[TEC/WIP] Torpedo Malfunctions
 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/...-07_164650.jpg
Two duds in a row, must be my lucky day!

I've been looking into torpedo malfunctions for some time now, and here is what I found! :DL

There is somekind of torp malfunction system in SH 5, but it's very rare that malfunction happens. Editing torpedo.sim for dud chanches hasn't any effect at all in game. But it seems you can edit circle runner, gyro deviation and depth keeping values succesfully.

But I found this quite exciting thing in the UPCDataGE special abilities-file: Reduce Torpedo DudChance. So rather than messing with the individual controls (which many of them don't work at all) I just edited and inverted these values:

default:
[SpecialAbility 17]
AbilityValue= -10, -20, -30, -40, -50

edit:
[SpecialAbility 17]
AbilityValue= 99, 70, 50, 30, 0 (example values, they can be higher for more effect)

So basically the special ability gives you 99 % more malfunctions! Don't tell it to the captain :D I tested the values in my shooting range for hours and came up with these results, so here is my list of malfunction effects:

TI torpedo: Cirlce running and maybe depth and gyro deviations, no duds at all.
TII torpedo: Duds, cirlce running, depth/gyro deviations, the whole lot!
Magnetic detonation: Premature explosions
Impact detonation: Premature explosions

Conclusion: Editing the special ability gave much more malfunctions than stock settings. But there doesn't seem to be much malfunctions for TI torpedo, so you won't see them in action neccessarily. I read somewhere that SH3 doesn't have either duds/premature explosions for impact TI torpedoes. SH 5 seems to use SH 3 system and not SH 4 :doh:.

Changing the special ability procents is a nice and fast way to get more malfunctions, but probably the sim file needs some adjustments too. Especially TI torpedo has to be less effective. Maybe I'll make a small mod with this so that people can try it out, or you can change the values yourself. The torpedo malfunction system is a mess and testing random things is time consuming process! So beware, broken torpedoes are coming your way!

EDIT: New results are just in, I launched four T I torpedos at a tanker, one was magnetic, other three impact. The first of the torps did a 50 degree turn and missed the target, and then started the premature explosions, all the torps exploded before hitting the target. So impact torpedoes can also detonate too early! :woot:

OoooOOOoo neat. Thanks for this it will be good to use for us realism geeks. I liked in TMO how the torps basicly were all duds unless setting them to 1.0m depth, slow, and hitting 90deg perpendicular. Not sure what the common malfunctions of the KM torps was, but was there a way to perhaps have less chance of dud through torp settings/hit angle like TMO?
Ah the memories!
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"

I need also some uncertainty in my game.:D Nothing better than to stalk a convoy and finally fire salvo of torpedoes and the first one explodes right in your eyes and alerts the whole gang! SH 4 had quite good dud-system. The weird thing is that SH 5 looks like it has the same options, but it just doesn't work.

Dud torpedoes actually seem quite rare, I get circle runners, premature explosions, angle deviations but very few duds. And they seem to come in groups :06:

hmmm i havent had a dud yet....

have dud enabled in options etc....

but no dud but i always use impact on my torps

Hmmm x 2. Somehow it seems that my good results editing the special abilities have dissapeared. Or can it be that it so random, no malfunctions at all, then suddenly all fails. I'll try using different settings in my new campaign and report more later.

Last night I was messing with the dud settings again and it seems I made a quite significant find!

I put the dud possibilities ridiculously high and started to fire at docked ships. I used T1 torpedoes with a impact detonation. I knew that circle runners and other malfunctions work well, but to get actual duds, is really difficult. So I was amazed that this one ship got a lot of duds, 4-5 in a row. I tested it several times, changed it's location to get diiferent AOB and same results. I almost couldn't sink it.

Then I realised... Ta-daa! It was an imported ship from SH 4! I tried again with another imported ship and got same results, about 50% duds. I got absolutely no duds with stock ships.

So it seems that dud torpedo settings work with .dat-ships but not with GR2-ships!

Actually that makes sense, because the malfuction settings are from SH 4 and made originally for .dat-ships. I didn't test it, but I wouldn't be suprised if magnetic torpedoes work okay with imported ships as well.

So we could make a torpedo dud-mod, but it would only affect new ships, which isn't right ofcourse. The rules of the world should be the same to all it's entities. Maybe TDW could explain why this happens (differences with .dat files and GR2-files), and tell if in future there could be a way to fix this.

PS. I know I have seen a stock ship that got one dud, but no idea why or how it happened.

:Kaleun_Applaud: Good find Rongel

Did you try the magnetic detonator on the new imported ships? And the results were? :hmmm:

Just from what I've seen from working on the GR2 Editor/Viewer app the people working on SH5 didn't understand/know how to properly use the Granny system. It would've been best for them to stick to something that they knew inside and out - the .dat file system.

I haven't yet got the time to try it, but as soon as I have, I'll test it out.
My bet is that it's going to work :D.

Yep, the magnetic pistols are working with .dat ships!

I tested this firing two torpedoes 1.5 m below the ships keel, one impact and one magnetic torpedo. The impact torpedo just passes the ship by, but magnetic torpedo exploded like it should. Ofcourse I tested this several times, and always the same results. So it's working! :DL

Does this mean that there is something wrong/missing with the SH5 GR2 Ship Damage Models?:06:

The Beast look at post 1 and post here 5

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...182667&page=38

Post 1 and Post 5 DO NOT answer the question I asked.

Rongel was talking about Magnetic Influence Detonation working on imported ships that are in DAT file format but not working on GR2 ship models.

I was asking if compared side by side, what are the differences between the DAT Col model where Magnetic Influence detonator worked and the the GR2 Col Model that Magnetic Influence does not work?

:hmmm:

Yep, the Dmg_col-nodes are made somewhat differently in GR2 ships and .dat ships. But I have no concrete idea what should be done about it. Maybe we could add some collision commands to GR2 ships using .sim file for example. Probably rough blind testing could achieve some results. Sadly I have no time for this at the moment...

I have been thinking about creating a dud-mod. At the moment the dud-changes are so low (about 1/100), that even with .dat ships you don't notice that it's there. Like I said, it's not fair that they don't work with GR2 ships, but it would add a nice new feature that would lower unrealisticly high tonnage values.

Okay, been hitting my head against the wall (:damn:) with this again, and here are some results:

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/...-01_214448.jpg

Coastal Boat GR2 ship taking a dud hit!

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/...-01_215724.jpg

Hog Island Freighter GR2 ship taking a dud hit!

So how did it happen. I have never ever seen a dud hit before this with GR2 ships (maybe just once year ago, but can't be sure about it anymore). We know that the dud settings work with the imported dat ships. So I stripped one dat boat to the core and only left the DMG_col_nodes. Duds were still working so the answer is in the DMG_col node, and specifically in it's 3d model.

So I created a new DMG_col to the boats and imported dat-ships 3d model to it, and applied it with the .sim-file. So basically these ships have invisible SH 4 ship around them that is activating the duds!

I also tried to export GR2 ships DMG_col 3D model with TDW's great tool, and use it in the .sim file, but it didn't seem to work. GR2 DMG_col node 3D models seem to have dud-magic missing inside them, don't know what it is because I'm totally loss at 3d modelling.

We cant of course cover all the ships with invisible SH 4 boats, and now the ships have double DMG_col nodes which can't be a good thing (the ships seemed to get less duds than the imported SH 4 cousins, but still there were at least some. And the magnetic pistols should work also, but can't say this for a fact.)


So my thoughts how this might work:

1. Export the real DMG_col 3d model and some expert can look what makes it different than SH 4 models. Fix it and import it back. This would be great but not sure if it works.

2. In future if TDW's tool allows, delete the stock DMG_col bone and see if the dud rate improves. Or just replace the stock 3d damage model with SH 4 model (not possible yet because the number of the vertices must be the same, i think).

Well thats all I can think now. Any suggestions? I'm sure that TDW's tool will help this more in future.


PS. Been testing this with extremely high dud values.