Natural Sinking Mechanics Mod will greatly increase your silent hunter expirience by making the ships sink in more natural way. Entire damage system has been reworked, its no longer based on hitpoints but much more on physical action. Ill explain how the new damage system works later on. This is a realism mod. The ship sinking rates and the different sinking behavier has been tweaked as much accurate to historical records as possible.

Some ships will sink in a matter of seconds, another will take hours. But in General the sinking rate were greatly increased. All ships will sink much slower then they do in stock but that is not a rule. You will have to learn to evaluate the way how the ships are sinking and make decissions how to hit them the best way. And you will have to learn where the ships have their weakness.

Use JSGME or copy all files into sh4 root directory. Make sure to make backups.

Not compatible with "Die Slowly" by Redwine. NSM will not work when other mods that make changes in zones.cfg are installed over it. Install NSM last to be on sure side.

You can use Torpedoe_US.zon file of your liking.

You can use any Gun Mod of your liking. It doesnt matter how much damage your deckgun does. Its no longer about hitpoints but only where you hit the ship with that.

Fully compatible with TMaru, as long you install this mod last, all functions of TMaru will remain.

At first some physics. There is only one reason why ships actualy stay afloat Their total weight is less then the weight of the water they displace. And there is only one way to sink them. By increasing their total weight beyond their displacement. In other words they must be flooded with water. Be it by making holes in the hull, explosion inside, or making them roll over. The air inside must be replaced with water in one way or another.

In Silent Hunter 4 ships sink much more from losing hitpoints. Each ship has a certain amount of hitpoints. The game however does simulate flooding and they can also be sank by that. But in Stock SH4 entire flooding system is more about eye candy. Ships still sink by hitpoints. The aim of that mod is to completely eliminate hitpoint damage and add different ways to fill the ship with water until its weight gets beyond the displacement. It sounds complicated but its much easier. You just have to be smart. The damage system was tested and tweaked for a long time. There will be no unsinkable ships. You might have the first impression that they dont sink but they do. Ships will sink even if you havent been smart and hit it not at the right place they will sink it will just take longer and require more hits. You must be patient and sometimes wait to see if you must give it one more hit or if it was already enough...

• Small Merchants (less then 3500 tons) will require one or two torpedo hits. They are sinking in about 20 minutes in average.
• Medium Freighters (3500 - 5500 tons) will in most cases wistand one torpedo hit but not always. Two will sink most of them but some will survive more. They sink in about 40 minutes in average.
• Large Cargo Ships (over 5500 tons) will eat two, three or four they can sink up to several hours if not finished off.
• Merchants that Carry Fuel (tankers) or Ammunitions will in most cases explode in a huge fireball from a single hit, destroyed and can even damage other ships nearby.
• Destroyers will in most cases need one hit. If not sank by its exploding Ammunitions they will flood up fast in about 5 - 10 minutes.
• Carriers and Cruisers will take two or three. They could take much more but they tend to capsize quickly that being their end
• Battleships will take three and more. This is mostly a luckshot they also tend to capsize quickly after suffering several torpedoe hits on one side. Their weakness are their ammo bunkers. When one of those explode it ignites the other and the fuel too. They will sink quite fast in about 10 - 20 minutes when ammo bunkers explode but they can stay for hours capsized.

Remember you must achieve one of that goals to score a kill and tonnage.

1. the vessel must be either observed entirely sinking

2. or you must observe their crew leaving the ship.

you may not damage a ship and get out of area. It might sink 3 hours later from your damage but you will not score a kill when youre not in area. So finish them off or stay around and wait. The crews will act smart. When they know the ship can stay afloat they will try to do their best. When they know the ship is not to retrieve they will leave the vessel and you will score the hit (if you are observing that)

Example. You hit a small vessel and damage 3 of its 5 compartments. The crew knows that the ship can stay afloat with 2 compartment filled but not with 3. In that case they will evacuate the ship before they are fully filled. They will not wait until the ship is filled up to masts. This happened very often in the last version. But you will rarely see that in this version unless you realy make huge holes. The crew will in most cases fight untill the end. So you will get "Enemy Unit Destroyed" Messege when its realy clear that it cannot stay afloat with that holes.

You must use the deckgun in quite different way as you are used to. It is very difficult to sink an undamaged ship with deckgun only because you will need a lot of shells to make a lot of holes. But it is awesome for finishing off damaged ships that are not worth another torpedo. If you see clearly the ship has more serried compartments that keep her afloat. Make few holes on them below the water line and watch how much faster she sinks. Sometimes ships streithen up when sinking and stay verticaly with the stern sticking out of water like the titanic and do not sink. Add few holes to the that kork and let the air inside exhaust. That will make them sink for sure.

1. increased hitpoints for all ships to 20000

2. reworked and ballanced floodings for every compartment of every ship.

3. balanced floatability for every compartment of every ship to help the crew meet the right decission when its time to abandon the ship.