[WIP] Dud Torpedoes Hardcore - testers needed
 

For realism junkies and competent testers only, at the moment.

You know the drill, be sure to make a backup of your original Torpedoes_US.sim in data/Library

http://files.filefront.com/Torpedoes_USsim/;7349009;/fileinfo.html

What this mod intends to do is bring out the abysmal torpedo performance of early-war torpedoes. The torpedoes will mostly normalize by June 1943 and work as they should. I've consulted various sources for research on the types of failure, though it's by no means comprehensive as yet.


I've spent the day working with and testing various torpedo settings, mostly by the way of the faulty Mk 14. I have run about 200 torpedo tests at various settings, and have established a failure of approximately 4-5 per every 10 fired against a large static target from a perfect angle, varying depending on weather conditions, target aspect, and a few other aspect. This means that failures 'in action' where conditions are unpredictable will probably be more frequent.

WHAT I NEED is some good-willing guinea pigs :p I've done 'lab' testing of the Mk 14s; now I'd like people to play with them and report.
Warning: it will be frustrating. That's why I suggest that only hardcore realism junkies try this.

Will gladly take any suggestions or tweaks you make. Naturally, I don't own the idea so you can release your own variation of dud torpedo mod. I'm doing this mostly for the benefit of research, esp. for future RFB releases.

I want the best, most unforgivingly realistic results. Numerical accuracy (that is, technical data from real torpedoes) isn't a priority, however - what counts is the net results. We need to see a torpedo failure rate of 30% at the absolute best in early campaign, and much higher on average.

Be advised that some things don't work as they should and have to be compensated. For some strange reason, I can't find magnetic dud chance for the Mk14. That means that to compensate, I had to increase premature detonation chances a little and make the depth errors more pronounced. The magnetic influence trigger unfortunately still works too well when used at shallow depth as an impact trigger.

WHAT I DID
On the whole, I have seriously botched up the Mk 14s. They have relatively high chances of premature detonation (faulty influence trigger), dud (impact trigger jamming on impact, especially at right angles), and depth error chances with an average of about 10-11 feet. As I said, between these factors, I saw a failure rate of about 4-5/10 torpedoes fired in 'canned' tests against big static targets, with magnetics fired under the ship's keel performing most abysmally. This seems to be reflective of what I had been reading up on.

Mk 10s have been made slightly less reliable than originally, but much more reliable than Mk 14s. They still have a fairly pronounced depth error tendency, but will overall suffer much fewer failures if used for impact.

Post mid-1943, these failures go away. However, even for the 'fixed' older torpedoes and new torpedo types, I adjusted values somewhat to reflect a more realistic risk of failure. The Mk 27 Cutie is far less efficient now. There were some small increases in dud/premature chances and small depth errors.

I also reduced the chance of circle runners from 0.5% to 0.3%, mostly reflecting the reports I've heard from people - still never seen one in game, but my sense is that this value should be a little more adequate. At the same time, I've added a 2-5% of non-circular gyro failures to most torpedo types, so every once in a while you will see a torpedo go off course.

So, try it? Remember, this is not a final mod but a work in progress. I don't suggest using this unless you are an advanced SHIV user - it's a work in progress and isn't guaranteed to work as it's supposed to just yet.

Before you go too far, I am correcting a few mistakes I found in the Mark 14 file and checking others. The magnetic settings settings are there (in the Mark 14).

Oh great. (no, really :D)

I'll still keep this file up but, if you can get the fixes - I'll fix it up immediately. Frankly, I just want to get a 'workshop' rolling on this; I spent the whole day tweaking and firing 200 torpedoes, and it's just not realistic for someone to find everything alone. May as well have multiple people working on their own varieties of it. We had that with SHIII sensors and a ton of great stuff came out!

Hey, give me more duds, lose a few hundred convoys, make the convoys you attack not just sit there after attacking, make the dds more of a challenge, you have the perfect game.

One step at a time I guess hehe. I'll test this.:up:

Ironically, as soon as I grab some research, convoys are next on my list :p

I have tried to find information on jap convoy routes and numbers. That information seems pretty hard to find exactly. I didn't put much more than a 30 minute effort into it though.

Thanks CCIP! Frustratingly hardcore is how I like it(my subsims, anyway:D). Hopefully I'll have time to do a patrol or two over the next couple of days.

Oh, and for those of you doing IJN convoy research I think you'll be pretty happy about this thread: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=109621

PD

Up to you as far as waiting - I'll go in and play for now. I've spent some time testing it as-is, but a proper magnetic dud chance will help for sure.

As for date-based - yep! Tested it in 1945 and each torpedo fired ran straight and true, no depth error, no premature detonation. A small circle runner chance still remains for the end of the war, and possibly also gyro errors (haven't confirmed yet), but otherwise the torpedoes seem to run rock solid. For the Mk 14, the switchover is set for June 1943.

I found this page and thought it might be helpful to you guys who are modding torpedo failure rates:

http://www.historynet.com/air_sea/na...tml?page=1&c=y



And some other torpedo links:

https://www.keyportmuseum.cnrnw.navy.mil/html/part2.htm

http://www.ww2pacific.com/torpedo.html

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTUS_WWII.htm

http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/tubes/index.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/torpedos.html

http://www.microworks.net/pacific/armament/

Hmm, I'll take this with pleasure!

Reason why we need it is stories like this: Yesterday I bagged 34 000 tons (a whole convoy, 7 merchants) in just 13 minutes with 10 torpedoes during one attack, all hit and only one dud. And that was the first patrol in december '41. I exited the game and didn't even save the career and went to watch the weather channel, that's ridiculous tonnage. There is not enough tick boxes in the difficulty section at the moment. With this, there is a BIG one. Thanks alot!

:up:

Seen a couple of those, but these will be really useful!

I'll adjust values thanks to the new tweak files and put up an update tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Same here Krupp, when anything totally unrealistic happens I just get put off and I go do something else while I dream about how I wished it was. Some people may really enjoy the game as it is now, but I need me a lot more realism for it to truly shine.

If I am struggling to live and struggling to get anywhere near the tonnage of the aces then I will be very very happy.:rock:

Yup agree 100% had 1 patrol yesterday with 52.000 t ...feeling?..."this sure feels like a FPS" :p

Absolutely! During the attack on that convoy, the evil japs tried to scare me away with their gigantic flashlights, but I have my RayBan's (tm) :cool:. Do they even know there is a war going on?

That convoy thingie should be tuned too, now I realise that they have a habbit to stick around with their cameras, but they really should shovel some coal and disperse when the first tub disintegrates and bursts in flames.

After all of that is taken care of, we need the ship sinkings to be worked on. If I just plugged a merchant with two fishes in the bow and his props are out of the water, he should not be chugging along at 3 or 4 knots! Also, I feel like if I don't see the ship sink 15 seconds after I hit it, then its not going to. Very rarely have I had a ship sink after waiting, even if the thing is half submerged.

It's a few things that will take some work, but we will get this sim there thanks to you modders.:up: