Ships slowing due to damage IRL
 

Hi Guys.

It's been noted that in SH5 ships only slow down if you damage their propulsion in some way. Now I have read accounts of ships slowing down to avoid increasing the damage to their hull / bulkheads espceially when in heavy weather.

Does anyone have any information on how much they should slow down and when they should stop? I've heard of severely damaged ships being taken under tow backwards, to avoid increasing damage to the bow.

Thanks!

eel under funel disable ship, eel near propeller sometimes, but i observe merchant, steam away without propeller :woot:

Confirmed :yep:



Mud

I observed a merchant down by the bow, props clear up out of the water but still turning and making 8 knots :o :doh:

maybe headed south? downhill is faster, you know :)

scnr

Had this happen once with a large steamer aswell. Also, on the last patrol, troop ship was listing by the bow pretty badly, yet kept going at 10 knots. :nope:

OK, forgetting about what does happen, what should happen? I know the ships carry on sailing with damage like nothing is wrong...

The question is what should happen and what levels of damage or sea states affect the speed the captain chooses.

It all depends of the captain. Does he want to risk additional damage by keeping speed up or does he stop and see if the damage can be fixed enough to lower the risk of damaging the ship further if continuing to sail.

I think the ideal situation would be that upon impact the engines stop for the captain to get information how bad the damage wether he can continue at same speed or should either stop entirely or lower the speed.

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/listing.php

Many different accounts of attacks. Quite a few stopped and abandoned ship, and were sunk by coup-de-gras. Some escaped. I'm fairly certain that any torpedoed ship would slow down.

They hardly ever keep on at full speed. Especially with the screws in the air.

Had a nice one. hit a battleship (queen elisabeth class) 2 torps infornt of the first turret. Well it steamed happily along, buring it self into the ocean floor at full speed. Easy kill :D

It entirely depends on the captain and whether he thinks the ship is still sailable.

If the damage is slight or if only 1-2 compartment is flooded, the ship may be able to continue at close to full speed. In WW2, you had many accounts of major warships (CVs or BBs) being hit by one torpedo and continuing on with little loss of speed.

On a smaller ship, say a cruiser or below or a merchant, it may be more of an issue. The torps will normally hit on one side and cause flooding on that side. If a ship continues on at full speed, there is the risk that the sea pressure may cause bulkheads to collapse increasing the flooding or that it may capsize.

This is even more of a problem with merchant ships which usually don't have the same watertightness as a warship and which has a civilian crew which has not been trained to handle such emergencies.

The normal course of action would be to slow down or stop the ship to assess the damage, perhaps counterflood compartments on the undamaged side to prevent capsizing and resuming course, if possible.

The problem in a game point of view, is how to program the AI to act like a real captain.

OK, so the merchant and warship behaviour would be different, the merchant being more cautious and the warship sort of being more aware of the damage situation and the implications?

I've been looking into that :DL. I think I can do it, but I sort of promised myself I'd play the game for a while before I got lost in the modding of it.

warship crews, because of their military training are mor likely to act in a logical manner.

merchant crews are more likely to panic. There were many instances were crews abandoned ships that could easily have been saved.



that would be great, would be glad to help out.

This bastard has been afloat for THREE FULL DAYS while being entirely on fire and with the water above the rails! Even during a storm! I hate the stock SH5 "damage" system. It's fundamentally flawed. And yes, I'm out of all ammo, even flak guns. :(

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/3...magesystem.jpg

would there be a way to script that when a ship has reached a certain % of its hit points [i think its all governed by hit points???] that it then has a max speed of , say 2knots?

ive asked about this scenario a few times. i think its generally unrealistic for a ship to sustain a significant hull breach yet still maintain optimal speed.

they should slow down, and lag behind the escort screen.