Battleships and Destroyers

[WalterJConklin]

Hello,

I purchased SH3 about a year ago. I recently installed and played the game which I enjoyed. However, my interest is really in surface naval warfare. I admit I am not very knowledgeable about the subject at this point in my life. I recently started reading a book about the Bismarck written in collaboration with James Cameron who I guess did a documentary about the battleship. When SH4 came out, I purchased a copy of the game but returned it as I am trying to limit my time spent on the computer. With the advent of playable battleships, destroyers, and other ships, I am very much considering purchasing SH4 again.

Pardon my novice questions, I was wondering which class of navy ships had torpedoes. Was it destroyers or battleships? I know corvettes had torpedoes. At this stage in the development of playable ships in SH4, is it possible to replicate the use of torpedoes with the big ships? Also, I was wondering if anyone has explored the possibility of creating operable depth charges for the playable ships.

Thank you so much for addressing my questions.


Sincerely,
Walter

[John W. Hamm]

I can somewhat answer this question for you untill someone else fills in my blanks, Yes they have made it to where the ships fire torpedoes, I believe the pocket BB does anyway, not sure but I would like to say at least one of the desoyers out do, however they don't spawn at the correct point, as far as depth charges go it is still not a part of any ship

[UrPeaceKeeper]

Hi there, as one of the "beta testers" for the Pocket BB I can tell you you've come to the right community for mods!

Right now surface ships are in their infancy. We are working out the majority fo the issues of which the most common one is the damage profile. The PBB just last night (or was it the night before? :D) recieved the first true damage profile. Everything now works and the only thing left is the visuals and fine tuning of the damage models. Right now to my knowledge this is the only ship that has an accurate representation of how a ship of that size would work.

To answer your question about torpedos. This depended heavily on the ship. The Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer class Pocket Battleship carried 8 torpedo's in two turnable torpedo launchers. This is acurately portrayed in the PBB mod. The problem is they are not moveable and torpedo's spawn at 0 degrees (straight aft) not at the proper angle. So while they are in the game they do not replicate the true function of the launchers (which was to be turned to the correct heading) This, we believe, is a hard coded function of the game that cant be changed.

Other BB's did not carry them (Reference USS Iowa) and other ships did. It depended on the nationality and the ship itself as some larger ships did carry torpedo's and others didnt.

This also brings me to my next point, AI. The AI in the game does not support surface combat 100%. While it does allow commerce raiding like that of the Graf Spee/Scheer it does not support fleet action. This also brings up the other issue that the AI in the game is fairly stupid. Destroyers charge head long into a losing battle with the surface ship because they think it's a submarine and not a battleship. So what you have is suicide attack runs with destroyers using their small caliber deck guns and not torpedo's. :damn: unfortunately that means they lose and you win! I have yet to have a destroyer attempt to ram my PBB, but I believe that is because they get destroyed before they get close enough to try! :D

There are also some small bugs that can occur if you start to sink and you accidently hit certain sub specific buttons like surface and blow ballast that cause game crashes. But if you can stay outa battles with BB task forces and dodge bombs from the airplanes you dont have to worry too much about sinking.

Depth charges are a problem as well since there are no AI submarines in the game. There are mods that include them but I dont believe they submerge. There is also the problem of creating the profile for them. This is because they are variable depth explosives. Originally it was thought you could use a torpedo with a 0 speed setting and a magnetic fuse to detonate them but you'd have to ask yourself what you were going to depth charge!

Hope that helps!
:arrgh!:

[The_Pharoah]

regarding one of your questions, here's what I know (pls correct where necessary anyone):

- torpedoes were carried by Destroyers and MTBs or PT Boats but very seldom in allied carriers (the US apparently thought of them as useless in anything bigger than a DD)
- the japs however had torps carried by cruisers which they used to devastating effect in the battle of Savo Sound (just read the book) in addition to their DDs
- I don't think Corvetts or Sloops carried torps - they were mainly tasked with ASW and/or convoy escort duty and therefore didn't need them. The DDs however were the little terriers who would close in at high speed under a cloak of smoke where possible against large targets (whilst their escorting BBs or cruisers kept the opposing heavy ships busy with gunfire), deliver their torps in a spread, and then scurry back to the relative safety of their smokescreen. didn't always work but when it did...those torps did more damage in a short time than a full cruiser broadside.

ingame, the biggest threat to a BB SHOULD be another BB or DDs/subs/aircraft packing torps.

hope that helps.

[Sailor Steve]

British battleships carried torpedoes up through the Nelson class, but they were not of great use. One early nemesis to the battleship was the torpedo boat, which was not the wooden MTB/PT of the Second World War, but a small fast steamship which performed a similar function. This led to the creation a seagoing anti-torpedo vessel which the Germans called the high-seas torpedo boat and the British dubbed the torpedo-boat destroyer, hence the creation of that name.

[horsa]

Hi Walter

If you're looking for a game that will give you a true replication of surface warfare your options are limited. SH4 isn't really it. What we have at the moment are fun ships which are beautiful models, but simple urealistic shooters. The exception to this is the commerce raiders like the Pocket Battleship where modding is creating a good simulation of this style of surface action.

Most of the game options ( for MS Windows) , that realistically replicate the different types of surface action are older offerings such as

Destroyer Command ( with simple modding this can comprehensively cover most surface ships)
Enigma : RT ( not really a true sim but still a good representation )
Fighting Steel ( very old graphics )

[WalterJConklin]

Hi Horsa,

I purchased DC when it came out and had installed it on my old Compaq computer. However, I am having trouble installing the game on my Dell Dimmesion 4600 with Windows XP. By the way, I have been following your progress on the Drednaught mod you are doing. Excellent work.

Walter

[horsa]

I have been following your progress on the Drednaught mod you are doing. Excellent work.

Thanks Walter. It's kinda ironic we all migrate to SH4, and beaver away trying to make it surface playable ...
Stuff like ... "I wish I could sail in Bismarck" ... "If only we could get Destroyers to launch torpedo attacks on battleships" etc etc .. when all along this and more is available in DC . :rotfl:

Such is Life :D. I need to get a major release out.

[WalterJConklin]

Would it be possible to hack the depth charge files from DC and add them to the playable ships in SH4?

Not trying to scold anyone but I am surprised there are not a lot of DC mods compared to the many SH2 and SH3 mods available.

[horsa]

I am surprised there are not a lot of DC mods compared to the many SH2 and SH3 mods available.
DC never had the popular appeal that SH2 had. The DC forum was full of folk who kept saying " wow , there's so much potential to create just about anything" , but it needed the oxygen of a strong following to generate enough modders to really get it going.

There's actually a lot DC mods out there but they've disappeared into obscurity since SH3/4 came out.

Would it be possible to hack the depth charge files from DC and add them to the playable ships in SH4?


Not possible. Different code.

[WalterJConklin]

Hi,

Doing a Google search, I only came across one to three mods currently available.
Do you have the names of some of the mods so I can look them up? I would be interested to know if there is a mod to replace the bland sky textures and another one to address the unrealistic lack of shooting water off the bow. Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,
Walter

[horsa]

There's no bow splash in DC.

Seeadler created some more interesting sky textures.

http://www.mediafire.com/?dbjw43xy25w

[WalterJConklin]

Thanks for the link. Are you aware of any other links for mods? I look forward to downloading your battleships when I get the opportunity.

[horsa]

I started this site some time ago but never really had the motivation to fill her up ...

www.amberphotography.co.uk/navalsite (http://www.amberphotography.co.uk/navalsite)

It has a few bits and bobs including sets of retextured Brit and American destroyers, Sealords WW2 and a few other repaints.

There is a French site somewhere does some stuff ...

[d5j55]

it will just be a matter of time till SHIV is swarming with playable, 100% working, ships

[WalterJConklin]

Hi Horsa,


I downloaded the SeaLords mod and I am very impressed with it. The developer(s) was so creative with adding Edward Murrow's WW2 broadcast about the Bismark and Winston Churchill's speech about the need to find the ship. Thank you again for providing the link to this mod.


By the way, I noticed that DC crashes when I click on the ship identification tab. Is there a way to solve this problem?

Thank you so much for your help.

Sincerely,
Walter