Question about Damage and Torps

[Pevs86]

Gotta first explain the situation...

Sitting in between the middle and 2nd line of a Taskforce, Heavy Cruisers behind me and 2 ACs infront of me.

I fire 4 torps at the 2 ACs, and as I'm lining up the Cruiser, there's a MASSIVE explosion diretly over (or maybe inside?) my Aft torp room.

I checked the log, 3 of my 4 torps hit the ACs. Checking the log it didn't miss, so I'm assuming it didn't run, detonated inside the sub? But then it was my rear tubes and engine room that took all the damage.

Enter problem number 2... huzzah! :)

I manage to control flooding at about 160m, by then I'm basically vertical so blow ballast and come to the surfice and level out - result - immediatly come under fire, of course, but no hits - just some AA fire - so I set periscope depth, as I said - flooding controlled, boat level. Now after about 15seconds at PD I begin to sink like a brick, all the way down to death depth :(

So the way I see it is,

The massive explosion could only have been:

1. The H Cruiser launching a massive, single, DC

2. The stray 4th Torp firing, sitting stationary in the water (whilst I moved forward) then detonating whilst I was over/underneath it.

3. Detonation in the tube for whatever reason.

The sinking I don't understand. Damage reports said flooding was fine, the only areas that were damaged were Engines and Aft Torps, all pumps were intact.

If anyone can shed any light on anything I'd be grateful... was really impressed with saving the sub only to have glory stolen at the last moment :( not to mention my first 2 AC kills...

[AVGWarhawk]

Circle running torpedo........

[Pevs86]

Circle running torpedo........

Wassat?

I'd deduce it literally did a loop and hit my ship, but is that modeled ingame?

If so that'd be very impressive.

[AVGWarhawk]

Circle running torpedo........
Wassat?

I'd deduce it literally did a loop and hit my ship, but is that modeled ingame?

If so that'd be very impressive.

Yes, there are circle running torpedoes in the game. Nice touch from the developers. I have not had one yet but others have had the conning tower blown off by them;) Bad part is the sonarman says nothing at all about a circle runner............I think he has a death wish.......

[TheRealOmegaMan]

I have sank to the bottom with a self inflicted torp and I’m only doing the Training. Hello to all, my first post in this forum. First, I have tried to turn the Radar on in the Training modes with no luck. One thread from this very interesting forum stated Radar doesn't show up till later missions in the future...hope this is true because several reviews, including GameSpot, claimed there was a flaw in the Radar...Verification on this would be greatly appreciated.

Lastly, I must be a real armature since for the life of me I can't sink one merchant ship in the final mission in the Training segment (Envoy killing). I put 4 torps in a merchant ship and the damn thing just won't sink. I have realism on 52% just as an FYI. As my skill gets better I plan to plot the solutions because the guy I have doing that doesn't seem to be that good. Any help would be appreciated. Many thanks up front folks.

[GTHammer]

I have sank to the bottom with a self inflicted torp and I’m only doing the Training. Hello to all, my first post in this forum. First, I have tried to turn the Radar on in the Training modes with no luck. One thread from this very interesting forum stated Radar doesn't show up till later missions in the future...hope this is true because several reviews, including GameSpot, claimed there was a flaw in the Radar...Verification on this would be greatly appreciated.

Lastly, I must be a real armature since for the life of me I can't sink one merchant ship in the final mission in the Training segment (Envoy killing). I put 4 torps in a merchant ship and the damn thing just won't sink. I have realism on 52% just as an FYI. As my skill gets better I plan to plot the solutions because the guy I have doing that doesn't seem to be that good. Any help would be appreciated. Many thanks up front folks.


First of all. The Radar isn't flawed(at least not in the training scenarios.) There are bugs in it and such but it doesn't become available until the later years. So don't worry 'bout not being able to turn it on. As for your second problem with sinking the merchants...Sometimes they go down hard. According to what I've read and through some experience I find torps do maxium damage when they explode under or low on the keel. To accomplish this you need to make sure they are set to detonate by contact+influence under torpedo settings(switch to the setting at the bottom of the position keeper). Then you need to adjust your torpedo running depths accordingly, note that his must be done for each torp, its not universal. The manual suggests the following depths, but you may want to add a little or subtract a little depending on how rough the seas are.

Battleships 20 Feet
Heavy Cruisers, Carriers, Large Merchants 12 Feet
Light Cruisers, Small Merchants, Submarines 10 Feet
Destroyers 6 feet.

Hope this helps.

[TheRealOmegaMan]

Many thanks GTHammer. I take it that I need to manually control the torps to make the settings you state correct? Right now the computer controls the torps.

[AVGWarhawk]

The radar is flawed. When you are able to use it, it will not pick up ships in certain directions of travel. (see my sig) Easy fix for the developers in the next patch I hope!

[TheRealOmegaMan]

Hey WARHAWK, always glad to see an active moderator. Thanks for the radar tip. I read it was flawed, but how I wasn't sure on. As far as Hammer's advise on the torpedo adjustments, I need to give those a try because in TRAINING of all things I could not satisfy the req of sinking a merchant. 4 torps and the damn thing still wouldn't sink.:shifty: The depths he stated for adjusting I was thinking can only be done if you manually plot solutions, is this corect? Since I'm at work and not at home I can't verify this.... If so, I will set the difficulty for me to control the torps. Granted, as a newbie to this game this should pose a challange since I can't even put a merchant ship to the bottom on computer control:doh: .

[AVGWarhawk]

It all depends on how you like to play. Historically the Skippers were told to send a spread. Morton wanted to use only one per ship to get more tonnage. Anyway, some ships are just about unsinkable. I can say that a direct bow/stern does very little. One or two the side usually work just fine. I'm a contact only torp man. I leave those magnetic exploders alone.

[BlightLightning]

I usually set no.1 to fast, hit "w" set no.2, ect... ect...
The I set the all the depths to 10 and this takes time. The mouse makes the dials quiver and it is difficult to get them all strait. If I want to target something smaller, like a destroyer, I usually just shoot at them and hope the torpedo explodes! Is there a manual way to set the depth? This could save time. I know there isn't a way to set all the speeds simotainously but clicking with that mouse is clunky and inefficient.

If there is a mod to manually set these dials and knobs, I haven't found it, but I would be interested.

I believe there could be a call in data's CFG folder. Commands.cfg if I'm not mistaken, To force the torp into a circling mode but I don't if it would work with Sh4. Alot of those functions are left-overs from Sh3.


[Cmd310]
Name=Open_sel_torpedo_tube
Ctxt=1
Key0=0x51,C,"Q"

[Cmd311]
Name=Close_sel_torpedo_tube
Ctxt=1
Key0=0x51,Cs,"Q"

Sets Q and Shift-Q to open the doors but are they stuck with their last known gyro settings or set to straight run? Aim and shoot with the boat? Once the outer doors are opened, there is no way to set the gyro angles. One Idea I had was to set the Gyro angle on the torps in the lower tubes (3&4) or (5&6) to max left and right and open these doord so they would circle hard on the surface and cadch a destroyer truing to depth-charge me. They need to get pretty close to drop those and a wild torpedo may just catch them.

But all this takes time. Moreso than in real life and until there comes a way to adjust these settings more easily, I guess we will be stuck on pause, fiddling with bobbling dials!

[GTHammer]

Hey WARHAWK, always glad to see an active moderator. Thanks for the radar tip. I read it was flawed, but how I wasn't sure on. As far as Hammer's advise on the torpedo adjustments, I need to give those a try because in TRAINING of all things I could not satisfy the req of sinking a merchant. 4 torps and the damn thing still wouldn't sink.:shifty: The depths he stated for adjusting I was thinking can only be done if you manually plot solutions, is this corect? Since I'm at work and not at home I can't verify this.... If so, I will set the difficulty for me to control the torps. Granted, as a newbie to this game this should pose a challange since I can't even put a merchant ship to the bottom on computer control:doh: .

The torpedo settings can be adjusted whether you are plotting your solution manually or having the computer do it for you. The settings can be found and adjusted by toggling the switch at the bottom of the Position Keeper(Found at the right hand side of your screen while in attack map, attack periscope, TBT etc) from position keeper to Torpedo Settings. Adjusting run depth requires you to click on the dial and drag it to the desired depth. The default is 6 feet, which is usually fine for small merchants or destroyers.

[TheRealOmegaMan]

GTHammer, thanks, you hit the answer I was looking for. Some great advise from all is much appreciated. I meant to give it a shot last night but never got next to the computer. My youngest is graduating Pre-School tonight, so tonight is out as well. Most likely by end of week. GT, I have played with the dials but didn't think they mattered with the AI controlling things. Now I know :know: ...and BlightLightning had a point, they are a pain to control with a temperamental mouse. :D

[TheRealOmegaMan]

Another quick question and help....First, why is it when I've launced torps the weapons guys are NOT re-loading my tubes??? This happens sometimes in the Training mission.

Also, what is the bene for calling Battle Stations? Are things done faster?

Thanks folks

[GTHammer]

Another quick question and help....First, why is it when I've launced torps the weapons guys are NOT re-loading my tubes??? This happens sometimes in the Training mission.

Also, what is the bene for calling Battle Stations? Are things done faster?

Thanks folks


Battle stations gives every compartment a boost in efficiency, but make sure you remember to turn it off or else everyone stays on alert and they will eventually all fall asleep 'cause of fatigue. Tubes will not be loaded when you've elected to rig for silent running because reloading tubes causes noise. Make sure this is toggled off...also if your crew has almost all fallen asleep 'cause of battle stations then they won't reload. Thats about all i can think of. Silent running is toggled under the first tab, the command room tab, aka the one with the ships wheel.

[SteamWake]

but make sure you remember to turn it off or else everyone stays on alert and they will eventually all fall asleep 'cause of fatigue.

A minor pet peeve of mine. I do it far too often.

You would think the XO would say something "Sir the men have been at battle stations for two days... "

[vatek]

After two days the XO would probably be asleep too. :D

[TheRealOmegaMan]

Hammer, many thanks for the info. I believe I had Silent Running on. Also, thanks for the laugh fellas....I am guilty of the never ending Battle Stations:D :D

One other thing that annoys me to no end is the manual. To simple and not enough explanation. I for the life of me can not figure what to do on the Crew Assignment screen. What it does, how it works. You would think with a skimpy manual there would be an after market strategy guide but no such luck.

Thanks again folks.