I wonder if we really only have two engines
 

Ive had this hunch for awhile, and this kind of supports it.

You know all those post about only have 2 engines destroyed but being unable to move?

Well, ive always thought, it was because we *really* only have two engines. Or so has been my hunch. Since the game is based off of Sh3, and in SH3, subs only had two main engines, not four.

So, if you look closely at a subs UPC file, heres what you'll find:

(note the bold sections)

So it looks like, engines number 3, and 4, arent tied into any damage zone. Do they really do anything? I don't know, but i kinda doubt that they do.And from behavior observed where if you lose the number 1 and 2 engines you end up being dead in the water.... this would explain alot. Could it be that engines 3 and 4, are purely just for looks?

Interesting. What would happen if the zone ID was changed for 3 and 4?

Im not sure, but my feeling is we'd be twice as vulnerable to being disabled. If theres only two *real* engine damage zones, it could mean that we'd concievably have twice the "surface area" exposed to damage. In short, if we lost any two of the engines, we'd still be dead in the water, only much quicker. Or so is my guess.

:hmm: You're probably right. And it would be a buggar to rewire the game to recognize/use them. As long as that was being done, another button might as well be added that could be used to turn them on and off. :hmm:

... And you have 4 RPM dials ... 2 left and 2 right ... ;)
May be it's not finished feature...
And now it's eye-candy only ... :hmm:

P.S.
And (in Command Room sub interior) the part of dials do not work ... eye-candy ... because, have no own dial controllers ...

Good point, Anvart, perhaps the devs planned to include all four engines and full control for them but were unable to finnish it owing to the deadline restrictions they were working under. So they just went with the basic two enigne configuration.

Judging by the loads of unused SH3 files still present in SH4 that would be no surprise. You could almost throw in the SH3 executable, and you'd have SH3 with loads of SH4 files left over :)

Actually I found that if the HP for the engines is multiplied by two, you get the effect of having four engines.

I purposely got deck gunned by another ship after doing this mod to obtain damage to the diesles. The result? The damage acted as if it was taking out one engine at a time. I had two engines "destroyed" and two that were slighty damaged, and was still able to make 8 knots, with the diesle sound audible.

I have to look at which files I modded, cause lately this has not been an issue with the mods, and patches of late.

The S-boats are definitely modeled as having two engines, which is correct. They even have one propeller not turn while the batteries are charged.

This sounds very interesting.

Ahhh, c'mon, the 2 extra diesels are for the new advanced sub that was coming out at the end of the war. They worked off the CO2 in the spaces when under water and gave 18 knots. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Jib01

Which engines were destroyed? 3 and 4, or 1 and 2? Theres a big difference there.

Could it be.......?
 

Could this be the chink in the armour that allows us to get home even though we have a couple of engines damaged?......
Oh why oh why didn't I study computers in the Nav instead of learning how to find out where I was when surrounded by nothing but Blue Water? (just make sure you change charts before you run into the chart wall when you get to one of the edges of the chart).

I know next to nothing, (alright to be honest....nothing at all), about programming or hex editing, etc. , But Ducimus where did you find these files? Is there a seperate file for each class of Sub? I'm wondering if I could tinker with them to see if'n I can get all four engines accounted for....Just a pipe dream maybe.:-?

This will mess with your experiments with AP DCs, but this is my idea.

There is zero chance in RL that the diesels would ALL be taken out by a DC attack. In addition, fleet boats had an aux engine not modeled in the game.

To stop a fleet boat from moving forever, you need to destroy FIVE diesels in RL. Five.

So, we should make the engines indestructible to DC attack. If their armor factor value is 4 like other things, meaning there is a 100 point damage threshold, we make the AFV 20 instead. Armor 20, AFV 20, then 400 damage is required to touch them (for stock it would be 500 (AV=25)). If it was 10, then 200 or 250. That's a minradius DC. Perhaps that is better.

We do that, and a contact DC will damage the engines, bot anything else will not touch them... except GUNS that have AP. Drive on the surface, you can lose diesels, underwater, 100% safe except a boat killing DC.

tater

The diesels have 100 hitpoints.

zones glop:
What about massively upping the armor on them?

What we want is that a shell with AP (or a bomb) that HITS the engine room (not a near miss), can take them out. Since only 2 matter in game, it should be at least twice as hard. If a single hit to the compartment tends to hit both at once, then it should be 4 times harder to kill them.

Here is the crazy part of this game and modeled very poorly. Normally the 4 engined submarines could run at 15 1/2 knots on two engines. Thus saving fuel but also making good time at 15 1/2 knots. We have to run at 11 knots on supposedly 4 engines not to burn up fuel. :roll:

Separate engine controls is almost a must with the present game setup.

Excellent idea!

What's the difference between the overall compartment we see fot the engine room, and the diesel engine room vs electric, etc?

Can we make the [Diesel Engine Room] have 50 armor instead of -1? That would be a 200 point min to penetrate with a non-AP DC, right?

Is -1 no armor, or infinite?

-1 i beleive means default value, ... 25 if im not mistaken.


I have an alternate idea. Rather then add AF, i think i might try doubleing or trippling the hitpoints in the UPC for just engines 1 and 2.

edt: nevermind on that just 1 or 2, looks like its an all or nothing deal.

I just changed the armor to 50 (some are explicitly 25, which is default, no?). I got sunk a couple times by kaibokans and not once did I lose diesels, though I took light damage to them.

Unfortunately most damage was to the forward hull in most cases.

tater

i hope that helps
 

I hope that helps

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/7990/enginessw6.jpg


So, yes there are only two electric and two diesel engines.

Let me explain.

NSS_Porpoise.zon defines the compartments. There are 4 compartments of type 21,22,55,56. These are the links to zone properties in zones.cfg.

increasing armor will make the engines take no damage at all when the bombs cannot penetrate it.
increasing hp will cause less damage but will still damage both.

What you can do:
1. you can have 4 engines. by creating 4 new zones and zoneproperty-entries.
2. you can make the zones smaller and wider appart so its harder to hit all engines simultaneously.

Adding new zones is hexwork, you can just copy existing zones and change their coordinates. At same time you can make the displacements. When adding new property entries ones must be carefull. You may not just add new zones to the zonelist. There can only be 210 zones and they are all used. So what you can do is replace an existing zone. You must find zones that are basicly the same and combine them to make a free zonenumber that you can use.