sub batteries

[candy2500]

Greetings..

well been playing SH3 for a bit and decided to try out SH4 so i went out and got it, so far its not in as bad as shape as i had thought it was, but is the battery consumption right, it just seems like its draining to fast and if its not accurate is there a little mod to fix it... thanks.

[Ducimus]

Sure, see the stickies, theres all sorts of mods. Hell, its regular salad bar. :rotfl:

[panthercules]

Greetings..

well been playing SH3 for a bit and decided to try out SH4 so i went out and got it, so far its not in as bad as shape as i had thought it was, but is the battery consumption right, it just seems like its draining to fast and if its not accurate is there a little mod to fix it... thanks.

I hope somebody pops in and says they have a fix, but as far as I know this is one key area of the game that's been broken and seems to have no fix. There was a lot of work/testing done a while back, and there are some mods and tweaks that make it better than stock, but still nothing that I've seen or heard about seems to come close to getting it right yet

That this wasn't fixed was one of my biggest disappointments about the 1.4 patch.:nope:

I'm hoping maybe I just missed the fix while I was off on vacation or something, but I don't think so.

[Archie]

Greetings..

well been playing SH3 for a bit and decided to try out SH4 so i went out and got it, so far its not in as bad as shape as i had thought it was, but is the battery consumption right, it just seems like its draining to fast and if its not accurate is there a little mod to fix it... thanks.
I hope somebody pops in and says they have a fix, but as far as I know this is one key area of the game that's been broken and seems to have no fix. There was a lot of work/testing done a while back, and there are some mods and tweaks that make it better than stock, but still nothing that I've seen or heard about seems to come close to getting it right yet

That this wasn't fixed was one of my biggest disappointments about the 1.4 patch.:nope:

I'm hoping maybe I just missed the fix while I was off on vacation or something, but I don't think so.

^^ What Duci said, he fixed it in TM for starters.

[Ducimus]

"fixing" the batteries is a relativly easy fix... except for the S class, that one remains illusive. All one has to do, is adjust the max range @ speed variables in the sub.sim file. I know in TM, running at 2 kts for 12 hours, you'll only use up maybe 25% of your battery or less. You could probably run for 2 days at a 2kts speed before running your batts down to 0.

[candy2500]

thanks for the reply guys, so far I've not found SH4 to be the big mess everyone has said it was, just have to get used to the different layout.

[Ducimus]

I didnt like the SH4 control layout either, thats why i changed it to Sh3's. :88)

[Roger Dodger]

thanks for the reply guys, so far I've not found SH4 to be the big mess everyone has said it was, just have to get used to the different layout.

I never thought of SH4 as a 'mess', in fact I thought it was pretty good. But, then, I was still hung up on 'Silent Service' on the Amiga. :rock: There was a noticible amount of disappointment, though, hence the reason for this forum and the one on the UBI site.

With only two 'Supermods' you can get everything that was dreamed of for this Sim. For all the tweaks, fixes, eye-candy and everything else that makes this a Sim worth playing, you should install 'Trigger Maru 175'. This Supermod combines many of the other fine mods into just one to install. Thank Ducimus for putting it together and for adding his great additions to it too.

The second mod is Lurker's 'Run Silent, Run Deep Campaign' that makes for much more historical ship movements. A lot of research and work went into this very fine mod.

If you have a VERY capable computer, I would suggest the late LeoVampire's 'Reflections on the Water' MOD. I've seen screen shots of this one, and the graphics are very realistic. My own computer can just barely play this game, so I don't dare challange it this much.

[Roger Dodger]

"fixing" the batteries is a relativly easy fix... except for the S class, that one remains illusive. All one has to do, is adjust the max range @ speed variables in the sub.sim file. I know in TM, running at 2 kts for 12 hours, you'll only use up maybe 25% of your battery or less. You could probably run for 2 days at a 2kts speed before running your batts down to 0.

I don't think the batteries on the S-Boats can be 'fixed'. The S-Boats only had two engines, and underpowered at that, so recharge time would be considerably longer than the more modern fleet boats. Teaches the captains to be real conservative about battery use. I think the batteries were smaller on the S-Boats too, so submerged time would be shorter.

Thanks for fixing the batteries on the other boats. :up:

[Mush Martin]

Hey Candy I left an answer for this on the other board too.
but you will have figured it out by now.

regards
M:|\\

[Go4It]

If I remember rigth the S Class engine an battery HP is reversed, If u switch the values you get better battery charging.

I got these HP figures off the net
S 42
Max power (in hp) 2000 surfaced; 1500 submerged

If u look in the sim file u'll see the submerged HP is way above the surfaced HP

[panthercules]

^^ What Duci said, he fixed it in TM for starters.

Well, there must be something more to it than he indicated. I've tried 30 or 40+ combinations of numbers in those values and have never been able to stretch battery life beyond about 30 hours at 2 knots. Since it's been a while since I did those tests, I just D/L'ed the latest TM and checked the values in the files, and then checked my current RFB/RSRD/ROW install - I was planning to change mine to match the TM settings and test it, but it turned out they were already the same as the TM settings.

I ran the test anyway, and just like before it only took 29.5 hours to go from full battery to 10% battery at 2 knots in a Salmon class. Historically (according to all the info I've been able to find), that figure should be about 44 hours instead (was supposed to be about 48 hours at 2 knots total). Therefore, even with the TM settings battery life appears to be only about 2/3rds of "real".

As I said - that's better than stock for sure, but it's still not fixed/right. If TM is really getting better results closer to the historical figures, can someone post what the other settings are that have been changed to get this to work?

[Roger Dodger]

S-Boat (Group I)
Propulsion: 2 x New London Ship and Engine Company (NELSECO) diesels, 1,200 hp (895 kW) each
2 x Electro Dynamic (S-1, S-30-S-35), Ridgway (S-18, S-20 through S-29), or General Electric (S-36 through S-41) motors, 750 hp(550 kW) each
120 cell Exide battery
two shafts
Speed: 14.5 knots (27 km/h) surfaced; 11 knots (20 km/h) submerged
Range: 5,000 miles (8,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h) surfaced
Submerged Range/Endurance not found

Gato Class
Propulsion and power:4x diesel 5400hp
4x electric motors 2740hp
2 × 126-cell Sargo batteries
2 shafts
Speed:
Surfaced:20.25 design/ 17knots operational
Submerged:8.75knots
Range:
Surfaced:12,000nm at 10knots
Submerged:95nm at 5knots
Endurance:48 hours at 2 knots (4 km/h) submerged
75 days on patrol

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_submarine_classes_of_the_United_States_Nav y

Given the above specs, I would expect the S-Boats to have 1/2 the endurance submerged and take twice the time to fully re-charge its (single) battery compared to the Fleet Boats.

[candy2500]

Hey Candy I left an answer for this on the other board too.
but you will have figured it out by now.

regards
M:|\\

yeah i seen it today... thanks Mush Martin :up:

[panthercules]

S-Boat (Group I)
Propulsion: 2 x New London Ship and Engine Company (NELSECO) diesels, 1,200 hp (895 kW) each
2 x Electro Dynamic (S-1, S-30-S-35), Ridgway (S-18, S-20 through S-29), or General Electric (S-36 through S-41) motors, 750 hp(550 kW) each
120 cell Exide battery
two shafts
Speed: 14.5 knots (27 km/h) surfaced; 11 knots (20 km/h) submerged
Range: 5,000 miles (8,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h) surfaced
Submerged Range/Endurance not found

Gato Class
Propulsion and power:4x diesel 5400hp
4x electric motors 2740hp
2 × 126-cell Sargo batteries
2 shafts
Speed:
Surfaced:20.25 design/ 17knots operational
Submerged:8.75knots
Range:
Surfaced:12,000nm at 10knots
Submerged:95nm at 5knots
Endurance:48 hours at 2 knots (4 km/h) submerged
75 days on patrol

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_submarine_classes_of_the_United_States_Nav y

Given the above specs, I would expect the S-Boats to have 1/2 the endurance submerged and take twice the time to fully re-charge its (single) battery compared to the Fleet Boats.

Well, I wonder if batteries really work the way implied by these Wikipedia numbers. I remember seeing the 2 knots info before from other sources, but I don't really remember seeing the 5 knot info before - I'm going to have to try to find my old info that came from generally more reliable sources, but for now we'll deal with the Wikipedia numbers. For the Gato class, the Wikipedia info states both:

1. Range: Submerged:95nm at 5knots; and

2. Endurance:48 hours at 2 knots (4 km/h) submerged

Although this struck me as weird at first, upon further reflection this seems like it could be correct - while it seems obvious that the batteries won't last as long (in time) at the higher 5 knot speed as they will at the lower 2 knot speed, it's not clear why the batteries wouldn't be able to propel the boat about the same distance on the same amount of stored charge/energy regardless of the speed, and (per the Wiki numbers) 48 hours at 2 knots would be 96nm, essentially the same as the 95 nm listed at 5 knots. I don't know whether travel at the higher 5 knot speed is inherently less energy-efficient than traveling at the lower 2 knot speed when traveling on batteries or not. With cars and their internal combustion gas-powered engines, once you reach some level going faster does burn more fuel per mile, but maybe it's not like that with electrically driven motors, at least maybe not within that relatively narrow speed range of 2-5 knots - does anybody know for sure?

However, regardless of whether both of these range/endurance formulations are correct, the game with the TM values mentioned above cannot achieve close to either one. As indicated in my post above, tests at 2 knots routinely generate ranges about 2/3rds what they "should" be. Just for grins, I just ran a test at 5 knots, and the batteries ran out in just 8 hours, after covering only 40nm - somewhat less than half as far/long as they should have been able to last if the Wiki numbers are correct.

Given the remote likelihood that enemy forces will stay on station and keep your sub pinned down for even 8 hours much less 30, this battery problem doesn't have much impact on convoy attacks in the open sea lanes, so maybe folks don't see this as a high priority problem to fix. However, this lack of battery staying power wreaks havoc on the ability to operate realistically in shallow waters near enemy territory (for agent/commando insertions, harbor recon missions, etc.), which is a big part of what makes a PTO subsim different in concept from an Atlantic simulator like SH3. Besides, battery propulsion of a submerged sub is a pretty central part of what being a sub simulator is all about, so it would be really nice if somebody could figure out how to get this fixed so the game would model this more correctly.

[Go4It]

S-Boat

2 x New London Ship and Engine Company (NELSECO) diesels, 1,200 hp each > 2400 HP

2 x Electro Dynamic (S-1, S-30-S-35), Ridgway (S-18, S-20 through S-29), or General Electric (S-36 through S-41) motors, 750 hp each > 1500 HP

[Ducimus]

I think the battery "problem" is being blown out of porportion. Now its not going to last to a rivet counters exact specfications, but its infinately better then stock, and is VERY playble as modded.

[jdkbph]

Indeed. I think the point is, if it can be made in the game to perform to RL spec, so much the better. If it's just a simple adjustment to an ini file, why not make it?

JD

[panthercules]

Indeed. I think the point is, if it can be made in the game to perform to RL spec, so much the better. If it's just a simple adjustment to an ini file, why not make it?

JD

Indeed - it's not a game killer by any means, but it's still disappointing and it does affect some missions where you really need to be able to cover a fair distance submerged and can't really do it with the current state of affairs. So it would be good if we could make it work more like the RL specs. I wish it were just a small adjustment to an ini or a .sim file or something, but so far no one seems to have been able to find it, or if they have they're being strangely quiet about it. The oddest thing about it to me is I think it was working pretty much correctly in one of the earlier versions, but got broken in one of the patches (IIRC - I may be remembering that wrong and haven't had time to go back through all the old posts about this issue to check on that).

[Ducimus]

I beleive ive just found one possible cause for less battery.

The submarine cfg file. I just noiced that i got more battery life out of my old throttle settings, then the new one i adopted from ROW. I think its pretty much related to how surface endurance works. But the bottom line is, where i was getting 50% battery remaning after a certain point, i know have 41% remaining. The only thing ive changed is the throttle settings for 1/3rd (its acutally less rotations now then it was before.)

I suspect that the battery discharge rate for both settings is the same, the only diffrence is the speed of the boat being slighly less, making it cover less distance over the same period of time, or something like that.

EDIT:

NEVERMIND! i just experimented with this, and my previous setting and new setting make no difference. I think it was simply a case of my having misjudged distance traveled and time underwater.

[Roger Dodger]

I think the battery "problem" is being blown out of porportion. Now its not going to last to a rivet counters exact specfications, but its infinately better then stock, and is VERY playble as modded.

I wasn't trying to start a fight by pointing out the shortcomings of the S-Boat's propulsion system - only the shortcomings themselves. Some players seem to be taking it for granted that the S-Boat would have the same capabilities of a 'modern' fleet boat. That just wouldn't be historically correct at all. They were underpowered, and their battery (notice - only one!) wouldn't sustain it underwater for as long as desired. Also, it would take it much longer for a full re-charge on only two engines (and only two generators?). Even with all the tweaks, the S-Boat still remains pretty much historically accurate.

Frankly, for me, that's the 'charm' of using these antiques. You have to learn to accept they weren't as good or capable as a fleet boat, but learn to use the capabilities they had to best advantage. It will make you a better captain when you get promoted to a newer boat.

The tweaks given to the regular (non-S Boat) fleet boats have really improved their range and endurance, and I feel, make them about right as far as being historically accurate (and better 'playability'-wise) than the stock game. Thanks and praises to Ducimus and all the others for the great improvements to the game.

[jdkbph]

Well, apparently there are some interactions between multiple variables that dictate how far the boat will go underwater on one charge. Messing around with the sim file for the Gato, I was able to get it to go 48 hours @ 2 knots, no problem. Unfortunately, it would then only go 70NM or so @5 knots when it should be going closer to 100 I think.

Maybe that's better than what we have now?... I don't know.

Anyway, the numbers in the sim file apparently meant something at one time, but now, for whatever reason - either the devs hacked things up to get something else straightened out, or the modder's did - they are pretty much meaningless.

For instance, you might think if the current values for underwater range are 96 NM and 5 knots, that changing, say, the 96 to 48 would halve the performance. It doubles it!

And trying various combinations of between 2 and 8 knots and 12 and and 192 NM, I was only able to get either either max duration or max range right... but not both. I even tried fiddling with horspower, but that didn't have the desired effect.

I suspect part of the problem is in the drag parameters, but messing with those variables without knowing all the dependencies could get sticky.

Anyway, I gave it a shot....

JD

[aanker]

Well, apparently there are some interactions between multiple variables that dictate how far the boat will go underwater on one charge. Messing around with the sim file for the Gato, I was able to get it to go 48 hours @ 2 knots, no problem. Unfortunately, it would then only go 70NM or so @5 knots when it should be going closer to 100 I think.

Maybe that's better than what we have now?... I don't know.

Anyway, the numbers in the sim file apparently meant something at one time, but now, for whatever reason - either the devs hacked things up to get something else straightened out, or the modder's did - they are pretty much meaningless.

For instance, you might think if the current values for underwater range are 96 NM and 5 knots, that changing, say, the 96 to 48 would halve the performance. It doubles it!

And trying various combinations of between 2 and 8 knots and 12 and and 192 NM, I was only able to get either either max duration or max range right... but not both. I even tried fiddling with horspower, but that didn't have the desired effect.

I suspect part of the problem is in the drag parameters, but messing with those variables without knowing all the dependencies could get sticky.

Anyway, I gave it a shot....

JDWow! "70NM or so @5 knots" is actually better than the published material: 64 nm @ 5 kts. Amazing. I tore my hair out after patch 1.3 trying to get realistic War time battery life/range and gave up. The changes I made, also made the recharge time way too long as well. Finally out of frustration I unchecked realistic battery but patrol as if I have limited battery life - (if that makes any sense) - lol

What values did you plug in? I'd be very happy with performance like you achieved if the recharge time was also reasonable.

I don't consider myself a 'rivit counter', just want to be close.

Happy Hunting!

Art

[Ducimus]

The core of battery life is the multiplier of the battery itself. In SH3 it was accessible in the basic.cfg file. off the top of my head it varried around 1.35 or so. Raise or lower this value, and you increased, or decreased the size of the battery.

If anyone finds this variable, id love to hear about it. If its not hardcoded, its very well hidden.

[candy2500]

The core of battery life is the multiplier of the battery itself. In SH3 it was accessible in the basic.cfg file. off the top of my head it varried around 1.35 or so. Raise or lower this value, and you increased, or decreased the size of the battery.

If anyone finds this variable, id love to hear about it. If its not hardcoded, its very well hidden.

yeah I've been looking all threw out the folders trying to find something that controls this. no luck yet but i did find where the default setting is for the subs where it sets the speed while submerged, it was set to 4 knots on 1/3 so i set it to 3. that helps so you don't always have to set it manually every time you dive...

[jdkbph]

What values did you plug in? I'd be very happy with performance like you achieved if the recharge time was also reasonable.
Ok, here are the values I used:

NSS_Gato.sim

Unit_Submarine
-Properties
--Unit_Submarine

---E_propulsion
----eng_power = 4000

---Ranges
----Submerged
-----miles = 130
-----knots = 2

The results:
48 hours @ 2 knots
71nm @ 5 knots
40nm @ 8 knots

10 hours to full recharge @ 0 knots

Try this out and see if you get the same performance.

BTW, using TM, ROW, RSRD, etc.


JD

[panthercules]

Intriguing indeed - I had wondered if the engine power (and a couple of other settings) might have something to do with this, but hadn't had any luck with the little poking around I had done last time before I shelved it for a bit.

I just tried out your numbers on my test-bed Salmon class boat, with very promising results very close to what you saw with the Gato:

At 2 knots, it took 24 hours to drop to 50%, 36 hours to drop to 25%, and 43 hours to drop to 10%;

From there (10%), it took 3 hours to recharge to 50%, 8 hours to 75%, and 9 hours to 100% (running at ahead 2/3rds, my typical cruising speed, since it seems unlikely that a skipper would keep his boat in one place idling and recharging for that long).

I didn't test distance at higher speeds or other things (yet) like what effect (if any) this might have on telegraph speed settings, acceleration, etc, but I did notice something distressing that I remember seeing in some earlier battery testing but can't find/remember what caused it or what fixed it - the battery level indicator showed no movement whatever during discharge or recharge :o It stayed full the whole time, which kinda screws things up. Anybody know what that level display triggers off of?

Anyway, this is the most promising avenue I've seen for a while (IIRC, all the other things I tried before that achieved a closer-to-real endurance really screwed up the recharge times, and this at least seems to have that part pretty close to right as well, at least for the Salmon I tried it on).

[jdkbph]

but I did notice something distressing that I remember seeing in some earlier battery testing but can't find/remember what caused it or what fixed it - the battery level indicator showed no movement whatever during discharge or recharge :o It stayed full the whole time, which kinda screws things up.

Hmmm... the only time I noticed that was when I forgot to click the icon to change it from fuel level to battery level :huh:

But then... no.... no way :)

JD

[panthercules]

but I did notice something distressing that I remember seeing in some earlier battery testing but can't find/remember what caused it or what fixed it - the battery level indicator showed no movement whatever during discharge or recharge :o It stayed full the whole time, which kinda screws things up.

Hmmm... the only time I noticed that was when I forgot to click the icon to change it from fuel level to battery level :huh:

But then... no.... no way :)

JD

LOL- I guess that's what I get for trying to do too many things at once - I was trying to pretend I was paying attention to the spousal unit while I was trying to conduct that test, and I guess I wound up paying more attention to her than I thought I was :doh:

Thanks for setting that straight :rotfl:

[Sailor Steve]

S-Boat

2 x New London Ship and Engine Company (NELSECO) diesels, 1,200 hp each > 2400 HP

2 x Electro Dynamic (S-1, S-30-S-35), Ridgway (S-18, S-20 through S-29), or General Electric (S-36 through S-41) motors, 750 hp each > 1500 HP
Please post a source for those numbers. The problem is that one source says one thing
http://www.valoratsea.com/Sclass1.htm

And another source says something slightly different
http://www.uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=206&navy=USS
http://www.uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=265&navy=USS
http://www.uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=265&navy=USS

And then of course there's the one Roger Dodger used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_S_class_submarine#Group_I

Yours seems to come from group III of that list, but just showing a number labelled 'S-Boat' without some frame of reference confuses the issue.