Ugh.
 

Still playing with trying to get my idea of balance into this game;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Naka

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Kuma

Nearly identical light cruisers from the same era. Both of these light cruisers have the same armor, 30CM, but the Kuma has 400 hit points, Naka has 2160. Fuso has 800 hit points, unless someone knows a reason why the Naka has more hit points than a battleship I'm going to assume that's an error and correct it.

Can you point an amateur to the directory where I could find those hit points? Thanks!

Specifically;

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//dow...o=file&id=4489

Like most other utilities you browse in a windows explorer type interface to \WhereverYouGotIt\Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Sea\NCA_Maya\NCA_Maya.zon then start poking around to see what's what. In the Maya example down at the bottom under 32: CollisionableObject is 33: CollisionableObject (no idea why they do it that way) with a bunch of changeable values;

ArmorLevel = 60
Hit_Points = 500
CrashDepth = 300
CrashSpeed = 0.5
Rebound = 0.45

What exactly rebound is for is a mystery, supposedly physics governing how it bounces off something, but every ship has the exact same value. In a sub CrashDepth is the maximum depth an undamaged sub can submerge to without getting damage, below that depth it will start losing X hit points per second, X being the CrashSpeed value. If it works the same way with surface ships this heavy cruiser could sink to a depth of 990 feet with no problem, below 990 feet it would start losing half a hit point per second.

Which obviously makes zero sense since a surface ship 1000 feet deep is already sunk so what's the point. I experimented with reducing the CrashDepth for assorted surface ships to 3 or 5 or whatever, but then they start breaking up and sinking due to wave action in heavy weather, so that was a dead end. You can, however, reduce the Armor to 10 and hit points to 50 in order to sink a Maya with the deck gun, or whatever kind of tweaking - sorry, can't resist - WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT! :har: I love puns. :O:

Reason I used Maya as an example is last night, in a career I hit a Maya with 3 fish, which left it half submerged and making the screeching groaning breaking up collapsing bulkhead noises. Which went on and on and on with no further apparent damage, so I set up a test mission to see if I could fix that problem - and in the test mission I can't duplicate it, because the same unmodified Maya that takes 2 to 4 torpedoes to sink in a career will blow up with one torpedo in a single mission. :/\\!!

If a ship has the entire main deck underwater and is howling and screaming with collapsing bulkheads and tortured metal noises, it OUGHT to SINK, but trying to get there with no reliable way to test it is like trying to get milk from a male ostrich.

Reloaded the save game, fired one more fish, making four - it missed. Whiskey Tango Fox, this thing;

https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/...07809468_o.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.n...09829097_o.jpg

Is dead in the water and by all that's holy should be sunk, yet the TDC claims it's going 8 knots. :/\\!! Finally got disgusted, blew tanks and finished it off with 3 shots from the deck gun.

In real life I could have sailed off and left it, if it didn't sink by itself one of the IJN destroyers would have finished it off (after removing the picture of the Emperor and possibly a few crewmen) since what's left wouldn't be worth towing home for repairs. One thing I liked about Microprose Silent Service series was you got credit for damaging ships that didn't sink, how Ubisoft could have missed that bit of realism is a mystery.

CrashDepth = 300 In surface ships this is the depth at which the ship will disappear from the screen if your following it with a camera.

CrashSpeed = 0.5 In surface ships this is the speed that the vessel will sink to the bottom once underwater.

Rebound = 0.45 In surface ships this is the speed or force that a ship will bounce off another vessel or dock. This is also the setting for how much it will bounce off the ocean floor provided it has not past it's crashdepth.

Thanks for all the info, Captains. I think I'll leave well enough alone, as the work required exceeds my interest in accuracy.

I can offer this about the Maya and all IJN heavy and most light cruisers - one torpedo placed under the 2nd forward turret tends to explode the magazine taking the whole ship in a series of massive explosions. I have observed the same effect with a hit on the Takao under the stern turret.

Thanks again for your information and efforts. :salute:

Alright, debunking one theory;

CrashDepth = 300 In surface ships this is the depth at which the ship will disappear from the screen if your following it with a camera.

CrashSpeed = 0.5 In surface ships this is the speed that the vessel will sink to the bottom once underwater.

Wrong. Set up a test with a FUSO in 1500 feet of water, edited the ZON file for 30 instead of 300. Followed FUSO all the way to the bottom, no disappearing. Reset for crash depth 3, hit FUSO with a single torpedo set for 5 foot depth on the very stern - one hit, no serious damage, but about 15 minutes later (15 minutes = 900 seconds times 0.5 hit points per second = 450 hit points) she rolled over and sank.

Further, in heavy seas FUSO sinks just from wave action in about 55 minutes with crash depth set at 3. So that theory is flat wrong, has nothing to do with visual tracking or speed to the bottom, like the subs it affects CRUSH damage (gotta remember this was translated from another language probably by someone who was under the mistaken illusion that he understood English) in hit points per second when something (keel depth in subs, who knows what in surface ships) is below the specified depth.

The numbers for crash speed are probably accurate, but the depth is who knows what - furlongs per fortnight or something other than meters, whatever it is reducing the number from 300 makes surface ships easier to sink. I've seen several irritating instances similar to the MAYA class cruiser in the previous pictures, half sunk and making those creaking groaning screeching collapsing bulkhead breaking up noises, but near as I can tell it's not relevant to the "crash" speed or depth since it will go on for hours with no apparent change in the state of damage or depth of sinking. The key is someplace in those values, the question is 300 inches feet centimeters furlongs or rupees. Whatever it is appears to be unfinished programming, at the time the game was released they just cranked all ships except the subs to impossible numbers rather than spending time trying to tweak the sinking effects.

Nice work.

I tried setting the crash depth above 300 to get ships to stop sinking in heavy seas, to no avail. The various zones might have their own crash depths, though. Also, I don't know if the crash depth is related to the bottom, top, or middle of the zone.

I think your theory, about them taking shortcuts on the model, is on target.

As you've discovered crash does equal crush, with the exception of the units cfg file i.e. NSS_Balao.cfg, where crash depth equals the depth to proceed to for a crash dive.

Now in so far as the units of measure for crush depth, that is measured in meters. Keep in mind this was developed in Europe where metric is the standard.

I originally assumed meters, but when I started fiddlefaddling with it I found that 5 meters = 16.5 feet didn't seem to work, either that or I was using the wrong baseline. Found the old thread;

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=212049

Which I eventually ran out of mojo and quit trying.