[Help!] Changing recharge rates...

[Capt Jack Harkness]

Alright, I'm trying to make a full blown Type XXI out of the Type XVIII and so far I've run across two problems: The first, as the title implies, is getting the batteries to charge fast enough and the second is getting enough underwater endurance.

From all the specs I've read, the XXI was capable of running at 4-8 kts for 2 to 3 days and then snorkel for about 5 hours to charge up the batteries for another 2 to 3 days...

So far, I've got a working snorkel and I've got the submerged range set to about 400 statute miles at 5 kts as well as a maximum speed of 15.6 kts surfaced, 17.2 submerged, as per the specs I've seen. Now what happens during testing is that the batteries run dry after cruising at 5 kts (which I've set to a 2/3 bell) for only 6, maybe 8 hours and it takes more than a day to recharge them...

Does anyone know how to seriously boost the battery charge rates (hopefully without affecting other subs) and get the submerged range to where it should be?

[Capt Jack Harkness]

Anyone?

[Snaptrap]

Open the .sim file of the submarine you wish to change using S3D. Select and expand unit_Submarine. Expand Ranges and then Submerged. Here, if you increase the miles, the battery life will also increase to that range. To make it precise, increase the speed to the actual speed the sub travels at while submerged. Changing the speed setting is not necessary. The speed setting here won't affect the actual speed.

[Snaptrap]

Sorry, I misread the post. I'll check to see if I can come up with an answer cause in my Silent Fire mod, the batteries recharge in a few minutes.

[Snaptrap]

Hi Jack, no much help here, you can change the underwater range figures to get the desired "actual" ingame range regardless of "accurate" values. For the recharge I don't have a clue, it's an interesting question :hmm:
I see nothing directly related to this in the .sim file (maybe the diesel engine power/force has some effect on the charge ?), nothing in zones.cfg, nothing in equipment.upc ... in the upcge file of the boat there's these values :

MechanicalCoef= 0.6 ;0..1
ElectricsCoef= 0.4 ;0..1

but they're here for each compartment type so I don't know what they do.

Please post if you find something :ping:

The crew efficiency in the battery compartment could be the factor. All those coefficiency entries are in fact in every compartment but only that ones that actually have a value will apply.

[Capt Jack Harkness]

Open the .sim file of the submarine you wish to change using S3D. Select and expand unit_Submarine. Expand Ranges and then Submerged. Here, if you increase the miles, the battery life will also increase to that range. To make it precise, increase the speed to the actual speed the sub travels at while submerged. Changing the speed setting is not necessary. The speed setting here won't affect the actual speed.

Well, like I said, I've got it set to 400 miles at 5 knots but for some reason they don't seem to last more than 50 miles at that speed...

[panthercules]

If there is an answer to this I think it must lie somewhere other than in the subs' .sim files - I tested till I was blue in the face during the stretch when I was working on my pitch/roll tweaks with various settings in those .sim files and never was able to get reliable, correct submerged ranges and recharge times. During one particular testing cycle I actually did achieve the right results for all the US boats except the S-boats, but then the next time I reloaded the game and started new test careers it was back to the crappy-short results and I could never replicate the successful results no matter what I tried.

The compartment efficiency idea sounds like an intriguing one worth pursuing - I never messed with that during my testing, so maybe that alone or in combination with some of the .sim file tweaks holds some promise.

Good luck!

[Snaptrap]

Open the .sim file of the submarine you wish to change using S3D. Select and expand unit_Submarine. Expand Ranges and then Submerged. Here, if you increase the miles, the battery life will also increase to that range. To make it precise, increase the speed to the actual speed the sub travels at while submerged. Changing the speed setting is not necessary. The speed setting here won't affect the actual speed.

Well, like I said, I've got it set to 400 miles at 5 knots but for some reason they don't seem to last more than 50 miles at that speed...

You have the submerged speed set to 5kts but the sub itself travels at 9kts while submerged. If you change the submerged speed to 9kts, your sub should be able to make 400 miles before recharging. The speed setting is like a multiplier to the range setting. The higher it is, the less fuel/battery power is used when traveling that distance.

Hell, just crank both speed and range to 100,000 and you will never run out for a very, very, very long time. Your sub will probably rust and sink before you need to recharge.

[Capt Jack Harkness]

Open the .sim file of the submarine you wish to change using S3D. Select and expand unit_Submarine. Expand Ranges and then Submerged. Here, if you increase the miles, the battery life will also increase to that range. To make it precise, increase the speed to the actual speed the sub travels at while submerged. Changing the speed setting is not necessary. The speed setting here won't affect the actual speed.

Well, like I said, I've got it set to 400 miles at 5 knots but for some reason they don't seem to last more than 50 miles at that speed...

You have the submerged speed set to 5kts but the sub itself travels at 9kts while submerged. If you change the submerged speed to 9kts, your sub should be able to make 400 miles before recharging. The speed setting is like a multiplier to the range setting. The higher it is, the less fuel/battery power is used when traveling that distance.

Hell, just crank both speed and range to 100,000 and you will never run out for a very, very, very long time. Your sub will probably rust and sink before you need to recharge.

Well, the Type XXI actually goes 17.2 kts submerged, but it gets the max range of 400 miles at 5 kts. Anyways, I've gone as high as 1000 miles at 20 kts and it doesn't seem to help...

[Snaptrap]

Well, the Type XXI actually goes 17.2 kts submerged, but it gets the max range of 400 miles at 5 kts. Anyways, I've gone as high as 1000 miles at 20 kts and it doesn't seem to help...

My guess is that something has nullified those settings if changing them goes without affect. Post or send me all your upc and sim files and I'll take a look at them tomorrow.

snaptrap@hotmail.com