The "Myth" about torpedo depth settings.

[WernerSobe]

Hello, Im the author of Natural Sinking Mechanics.

Ive figured that many skippers (especialy those who came from sh3) always try to set up their torpedoes as deep as possible. While the reasons are obvious, youre trying to maximaze the damage by hiting the keel.

However ive found something interestning when i was working on the last version of the mod and looking into compartment layout of every ship, and learning about how the damage system works.

Now at first take a look at these picture, i took it while i was modeling the zones.

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/1822/kinposanallpq2.jpg

it shows the compartment layout of kinposan maru. Red colored parts are the keel, engine rooms and fuel bunkers. Clear are the main comparments. Blue are ballasts and green superstructures.

Now what happens when a torpedo strikes a ship (somewhere). Basicly it generates a bubble, lets call it damagerange. Every compartment that is inside that bubble will take damage. The special about the keel is that it has a small chance to break the ship in halfs. Now the damage range is set so high that the torpedo will always damage every compartment in a fair distance around the impact. Meaning you are always damaging the keel and the main compartments above every time you hit a ship, the depth doesnt matter. I agree that its not quite accurate but thats how the game is designed. So basicly you can forget about torpedo depths.

[AVGWarhawk]

Anyway to change this? I know you have delved into it quite a bit.

[WernerSobe]

actualy yes.

You could make the torpedo damage range very small. But then you would lose the ability of damaging more then one compartment at once.

[AkbarGulag]

Man, thats like being told my credit is no good at the lunch bar. Does this mean (looking at the model) that the 'Armoured Belt' is also a myth?

EDIT: Would modding the torps to have a larger damage value but smaller bubble achive this effect? Or are the bubble and damage inter-related?

[Sailor Steve]

Well, maybe that's true in the game, which is too bad, because in real life having the torpedo go off under the keel was a huge benefit.

[SteamWake]

Well, maybe that's true in the game, which is too bad, because in real life having the torpedo go off under the keel was a huge benefit.

Indeed but Im afraid the magnetic influence fuse is broken (as in does not work) making a beneath the keel shot impossible.

So were stuck with trying to poke holes in the ships side.

[AkbarGulag]

the magnetic influence fuse is broken (as in does not work) making a beneath the keel shot impossible.
So were stuck with trying to poke holes in the ships side.

So when the hole appears under a vessel, its from the rise then fall of the ship making contact with the torp, rather than a magnetic fuse :doh: ??

[tater]

Ideally hitting on the belt of a capital ship should have less effect. Such ships hit by US subs were very likely hit deep since that was their doctrine, shoot as deep as possible (even contact).

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

So that's more stuff Ubi either left out, or didn't do at all? I really wonder how much of this game is incomplete.

After seeing how this panned out, I'm not touching SH5 until it's been out for a long time.

[WernerSobe]

Man, thats like being told my credit is no good at the lunch bar. Does this mean (looking at the model) that the 'Armoured Belt' is also a myth?

Yep there is no Armor belt. Battleships are set about the same way. It doesnt matter wether you hit a BB at 3 feet or at 20. It will in both cases damage the keel zone and the main zones around the impact.


EDIT: Would modding the torps to have a larger damage value but smaller bubble achive this effect? Or are the bubble and damage inter-related?

Torpedo damage works like this. Lets say you hit a ship with a torpedo that hits for 300 damage and has a damage radius of 5 meters... now what happens?

1. The overall hull hitpoints will be reduced by 300. If there is no more hitpoints left ship is being destroyed. If its not destroyed by HP...
2. The torpedo generates a bubble of 5 meters radius. Every zone that is touched by that bubble will be damaged by 300 hitpoints
3. Every affected zone will start flooding depending on the amount of damage and the parameters set in zones.cfg. Flooding means that zone slowly adding weight to the vessel and changing its center of mass. So a zone with 400 hitpoints damaged with 300 hitpoints will flood up to 3/4. When a zone has no more hitpoints it cannot flood any more.

Now the problem with the damage system is that the zones are in most cases completely destroyed by torpedo hits. If you increase the damage it will just make instant blowing up by total hull hitpoints more likely but it wont actualy change the zones flooding because they are already at max dmg.

Anyway. It is possible to balance everything out and make it all work with smaller damage radius. But thats a monster task, that i think cannot be accomplished by a single person in a matter of lifetime of that game, i know what im talking about :-)

[tater]

Seems like with a smaller radius the balance would have to come with fewer compartments on smaller ships and merchants such that sinking would occur with fewer damaged. The highly compartmentalized nature of warships would then make more sense...

Assuming I understand correctly. The balance problem would be that not enough damage would happen (flooding) for each hit.

On warships, this would make some sense, but on merchants, no. You'd see maybe more realistic warship sinkings, but merchants would be too hard to sink.

Is that correct?

tater

[Ducimus]

An idea that the NYGM team had, who i beleive ran accross the same problem, was simple.

Shorten the length of the keel zone so its a small area, not running the whole length of the ship. And then move the keel zone to different locations on each ship type to keep the player guessing on where the "sweet spot" is.

[AVGWarhawk]

An idea that the NYGM team had, who i beleive ran accross the same problem, was simple.

Shorten the length of the keel zone so its a small area, not running the whole length of the ship. And then move the keel zone to different locations on each ship type to keep the player guessing on where the "sweet spot" is.

Now there is a great idea. Can it work here?:hmm:

[Frederf]

Perhaps an armor belt can be modeled by "indenting" the zones around the armor belt level toward the inside of the ship. That way any explosion that occurs at the armor belt would have a lesser impact on the zones of the ship because the closest vulnerable part of the ship is spaced away from it.

Think of an hourglass inside a metal cylinder. You hit the middle of the metal cylinder and the "glass" is safely away from the point of contact.

[AkbarGulag]

Anyway. It is possible to balance everything out and make it all work with smaller damage radius. But thats a monster task, that i think cannot be accomplished by a single person in a matter of lifetime of that game, i know what im talking about :-)

I hear ya mate, I guess that rules that out ^^

I like the sweet spot idea Ducimus, at least this will allow for some player skill to accomplish a sinking.

That and also the idea of an 'Hourglass ship' sound feasible, yet both sound time consuming. I'm picking EVERY ship in SH4 would have to have keel mods or other compartmental modification.

Be good to hear an answer on Tater's question, then at least if the bubble effect was made into a mod, those who prefer hunting taskforces would have something worth trying.

[switch.dota]

2. The torpedo generates a bubble of 5 meters radius. Every zone that is touched by that bubble will be damaged by 300 hitpoints
You are trying to tell us there is no such thing as less damage toward the outer edges?

[Redwine]

2. The torpedo generates a bubble of 5 meters radius. Every zone that is touched by that bubble will be damaged by 300 hitpoints You are trying to tell us there is no such thing as less damage toward the outer edges?


Hi Switch ... :up:

Thats the way i follow in Die Slowly for v1.2... i reduced considerably the torpedo damage radius to not spread too much the damage and limit it to a samller zone, reducing the probability to spread the damage to adyacent compartements.

The problem was then... the "unsinkable ships" ... those are some strange ships wich apperas in campaign with certain load up, and they takes up to 10 torps to sink... then i was enforced to increase torpedo powr and found a balance between the "normal" ships" and those rare "unsinkable ships".

Another parameters to tweak wich cause effect on this are the "thereshold penetration" and the magnetic detonation distance.

The thereshold penetration stablish a boundary to penetrate.

In example .... a torpedo with a damage radius random between 2 and 3 meters... and a thereshold penetration of 5 meters... the torpedo will not cause damage ...

A torpedo with damage radius random between 2 and 3 m, and a thereshold penetration of 2 m, torpedo always will cause damage.

A torpedo with damage radius random between 1 and 3 meters, and a thereshoild penetration of 2 m, 50% of the torps will cause damage and 50% will not.

If you have a torp with a random damage radius between 3 and 6m.... a penetration thereshold of 2m, and a magnetic detonation range of 2m... and ... in the impact the ramdom value for damage radius was stablished by the sim, in 3m, the magnetic pistol detonate it at 2 m of the hull.... only 1m will attempt to penetrate the hull... but... the thereshold penetration is 2m, so... 1m is not enough... and will have no damage.

In that condition, the torp needs 1 m more of random radius to penetrate the hull, it is 4m or more...

Thereshold penetration will stablish the torpedo hole size too... similar how do it the damage radius, because the thereshol penetrartion consume som of the damage radius of the torp.

Another factors are of course the armor of the ship and the compartement, wich consume some of hitpoints.

And the armor factor, wich seems to be a multiplier for armored zones.

The multipliers for cargo too... according to wich kind of cargo you have you can set a multiplier for the explosion.

In example, 1 for cargo, 2 for fuel, 4 for ammo.


Anyway. It is possible to balance everything out and make it all work with smaller damage radius. But thats a monster task, that i think cannot be accomplished by a single person in a matter of lifetime of that game, i know what im talking about :-)

Is much job but not imposible, i reach to a "good" balance in Die Slowly, almost good for me, it is a matter of personal taste, i like the ships can be sink by flooding, but i do not accept the complete elimination of destroy by hitpoints...

If i shoot more than enough torps, 9in example 4 or 5 torps to a medium merchant i want a ship destroy message.

If y shoot a single one or 2, i want it sinking by flooding, but not away of my sight or sonar range, to not losse the ship destroyed confirmation, with a very slow flooding times, ships can sink a day later out of your range and you will have no confirmation and no credit for the kill.

Plus the ships with too long flooding times, and too high hitpoints, can sacape out of your range of confirmation even with an amazing quantity of torps.

I my settings i attempt to have a "balance', of course it is a matter of personal taste, where if you hit eneogh torps, you have an instant kill, if you dont, the ship may be stoped and never sinks, or sinks by flooding but not too much time later, to not losse the kill, some ones may take 1 hour or more, most half hour, but most under 1 hour.

Plus there is so bad to not have armored belt on BBs.... :hmm:

Hope this can help as feed back. :up::up::up:

[AkbarGulag]

Correct me if i'm wrong Redwine, but are you saying the 'Magnetic Detonator' not only works but can be modded to have a different contact radius?

[Redwine]

Correct me if i'm wrong Redwine, but are you saying the 'Magnetic Detonator' not only works but can be modded to have a different contact radius?

I remember i seen into the files, the detonation range for magnetic pistols between many other parameters.

If i am not wrong o remember bad... it was adjusted to 2 meters, almost into early versions of the game.

:up:

[PepsiCan]

Correct me if i'm wrong Redwine, but are you saying the 'Magnetic Detonator' not only works but can be modded to have a different contact radius?

In reality the contact exploder didn't work very well. In the game it is implemented in a similar way. There is a chance that your torpedo will not explode at the right moment. So, it either prematures or it duds.

However, there is another problem. Nomad_delta discovered that in the game, the switch to set the torpedo to contact or contact influence does not work. Instead there is a hardcoded date of june 1943. Before that date, all MK14 torpedos fired are regarded as contact influence enabled, regardless of what you set the switch to. After that date, all torpedoes fired are contact only.

[Redwine]

Correct me if i'm wrong Redwine, but are you saying the 'Magnetic Detonator' not only works but can be modded to have a different contact radius?
In reality the contact exploder didn't work very well. In the game it is implemented in a similar way. There is a chance that your torpedo will not explode at the right moment. So, it either prematures or it duds.

However, there is another problem. Nomad_delta discovered that in the game, the switch to set the torpedo to contact or contact influence does not work. Instead there is a hardcoded date of june 1943. Before that date, all MK14 torpedos fired are regarded as contact influence enabled, regardless of what you set the switch to. After that date, all torpedoes fired are contact only.

Very sad, because the magnetic range may be used as a parameter to tweak damage model.

[Ducimus]

Whle i don't have a zon tweak file for it, im pretty sure there is a Min /Max damage, and damage radius, just like depth charges. You should be able to reduce the damage radius of the torpedo. I'll wager its currently at 7 meters wide.

As for magnetic pistols not working after a certain point, are you sure? Forgive me, but im incredibly doubtful. It just seems very incredible that after X date magnetic exploders will no longer work.

[AVGWarhawk]

Here is a question, if the DC has a tweakable radius and I'm guess happen at random, can the torpedoes be set up the same way? If so, this could add some realism as I suspect not all torpedoe hits generate the same results in RL.

[Ducimus]

Here is a question, if the DC has a tweakable radius and I'm guess happen at random, can the torpedoes be set up the same way?

IN SH3 they were. My assumption would be that ubi would use the same mechanics. Of course this is an assumption, and were not even dealing with the same file. IE, depth charge.sim/zon files are ripped right out of Sh3, no question about it. But the torpedo file for SH4 is entirely new, it may not contain those variables. I don't have a zon tweak file for them, kinda too lazy to try and make one, but it would be intresting to see whats in it.

[AVGWarhawk]

When it comes to file and tweaks, I'm better off attempting to fly the Space Shuttle:oops:. I would not know were to begin....

[Redwine]

Whle i don't have a zon tweak file for it, im pretty sure there is a Min /Max damage, and damage radius, just like depth charges. You should be able to reduce the damage radius of the torpedo. I'll wager its currently at 7 meters wide.
The tweak files was released by somebody in the past...

You dont have them... ?

I can up;oad a full pack with all my collected tweak files if you want...

Here a screen of MiniTweaker for SH IV torp .zon file, it is my settings for MK-10 torp.

As you can see the min radius is set at 2m, wich is the stock thereshold penetration.

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/2072/20070814143219ew6.jpg

[AkbarGulag]

There seems to be a lot of confusion across the board on what the game does and doesnt do in relation to fuses etc... Maybe Nomad_Delta found something that didn't work in 1.1 or 1.2 but works now? After all, the contact switch seems to work correctly in 1.3, i.e it doesnt reset randomly.

I would kill for those files Redwine, after a heap of trawling through threads I found a few things not in the Download mod secton, those files deffinately weren't in the threads I searched.

I was just playing around firing torps at a Yamato to test the magnetic fuse, but I have that annoying problem with my torps not running under more than 10 metres again.... :damn: From what I can tell, putting a torp under a big boat like the Yamato is usefull as it floods both sides of the ship rather than one... making it still useful to try and detonate under the keel on big warships.

This thread is creating more questions than answers :lol:

[Redwine]

Here you have the collection of tweak template files for SH IV made by many people, i found and collect along the months.... plus i included all those for SH III made by TimeTraveller.

http://files.filefront.com/TweakFileszip/;8311458;;/fileinfo.html
(http://files.filefront.com/TweakFileszip/;8311458;;/fileinfo.html)

[SteamWake]

There seems to be a lot of confusion across the board on what the game does and doesnt do in relation to fuses etc... Maybe Nomad_Delta found something that didn't work in 1.1 or 1.2 but works now? After all, the contact switch seems to work correctly in 1.3, i.e it doesnt reset randomly.

Go ahead and click that switch all you want. It does nothing.

[AkbarGulag]

There seems to be a lot of confusion across the board on what the game does and doesnt do in relation to fuses etc... Maybe Nomad_Delta found something that didn't work in 1.1 or 1.2 but works now? After all, the contact switch seems to work correctly in 1.3, i.e it doesnt reset randomly.
Go ahead and click that switch all you want. It does nothing.
I guess that more or less confirms what PepsiCan said about the Torps being 'HardWired'. So june 1943 has some serious ramifications for torps then... seems wierd to disable influence at this point :doh: I wonder why the Devs bothered tinkering with the switch in 1.3 then.

Thanks for those files Redwine, most appreciated :up:

[Target]

If they hard coded the torps to use only magnetic contacts until June 43 the devs could be using this to enforce US Submarine doctrine which dogmatically stated that there wasn't anything wrong with the magnetic contacts and they should be used for every shot. After a certain date (can't remeber if it really was June 43) the Admirals had to finally admit to the faults of the magnetic detonator and recinded the order that captains use magnetic contacts exclusively. After which time the sub skippers were free to use their own discretion on which type of detonator to use. That's what happens when an Admiral has a pet project.
It sounds like its a realism feature forced upon the player to follow the historical doctrine of the US Submarine Force.

[Frederf]

The Mk14 goes through at least two iterations during the war in game. Are these torpedoes labeled identically? Wouldn't it be stupid if they were impossible to tell apart in the GUI?

[AkbarGulag]

The Mk14 goes through at least two iterations during the war in game. Are these torpedoes labeled identically? Wouldn't it be stupid if they were impossible to tell apart in the GUI?

Im still in 1942 ^^ I'm guessing they look the same though, as they are basically the same thing, but with slightly different properties after June 1943 by the sounds of it.

[Der Teddy Bar]

A lot of what I have written is known and may have been mentioned here already, but due to time constraints I have done most of this offline.

For a torpedo to damage the ship’s zones there are some requirements that it must be meet first, only then will the torpedo damage the ship and/or zones.

A torpedo can apply damage to a ship via a impact detonation or a magnetic detonation.

For an impact detonation the torpedoes armour piercing value is 100; as no zone has the armour specified above 100 it will always be damage.

For a magnetic detonation the torpedoes armour piercing is not applied. Instead the total HP of the torpedo must be greater than the zones.cfg’s “Armor Level Factor” X armour, only then will it defeat the armour and cause damage to the ship’s zone.

Most zones have an armour of -1, this signifies that the zones armour value is that of the ship, which for say the NKSSS_Kasagisan that would be 15.

For a magnetic detonation to damage the NKSSS_Kasagisan’s zones then the total HP arriving at the zone would need to be 4 x 15 or 60HP.

Note that the depth charge also has the same rules against the submarine as the magnetic detonation of a torpedo.

The blast radius for a torpedo has a minimum and maximum value. The minimum value is the minimum damage radius always and in addition where 100% of the torpedoes HP will be applied. The maximum blast radius of a torpedo is a random number between the minimum and the maximum blast radius, at the maximum blast radius the torpedo’s HP is 0.

The HP from a magnetic detonation decreases in value from the minimum blast radius until it reaches 0 at the maximum blast radius.

The keel zone in itself does not break the ships back.

Once a zone starts to flood it will to 100%, always. That is, once a zone has had more HP damage than the value of HitPoints * Critic Flotation / 100 then it will always flood to 100%.

For example, if we set the HitPoints for a zone to 400 and Critic Flotation to 0.1 (10%), then once 41HP damage had been done then the zone will flood to 100%. But it will take a very long time as the flood rate is determined by the % of damage against the FloodingTime value.

Though this example was done for a deck gun shell the principle of wether a zone is damaged is still the same.
We have 2 zones that are 20m long x 10m high x 3m deep which are directly behind each other and each zone can only be directly ‘hit’ from one side.

The armour value on Zone 1 is set to 50 so that no 4” shell, even at maximum HP will cause any damage.

The armour value on Zone 2 is set to 15 so that any hit from 4” shell, even a minimum HP will cause damage.

The blast radius for the 4” shell is set to Min 2m, Max 10m, the actual shell hit/s are HP 25 & Blast Radius of 10 metres.

The hits…
When the shell hits Zone 1 – The shell hits to Zone 1 result in no damage to Zone 1 or Zone 2 as the armour value had not been defeated.

When the shell hits Zone 2 – The shell hits to Zone 2 result in damage to Zone 2 as the armour has been defeated; BUT the armour only gets checked once and because Zone 2 is within the damage radius Zone 2 has now been damaged!

The magnetic trigger is configured to be activated within 2 metres of the keel.

The magnetic pistol is disabled from 06/01/1943 as was historically correct. I was under the impression that the magnetic detonator was withdrawn totally and it’s use was not at the captain’s discretion?


I hope this helps.

[Redwine]

I hope this helps.

Many thanks Teddy ! :up:

SH IV is a little strange, the sim do noit reacts always to changes made on files, many entries are dead entries. Some changes made on one ships reacts on another kind of ship. In example Fuso and Kongo seems to take data from another place as the remains BBs.

We have two main problems with SH IV here... wich makes the adjust of torps a little confuse, because you adjust well the torps for some kind of ship, but those settings do not works fine for others, then when you want to tewek those ships, you found there are anoying issues.


1]
The bow for DDs was done extremelly armored in V1.3, you can hit 6 or more times a Fubuki or Shiratsuyu in the bow and nothing happens, it iseem to be a BB bow.

I think so they are taking data from a wrong place.

Plus all DDs are so strong, but if you made them more weak, then, Fuso and Kongo become more weak too... at a level you can sink a 38000Tn BB with a single torp, but need 2 or 3 for a DD.

If you made the BBs strongest, it reacts on all them except on Fuso and Kongo wich non sense.

2]
When a DD ram on your scope, it explodes and sinks, you have not damage at all.

It is easy to solve... i solved it in my present files, but sadly it have a consecuence, the DDs become more strong even, and they are so string yet...



This facts made a little strong to reach a good torpedo setting balance....

:up::up::up:

[AkbarGulag]

I hope this helps.

Absolutely. Thanks for your time mate, it is greatly appreciated. I would comment, but unfortuantely I know nothing :p (or at least a little more than nothing after reading this thread). SH4 is starting to expose her warts.

[SteamWake]

The magnetic trigger is configured to be activated within 2 metres of the keel.

The magnetic pistol is disabled from 06/01/1943 as was historically correct. I was under the impression that the magnetic detonator was withdrawn totally and it’s use was not at the captain’s discretion?


I hope this helps.

From what I understand the detonators are set to impact only after a certin date and changing the selector switch does nothing. They may be set to trigger within 2 meters of the keel, problem is you cant turn the damn thing on.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Redwine,
I presume that you are referring to the damage zones and the way that the damage zones are re-used in many ships, often not even of the same class. This practice made the creation of the 1st NYGM Ship Damage Mod a constant struggle and never ending trade off, of course that was back in the olden days before I was able to edit the ship zones.

With regards to the Fubuki & the Shiratsuyu the reason that they can take hits in the bow without sinking is because the 1st zone/s, the FlotabilityGeneric, is situated so far back.

On the Fubuki the zone starts at the rear of the forward gun, or to be more precise, at the 8 rail back from the bow.

On the Shiratsuyu the zone starts in front of the forward gun, or to be more precise, between the 6th and 7th rail back from the bow.

The battleships, such as Fuso and Kongo use the FlotabilityGenB for all the main zones from the bow to the stern with the addition of the engine, fuel etc.

[Der Teddy Bar]

[quote=Der Teddy Bar]The magnetic trigger is configured to be activated within 2 metres of the keel.

The magnetic pistol is disabled from 06/01/1943 as was historically correct. I was under the impression that the magnetic detonator was withdrawn totally and it’s use was not at the captain’s discretion?


I hope this helps.
From what I understand the detonators are set to impact only after a certin date and changing the selector switch does nothing. Correct, the magnetic pistol is disabled in the SIM file.

They may be set to trigger within 2 meters of the keel, problem is you cant turn the damn thing on. My knowledge of the pacific campaign is limited, but I was under the impression that the magnetic trigger had been withdrawn from service around mid 1943 and that the submarine's did not get them at all. If so, then I fail to see any issue.

[Ducimus]

If DTB ever comes out with a SH4 version of NYGM, I think ill just retire and use it instead... err wait a minute, im retiring anyway. Ok, so id use his mod regardless. lol.

[Redwine]

Redwine,
I presume that you are referring to the damage zones and the way that the damage zones are re-used in many ships, often not even of the same class. This practice made the creation of the 1st NYGM Ship Damage Mod a constant struggle and never ending trade off, of course that was back in the olden days before I was able to edit the ship zones.

With regards to the Fubuki & the Shiratsuyu the reason that they can take hits in the bow without sinking is because the 1st zone/s, the FlotabilityGeneric, is situated so far back.

On the Fubuki the zone starts at the rear of the forward gun, or to be more precise, at the 8 rail back from the bow.

On the Shiratsuyu the zone starts in front of the forward gun, or to be more precise, between the 6th and 7th rail back from the bow.

The battleships, such as Fuso and Kongo use the FlotabilityGenB for all the main zones from the bow to the stern with the addition of the engine, fuel etc.

Many thanks Teddy... i tweaked the values for those zones yet.
But any way, it seems the torpedo damage radious is not enough to reach the first bow zones into a direct frontal impact.
Plus i reduced my damage radius, to make smaller holes and to avoid the damage to spread too much to adyacent compartements and be consumed partially by the thershold penetration.

Sadly to move those zones more forward is a 3D job out of my skills.

:up::up::up: