Can anyone confirm seeing damaged ship sinking on its own?

[Echo76]

I'd almost swear that the ships ain't nothing more than a moving blocks of hitpoints and the only thing you can knock out is the propulsion; I've seen ships totally blazing in fire and ships with whole stern under water just going on and they just don't sink!

There seems to be no damage over time, fire is just eyecandy, neither does the ships sink from flooding, only way to put em down is to keep gunning at them until they finally explode.

Please tell me you have different experiences, I know this game has turned arcadish but if true this is too much for me :/

[Kapitanleutnant]

First you need to destroy the ship's mana shield (blue bar) then suck away its willpower wit the deckgun. Then you should see the smoke-stack fall off the ship, revealing a glowing, flashing "weakspot". make sure you avoid the fireballs (most ships shoot three at a time but it's easy to discover the pattern and dodge them) and shoot the weak spot until the ship's HP is zero.

Next - and you gotta be quick about this - man the flak gun, because the ship will morph into its final flying form. Shoot it down before it flies away and you can get a HP+ pickup which will increase your maximum dive depth. Good luck!!!:sunny:

[Dowly]

:har::har::har:

[kylania]

I've been seeing exactly the same thing you are. If you don't outright kill something it'll never sink and acts as if nothing is wrong. Seen ships with their bows underwater and propellers in the air steam away while on fire at 10kts and continue doing so for DAYS before I finally gave up following them (I was out of ammo and torpedoes since it takes like 5 torps and 500 shots to kill a small merchant ship).

Some people speak of sending mag triggered torpedoes 2m under the keel but when I've tried it just kept swimming past the target...

I'm at a loss really. Debating trying super nuke torpedo damage mods just to get ANY sense of accomplishment from battle. Just hope we get some good damage/sinking mod here soon. :)

[Onkel Neal]

Yep, I have seen some ships stagger on, and other sink pretty quickly. Saw a couple break apart, and I just put four torpedoes into the King George and watched it burn for about 30 minutes, then it rolled over and sank. Even got a little video, wanna see it? :)

[Arrakis]

"Next - and you gotta be quick about this - man the flak gun, because the ship will morph into its final flying form. Shoot it down before it flies away and you can get a HP+ pickup which will increase your maximum dive depth. Good luck!!!:sunny:"
:rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:!!

Echo, unfortunately I've only experienced the same behavior: lots of explosions, no sinkings.... "improved flooding mechanics" need proofs!

Hope this can be fixed in an upcoming patch...

[Mud]

Yep, I have seen some ships stagger on, and other sink pretty quickly. Saw a couple break apart, and I just put four torpedoes into the King George and watched it burn for about 30 minutes, then it rolled over and sank. Even got a little video, wanna see it? :)

yes please :up:

Mud

[Kapitanleutnant]

"improved flooding mechanics"
I gotta say that if I was on a ship that never sank no matter how much damage it took I'd consider its flooding mechanics to be "improved".

[Echo76]

First you need to destroy the ship's mana shield (blue bar) then suck away its willpower wit the deckgun. Then you should see the smoke-stack fall off the ship, revealing a glowing, flashing "weakspot". make sure you avoid the fireballs (most ships shoot three at a time but it's easy to discover the pattern and dodge them) and shoot the weak spot until the ship's HP is zero.

Next - and you gotta be quick about this - man the flak gun, because the ship will morph into its final flying form. Shoot it down before it flies away and you can get a HP+ pickup which will increase your maximum dive depth. Good luck!!!:sunny:

Haha :salute: Me thinks the red apple buffy will bring me victory!

[Echo76]

Yep, I have seen some ships stagger on, and other sink pretty quickly. Saw a couple break apart, and I just put four torpedoes into the King George and watched it burn for about 30 minutes, then it rolled over and sank. Even got a little video, wanna see it? :)


I trust your word :) but I won't say no to video either!

[Sunfighter]

I can confirm seeing a ship sink after ceasing deck fire for almost 2 minutes. Why did i shop shooting? Because I was taking screenshots of it and was gonna post on here on why isnt this ship considered sunk when the back half of it was underwater and yet it still had a 'lifebar' while i was taking various pictures of it...a large wave stuck it..and it sank. and of course, none of my pictures except one seemed to be saved thanks to this buggy as hell game.

There was something REALLY strange about this fight though. I had it down to half hull and it was burning...then a very large wave wiped out my vision (sue me im using a deck gun in 50 foot waves lol)...when the ship repeared on the horizon...its lifebar was back full....all the fires were out, but it was still damaged via laying low in the water...so i dont know what the hell happened...

This is a buggy save too...my latest save was wiped out by the dreaded syncing save wipes out your latest save to replace it with one made from 2 days ago. The ships i had sunk had changed names, i had all my ammo back yet was in a point in the game where i knew i was out of ammo...and my tonnage was wrong....

So honestly...i have not a damn clue whats going on with this game today.

[Arrakis]

I gotta say that if I was on a ship that never sank no matter how much damage it took I'd consider its flooding mechanics to be "improved".

:haha::haha: I would also!!

[Blood_splat]

You need to level up your torpedoes.:up::haha:

[Echo76]

You need to level up your torpedoes.:up::haha:

Sure, right after I have grinded some torp fuel drops from the sea! ;)

[Dizzy_Bob]

why isnt this ship considered sunk when the back half of it was underwater and yet it still had a 'lifebar'


Same thing happened to me, i shot the back of a merchant and the rest of it was still floating with a life bar, but my deck gun just went through the ship without hitting it after that.
Decided to launch a torpedo at it, that went straigth through as well.
Dont know if it would have sunk in time couse I got pissed and loaded last saved game rigth after that.

[Sunfighter]

I can confirm watching a ship sink in heavy seas now for 100% certain with no bugs. Took 3 minutes 50 seconds about from cease fire to it finally going down. This was with a half hull 3/4ths full water bar. I wont post pictures cause i play at 1900x1200 and thats stupid big and i dont feel like cropping right now..im playing my game lol.


Here is the ship, still alive (somehow), note the time and the map that shows it still alive.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/Sunfighter/burningship.jpg

Note the amount of freaking holes i had to punch in it just to get it down 1/4th a water bar.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/Sunfighter/holes.jpg

Here it is sunk. Note the time again.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/Sunfighter/sunk.jpg

[Mos]

I had the exact same problem as the OP until I gave in and installed the double damage torpedo mod. Ships now seem to actually take on water and sink even if I don't destroy every single bit of HP.

I think the problem might be that the torpedoes are not doing enough damage to actually penetrate the hull and let water in.

[sideways]

i've got a fair few crew xp to spend that I haven't done anything with yet - so i think the first thing i do when i get home today is to spend every last one on increasing torp damage, and see if this makes a difference.

[Conrad von Kaiser]

Heck I blew the stern off of a T3 tanker with my deck gun and it still didn't sink. Had to leave and evade the Destroyer. Came back and there it was, happily floating missing it's back end

[Onkel Neal]

yes please :up:

Mud

I don't have the video edited but here's a screen
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=165&pictureid=1388


All three torps were set at 9m.

.

[msxyz]

I don't own SH5, but I've played for about 1 hour at a friends' house.

I can confirm you that sometimes ships do sink after they grey bar has been reduced to one thrid or less. As with SH3 and 4, hit the second half of the ship (towards the stern). Hitting them in the bow area is useless. :-?

Aim torpedoes as low as possible: 7.5 meters for large ships (7000+ merchants vessels and tankers) and 5-6 meters for smaller merchants ships: the lower they hit, the more damage you get. Always use proximity fuze

I cannot verify it, but my friend told me that, like in the past games, it's easier to sink a warship than a merchant. Maybe because merchants carry lighter than water stuff while warships are heavvy and loaded with ammo? :doh: He told me that he sank one carrier with only two torpedoes and a dreadnought with 3.

I suspect that in RL warships would fare a little better against torpedoes in particular: it took 17 AP bombs and 19 torpedo hits to sink the Yamato sister ship Musashi in late 1944! :o

[Phantom Mark]

it took 17 AP bombs and 19 torpedo hits to sink the Yamato sister ship Musashi in late 1944!


Yer but thats all relative eh, depends where those bombs landed and where those tops hit, and also how quickly you want an end result etc, four torps in the right place might have done the same job had they been in the right place and given enough time for the vessel to sink of it's own accord rather than keep shooting till something dramatic happend ??

[Drakhun]

I'm experiencing the same problem.

Last time while "farming":O: tonnage for British Supply Quest I get my first very own convoy. It was foggy night so I passed escorts and prepared attack in the middle of convoy. There was about 12 ships (tankers and frieghters) I fired at 4 targets: 2 tankers (2 torps each) 1 frieghter (1 torp) and 3rd tanker from stern tube. After beautyful fireworks show none of ships sunk and they sailed away burning but none of then ever slowed down. External-camera showed me that most of torps exploded directly below ships...:damn:

And from my experience none of ships I sunk through about 25 hours of playing sunk due to damage, everytime I had to beat the crap out of them to get info "ship sunk" before it started to go below waterline:nope:

[msxyz]

Yer but thats all relative eh, depends where those bombs landed and where those tops hit, and also how quickly you want an end result etc, four torps in the right place might have done the same job had they been in the right place and given enough time for the vessel to sink of it's own accord rather than keep shooting till something dramatic happend ??
Of course, I took the Musashi as an extreme example on the other side. :) Musashi and Yamato decks were designed to be impenetrable to 'normal' 1000 lbs bombs.

Most large warships in WW2 had armor belts on the side and special compartments designed to absorb the shock of an underwater explosion: sort of impact zones of todays cars.

The point of this thread is that in the Silent Hunter series, merchants seems to be more 'bulletproof' than the large warships and this has been a complaint since SH3.

[Ishigami]

I raided a convoy and damaged 4 merchants. All of them were burning and dead in the water. After evading the utterly blind escort I waited thru time compression for the remaining convoy to leave which did not happen. Some strange AI bug prevented the rest of the ships including the escorts to move on, instead the where running cycles around the crippled ships. :06:
Anyway I waited for about 12 hours and nothing happened, very disappointing. :wah:

[B_O_L_T]

It may or may not have something to do with these hit point bars people play with, playing on realistic I have seen several ships sink over a period of time without any further interaction from me, but just as commonly ships with serious damage continued.


However, this is just as it was irl, ships really did reach home with bows and sterns completely destroyed. Perhaps some folks should go search the net for pictures of damaged ships that survived attacks, reading this thread I know a few folks are in for a surprise. My own grandfather survived two torpedo attacks, one in the Royal Navy and later in the fleet auxilliary sailing freighter decoys.

Just a couple of points,
1: aiming below the hull 2 meters is too deep try 1.

2: The Yamato could never have been sunk with only four torps, they simply could not have damaged enough compartments to cause significant flooding, it was built to withstand 27 degree listing before handling would be compromised. She even had auxiliary steering and engine rooms in the event the primaries were completely flooded. The series of attacks which sank her took over two hours, after the first hour, she had already sustained several bomb hits and four torps which caused nothing more than a 5 degree list that didn't even slow her down. She was finally destroyed by a magazine explosion after fire alarms failed to notify the crew it was on fire, once they realised, it was too late, the main pump for that section had been destroyed and they couldn't get an auxiliary set up there in time.