Life boat mod question re: abandoning ship

[K-61]

I love the life boat mod! It's great to see some human life in the game and it adds drama to your sinkings. I do have one question, in light of my experience from a goodly number of sinkings:

If you see a crew taking to the lifeboats, does that mean the ship will definitely sink? Several times I have seen lifeboats spawned but the ship sailed on and I have never received a sinking report, even after hanging around for many hours. In my last patrol I attacked two ships with my last three eels: one into an empire freighter and two into a large merchant, which sunk. The empire freighter took on a list and fell way behind the convoy. I would have finished her off with my deck gun [Jan. 42 so I still have one but can't use it anymore] but she was bristling with a naval gun and two menacing looking AA guns, too much firepower for me to risk my boat and crew. I had to let her go and she sailed merrily on her way.

[Herr-Berbunch]

That is a good question, and I wish I'd taken notice of when they abandon ship now. Sorry I can't help but hopefully someone will be along soon to answer and then myriad other people will know too :D

Edit: I still don't know if they abandon ship before definately sinking or not, but if you get the message 'She's going down' then you'll get the credit.

[Jimbuna]

Some debris (lifeboats included) can be discharged by boats 'nearly destroyed' but there is no strict rule of thumb line because there are other factors such as sea state, vessel size and damage hits incurred that make up integral parts of the equation.

[U777]

I've only seen the lifeboats show up when the ship is halfway underwater with no chance of saving itself.

[Sgt_Raa]

I've only seen the lifeboats show up when the ship is halfway underwater with no chance of saving itself.
yes me too.... remember that its just a mod added into the usual debris field..... so if the ship drops debris it may not neccisarily sink?

[Panser]

My personal experience is that if a ship is damaged enough to drop any lifeboats, it will go down eventually. On a slow sinking of a large ship you will quite often get one or two released very early. Once you get about three dropped simulatenously the ship is likely on it's way to the bottom very soon after.

I think this is a nice touch actually as there are plenty of accounts of lifeboats either being manned in a panic long before or ship sinks or even having to return to a ship with egg on their face because it remained afloat and serviceable.

[the.terrabyte.pirate]

I had a situation about two patrols ago. Hit a medium cargo with my last eel. The bow sank far enough down to be permanently awash, and a lifeboat spawned, but she kept steaming into the distance with her bum in the air... like she was mocking me.

I followed for over 36 hours, but she didn't sink.

[evan82]

Life boats are lowered down by the "crew" [ by the 3d ship model], when this model is under specific depth which is definite in val files.:yep:

[K-61]

Last night I torpedoed a large merchant with my last torpedo, in a calm sea. It dropped low by the bow but sailed on for some. After some time it dropped a lifeboat and eventually it slowed and then stopped and the convoy sailed on. As I was out of eels and she had a deck gun, I was averse to the idea of surfacing to finish her off. I decided to linger, then maneuver to about 2-3 kms directly to her front. As fate would have it, the seas whipped up and I was unable to use the deck gun anyway! I stayed nearby and watched her; after 14.5 hours she finally sank.

[Gerald]

or after a long time,is of course a well known phenomenon, it is important to have patience :yep:

[Jimbuna]

Last night I torpedoed a large merchant with my last torpedo, in a calm sea. It dropped low by the bow but sailed on for some. After some time it dropped a lifeboat and eventually it slowed and then stopped and the convoy sailed on. As I was out of eels and she had a deck gun, I was averse to the idea of surfacing to finish her off. I decided to linger, then maneuver to about 2-3 kms directly to her front. As fate would have it, the seas whipped up and I was unable to use the deck gun anyway! I stayed nearby and watched her; after 14.5 hours she finally sank.

Sounds pretty realistic to me....certainly a possibility.

[Tessa]

Last night I torpedoed a large merchant with my last torpedo, in a calm sea. It dropped low by the bow but sailed on for some. After some time it dropped a lifeboat and eventually it slowed and then stopped and the convoy sailed on. As I was out of eels and she had a deck gun, I was averse to the idea of surfacing to finish her off. I decided to linger, then maneuver to about 2-3 kms directly to her front. As fate would have it, the seas whipped up and I was unable to use the deck gun anyway! I stayed nearby and watched her; after 14.5 hours she finally sank.

Even with her armed once she's dropped out of the convoy and escorts have left her behind all you gotta do is wait for calm waters to use your deck gun. Even if submerged you don't have to run at silent so can easily maneuver however you wish; best to either position yourself on a facing where she has no guns (or out of their arc of fire) or put yourself at 4000m-5000m away. Calm seas and a stationary target you've got the major advantage long as you (yourself) can handle the deck gun well and drop 5 or 6 good waterline/low hull shots and submerge if needed if their guns have the range to reach you and present any kind of real threat. Especially something as large as a large merchant still presents a good target size to aim at even at long range.

[K-61]

I did haul off directly in front of her about 3 km and waited for the convoy to haul off a bit more and to get a bit darker. From that position her stern mounted gun should have been unable to bear on me. In that interval, a storm blew in so that when I did surface, I couldn't use the gun. I don't have an all weather guns mod installed as that is cheating. In any event, her gun did not open fire on me, which seems to indicate to me that the game accurately models arcs of fire. I submerged to see what would happen and lo and behold, she went under and I got credit for the sinking.

[K-61]

Just torpedoed a troopship and a freighter, both of which were damaged but sailed on. The freighter [large merchantman] let down a lifeboat but kept on sailing. The troopship had a fire going and I had to dive to evade. The escorts worked me over, but I survived, then reloaded and surfaced to give chase. I must have temporarily sailed outside of the SH3 world, because when I caught up to the same convoy a number of hours later, the trooper was no longer on fire and the merchantman was sitting high in the water. The scars from torpedo hits were missing from both of them, so I assume the game somehow lost track of their damaged status.

GWX Gold.

[Rubini]

The lifeboats mod spaw LB in two ways:
1. When the ships achieve certain depth, normally this will only happens on serious flooded ships (for each side independently), it will sink PROBABLY sometime later. (but not always it will really sink)
2. Associated to the debris when ship is sinking

(The first way idea is just to add a bit of uncertainty for the lifeboats spaw behaviour and it was the big challenge - to make it work well -when I was making the mod)

Now, the ships in Sh3, after a lot of hours, really can fix itselfs, I like the idea, its realistic IMHO.:up:

[K-61]

I love the mod. Thanks for sharing it, Rubini.