Hull damage and consequences

[Triad773]

Hey guys- been going thru sub school and the like. Been extending my training missions by clicking "Return to game" and navigated from the NAV site to Pearl for fun.<took a very long time, but for someone with flu, what the heck!>

Hey one thing I think I learned: I wound up by an island named 'Kolonial' with docks- don't know whose or something like that: getting my way around the islands I ran into trouble in the way of a sandbar or something: got the repair crews working on all issues and wound up with 82% battery capacity, and more importantly, "Hull damage: -84%". I went to 80 feet and imploded some time later (sorry, no clip available :-?).

So- my question is, what exactly does "Hull damage: -84%" in the Damage Control panel mean in this case? Trying to make ALL my noobish errors in some meaningless mission so I got it right when it counts.

I had done a search of the PDF manual as well as this forum for the term "hull" but came up null

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Triad

[seafarer]

The hull damage indicator is an indication that your hull has suffered structural damage of some kind - holes, plate/rib buckling, whatever. In other words, your hull strength and integrity has been compromised in some way and to some degree. It's a fairly vague indicator though.

A hull that's showing 84% damage is not going to stand up to too much stress though. A near miss by a shell or bomb, or too much water pressure as you discovered by diving too deep. Your poor bashed up hull gave way under the pressure of the water at depth.

Also, hull damage is non-repairable for the most part. At least not by your crew and not while at sea. You need to return to port to get that kind of damage repaired. It is the sim's way of letting you know that the damage is structural and requires the skills and equipment of a good yard crew to fix.

Rule of thumb with hull damage, especially high values like you had, is stay surfaced, or if you must dive, stay as shallow as possible.

[Triad773]

Hey seafarer (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/member.php?u=214519) thanks for that info. Yeah common sense would have lead me to a similar conclusion, but I saw the number associated with hull damage and did not get if it meant I was that percentage 'out of luck' or good to go. Well lesson learnt and I was at least glad it was on a training mission instead of a career I was trying to perpetuate.

~S~

Triad

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

I got 20% hull damage when I foolishly came to close to a merchie with a deck gun. 10 of my crew were injured but they healed over time and was still able to complete a 35-day patrol and diving as deep as 155 feet even 200 feet.