SimHQ SHIII Tonnage War Mod - Updated 19-12-05

[Der Teddy Bar]

Quote… "One of the stupidest things in game design is the lack of uncertainty given to the player"

The SimHQ Tonnage War mod will encompass several key aspects that complement each other and we expect to make a more in-depth gaming experience.


Tonnage War – As it says, Tonnage is in, renown is out. Upgrades are FREE but take time.
Not Your Grand Mothers Ship Damage – Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you a ship that sinks by flooding!
Not Your Grand Mothers Crew Management – Your successes, failures or bad luck will impact upon your men’s performance.


Tonnage War - Due out February/February 2006
The Tonnage War mod will put the emphasis back into sinking ships. Essentially moving away from the renown based upgrade system.

Everything is free. However, upgrades will now take time. Upgrade from a Type II to a VII will take 75 days. It will take 35 days to get your diesel engines upgrades and 45 days to get a new AA platform (i.e. conning tower) installed. The times will be as historically correct as we can be within the confines of the game.

Your medals will be given according to your tonnage and as per the historical average.


Not Your Grand Mothers Ship Damage - Due out January/February 2006
The overall aim of the Not Your Grand Mothers Ship Damage Mod was to make ships ‘sink’… and not just run out of Hit Points.

The Not Your Grand Mother's Ship Sinking Mod does not aim nor intend to make it harder to sink ships than it was historically. It cannot be denied that the Not Your Grand Mother's Ship Sinking Mod does make it more challenging to sink ships than it was in the stock game, but I am sure that even the most ardent Silent Hunter III fan will acknowledge that the sinking of ships in the standard game is at the gamey end of the realism scale.

In attaining our goal, the Not Your Grand Mothers Ship Damage Mod has achieved a level of uncertainty never before seen in a u-boat/submarine simulation.

Not Your Grand Mothers Ship Damage Mod Preview #1 (http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=129&t=001472#000004)
Not Your Grand Mothers Ship Damage Mod Preview #2 (http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=129;t=001471)
Not Your Grand Mothers Ship Damage Mod Preview #3 (http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=129&t=001482)


Not Your Grand Mothers Crew Management - Due out January/February 2006
We have moved away from punishing the player through overly zealous ‘fatigue’ and made it so that your successes will now have a direct impact on how well your men perform!

As weeks go by Morale will slowly be removed impacting upon the performance of your men. By sinking ships you will raise or keep your men's morale high resulting in keeping your men’s performance at it peak.

Reckless actions and/or bad luck, where your men are injured or die will cause the crew's morale to plummet which in turn effects their performance.

Go a long time (about 6 weeks) between sinking’s and again, this will impact upon your men’s performance through Morale attrition.

[Marhkimov]

Each one of these mods will be great!

I appreciate all of your hard work in trying to improve the gameplay aspects of SH3. Keep it up! :up:


Marhkimov.

[Hudsonhawk]

I'm stepping into a "Time Machine" as we speak!!!!!! :rock: .....I've been checking your forum over at Sim.....CAN'T WAIT!!!!! :|\ :up:

[Drebbel]

Sounds like this will be one of the first SHIII mods I will install. Keep up the good work mate !

[Krupp]

This will raise the sim to a whole new level :up: Feels like being a kid again and waiting for santa...

[Dowly]

Ohh :o I like that new ship sinking tweak!

[Camaero]

Add me to the list of people who can't wait! :rock:

[CV-707]

And me! Absolutely!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[coronas]

Go ahead! All we need this mod!





I'm a old school sailor....always I'm drunker

[CCIP]

I'm glad you're putting the time into this. I always knew it was possible to improve the situation with the damage model, and I'm glad you at least found a way to fix a part of it :)

[Observer]

Here is a bit of info on morale and efficiency in the crew mangement mod:

Efficiency: A measure of how capable the crew member is of conducting certain tasks. Many factors have an impact on crew efficiency such as fatigue and proficiency.

In this model, awards and promotions will tend to improve crew member performance. This behavior can be correlated to the promotion and award systems in modern navies where those sailors better able to perform tasks in a given rating are given awards and/or promotions to higher ranks. While SH3 does not model individual crew members well, this system can be applied such that those crew members receiving awards or promotions are those deserving the recognition and as a consequence receive a “bonus” to performance. This performance bonus allows higher ranking crew members to recover efficiency 10% faster than the next lower rank.

The decay rate for crew efficiency has undergone many tweaks. The version of the “Not you grandmothers crew management mod” will cause all crew efficiencies to be at a minimum after about 18 hours, however many other factors will influence how well compartments function. The rate at which efficiency is lost varies based upon the location of the crew member. For example, crew members in the torpedo rooms, engine spaces, damage control and the bridge will reach minimum efficiency first. During harsh weather, crew members on the bridge will reach minimum efficiency even faster.

In order to offset the lack of additional crew berthing, “neutral” spaces have been established in the engine room not currently in use. Crew members will not regain efficiency, but they will not lose efficiency either.

Crew members at minimum efficiency will be denoted with an “E” next to the character portrait.



Morale: This is a measure of the emotional condition, or confidence, of the crew. Morale has a dramatic impact of crew effectiveness. Crew member injury or death has a tremendous negative impact on crew morale, and can devastate the entire crew morale. Sinking ships, on the other hand provides a boost to crew morale. In the “Not you grandmothers crew management mod” four to five crew deaths or eight to ten crew injuries will result in the crew reaching minimum morale. Like the efficiency statistic above, crew members at minimum morale will be denoted with an “E” next to their portrait. Due to the limitations in SH3 it is not possible to differentiate between minimum efficiency and minimum morale without looking at the individual crew members. The easiest way is to avoid situations resulting in crew injury or death. When crews are at minimum efficiency, most compartments will stop working after about 12 hours, though it does vary by compartment.

The current system starts every crew member at maximum moral. This morale is slowing reduced during the course of the patrol. This can be thought of as a long term sort of "combat fatigue". Morale has been timed to go down very slowly over about a six to seven week period. If you sink ships during this period of time, you will increase crew morale and extend the amount of time before crew morale reaches a minimum.



Health: As the name implies, this is the physical well being of an individual crew member. Rank no longer provides improvements in health with every crew member on an equal basis.

[Nedlam]

In the “Not you grandmothers crew management mod” four to five crew deaths or eight to ten crew injuries will result in the crew reaching minimum morale... When crews are at minimum efficiency, most compartments will stop working after about 12 hours, though it does vary by compartment.

I love this idea and have been waiting for this thing to come out for awhile now but I have a question.

Worst case scenerio: You attack a convoy and get hammered in the process by a DC attack which has killed four men and wounded a few more. If I'm reading this right two very unrealistic things can happen:

1) Due to the low moral of the deaths the efficiency will be "E." Now the ship is probably really, really banged up your crew will just sit around feeling sorry for themselves as the uboat sinks deeper and deeper...

2) They manage to save the boat. But after 12 hours no matter how nice you ask them (their psyche is shattered you don't what to yell :)) they wont work the diesel engines to get you home so you have to call for a tow.

Am I close or am I way off? Again, I'm talking worst case but it could happen.

[Paajtor]

You have a point there, imo.

It says "When crews are at minimum efficiency"...and not "When crews are at efficiency=zero".

So I think there must be some sort of progress possible...but at a very slow pace at start, and getting faster as time passes by (and enemies get out of sight).

[rulle34]

Awsome work. :up: I read the posts at SubHQ and I must say that this work seems to be very well underbuilt.
Really looking forward to this

[Observer]

In the “Not you grandmothers crew management mod” four to five crew deaths or eight to ten crew injuries will result in the crew reaching minimum morale... When crews are at minimum efficiency, most compartments will stop working after about 12 hours, though it does vary by compartment.

I love this idea and have been waiting for this thing to come out for awhile now but I have a question.

Worst case scenerio: You attack a convoy and get hammered in the process by a DC attack which has killed four men and wounded a few more. If I'm reading this right two very unrealistic things can happen:

1) Due to the low moral of the deaths the efficiency will be "E." Now the ship is probably really, really banged up your crew will just sit around feeling sorry for themselves as the uboat sinks deeper and deeper...

2) They manage to save the boat. But after 12 hours no matter how nice you ask them (their psyche is shattered you don't what to yell :)) they wont work the diesel engines to get you home so you have to call for a tow.

Am I close or am I way off? Again, I'm talking worst case but it could happen.

Close but not quite on both. The crew will work, but they will not work well (long). The default crew configurations are big enough that you should be able to rest enough men to continue operating the engines, and you should almost always have the off watch section in rest quarters unless required to save the boat. You may not be able to reload weapons until you've rested the crew further though. In most cases you will not be depth charged for 12 hours, and if you were, you would rest enough men to ensure the boat would continue to operate. In those situations, you most likely won't be doing heavy activity (aside from damage control, and you can do this with just a few men) anyways. In summary, morale created a challenging, but not impossible situation. Remember to rest crew members when they are just sitting around, and remember the engine room not in use is a neutral zone -- use this to your advantage!

On the "E" issue (a replacement for the RUb "-" or the default "!"). It serves two purposes. First it's a reminder to you that the crew is at a minimum efficiency OR minimum morale state. I wish there were a symbol for each, but it's not possible in SH3. Second, when the crew member has the "E" next to their portrait, you cannot click on compartments and have SH3 auto place the crew members. This means you will have to drag and drop every crew member to the desired compartment. This is a bit annoying, but it's a default SH3 behavior I don't know how to change. One way to look at it is you shouldn't have gotten yourself in that situation. :)

[Der Teddy Bar]

In the “Not you grandmothers crew management mod” four to five crew deaths or eight to ten crew injuries will result in the crew reaching minimum morale... When crews are at minimum efficiency, most compartments will stop working after about 12 hours, though it does vary by compartment.

I love this idea and have been waiting for this thing to come out for awhile now but I have a question.

Worst case scenerio: You attack a convoy and get hammered in the process by a DC attack which has killed four men and wounded a few more. If I'm reading this right two very unrealistic things can happen:

1) Due to the low moral of the deaths the efficiency will be "E." Now the ship is probably really, really banged up your crew will just sit around feeling sorry for themselves as the uboat sinks deeper and deeper...

2) They manage to save the boat. But after 12 hours no matter how nice you ask them (their psyche is shattered you don't what to yell :)) they wont work the diesel engines to get you home so you have to call for a tow.

Am I close or am I way off? Again, I'm talking worst case but it could happen.
Nedlam,
Good question...

I feel as players we need to adjust expectations on what is possible. We have for so long had 'supermen' as crew, that we have 24/7x365@110% mindset.

We need to consider, how many men, and of what qualification would be needed to bring home a damaged u-boat?

We also need to adjust our expectations on what is physically and mentally possible for a man to do.

Anyway, that is enough thinking from me, my head hurts :rotfl:


Answer to Q1. The men will continue to work but at a reduced amount. At minimum morale you are only loosing 1/3 capacity.

Answer to Q2. At minimum morale, a fully rested crew will run the engines for a period of 12 hours as apposed to 18. So if you are short on me, all that is required is that you stop, rest the men and then continue your trip home. It will take longer, but again I refer back to my opening statements.

I must stress, that at minimum morale you are only loosing 1/3 capacity i.e. 12 hrs as appossed to 18 hrs. While it is unrealistic for your men to be instantly 'depressed' and not perform at 100% for that critical time due to the loss of another crew member, there is little we can do about this as it is the game engine. We have allowed I feel a lot of casualties before reaching minimum morale, and again, I must stress, you are only loosing 1/3 capacity i.e. 12 hrs as appossed to 18 hrs.

Also, if you manage to sink a ship afterwards the mens morale will rise. As a result they will perform better.

I feel that we have a very good balance. There will be times, and I must say, they will be rare, or at least for me they have been I am dead anyway, that a player will find himself in a position of Question 1 and survive. Unless of course he is being hero with his crew in a deck gun engagement, and in that scenario, tuff luck!

[Nedlam]

Thanks for the info. I think I understand now. I was looking at it as a RuB type of fatigue where they would not rest up no matter what you do because their moral was so low and because they wouldn't rest up you might not be able to sink anything to get their moral to come up. A vicious cycle. :)

It will be a learning process but it will be fun.

I already drag and drop every single crewman to their proper place on the boat. I was doing it on 8 hour shifts but now I make'em work for 12. Their Union rep is currently negotiating a deal where they get a 10 hour work day with two schapps breaks and a new dirty magazine every other week. But management wont budge...on the schapps. :)

[Der Teddy Bar]

I was replying as Observer was, so yer, as he said.....

[Stary Wuj]

Looks great !

BTW:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As weeks go by Morale will slowly be removed impacting upon the performance of your men. By sinking ships you will raise or keep your men's morale high resulting in keeping your men’s performance at it peak.

Reckless actions and/or bad luck, where your men are injured or die will cause the crew's morale to plummet which in turn effects their performance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I remember it was promised by DevTeam before SH3 was released.

:yep:


Stary Wuj

[glenno]

Keep up the good work .
Be more aggresive.

[CV-707]

Why I can't wait for the mod:
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/2121/sh3img2312200513530535pe1js.jpg

That **** ship was in a 50 degree angle in the water and kept floating for hours. This is my coolest death message ever!

[Letum]

Any update?

[Der Teddy Bar]

Any update?
Both Mods are still being beta tested. I will have a better understanding of where the NYGM Ship Damage Mod is in a week or so as more feedback comes in. Testing is always done in campaign.

I will have to await Observer to let you know the status of The NYGM Crew Management Mod.

[Observer]

Any update?
Both Mods are still being beta tested. I will have a better understanding of where the NYGM Ship Damage Mod is in a week or so as more feedback comes in. Testing is always done in campaign.

I will have to await Observer to let you know the status of The NYGM Crew Management Mod.

Same for the crew management mod.

[Jungman]

This will be a great addition! Thanks for the update. :cool:

[wetwarev7]

A suggestion:

Is there any way to simulate fights when crew morale is low? Like maybe having a random crew member get injured at some point when morale is at a minimum? Although this would have to be done in such a way as to not bring morale down even further.

Anyways, looking forward to the mod!

[Salvadoreno]

sounds greeeat!!! The sinking ship mod sounds the best, im tired of these C3s pressing on like nothing happened after i hit them with 2 torps. I always said "shouldnt there be flooding or something?"

[Observer]

A suggestion:

Is there any way to simulate fights when crew morale is low? Like maybe having a random crew member get injured at some point when morale is at a minimum? Although this would have to be done in such a way as to not bring morale down even further.

Anyways, looking forward to the mod!

No. Not that I know of.

[Jungman]

Is the Damage Mod moved to Feburary/March? Is it meet with success?

[GT182]

Question on Fatigue and Moral of the mod. Will it be able to be set not to use in SHIII Commander as it is now with "No Fatigue"? Some might like the mod but still don't want to have to use and put up with mangaing crewmen.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Is the Damage Mod moved to Feburary/March? Is it meet with success?
Beta testing is coming along slowly, but surely. However it is taking longer than expected.

The NYGM Ship Damage Mod works and works well, has since November last year. When I say works well, it works as advertised but as is to be expected needed/needs changes, will for the first 6 months at least. One of the testing issues is that a change for one ship can effect up to 10 others. The effect is not equal on each ship. That is, if I have 1 ship sinking when the bow compartment is set to a value of 8, another ship may need an external view to actually see the effect.

The NYGM Ship Damage Mod will be a very big shock even for those who must have this mod. Especially after playing the default games BOOM format for so long. It was for me and it was/is my Mod.

Because of this I wish to try and ensure that when the NYGM Ship Damage Mod is released that the player will get the best experience within the constraints that the testing allows. Testing is an issue due to a lack of qualified beta testers.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Question on Fatigue and Moral of the mod. Will it be able to be set not to use in SHIII Commander as it is now with "No Fatigue"? Some might like the mod but still don't want to have to use and put up with mangaing crewmen.
I think I understand the question :rotfl:

All of the NYGM Mods will be distributed as a package and as a stand alone and will be compatable with SH3Cmdr.

[GT182]

Ok and thanks Teddy. Sounds good to me.