[REQ] Anybody got batteries that work right with 1.3?
 

Well, I've been running some version of Redwine's battery life mod with 1.3, but had been spending so much time just testing and tweaking other stuff that I'd never really checked out the battery performance. Finally tried it last night and was getting really short endurance submerged, so I de-activated the mod with JSGME and tried again - this time it was even shorter - ridiculously so.

I started playing around with minitweaker and was able to stretch it a bit, but I eventually hit a wall and no matter how I changed the parameters I was playing with I could not get more than about 32 hours on batteries at 2 knots with my Salmon class test boat (best info I've found online was that endurance was supposed to be 48 hours at 2 knots, but I'm not sure how accurate/legit that figure is). And, even when I got that far, it took me over 10 hours to recharge batteries from 25% to 100%, which something tells me must be too long.

I remember a lot of discussion about battery life a while back, but I can't remember if anybody ever found a solution that works since the new patch. The only things I could find that seemed to be obvious candidates to play with were the "milesSubmerged" and "knotsSubmerged" factors in the subname_sim files, but like I said no matter how I played around with these I could never get more than about 32 hours (lots of different combinations gave me 32 hours, but never could get more). I was leery of screwing with the other parameters 'cause i only wanted to affect battery life and not max speed or speed at particular telegraph settings and I was concerned that the other parameters would probably mess with those.

Does anybody know the secret for getting reasonably accurate battery life and recharge results with the 1.3 patch? If so, can you let me in on it?

Thanks :up:

[edit] well, that was weird - turns out I don't think I actually have been able to change the battery life/discharge rate at all, with any of my tweaking (went back and checked the stock/Redwine results with my standardized testing approach and got the same results - always about 30-32 hours at 2 knots in a Salmon class boat no matter what numbers I picked (also tried to mess with the other parameters (rpm and power), with same results).

However, while I could not seem to affect the battery discharge rate, I was able to radically affect (lengthen) the battery recharge rate with some of these changes.

Net result, though, was still no usable outcome. Tried looking at this .sim file in S3D, but couldn't seem to be able to change even as many parameters as I could in minitweaker - just the power and rpm factors, as best I could tell (still trying to get the hang of S3D so maybe I missed something there).

Any ideas/suggestions, anybody?

bump - nobody has working batteries or knows how to fix this?

Did you talk to Redwine at all?
 

Someone had posted something about this before and he said to do something or another.

I am not sure where the thread is but shouldn't be too hard to find

Here found it on page 3

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=120422

No - haven't talked with Redwine yet - I remember seeing that thread before, and after re-reading it just confirmed that whatever RW was trying to do there doesn't seem to have worked. I guess I'll go ahead and D/L his files and take a look at them, but from the posts in that thread it sounded like those that tried it didn't get workable results either :(

I guess if the Jap escorts suck at their jobs and folks have modded the encounters with planes down to minimal levels, maybe nobody is seeing any problems with battery life because there's no reason to be submerged long enough for it to become an issue - maybe that's even realistic, as perhaps the American subs just never experienced the nerve-wracking worry over whether their air or batteries would give out and force them to the surface under unfortunate conditions. If so, I'll sure miss that aspect of gameplay, compared to SH3.

This not entirely ture. I'm running TM1.6.02 and had a mission to take photos of Hiroshima Harbor thru the Bungo Straits. I could not get anywhere near close enough submerged to complete this mission due to the patroling warships,depth of water etc. even though I tried various tactics. I got close but not close enough to be able to get in and out without being detected and survive. :( Of course there may have been a tactic available that I was unaware of. ;):)

Sadly disregarding what value you set on the files, the game makes non sense of the changes.... :damn::damn::damn:

I am starting to hate patch v1.3, really i am thinking seriouslly to roll back to v1.2... the only real improvement of v1.3 over v1.2 is the enemy AI, but to have it, we must to accept lot of things ruinied by patch v1.3.

Enemy AI may be tweked any way.... we can do it, i am thinking seriously to roll back, the only think apreciated into v1.3 is the no DVD exe, but v1.3 intruced more bugs than fixes.

Interesting that you should say that - I remember seeing a few posts to that effect shortly after the patch was introduced, but I haven't seen anybody saying it lately. I wonder (without having had time to search for it) - has anybody actually compiled a list of the specific changes introduced by the 1.3 patch that were not just things that modders had already figured out how to deal with after 1.2 or could be done by users modding 1.2? and then maybe compared that list to the list of whatever bugs or glitches might have been introduced by 1.3?

It seemed to me like there had been more positives than negatives with 1.3, but if it does turn out that many of those positives could have been achieved by modding 1.2 and that 1.3 broke stuff as relatively critical as battery life, it might be interesting to see how they really stack up in this respect.

I copied all the subs out of the sub file from TM 1.2 then over wrote those in the sub file for patch 1.3 and it has worked so far, no bugs. I have the longer battery life. I saved of copy of the original sub files, so if things didn't work out or I just want to change them back I can.

Interesting idea - think I'll give that a try - Thanks for the suggestion. BTW - is there a reason you used TM 1.2 instead of the latest version? If so, do you know where one can still find TM 1.2? I checked the TM thread (quick scan only - could have missed something) and only saw links to the latest version.

I like TM 1.2, I played it for months. When I download a mod I save In a filed I call unzipped mods, then I extract to another folder. Finally I put it in the JSGME "MODS" folder in SH4, yada, yada yada. I'll get to the point. I have a lot of old antiquated mods. I do this file/folder swapping a lot.

Well, finally found a copy of TM 1.2 to download, and just tried it. A real bust - tried the TM 1.2 sub files, and got only 12-13 hours battery life at 2 knots in my Salmon class boat - clearly not working :(

Any other ideas out there?

Well, the best I have been able to get the batteries, despite a lot of additional attempts, is still between 27 and 30 hours (from 100% to 10%) at 2 knots. That's still about 15 hours too short, but I haven't been able to find anything to tweak using either minitweaker or S3D that makes any real difference. Even tried playing around with the submerged drag, hoping the boat might go farther with the same propulsion if the drag was reduced, but no such luck :damn:

I did notice that if you drop to 1 knot you can stretch your batteries out to at least 43+ hours (oxygen hit 10% at that point, with batteries still at about 25%) - but of course you'll only go half as far in that time, which could be material if you're trying to extricate yourself from certain enemy waters before you surface.

I've about run out of ideas (and time) again, so I'm gonna have to shelve this effort and get back to it later unless (hopefully) somebody beats me to a fix. :cry:

One last possibility I may look into if I can find any old posts about it - I noticed that my green bar wasn't quite 100% in the engine room (it was close though, maybe 90%, so I'm not sure how much improvement could be expected) - I'm wondering if maybe there's some way to give the engine room crew a quality/experience/efficiency/morale or other such boost to improve submerged range like you can improve deck gun loading time? Anybody tried that already?

Quote:
Originally Posted by leovampire
I think the problems you are experiencing is the same as the [REL] NSM3.3 compatible torpedo harcore mod.

Some things are getting carried over in the save file's from the start of the save file and refuse to show up as a change without a full delete of the save file then add the changes to the game then start the game up and let it build a new save file and WALA every thing works the way you set it for.

Something changed the way the game read's things with the 1.3 patch and when and how it comes into effect.


Hmmm - interesting idea - will check that out. I made a completely fresh start (deleted old SH4 folder in my docs) for ROW, but not for this latest testing (I just started a new career each time I tested the batteries this time). Guess I'll try wiping the SH4 folder and see if that helps.

Thanks for the suggestion :up:

[EDIT] - another thread wandered into this area of discussion, but rather than further hijack that one I thought I'd bring this over here. I tried wiping out the SH4 folder but no luck so far - still capping out at about 30 hours at best (haven't re-tried all my attempts yet of course). Will keep at it just in case.
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BTW - anybody have any idea what the reference to "Ranges=Byte[83]" means in S3D (in the NSS_Salmon.sim file, under Node/Item 11 Properties)?? It looks teasingly like it ought to be something you could tweak to play around with the submerged battery range, but it doesn't seem to work the same way the other attributes/parameters do :cry:

if you click on it at the bottom it says
 

bytearray (predefined) but at the top there is no ID link which means 9 times out of ten it is coded into the game files and locked.

Another word's no setable peramiters.

Plus in the read me for the 1.3 patch there was something about now battery usage is set to historicl data so they might have hard coded it all now.