Okay... so how is this guy still floating?

[Pal_080]

Ok I'm very new to the game but today I managed to get in a decent area with a HUGE convoy of about 20 ships, and they all looked like battleships and destroyers... no weak merchants. So I fire off all my torpedoes and turn around and get a second shot with the rear tubes. I hit 5 ships in total but only two sank! One ship shook off the torpedo like it was nothing while the other two looked like they would go down at any moment.... but they just refused to die!

One of the two badly damaged ones had a strong list to the port side, it looked like it would continue to flip over... but it just sat there. At least it's engines seemed to have stopped

But this one? I don't even understand. The bloody thing is half underwater and it's steaming ahead at almost regular speed as if nothing happened!? Should it be slowly going under?

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/8906/wtfla6.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/8906/wtfla6.f0c1cddc61.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=409&i=wtfla6.png)




http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/3097/comeonhe7.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/3097/comeonhe7.163b857854.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=401&i=comeonhe7.png)

[Arclight]

Well, at least it shouldn't be steaming anymore. In RL, the forward motion of the ship would drive the bow under (much like the dive-planes on your boat, don't know if or how SH models this). But it comes down to the fact that the ship is still afloat, disabled, but afloat. It's only a kill when it's heading to the bottom.:-?

Several mods make changes to how damage is modeled, maybe there's something wrong with the order in which they where installed? I've certainly not seen any ships survive that where torn up like that in my game. And if you're not using any mods, you might wanna consider NSM (natural sinking mechanics). I'm using it and like I said, I never had a ship in that condition not sink on me.

I'm sorry, I don't think I can help you further with this, only scratching the surface myself.

[Pal_080]

hah, I'm glad just to hear that it should have gone down. I thought that maybe it had achieved some sort of perfect balance and someone here would tell me so... but I guess I just got very unlucky with some random glitch or whatever. I'm only using a garphics enhancing mod so I don't think that would cause it. Although I did have RSRD installed and then uninstalled it so maybe it has to do with that.

Here's the other ship by the way. This one had stopped but still wouldn't sink although I can see this maybe happening in reality. (more so than a ship which is angled toward the ocean floor but still propelling at fair speeds)

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9272/sh4img20080610212304888gz6.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9272/sh4img20080610212304888gz6.da7b9bea2d.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=401&i=sh4img20080610212304888gz6.png)

[Arclight]

Yeah, that looks a lot more reasonable. Getting a hit on the engineroom or far aft to blow of a screw usually disables a ship, bringing it to a stop, although not necesarilly sinking it. Best advice I can probably give you is to fire 2 fish at each target, and hit them some distance apart. Hitting them twice in the same spot generally doesn't do much, though stock SH uses a "hitpoint" system for damage, instead of simulating flooding and having a ship sink by that. That's why I'm using NSM; in stock, ships usually go down in seconds, minutes at best. With NSM it can literally take hours, although rare. Never saw a ship capsize or lift the stern or bow right up in the air in stock.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj2/EZatHome/SH4Img2008-06-02_225740_453scaled.jpg
As you probably know, ships are built up in watertight compartments. Punching a hole in just one is not enough with the bigger ships, especially warships, those are built to last! (and withstand some damage, obviously)

Had a run in with a huge european liner once; fired a spread of 4, got 3 hits. Ship was listing badly, bow low in the water, but it didn't sink. It came to a stop after a while, so I went on over to finish her of. Thing was, I pulled up on her starboard bow, while the first spread hit the port side. It took 3 more hits to get it to finally sink! Ran into another one of those sometime later; fired a spread of 2 (all I had left), and watched her go up in a big fireball at the first hit! Must have hit a fuel bunker...

And that's just it; if you hit the sweetspot, all it takes is one. But sometimes you can keep firing without any real results. If you want to be sure of a kill on the first go, hit it more than once.

[Pal_080]

One of the things I love most about this game is the way the ships sink. I just love the explosion on impact and watching the boat slowly tilt until it's totally done for and picks up speed as it decends to the ocean floor. I mean it's not something you see in real life very often (thankfully) and I think this game does a good job at recreating a torpedo strike. I basically always fire at least 2 torpedoes into a target to make sure of critical damage and more than one hole/impact point.


Maybe I should try out that NSM mod but if it makes ships take more to go down then I might find myself having troubles. Although I do find that ships sink rather quickly for my liking in the normal version. Since I'm new to the game I really enjoy watching a boat sink as it takes on water and more of the deck goes under.

[Arclight]

From NSM .pdf (intro bit):

"What is NSM?

Natural Sinking Mechanics will greatly increase your silent hunter expirience by making the ships sink in a more natural way. Entire damage system has been reworked. Ships will no longer sink by hitpoints but only by physical action, such is flooding and losing bouyancy or balance. The new damage system will be explained further on, it is a good idea to find out how it works. This is a realism mod. The ship sinking rates and the different sinking behaviers has been tweaked as much accurate to historical records as possible. Expect all ships sink much slower then they do in stock game. The sinking rate depends on where the ship has been damaged. Sometimes you will see ships sinking in a matter of seconds and sometimes they will take hours (but that being rare).

What is new?
NSM4 is a complete rewamp. It has new compartment layouts for every ship (even sampans) and a completely new zones.cfg that is much more compatible with othermods. There are two new key features:
1. The new keel damage. For the first time torpedo depth becomes a factor. Now you can effectively use the vacuum effect when a torpedo explodes under the ship. You can now literely break the neck of the vessel with a single well placed shot. It is no longer random. If you want to find out how it works, read the part about keel damage later on.
2. There is a completely new balance between different ships. If you have been using previous versions of NSM you will find that your torpedoes are stronger but less reliable. You will need less hits to sink something and the ships are much better balanced agains each other."

I think you would find that ships display even more awesome behaviour while going down, imho much more awesome then stock. This is also the main + about this game for me; nothing like seeing a huge 10000+ ton ship slip slowly below the surface. It's the only reason I ever watched Titanic; to see that ship go down!

And again, it's all about where you hit them. Practice makes perfect. ;)

[Doolan]

I feel your pain.

The game makes a (decent) abstraction when determining whether something is sunk or not. Even if most of the deck is awash, provided the flooding is under control and there's enough air to keep the thing afloat, technically it's not sunk and the situation could possibly be remedied.

I do have a problem though when a ship in that condition steams merrily at full speed.

That's something the game can't really simulate as of now, since there are no hydrodynamics involved at all. Provided the engine room is in good condition the ship will steam forward without sinking further or receiving extra damage based on hydrodynamics.

I'm not sure if a relationship between the two conditions could be established in a mod, like reducing the ship's speed (automatically damaging the engines?) when other compartments are flooded.

[howler93]

Imagine how frustrating it must've been for real skippers :o

One of my best gaming moments ever was FINALLY finding the Yamato...slithering into position, and managing, over the course of many hours, to hit her broadside 12 times. Did she go down? No...she limped off into the sunrise. As frustrating as that was, it felt like Melville's "White Whale." A truly priceless SH4 moment for this skipper. Regardless, enjoy it all.

Cheers,
Howler :arrgh!:

[Pal_080]

Okay where can I get this Natural sinking Mechanics mod. I'm no pro so I don't think I'll be taking advantage of the location damage very much, I usually just fire and hope for the best. seems to work fairly well most times.

But watching the ships sink has to be one of the best parts of the game for me as well. a satisfying reward for a job well done.

[gimpy117]

had a carrier do that to me...the flight deck was awash and everything...

[Arclight]

Heck, I've had ships listing so bad in heavy seas that waves where washing over the bridge...

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=119504

You'll find most (if not all) major mods there. I you don't like it, it's easy to uninstall, like with all mods enabled through JSGME (JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler);

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=105421

It's a little program that goes in your SH4 folder. It creates a new folder ("MODS") to which you can install/unzip the mods you download. The program shows 2 lists; the left one lists avaible mods, the right one installed mods. Just select the mod you want, click a button and it will enable/disable it. Note that with several mods the order in which you enable them becomes important. Instructions on the program and the mods can be found on these forums easily enough.

If you need any help, just ask.;)

[Pal_080]

Thanks again. But that mod has a giant warning saying it's not to be used with the u-boat add on, only with v1.4. I have the uboat addon... but I'm gonna download this mod anyhow. i'll just assume it will only mess something up if I play the german campaign...?

Also.. I just spent almost 2 hours positioning myself for a convoy and managed only yo sink 2 ships even using the sub with 6 forward torpedoes.... Doh!

[Arclight]

I only get 2 targets on every pass on a convoy as well. You have to fill a lot of shoes as a SH4 skipper (in RL you'ld have your crew to keep track of things you can't). It's hard enough to quickly churn out 2 good solutions, let alone 3. Just concentrate on hitting 1, do your best to hit a second one, and then slip away and speed ahaed of the convoy again to have another go. 6 fish for 2 kills isn't bad, RL skippers even had to deal with a 70% dud rate on the Mk.14 early to mid-war. Can you imagine launching 6 torpedos, getting 4 hits and only 1 (if your lucky) actually exploding? Your doing alright, don't be to hard on yourself and keep practicing.

Uhm.. V1.5 changes how the game handles files, so there's a chance you'll muck up more then just the german campaign. If it says "not compatible" stear clear. Most mods are moving to "1.5 only", so it's probably just a matter of time. Have a look around the "SH4 mods workshop" forum for information, maybe pose the question over there. I'll have a look as well, will let you know if I dig up anything.;)

*from what I'm reading, at least the "light" version of NSM works fine with 1.5 as long as you stick with the fleet boats. Disable if you want to play U-boat. Quess you assumed right. :)

[Pal_080]

I can't believe how helpful you have been, thanks once again. There sure is a lot to this game but I'm learning it and I love it so much. I'm only playing on 0% realisim though lol. I'm not sure if I'll ever switch to manual firing/aiming, it sounds so complicated but soon I'm gonna switch on batteries, Co2, Compressed Air, torpedo duds, realistic priscope movements and those tpyes of things.

I'll remember that advice of getting ahead of a convoy after I've had one strike but it seems like a convoy will usually change it's heading and speed up once i've alerted them and it makes it hard/impossible to catch up/keep up without getting the attention of the ships with depth charges.

[Pal_080]

bahaha, I think it messed something up because I just loaded up my saved file and the entire convoy is in flames lol. At least i'll get to enjoy the sinking. Hopefully this glitch will only apply to these boast since they were already loaded in the game when I installed the mod. I hope every merchant ship doesn't burst into flames when I come across it lol.

[Macdaddy4738]

I havent been playing long, but I have found that hitting ships with mulitple torps in the same spot works sometimes, others it doesnt do crap!

I hit a Destroyer with 3 torps within seconds of each other, same spot, and literally split it in half, I could see it through the periscope, it just buckled. The best part was that it was only in 60-70 feet deep water, so it just sat there.

BUT then I hit another one, same spot, same 3 torps...nothing, it just kept charging at me :lol:

[gAiNiAc]

Imagine how frustrating it must've been for real skippers :o

One of my best gaming moments ever was FINALLY finding the Yamato...slithering into position, and managing, over the course of many hours, to hit her broadside 12 times. Did she go down? No...she limped off into the sunrise. As frustrating as that was, it felt like Melville's "White Whale." A truly priceless SH4 moment for this skipper. Regardless, enjoy it all.

Cheers,
Howler :arrgh!:

I must of gotten lucky!!!!:

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/1273/gother0001on6.jpg


Fired six bow tubes, 4 exploded under the keel, I was shocked when she started to go down. What I have noticed is bigger ships don't like being hit in the rear.

[Arclight]

I can't believe how helpful you have been, thanks once again.

You're welcome, I've got the time to spare anyway. Got the benefit of having 2 pc's set up next to each other as well, so I can play and browse the forums at the same time.:)

0% is fine while getting used to the game. Heck, if you like playing like that you're free to leave it at that, though raising the bar provides a bigger challenge. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, keeping track of fuel and such, but you get the hang of it.

When it comes to convoys, I usually just make 1 pass and go look for something else to bother, as long as you stick with the stock game campaign (I only have PE for some nice visuals and NSM for realistic sinkings) there's plenty of stuff around to hunt down. And you're right about the maneuvering, can be near impossible to hit anything like that, but they should return to "normal" behaviour after a while, probably couple of hours. It's easier to keep track of them with radar, or else back of too outside visual range and track them with sonar. You can try to make a quick run to overtake them during the night, when visability is more limited.

I think you should only enable mods when in port, after completing a patrol, or you're gonna get strange things happening like convoys bursting into flames (though I'd love to have seen that).:rotfl:

Macdaddy: stock SH4 uses a hitpoint system for damage; say a ship (or part of it, dunno exactly) has 100HP, and torps do 25 to 50 points of damage. If you get 3 low hits, that would be 75-80 points of damage, ship survives. If you get 2 max hits, it's 100 points damage, ship sunk. It's all a bit random, which is why I prefer NSM; You blow a hole in a ship, compartment(s) start to flood, and if the ship takes on enough water it sinks. More predictable, more realistic, more fun (for me at least). It's also possible to get a critical hit for massive damage, like a fuel or ammo bunker, or engine room explosion.

At least, that's what I gather from reading, there's probably a lot of guys that can explain/understand it better than me.

[Pal_080]

Ok I just had my first patrol with the NSM mod enabled and not only was it the most visually pleasing it was by far my most sucessful convoy attack yet. I tried a new technique I read about here, by lining myself up in the middle of a convoy so I can fire both fore and aft torpedoes simultaneously. It worked like a charm and I nailed 4 ships on the first pass and 2 more on a second attempt. Used decoys and evaded the 3 destroyers without a hitch.


This mod is really helping me out. I didn't like the way damage was done in the stock game. A hitpoint system without location damage and with random numbered damage on the torpedoes just doesn't seem to cut it. I don't like the randomness of it. And I didn't like how a ship was basically always either in good enough condition to continue sailing or bad enough to sink instantly.

With this my first strike on the convoy took down 2 ships immediately and I figured the other two would survive because they showed no immediate signs of sinking although in my mind they should have. In the meantime I was setting up for another go at the convoy and I switched into freecam when I had the time only to notice increasing lists on both damaged ships. Sure enough withitn about 10-15 mins they each slowly rolled over, one went up on it's end and sort of hung there for a few minutes.

Not to mention now a ship will actually reach the ocean floor instead of just dissapearing halfway down. Thanks a billion for advising this mod! Now i'm off to watch The Hunt for Red October.

[Arclight]

I'm glad I could enhance your experience, but you should probably thank the guys that made the mod. ;) I just pointed you in the right direction. Ships will still disappear, but they'll be so deep when that happens you can't see 'm anymore anyway.

[Macdaddy4738]

one thing I still cant get is setting Magnetic Contact torps.

I set the torpedo to hit the keel of the ship, set the depth for as deep as I can go (Was aiming at a Fuzo class Warship). I set it to 50 feet, and it STILL blew up early because it wasnt deep enough :-?

[Arclight]

It think that has more to do with the notoriously unreliable Mark VI exploder. ;)

From wiki:

"The Mark 14 had four major flaws.

It tended to run about 10 feet deeper than set.
The magnetic exploder often caused premature firing.
The contact exploder often failed to fire the warhead.
It tended to "circular", turning back to strike the firing ship.Running too deep

The torpedo tended to run some ten feet (3 meters) too deep for two reasons. The first was that it was never tested with the correct mass density in its warhead. A concrete dummy warhead was used to set the depth during development of the weapon. The dummy warhead was lighter than the wartime load. Additionally, the depth mechanism was designed prior to the warhead's charge being increased, making the torpedo heavier overall. Also, two depth testing devices used by NTS to verify results were both off by the same amount in the same direction, which compounded the problem. After hearing of the problem, most submarine skippers simply set their torpedoes running depth to zero,risking a broach. By August 1942, the faulty running depth situation was in hand and submarines were getting more hits with the Mark 14. Ironically, curing the deep-running problem caused more prematures and duds, now that hits were being achieved. The number of sinkings did not rise.

Premature explosions

Many submarine commanders in the first two years of the war reported explosions of the warhead with little to no damage of the enemy. The magnetic exploders were triggering prematurely, before getting close enough to the vessel to destroy it. Earth's magnetic field near NTS, where the trials (limited as they were) were conducted, differed from the areas where the fighting was taking place.

Duds

Early reports of torpedo action included some dud hits, heard as a dull clang. In a few instances, Mark 14s would strike a Japanese ship and lodge in its hull without exploding. The contact pistol appeared to be malfunctioning, though the conclusion was anything but clear until running depth and magnetic exploder problems were solved. Daspit's experience was exactly the sort of live-fire trial BuOrd had been prevented from doing in peacetime. It was now clear to all at Pearl Harbor the contact pistol was also defective.

Circulars

There were numerous reports of the Mark 14 running erratically and circling back on the firing boat. This sank at least one sub, Tullibee, for certain.The Mark 15 torpedo had collars to prevent circulars, but the Mark 14 was never given this feature."

[Suicide Charlie]

[quote=howler93] What I have noticed is bigger ships don't like being hit in the rear.

Very true. I remember even in SHIII it tended to be the same.

I just did this today.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b92/hellaphotos/Games/SH18.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b92/hellaphotos/Games/SH16.jpg

I fired a 5 fish spread. She was able to dodge two and one was a dude. The first hit right behind the tower and the second hit just forward of the fantail. It jammed the rudder and blew a large whole where the keel forms into the rudder socket. The concussion also took out all four screws.

That was Dec 23rd, 1941. I love RSRD. Beautiful task force about 720nm Northwest of Wake Island. Included two Maya CA's (Heavy Cruisers) and two Hiryu's.

TMO 1.5 + RSRD

[gAiNiAc]

[quote=howler93] What I have noticed is bigger ships don't like being hit in the rear.

Very true. I remember even in SHIII it tended to be the same.

I just did this today.





I fired a 5 fish spread. She was able to dodge two and one was a dude. The first hit right behind the tower and the second hit just forward of the fantail. It jammed the rudder and blew a large whole where the keel forms into the rudder socket. The concussion also took out all four screws.

That was Dec 23rd, 1941. I love RSRD. Beautiful task force about 720nm Northwest of Wake Island. Included two Maya CA's (Heavy Cruisers) and two Hiryu's.

TMO 1.5 + RSRD

My very first SHIV patrol I ran across that TF.......

:up: