoot down the enemy plane and repair the damage. after getting an all clear on the damage control screen i dive to periscope depth and find myself plummeting to 400 feet and deeper quite quickly. even when i blow all the ballast and there is NO flooding anywhere on the boat. just seems like if you get an antenna bent or a gun damaged or you break a finger nail thats a patrol stopper... you better make best speed on the surface back to port or else your going to sink :roll:

[CCIP]

I have to say there ARE some real damage screwups in the game, particularly re: the conning tower bug (which has plagued my last career and forced me to mess with saves to remove damage constantly), and the unexplained damage occasionally taken when a ship passes over you (I also experienced this).

I'm using nvdrifter's Das Boot moments and the Invulnerable Conning tower mods which seem to help out a little (the former by increasing the boat's overall resistance to damage slightly and increasing flooding times; the latter by reducing [but not killing] the annoying crew-killing conning deck issue).

This really drifted to the top of my hopes as far as fixes in future patches. Real key issue here folks.

[DJSatane]

This really drifted to the top of my hopes as far as fixes in future patches. Real key issue here folks.

Mine too.

[stinger503]

I'm pretty sure the problem is that the Repair crew doesn't pump water out after you repair the bulkhead. Mine doesn't.

[OddjobXL]

The conning tower bug and the repair/damage/repair/damage loop is starting to wear on me. Crew dying for no reason. Etc. It was actually a relief when I finally got DCed and had to end it. Now, this time I was experimenting with cowboying the aircraft we engaged and got shot up alot. Normally I crashdive and successfully evade but I imagine it was more luck up to that point that I didn't get the conning tower bug. It's terrible. Hoping the next patch fixes that first and foremost.

[SteamWake]

I'm pretty sure the problem is that the Repair crew doesn't pump water out after you repair the bulkhead. Mine doesn't.

Yup bulkheads reapaired, pumps intact, water goes nowhere... even when surfaced.

[GoldenRivet]

well somehow i managed to get a lot of damage repaired this last time around.

agan it was an aircraft which got me on the surface at 1am in pitch dark as i was trying to crash dive to evade it.

bombs were more or less a direct hit this time. blew off the rudder so even if i get everything repaired i can only manage about a heading of 180 degrees that would put me in new guinea somewhere.

blew the ballast and surfaced to repair damage. got the bulkheads repaired, stayed afloat despite severe flooding in aft compartments. pumped the water out. repairs took the better part of a day and a half but everything was fixed... wanted to run back to port but couldnt steer, no option for differential power of the engines. another aicraft spotted at sunrise. had no choice but to at least attempt periscope depth. attained a depth of 60 feet for about 10 minutes and i was happy with that. at least we can hold 60 feet of depth if we have to... now we have to work on this steering issue. beach the boat in new guinea?

then suddenly the deep water depth gauge (not the shallow one) pegged off the scale depth in literally a matter of about 40 seconds. 60 feet to over 600 feet in a matter of literally about 40 seconds. real time 1x compression when this happened.

again i blew every ounce of compressed air in the system - nothing could save this boat from its unexplainable plunge. which i estimated would have been in excess of 1,000 feet per minute. by the time we got to over 500 feet everything failed completely and we were dead - once again the MPs located the wreck, hauld my corpse out of the water and sat my waterlogged body in a trial for sinking a vital ship. :roll:

the damage scenario presented a fairly realistic set of challenges i thought. but the game should not crash dive your boat to the sea floor just for going to periscope depth with damage. especially after the damage is repaired and you are able to teasingly hold periscope depth for several minutes - just about the time you say "ok---looks like we can at least get away with some kind of depth." BAM! your sinking like a stone.

[Bill Nichols]

I'm pretty sure the problem is that the Repair crew doesn't pump water out after you repair the bulkhead. Mine doesn't.

Yup bulkheads reapaired, pumps intact, water goes nowhere... even when surfaced.

There I was, on the bottom at 190 ft with damaged torpedo room bulkhead, compartment flooded blue 3/4 of the way, and my pump damaged. After hours of work, my men fixed the bulkhead, got the pump working and got rid of all of the blue. Nonetheless, I couldn't get off the bottom however much I tried :damn:

[AVGWarhawk]

Patch 1.2 reads some rework on the damage issues. I'm thinking maybe the conning tower/crew dying issue concerning damage. There is a huge gray area concerning diving repaired damage and no diving repaired damage. The gray area is not filled with any sort of indicator other than what you as the captain think will happen. Needs work for sure. Some would like to go to the hull % like SH3 had. Let see what happens with patch 1.2:yep:

[Steeltrap]

In principle, I think the damage control is in many respects superior to SHIII.

The problem, of course, is that it's bugged to hell (what a shock!!).

As was said by CCIP, the "involnerable conning tower" mod will take care of the 'looping' damage to AA and deck guns, which is the single biggest crew killer or screwup in general IMO.

The other factor is that damage is a big mystery. I prefer to avoid a % HI rating, as that's too 'gamey' a feel for me.

Perhaps we could have a report along the following with respect to rigging for dive:

GREEN - everything undamaged, OK, can utilise full depth capability (including 'over-dive' i.e. beyond safe depth rating)

YELLOW - some minor structural damage. MUST NOT exceed test depth, and better to avoid reaching test depth (i.e. keep dives as shallow as possible unless going deep - beyond 200' - is a must).

ORANGE - significant damage. Can dive to periscope depth and re-surface without issue. Anything beyond periscope depth strongly recommended against (i.e. go deeper than periscope depth and you run a significant risk of a catastrophic failure where reaching the surface may not be possible).

RED - major structural damage. NO DIVING POSSIBLE. Impossible to achieve any watertight integrity sufficient to allow diving. Sub will remain afloat while surfaced.

Now, if we understood how the system works damage, and then could add some indicator of damage along these lines above (which I've hashed out for illustration/suggestion only), then we would have some indication of what's absolutely guaranteed in terms of submerging (i.e. you can dive to periscope depth with safety under all circumstances other than 'RED', depths beyond that potentially entail some risk based on depth attempted vs damage condition).

Opinions, anyone? Any way this might be possible via devs/modders? It's certainly a major problem right now, and even if the system is 'fixed' in the patch, there might still be uncertainty unless an more clear explanation from the devs as to how damage is modelled and how it affects diving depths.

Cheers