Extreme Depth "sucking" effect

[CaptJodan]

No, not that kind of effect. :)

But I'm curious, with all the mods that have been released by so many talented people and after all this time, has there ever been a solution to diving deep...say past 220 meters or so, where your sub keeps getting "sucked" down until you can't recover?

[Bubblehead1980]

In TMO you can dive very deep, once you pass 590 feet or so you need some speed or you will just keep going down and eventually hit crush depth.

[CaptJodan]

Hmm...yeah that was what I was wondering...whether or not there was a mod that stopped that whole "if you don't go flank speed, you'll get sucked into the abyss". Is there historical precedent for this kind of thing? Do subs, the deeper they go, also have trouble maintaining depth without copious amounts of speed?

[Inner Sound]

Maybe a little - the odd air buuble trapped in the freeflooding structures getting compressed and losing buoyancy, plus the pressure hulll getting squeezed ever so slightly. But it must be such a slight effect on a healthy boat.

I've never heard of depth sucking you down before. It's probably yet another thing my parents forgot to mention.

[ETR3(SS)]

Hmm...yeah that was what I was wondering...whether or not there was a mod that stopped that whole "if you don't go flank speed, you'll get sucked into the abyss". Is there historical precedent for this kind of thing? Do subs, the deeper they go, also have trouble maintaining depth without copious amounts of speed? This is an oddity in SH4. A real life sub doesn't need more speed to maintain depth at a greater depth. Been there, done that. In fact the whole sub handling model is all out of whack. You may notice that when you order a depth change, say deeper for example, that the planes stay on full dive until you get close to your depth. If the planes remained on full dive in a real boat, your dive angle would continue to increase as would your rate of decent. It's the same with going shallower as well.

[Jten]

I would wonder if it is a game mechanical effect. Since the original sim did not let boats dive that deep, the only models at that depth would be sinking ships. In order to speed up the game (remove unneeded models) maybe once a model goes that deep they want to speed up it's crush damage. I believe (from poking around in the models and stuff) I remember a damage setting for the models to be removed from the sim and a depth setting that starts adding damage to the model the more it's below a threshold (crush depth), once the damage > the model value, it's removed from the sim.

[CaptJodan]

Thanks for the replies.

I knew SH4 had this little quirk for some time now, but I just wondered if anyone had found the solution for it. With all the wizardry that goes on around here, I didn't know if the solution had come around and I just missed it.

When we're getting new mods like the 688i and Ohio, deep diving becomes more of an issue, and so does the game trying to pull you to your doom. You even run into the problem some with trying to evade the British in a VIIC/41.

I'm hoping that little quirk will be gone from SH5.

[Bubblehead1980]

Hopefully someone will figured out how to stop it in SH 4(cough, ducimus, cough) but always wondered why devs didnt make it where could dive deeper.I found it rather lame in stock that a sub like a Balao who could go to 600+ feet could only go to 450.Least in TMO can go deep, even if once you reach that depth you need speed.

[vanjast]

You can test this by setting the maximim depth in the sub files.

AFAIK if all depends on buoyancy and recovery form any damage is detemined by depth and speed.

I've had a situation in SH3 where I had to increase my speed to stay buoyant, and compressed air made little difference. This was a catch-22, as the escorts could track me and they pummeled me to Davie Jones.
SH4 is the same engine as SH3 probably with some additions.

:)

[CaptJodan]

It's been a while, but I seem to recall in SH3 that, after you passed a certain depth, sonar became useless, both for the escorts and for you. I'm not sure where that line was...something like 400 or 500 meters...something like that, but everyone went deaf. Plus at least you could run at flank and maintain your depth.

In SH4 the effect somehow seems sooner (like others have said, since the devs thought the max depth of US boats was 450, why model all the way down to 200 or 300 meters?). In addition, if you get deep enough (past 200 meters, if playing OM and diving in a VIIC/41), flank speed won't necessarily keep you from still being sucked down. A blow ballast may be your only hope.

It's really a nutty effect that I hope is resolved someday on either SH4 or 5.

[gimpy117]

yeah sounds like we need a modder to fix it. ive been to 1,000ft but its uncontrollable art that point

[Bubblehead1980]

I've been to 700 feet in a Tench, had to run at 4 knots to control the sub though, at that depth even TMO escorts couldnt catch me.