Like I say, I haven't done extensive testing on it, but since you mentioned acceleration I tried it just now, and you're correct. Stock game starting from zero on the surface, hit the stopwatch and click ahead flank, 40 seconds to reach 12 knots. Hacked version same experiment, reaches 13 knots in about 5 seconds.

One of the little quirks about batteries, the last few volts take more time and "push" to top them off - the fleet boats had a small auxiliary diesel generator for the topping off part, the Sugar boats only had the two main diesels. So that last bit between 96% and 100% would take a bit longer, but to my way of thinking from 50% to 96% should take no more than 6 to 8 hours. Granted these were little better than submersible torpedo boats, but 3 days for a full charge is nuts.

This was the fix for a GATO to get longer ranges & faster recharge times. Battery and O2 run out about the same time - distance approx 100 nm and recharge time is not that bad.

Combined with a permanent crewman with the Propulsion Expert special ability. Ducimus came up with this thinking outside the 10 knot box in this post - it was was a eureka - voila moment:
http://forum.kickinbak.com/viewtopic...&hilit=battery

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps72d36333.png

Combined with your S-Boat find. That's what I was doing shouting down that pipe... lol
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Here is what he did with the S-18 sim:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...pse1687860.png

I haven't looked at anything else or tried this yet but wanted to get this in the post.

Also didn't look to see what the final TMO 2.5 or RFB 2.0 did.

Trying this 'pipe' first. Should check what Webster did in GFO too.

Yes, the battery recharge cycle is not linear. When I got really into SHCE, I made a graph of the battery recharge over time for any class of boat I had, so I would know how long it would take. I wish I could remember how long it took. I think the time required to charge (in RL) is more a function of the batteries themselves than the engine arrangements. No matter how much engine power available, the batteries themselves can only absorb the energy so fast. Trying to cram in too much, too fast, leads to problems.

In any case, I highly doubt that any boat would be designed to use batteries that could not be recharged in a single night. The extra capacity would be mostly wasted, since you would have little opportunity to fully recharge them.

Ahh. Good find.

Whenever I try to use S3D to look at this stuff, I end up getting "lost in the weeds".

I know this is about batteries, but you brought up the 10-knot thing. I remember thinking he was wrong at the time. I never saw that thread, and now that I have I feel even more strongly about it. The reason is this quote:

Had I seen that at the time, I would have said "No, the reason 10 knots is the most efficient fuel setting is because all the sources give the maximum range at 10 knots." Not 15, but 10. Now that could be wrong, but the reason we assign 10 knots is not just because we've been saying it is.

All the sources I read said 10 knots for cruising to and from the patrol area, but keep in mind that's compromise - 5 knots would be more fuel efficient than 10 but the idea was to get there before the war was over. :ping: For Silent Hunter tho, it IS a game, not a training device, so for playability I set mine for 15 knots. That way I still have to watch fuel consumption when chasing potential contacts, but don't have to spend an hour of my game playing time watching an icon crawling across a map. For the same reason I also edited AirStrike.cfg to change Maximum Aircraft Range=2000 to Maximum Aircraft Range=200 so I wouldn't have to dive every 10 minutes while crossing the Pacific, I think they set that whole thing up with the North Sea U-Boats in 1944 as a benchmark. :doh: If you have a life outside of computer gaming you have to compromise somewhere unless you're willing to spend all your free time in total tedium.

You can patrol at 10 knots... That wasn't my point and I guess I didn't make it clear. The 10 knots is just a spec. If you try to follow a real patrol report and arrive at a specified destination mentioned in that report, and then another, and another, they had to sail faster than 10 knots.

The real problem that the fix addresses is the recharge times and trying to get approx 100 nm submerged in a fleet boat. SHCE even had it with 'Captain' William P. "Bud" Gruner as a consultant.This fix made the submerged range and recharge times closer to realistic numbers. I have read so many real patrol reports and submarine books that I know recharging the batteries did not take all night....... especially not days.

To complete the fix the Propulsion Specialist has to be edited and also be a leader in the engine compartment or wherever it is specified he should be.

The downside is the player has to be honest too because it would be easy to cheat. Most of us play dead is dead don't we? I figure why not tick the box for unlimited batteries & fuel if the player wants to cheat.

A friend was trying to reconstruct a special mission where USS TUNA departed from Australia (I've forgotten which base) and made an agent drop at a tiny island previously under Dutch control named Sanbergelap Island located in the Java Sea. (if you zoom in far enough the Dev's included this Island in SH4 which impressed me). Nothing is mentioned about the agent drop in the patrol report but the end of the war records now public & published do mention it. After the drop and a patrol in the Java and Fores Sea, USS TUNA headed to Pearl. The point is they cruised faster than 10 knots to do what they did and arrive at specified locations when they did. That is just one example.

- - --
Regarding the beautiful donation NARWHAL:
I am thinking RFB left the NARWHAL donation boat - (now not a donation) out because it was a mod unto itself. 2.0 has no NARWHAL just the empty folder - probably because of the 6" guns conflict?? - maybe this was on the 'to do' list?

Before he got burnt out and stopped work on TMO, Ducimus made a patch for TMO that includes the donation NARWHAL which is nice. Maybe something similar could be done for RFB except the two, RFB & TMO are so different. What do you guys do?

Happy Hunting!

Patrol & cruise speed
 

Finally got an answer to the travel speed enroute to and from the patrol area and patrol speed on station.

According to 'Captain' William P. "Bud" Gruner CO USS Skate (SS-305): Generally after arriving on station they patrolled on the surface at "two-engine speed which would give about 15 knots". They also set out to their patrol area and traveled at two-engine speed or 15 knots. He said the 15 knot speed was also good in case an aircraft was sighted; they could drop the planes and get under in a hurry.

Three times he mentions "two-engine speed" giving "15 knots" and that seems to be what they did.

The 10 knots mentioned in the specs is just a spec, same as a car can drive 60 mph and get a certain gas mileage, however most everyone drives faster.

So, from doing connect the dots with patrol reports and finding speeds in excess of 15 knots to 'Captain' William P. "Bud" Gruner CO USS Skate (SS-305) himself, 15 knots seems to be the historically accurate speed to travel to the patrol area & the patrol speed once on station.

Happy Hunting!

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Anyone know how to plug the donation NARWHAL into RFB and keep the 6" guns?

Good to hear, but I have two questions:

1. Where does the information come from? Is there something we can read?

2. Saying that 10 knots is "just as spec" is fine, but did Captain Gruner say that 15 knots actually gave the best effeciency or that they cruised that fast in spite of reduced effeciency?

And an observation: You say that was the speed for both cruising to and from the patrol area and for patrolling, but you quote him as saying they patrolled at that speed "after arriving on station."

aanker, I don't believe anyone is suggesting that 10 kts is the standard cruising speed. It is, as you say, the spec speed for stating cruising range. It may not be the most fuel-efficient speed, although that speed will usually be somewhere nearby. (Most developers "build to spec" just as car manufacturers design their vehicles to be most fuel-efficient in the Government's mileage test speed profile.) It probably won't be the most operationally efficient speed in all circumstances. O'Kane writes of both his boat and Morton's transiting at both higher and lower speeds than 10 kts, or even "two-engine speed." In a couple of instances, IIRC, Morton transited patrol areas at flank speed. Ned Beach describes similar situations. On patrol, sometimes boats would sit idle with no way on. Late in the war some boats would patrol at 5 kts in the hope they would be taken for a fishing boat if picked up on radar. There are many variations, based on the tactial and operational situation. The first-person accounts (Beach, Calvert, Fluckey, Grider, O'Kane, Ruhe, Ruiz, and I've probably left some out) can give you an idea of what worked and what didn't. (Rather like sitting around in the officers' bar at the Gooneyville.) And the HSNA website hnsa.org/doc/subreports.htm has many patrol reports which make interesting reading.

But when I am trying to get home on limited fuel, it's good to know that a setting of 9-12 kts will give me the best chance of making it.

Sorry I didn't specify the specific source. I thought most people were aware of the "Bud" interviews. Everyone who has SHCE has the "Bud" movies. I can't upload them because Ubisoft still owns them. If you have the SH1 SHCE installation disk, drag the "Bud" folder from the CD to your Hard drive. Then watch the movies inside this folder or convert them and watch them.

"Bud" was the consultant to SH1. There are 16 short SMK movies in the "Bud" folder in SH1 - SHCE. These are "Smacker" files. Using a conversion tool the Smacker movies can be converted to AVI or whatever. For example "RAD Video Tools" will do it. Be sure to scan the installation exe before installing and scan the installation after installing. You're looking for spyware or some nasty virus that comes with some software. Using this "RAD Video Tools" program I came up clean.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...pseea78a0d.png

I converted all of them, 1 - 16. In total about 28 minutes or so of a real WW II submarine 'Captain' talking about his real war experiences and US submarine operations.

7.SMK & 8.SMK both mention "two engine speed" and the "15 knots at two engine speed" specifically is again at the end of 7.SMK. I'm not going to watch all of them again right now however he mentions this a third time.

"Bud" is a wealth of knowledge. When talking about battery life he says that a submarine can travel at 6 knots submerged for 6 hours. He is trying to make the point that it is important to conserve batteries and use a slower speed or they will run down.... but he gives a solid example - "6 knots for 6 hours" that one can work from when adjusting these sim's and the Propulsion Specialist to get a similar result in SH4.

I made the fix to SH4 using numbers that are very close to those that Ducimus came up with through his thinking/research. My Propulsion Specialist adjustment is a little more conservative but I have no problem sailing from Pearl to the Empire, even farther, into the Yellow Sea or down to the Philippines and back to Pearl at 15 kts.

Hope this helps.