"Realistic sinking times for ships"

[BladeHeart]

Does this realism feature actually work as explained?

Can one alter the realsim percentage lost for not having this feature activated?

I ask these questions as, like others I am beginning to suspect that it is not the case.

Submitted for consideration. :hmm:

Cheers :()1:

:lurk:

[wetwarev7]

Does this thread help?

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=44553

[HKreutzkopf]

Does this realism feature actually work as explained...


Yes, it does. One night I left my last eel to a large cargo. Targeting was perfect, torpedo exploded midships. Fire started, ship lost speed to zero.
Weather was too stormy to use a deck gun.
So I circled around it, waiting...
It took 3 hours 57 seconds, before the ship sank.

Remark: In these times I had unmodded SHIII.

[BladeHeart]

Thanks for the replies and link, but I am still not convinced that it actually does anything as mentioned in the other thread I also have seen ships break up, sink fore or aft first, etc.

In fact I got the impression that if a ship did not sink in the first 20 minutes of game time, it never would; as for the weather, there have been a couple of times I have encountered convoys excorted by Flowers to find one of those escorts sinking in heavy seas, etc.........undamged.

Anyone know how you can alter the percentage penalty?

[iambecomelife]

Thanks for the replies and link, but I am still not convinced that it actually does anything as mentioned in the other thread I also have seen ships break up, sink fore or aft first, etc.

In fact I got the impression that if a ship did not sink in the first 20 minutes of game time, it never would; as for the weather, there have been a couple of times I have encountered convoys excorted by Flowers to find one of those escorts sinking in heavy seas, etc.........undamged.

Anyone know how you can alter the percentage penalty?

Alter the floodingtime values in the data\zones.cfg file. I have done this on my personal installation, and ships will often remain afloat for hours before sinking.

[BaronVonSchnitzel]

Thanks for the replies and link, but I am still not convinced that it actually does anything as mentioned in the other thread I also have seen ships break up, sink fore or aft first, etc.

In fact I got the impression that if a ship did not sink in the first 20 minutes of game time, it never would; as for the weather, there have been a couple of times I have encountered convoys excorted by Flowers to find one of those escorts sinking in heavy seas, etc.........undamged.

Anyone know how you can alter the percentage penalty?

I select realistic sinking times and have, many times, waited around for hours for a ship to sink or for the weather to clear.

[HW3]

Go into data/Cfg/GameplaySettings with Notepad and scroll down to [RealismPercentage].Look for this line RealisticShipSinkingTimeRealismPercentage=2 and change it to 0. You must then add 2 to one of the other settings so the total still comes up to 100 when you add the numbers up.

[BladeHeart]

Thanks

[Sailor Steve]

Hmmm...maybe I was just impatient. I have had a couple of ships not go down right away. I just thought they weren't sufficiently damaged and put another fish into them. Maybe I should have waited longer.

[Bletchley]

Found this nugget of info on wartime sinking rates that might be of interest:

70% of ships sank within 15 minutes of being struck
80% sank within 30 minutes
90% within 60 minutes
95% within 120 minutes

Data from "The hazards to men in ships lost at sea, 1940-44" by R A McCance [et al] (Medical Research Council Special Report no.291) HMSO, 1956

Bletchley

[LiciniusU662]

I think it is better stated this way:

70% of ships sank within 15 minutes of being struck
10% sank within 30 minutes
10% within 60 minutes
5% within 120 minutes...

BTw, and what about the last 5% ??? ;)

[Walsung]

5 last % = the C2 cargos :lol:

After testing the really big difference i notice between the two settings is that on "easy" mod they sunk on Hollywood style and without always in the same boring way. So now for the show i don't check anymore the realistic sinking option.

[Deep6]

5 last % = the C2 cargos :lol:


Or sank partially in shallow water not giving you credit. :down:

[Kalach]

70% of ships sank within 15 minutes of being struck
80% sank within 30 minutes
90% within 60 minutes
95% within 120 minutes

It's inclusive of the previous category. eg, 'within 30mins' means between 0-30mins, not 15-30 mins.

[uhu]

My impressions are, that ships, which I hit with 2 torps about the same time - in the middle, ships is wrecked in two - goes down in 15-30 second, even if they are 10.000+ tons!
I don't know, but this seems not to be very real...

[ICBM]

5 last % = the C2 cargos :lol:


Or sank partially in shallow water not giving you credit. :down:

Really? :huh: That is really a dumb bug if true

[Beery]

I select realistic sinking times and have, many times, waited around for hours for a ship to sink or for the weather to clear.

The problem is, the game either gives very long (3 hours or more - rare) or very short (under a minute - very common) sinking times. What's missing is the middle of the range. I'd like to see more ships sinking in about 10 minutes, or 20 or 30 minutes. According to the figures quoted in previous posts, 20% of ships (1/5th) sank between 15 minutes and an hour after being hit. In the game, virtually none sink during this period.

[HEMISENT]

Beery your right on that.
I've found a vast majority of ships are gone in under a minute.
Although, during a recent test of Rubini's milch cow mod I had a C2(whatelse?) take about 4+ hours to sink. I had nothing to do so I hung around just to see what would happen. Not long ago I also had a heavily damaged C2 sit dead for hours on fire, low in the water then gradually get slowly under way. Seems this AI self repair is happening more often lately.
Would be nice if there was a way to have them sink in the middle range time frame.



:lurk:

[Sailor Steve]

I also agree. I had one tanker sink after about an hour-I was returning to finish it off and it went down without my help. Mostly, as per my complaint before (and as Beery pointed out) I've had them sink within 30 seconds of a fatal hit.

[BaronVonSchnitzel]

I select realistic sinking times and have, many times, waited around for hours for a ship to sink or for the weather to clear.

The problem is, the game either gives very long (3 hours or more - rare) or very short (under a minute - very common) sinking times. What's missing is the middle of the range. I'd like to see more ships sinking in about 10 minutes, or 20 or 30 minutes. According to the figures quoted in previous posts, 20% of ships (1/5th) sank between 15 minutes and an hour after being hit. In the game, virtually none sink during this period.


I agree Beery...not only would that help gameplay, it'd be more realistic, I'm sure.

[bill clarke]

Well I played the Illustrious game and hit her with 4 fish all in the bow area, she went under in about a minute, put 3 fish in to the Barham, all along thee starboard side took over 3 minutes before she finally gave up and rolled on to her beam and sank.

[Beery]

Well I played the Illustrious game and hit her with 4 fish all in the bow area, she went under in about a minute, put 3 fish in to the Barham, all along thee starboard side took over 3 minutes before she finally gave up and rolled on to her beam and sank.

These are huge ships. I think they should take a good few minutes to sink even if they were ripped in two. Surely you'd have to pump water into numerous compartments at high pressure to get such a large ship to sink within 3 minutes. I'd like to see some statistics on sinking times for heavy battleships, as I just don't buy SH3's 1 minute sinkings.

In real life the Barham took 4 minutes just to roll over onto her side after the torpedo struck her, then she exploded.

Even HMS Hood, which was sunk due to a magazine explosion, took three minutes to sink.

HMS Royal Oak took 10 minutes to sink after being hit by three torpedoes amidships.

[Nedlam]

I suppose this is something that modders can only "fix" if they SDK ever comes out, right?

All of the ships I kill sink in a minute. I didn't realize I could wait around and see if they go under.

BTW does the ship still register as a "target" as your waiting? If it does can the AI call for help during this time or are they too busy bailing? :)

Wouldn't it be neat if your radio operator could pick up the S.O.S. :)

[Walsung]

My impressions are, that ships, which I hit with 2 torps about the same time - in the middle, ships is wrecked in two - goes down in 15-30 second, even if they are 10.000+ tons!
I don't know, but this seems not to be very real...

You have weak points in the ships. If you hit there (fuel tank, ammo bunker and so, they generaly sink really fast. Considering that on cargos, fuel tanks are generally located in the middle (near the engine room for obvious reasons) when you do a lucky shot, you'll have this effect. The most famous example of weak spot hit is the Hood. Doing a good approach, trying to find the most accurate manual target solution and accumulating experience to know where to hit each kind of ship, that's what is all about.

Now, the real problem is the one that Beery points at : no middle range sinking.

In my opinion the true debate lies in the capacity of the captain to estimate if he did a fatal blow to the ship or not. If he estimates that he didn't he will try to fire another torp if he can do it, if he think he did, he will go away. If you play on a realistic basis you will not stay hours in front of the ship in time compression. You will try to judge the situation and act accordingly to avoid putting in danger your sub.

That's what is supposed to do the realistic setting "realistic sinking". I'm starting to ask myself if the devs didn't answered to that problem in a far too easy way : instead of changing the sinking time they just nerfed the sinking animation. The "boring" sinking is supposed to give you less hints on the true status of the ship. But like the sinking animation happens in the last moments of the ship the only result is to have worst screen shots.

[Beery]

You have weak points in the ships. If you hit there (fuel tank, ammo bunker and so, they generaly sink really fast...

Well that's why I posted examples of ships hit by sudden catastrophic damage. All of them took at least three minutes to sink. In the game, ships generally sink in less than 1 minute with no catastrophic damage.