Yes. Here is what they look like:

This is the way they look on the Porpoise, Salmon and Sargo classes. Of course the S-classes don't have any at all.

I guess it's not a fatal flaw, but it would be better if they worked right.

I looked at some of the screenshots of the interiors Vickers did. They do look nice! I don't know what, if anything, I should do as far as my mod is concerned. I looked at a few of the interior files before, and quickly concluded it was beyond my ability to deal with.

I was able to substitute the Gato interior in the Narwhal and use it for testing. I don't know if it is fully functional, but I could use the inclinometers for dives, which was all I really needed.

I'll look at some of the Vickers03 mods, and try to see how they work. Maybe I'll learn something. :haha:

This is to let everyone know, I am still hard at work on this.

I have gone back to using the RSRDC Narwhal. It didn't work for me before, but I think that was because I hadn't restarted the game when I tried it. Some files are loaded when the game starts, some when you run the mission. When I tried it again, it was ok, apart from some missing crew, which I fixed. This eliminates any potential problems about the Nar fitting seamlessly into the campaign.

There are a couple other things I would like to change: There are only 2 crew slots for each gun, eventhough, there are 6 in the *.upc file. I would like to have 6 slots for each gun, but don't know what the problem is. The other thing is that while the exterior gun models are large pieces, in game terms, they are 4 inch guns. I will try to fix that.

I've completely redone all the sub diving aspects. This has taken at least a few weeks, and was a lot of work. I'll have more to say about this later.

I can promise that the old problem of super-rapid acceleration will be completely fixed. The problem of slowing due to constant helming, that you mention isn't due to Webster's or any mod. It is a stock issue. Turning ships will always slow down some; it is just a question of how much. I hope it will be less noticeable, as the turning should be better.

I am working intensely on this, in order to get it done. It isn't helping anyone's game as long as it's locked up in my computer.

The *.upc files can be opened with notepad. I've been going through them, using WinMerge to compare the RFB versions to what I am using. There is a lot of this crew minutia that I don't really understand, so it is slow going. I had to backtrack, after I realized I had based my files on the RFB 2.0 version, instead of using the version in the later patch. What fun!



Anyway, I've finished with the ships, and apart from the Narwhal, the subs, too.

Gawd! It didn't think it was that much.

TBH, I haven't done any testing of the issue; just turning generally. Armistead talked about this and wanted a fix, but, like I said, it is a stock issue. Are you sure this was entirely due to the helming and not to damage?

What mods are you using?

***

I made a quick mission to see what happens when I 'chase' a merchant. I used a Medium Modern Composite type with a max. speed of 17 kn. I set it at 15 kn. in the mission and chased after it with some desultory shelling.

with RFB 2.0:

15.5, 13.5, 10.5, 10.5, 11.0 kn.

with ISP:

12.0, 6.0, 7.0, 9.0, 9.0, 7.5 kn.

Now I hasten to say these figures don't prove much. I only did two tests and the 'target' ship speeds are simply estimated by distance covered in 3 minutes; that is from 0 to 3, 3 to 6, 6 to 9, etc., etc. So, it does not take into account the curvature of the path, and in fact, the ship was not taking a straight course, but trying to steer away, while I was having to shoot with a rear mount gun, and not directly behind it.

This is not that easy to test in an objective fashion, so I think I will have to just compare turning speed and radius.

__________________________________________________ _______________________________________

In any case, I don't think a full solution to this is possible without being able to recode the AI.

Since I'm finishing up my work on ISP 2.0, I'll give some peeks inside the physics of the game.

The most complicated issue of the subs is the diving. In version 1.1 I tried to get fast diving, in line with published times I've read. In retrospect, I consider this a mistake. Dive angles were very large, and almost certainly, unrealistic. To correct the matter, I've completely redone the diving. Before, diving times took priority over diving angles, whereas now, diving angles take priority over times.

I doubt that any SH4 game can ever have fully realistic diving, and I think I've identified the main, or one of the main reasons for this.

Below is a diagram from a USN training manual showing how the dive planes are supposed to work:

Quote:

The location of the planes is shown in Figure 18-2. (The dimensions shown are approximate, and apply only to the submarine described herein.) As indicated, the bow planes tend to change the vertical position of the submarine on an even keel. There is a certain rotational moment, but it is counteracted to a great extent by the longer after body which acts somewhat as a stabilizing rudder, resisting angular displacement. The stern planes are located at a greater distance from the center of buoyancy and, although they are smaller in area, their effect is much greater than that of the bow planes. Their effectiveness is increased by their location directly aft of the propellers. This combination of a long moment arm and location in the propeller wash results in a rotational movement. Thus the bow planes are normally used to control the depth, and the stern planes the angle of the ship.

Alas, the game doesn't work this way. Fwd and aft planes seem to have about equal effect on the angle, the change in depth seems almost independent of the operation of the planes. This is especially true, when we remember that we can order a dive when motionless, and the sub will go up or down, and then hover when it reaches a certain depth. Speed and dive angle allow for rapid change in depth, but after the boat levels out (about 10 to 20 ft. before reaching ordered depth), rate of ascent/descent becomes very, very slow.

I've tried many different schemes in trying to fix, or work around the problem. In the game, all the boats have a gravity center, CG, in the middle of their length. I tried moving it forward substantially. [It isn't shown in the above diagram where it should be, but appears somewhere forward of the middle.] This should permit the fwd planes to have more effect on the depth, and less on the angle. Unfortunately, setting the CG forward gives the boats an upward angle, and worse, causes them to reach an equilibrium at a shallower depth. Moving the CG backward gives the boat a downward trim angle, and causes it to go deeper. The angle is the opposite of what one would expect, and seems to indicate a mistake in the coding/model somewhere.

I tried setting the CG forward, and using a slightly increased mass, to make to boat reach an equilibrium at the correct depth. This idea seemed promising, but when I tested it, the boat took even longer than normal to make the last 10 ft. of descent.



Next post, I'll explain what I finally settled on, for the diving scheme.

Diving Qualities (continued):

Having decided to give diving angles a higher priority, I had to figure out how best to do this. I played around with lowering the drag coefficients of the planes, and/or increasing the submerged UD (up-down) drag co., but I found this to work in a rather poor manor. The boat would be more sluggish and pitch over at a slower rate, yet in a deep dive the angle would increase as it went. That isn't what I wanted; rather there should be a limiting dive angle X, at speed Y that the boat would maintain, even if you were diving to a very deep depth. Same with climbing from a deep depth.

To put it another way, the 'righting force' was too weak. Increasing the UD drag co. resisted the pitching rate, but did nothing to increase the righting force. After much experimentation, I found a way to do just that.

In ISP v1.1, I set the GC of the subs pretty high. I did this for two reasons: first to have the boats tossed around and roll more in stormy weather, and second, to make the boats level out more gradually in dives/climbs. The second aspect probably didn't have all that much effect, though. Experimenting with changes in GC showed that lowering it did indeed produce a stronger righting force, and allow the boat to reach an equilibrium at a lower dive angle. This was more stable diving behavior, and exactly what I wanted.

I found that a fwd. plane co. of about .012, prop factor 0, combined with a aft. plane co. of .006, prop fact. .06 worked well for most of the boats. I used slightly lower numbers for the S-class. Strangely, the Gato class planes seemed to have twice the effect, so I had to reduce the coefficients by half. Perhaps there is a mistake in the coding where they applied the effect for each plane, instead of for each pair? There didn't seem to be any apparent reason why they would behave so much differently.

I adjusted the CG, and calibrated the diving so each boat diving from periscope depth at 6 kn. would achieve a dive angle of 10 to 10.5 degrees. This means that in 'normal' dives, the boats should keep within 15 deg. at all times. This is the limit of the inclinometers at the dive station, so I consider this a sensible limit. 'Crash' dives may exceed this angle, however.

One other thing about boat trim. I mentioned that the GC should probably be somewhere forward of the middle, but because of some mistake in the game coding, this doesn't work. I decided to move the CG slightly to the rear. This has no measurable effect on the performance of the dive planes, but gives a slight downward angle at normal trim. This amounts to something between 0.5 and 1.0 degree. I did this to speed up the creeping phase of dives, where the last 10 feet of descent takes so long. This reduces the rise angles you get when ascending, but this is of little consequence, as the boats seemed to have much less trouble rising to a certain depth, than diving to a certain depth.

***

Next post: Ballast tank flood rates.