SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Can turning radius be changed?

Quite some time ago, I tweaked some of the performance controlling factors myself. It took quite a bit of experimentation to get the boats that I was/am using (VIIb and VIIc) to operate a little more "realistically" than they do in stock or in most of the MODs. I managed to slightly improve turning time and radius by tweaking the drag coefficients; but to be honest, I didn't/don't really understand exactly how that worked. I could guess at that, but that would be just a guess.

First of all, you will need "S3D - Silent 3ditor" by skwas, available here on the Downloads page. Using Silent 3ditor, find your main game folder and open the "data/Submarine/NSS_Uboat21" folder. You will see 6 files; open the ".sim" file and then the "unit_Submarine" and the "unit_Ship" file.

Under the "unit_Ship" file you will find "obj_Hydro" and in that there will be "Surfaced" and "Submerged" files, both of which have a "drag_LR" and a "drag_UD" file. AFAIK, those values determine the degree of speed reduction when the hull of the boat changes direction Left-Right and Up-Down. Under the "unit_Ship" file you will also find a "rudders" file which also has a "drag" value. That affects the reduction in speed when the rudder is applied to make a turn.

Modifying the LR drag value or the rudder drag value alters the speed of the boat and subsequently the speed with which the boat turns, which alters the advance and transfer distances during a turn, thus changing the turning radius. Modifying both of those values results in some serious changes in the boat's behavior. Please note that I did not see really significant improvements without substantial changes, which in turn caused other unwanted changes. The acceptable changes resulted in only small improvements in those characteristics that I was trying to tweak.

PLUS...be sure to copy your original "NSS_Uboat21" folder in order to restore things if/when you screw them up completely...lesson learned the hard way! And/or, be sure to write down every change you make in order to un-do/re-do each change as you conduct your experiments to reach a satisfactory level of improvement.

Good luck and good hunting.