Well, 1.2 is here. What do you guys think now?

I took some light damage on the gun deck and went about trying to get it fixed. The manual is totally and utterly useless with it's whole four sentences on DC - that explain absolutely nothing.

So I tried just figuring it out on my own. Moving crew to the repair team, moving items up and down the repair queue, left-clicking here, right-clicking there. I never reached the point where I was told something was fixed so I can't comment on whether it was 'repaired' or 'stabilized'. I don't care which one, pick one. I just want to know for a fact which one was picked.

I had no idea how extensive the damage was, how long it was going to take to repair or even if it was being repaired at all. This is important DC information that should be jumping out of the DC screen at us, snarling and growling and flinging spittle about the room. It should not be hiding on the crew screen in a tooltip or in any other equally ridiculous place.

My opinion: essentially broken. :nope: DC is entirely too important for a submarine to have this much ambiguity about how the system works.

Yeah - I'd have to say it's definitely still broken badly - as you can tell from my experience below (pasted from another thread on this topic) with 1.2, the whole damage control experience is just whacked (not the fact that my sub was lost, but the way in which the whole sequence of events unfolded was just totally screwed up):

I decided to try a quick mission to test a few things, so picked the Battle of MIdway mission. Was kinda funny watching the Japanese fleet being attacked by a bunch of dive-bombing Lancasters, so I almost missed my firing solution on the fleet carriers. I managed to hit and sink one Hiryu class carrier - none of the many destroyers paid any attention to me, despite the fact that my scope was up way too long (watching the air attacks) - but that might not be too weird since they all had their hands full fending off the air attacks.

Anyway, I saw some smoke off in the distance and decided to surface to go see what was going on (and to test to see if the escorts would notice me - they were about 4,000 yards or so away heading away from me). Well, the battleships certainly noticed me, and everybody started shooting at me. I suffered a number of hits, and should have been dead right there, but decided to take her down to see what would happen and to try to learn how to do damage control.

Everything went pretty well - wasn't too hard to figure out how to assign men to the damage repair team and assign the priority for repairs - they seemed to go to work and in relatively short order the various items were all repaired (except for the guns and stuff up top, reasonably enough). So far, so good. Eventually (all too soon, actually) everything was showing repaired so I put the repair team back in their normal slots, sounded stand down from GQ, went to silent running and let my third watch get to sleep.

Then, just for the heck of it, I started to descend - slowly - 10 feet at a time. Got all the way down to 150 feet with no problem. Stayed there for a while - no indication of any damage or problems. Then decided to come back to periscope depth to see what was going on. At about 100 feet or so, all of a sudden everything started getting damaged and I blew tanks and headed for the surface - just as I got there, the mission ended with my sub destroyed.

Re Damage control.

I started out by filling damage control with free seamen and gradually worked up to a point where they had good rank and exp and now they are very efficient.

Had a major problem with damage control recently though where I had taken damage and repaired it so that everything looked normal but my sub insisted on slowly descending to 20 feet. Once at 20 feet it would plummet to the bottom of the ocean at an alarming rate.

This was happening to me after a very successful mission and very far from home and so it was essential to make it back to Pearl. The only way I managed to get home was by frantic track and field style button bashing of the "s" key. (if you don't know what track and field is or was all about then I suggest you ask your mummy or daddy!).

When I finally made it home I had a message saying that the repair crew were standing on the dock scratching their heads and that the Admiral wasn't too pleased that I'd trashed one of his subs. I also had RSI. Has anyone else managed to make it home in a similar way?

Ok, maybe I can shed some light on this. Its been an ongoing discussion in the mod forum as well, and recent testing and some overseas confirmation has led to an understanding of sorts. I will share the basics here - and then hope for feedback as to what mods you all may want to see given what we know. There are 2 damage models in place - an internal and external one.

Internal is compartmentalized - in essence - when you see bulkhead - think of the room leaking at that point. In reallity - the bulkhead is the equal of the room in sh3 - if you dont fix it - you'll continue to flood. In the new model - you have equipment in the room which also must be repaired - but thats seperate. In sh3 - fixing the "room" fixed all its equipment as well.

Each compartment has a certain amount of "hit points" - when you take damage - its applied to the room - with the majority going to the bulkhead. The rest goes to "other equipment". It is possible to fully repair the bulkhead - up to its full strength. Remember - this is INTERNAL.

External damage is your pressure hull. Damage here cannot be repaired without returning to home base. Refits at other ports seem wonky still - so dont use em for repair. This damage isn't "per compartment" - its a global value across the whole of your sub.

Now - the key is understanding how the 2 models work together. With a later class sub (stronger hull)- its possible to take repeated minor damage to a compartment and still be able to dive - some. But since each damage is not fixed on the hull - its cumulative - resulting in 2 effects. The first is a reduced crush depth, which we are familiar with from SH3 - but the second result is reduced bouyancy. This models damage to Main and Trim Ballast tanks (as best as we can figure at least). This is why people get everything repaired - dive and go into a death spiral - while showing no damage. Earlier - aka weaker hulled subs - could easily lose almost all their hull point if a compartment was hammered hard. Thats why you see what you see with the S class boats and such.

When your attacked - damage is applied to both the internal and external models. Internal damaging equipment - external damaging your overall hull strength.

The death spiral occurs whenever you dive and your hull is below 50% strength. The game simulates at that point massive ballast tank damage that negates your ability to control a dive. It is also possible to have your hull so damaged that ANY dive can crush you - which is what those going to PD and crushing are experiencing.

One other really interesting facet of the game is how it models crushing. It checks at an interval to see if your below test. If so - the farther away you are the faster bad things happen. Crush effects are very rapid anyway as modeled - but it would be possible (actually already done by a few) to slow the crush symptoms down. This would make it possible for you to go below test depth, risking damage - that accumulates - until you crush. If the crush is slowed - you would be able to react - but the key is damage slows - but doesnt stop entirely - until you SURFACE! It would make going under test depth possible - but only - as in real life - an option of last resort. Add in how hull damage makes you lose bouyancy - and you see the makings of a possible excellent mod.....

Now - changes are possible - but to what extent - and what direction do you want them made? Some things - like getting rid of one of the models - isnt really possible although numbers could be changed to make it have less impact.

If you have a mod suggestion - make sure you post it in the proper forum! If you have further questions as to how this model works - feel free to ask and I will do what I can to answer. Remember - this is a working understanding - its not guaranteed to be 100% accurate - but its a safe 90% bet.

On the note of some things not repairing - there are some Damage Control borks that are there - and there are some ideas on workarounds - but there is little so far that can be done on them. Hopefully another patch will fix those issues.

Good Hunting!
Captain Haplo

great post

That is a very informative post, Capt. Haplo, thanks. After reading through this entire thread (sitting here nodding at 'this', shaking my head at 'that', laughing at 'the other'), you've managed to sum up much of what's gone before as well as "shed some light" on the whole damage control process as it applies to SH4.

Your ideas on the crush depth modeling and graduated damage increase are spot on, certainly a good point to be mod'ed (or patched).

Early on in the thread someone mentioned having the damage indicator bars go from red to yellow when the damaged item is fixed at sea, but in a weaker than new condition. Also, having the captain informed (somehow) that "Primary damage to <damaged item> is repaired but the boat is weakened and diving beyond approximately < xx > feet depth is not recommended" would be great.

... ooops, that stuff should be in the mod requests area. But still somewhat pertinent here I suppose.

Well I could go on all day with quotes from the guys who served on real boats during the war like these....

"Then he directed my attention to the dished-in hull just forward of the deformed hatch. "Were lucky the hull didnt fracture from the force of that depth charge". The inner side of the hull at the top of the torpedo room looked as though a giant sledge hammer had caused a 2 yard dent in the hull of about 10" in depth" The depth charge that went off tore off all decking forward of the deck gun, tore off the 20mm gun mount and sliced off the deck gun barrel 10"! It was estimated that it was a 500lb depth charge that went off 2-3 feet from the hull."

The severe depth chargings and bombings that the "Crevalle" experienced demonstrated how tough a fleet boat is..." "The extensive damage sustained by the "Crevalle", while continuing to be functional, spoke well of how survivability is built into the submarine by means of its tough hull, its simple repairable gear, and the ease with which damage control measures can be quickly and effectively carried out"

"The "Crevalle" was taken to 500ft, 80 ft below her 412ft test depth (they all knew that there was a 150% margin of safety)"

During this depth charging the forward torpedo rooms hatch had its dogs sheared off by a depth charge and momentarily opened allowing a considerable amount of water to flood the boat. The water was waist deep in the room yet was able to maintain depth with 2/3rds bell and pumping water out of the fwd trip tank and bow bouyancy tank."




I would say that the first thing we need from the dev team are some indications of whats happening before we could accurately say what needs adjusting. The damage model may be allot easier to deal with, need less modding if we knew what was happening. That being said, however, I would say that based off everything that was ever described about the boats, from the men who were there, that the hull definately is too fragile.

Regarding bouyancy it sounds like thats the item thats really been mis understood by the dev team. First, internal trim tanks, damaged or not can be dewatered given some extra minutes. (Follow closely here) Therefore lets say damage control efforts get the flooding & leaks stopped, if all the water is pumped out of the boat (trim water and all) AND the main ballast tanks are damaged, the boat loses its reserve bouyancy and will sit lower in the water, closer to neutral bouyancy BUT not a goner even if you submerge AND it will be capable of surfacing. This is assuming that there are no big holes that havent been plugged by some damage control device. PD to 100 feet is a fair depth for serious damage like that. A submarine does not change weight to submerge/surface, it changes DISPLACEMENT. Therefore holes in ballast tanks will not affect bouyancy UNLESS the boat has extra weight and cannot dewater.

I wont even try to suggest what to mod, I'll just keep explaining until you all understand sufficiently so you can decide if its fixable with a mod. ;)

Frank
:cool:

Bingo. There are a ton of things that are not showing in either the damage board or the save files. I decided to not make a career of guessing. They fix it, open it up so we can fix it, or neither. It's pretty broken for now, so I'm just waiting on 1.3.

Torpex, your right as far as the weight/displacement issue. But what the game is modelling is the tanks inability to be "dewatered". Yes - trim tanks were "internal" compared to the MBT saddle tanks. Nothing is perfect - so look at it as a decreasing ability to control (during submerged operation) the MBT's as you normally would. Yes - trim tanks can compensate - and that is modelled somewhat as LIGHT damage doesnt cause an issue. But as damage increases - the ability of the Trim tanks to compensate diminish - and disappear somewhere about the 15% mark. This is accurate - as trim tanks are much smaller than the MBT's.

I do agree that the hulls seem a bit understrength. However - I am more inclined to the thought that the DC's may be overpowered as compared to the hulls being the issue. After all - if your a sub and you get hit with a 3" shell from a merchie - you should still be hurting! The only known times of submarines getting hit with shellfire - it was always catastrophic for the sub. The unknown ones = well they are unknown for a reason. IRL - a sub on the surface - is an eggshell......

The quote you made is exactly the kind of feedback I meant - and confirmed my thoughts on the subject as well.

Ubones - As for how things work - I tried to explain that as best as possible. No - I am not a dev, but this is based of the results of many, many modders testing for ALOT of hours. *Feel free to read in the mod forum and see the level of testing that gets done!* If your unsure of how it works at a given point - why certain things happen or whatever, please - post the question.

There are a slew of folks that look at the damage model and scream "its BORKED!" - and in a few places it is - but its actually alot more indepth and "accurate" than anything ever seen before in a subsim. Thats why understanding it is important. Once its understood - and I hope for some it is a little better now - then we can start to decide what - if any - changes the community wants.

Ideas like color changes for "damaged" areas, etc - are great. I cant speak to how feasible it is - my own modding skills are limited to the number crunching and changes in that realm. Throw them into the Mod forum and lets see where we can go to make SH4 the best.

And yes - I hope there is a 1.3 - because there are alot of issues still out there - but until we get it......
Good Hunting!
Captain Haplo

MBT's have only 2 states....Full of water or full of air...this is what gives the difference between submerged and surfaced dispacement and gives you the reserve bouyancy which makes a submarine actually quite resiliant in the flooding catagory.

If the Sub model diminishes the subs ability to dewater trim tanks or bilges then thats flat out wrong. My knowledge of how a submarine works is from having been on the boats for many years and having a hobby of WWII subs sort of made me have a slight problem..too much knowledge. LOL So trim tanks are smaller than, but the floodable area inside the pressure hull isnt. So if the boat floods one compartment 1/2 full and they manage to stop the flooding, the sub could dewater and get home. If they are basing the subs ability to dewater soley off the trim tanks then they are wrong.

The other thing here that is scewed a bit is how rapidly the boats reserve bouyancy is gone. I assure you that if the crew manages to stop the flooding and then somehow their DC repairs fail that it wont sink faster then it did initially....This DC model closely resembles the one in SH2 in how fast you die.

Any shell hit, except for glancing blows would cause critical damage, however they do not turn the sub into an instant rock either....that reserve bouyancy is there for a reason and will buy some time in conjunction with pumping the water out.

So I cant pretend to understand the way they programed the sub model, I can only tell you that its not reacting like a damaged submarine.

Frank
:cool:

Oh no, fuel leaks are definately modeled...they suck.

Shipboard Damage Control
 

Don't know about subs but on the surface ships we used to joke that DC was just to keep the water out long enough to launch the boats and rafts. Seriously, its mostly a band-aid to keep the ship functional enough to get to safety. If the damage is serious enough you want to try to get home ASAP. By the way your DC info was very helpful. The manual really doesn't cover damage control enough to be useful.:D

Sorry to have to resurrect this thread, but damage control is so little understood and so important to the sim. Now that 1.4 is out, has there been any new knowledge/insights in this area of SH4?
Sorry if there's a new thread out there about DC, I got this from the tech help sticky.

Damage control is pretty much unchanged. We did receive a hull % of damage with patch 1.4. This is the only thing that has really been added. You can find the hull % in the upper left hand corning of the damage control screen. It does help in deciding to stay on patrol or head on home for repairs.

Damage is still handled the same way.

Make sure all your structural stuff (bulkheads) makes the top of the repair list. Usually the lightest damge goes first (for me) then the heavier. Next after bulkheads usually are pumps. (needed for evacuating the flooding)
Then the engines, batteries, generators, shafting

Make sure you put your repair team on alert at the first sign of damage.