Thanks for the input guys
Sounds like the SH4 damage model is more advanced than that in SH3, in terms of the ships being able to stop for repairs and get back underway afterwards. Do they get out of the attack area before they stop for repairs, or do they just stop on the spot, inviting another attack?
Ref my original question on the "dead in the water" syndrome, it was staring me in the face all the time
I'd become so pre-occupied with giving the A/C's realistic capabilities WITHOUT altering the stock zone parameters, i'd stopped looking at them by way of a solution and was trying different zone configurations to protect the engines.
After posting this question i sat back and tried to clear my head of it.
Basically, the engines in SH3 are destroyed so easily because they are too weak, plus the flooding time is too fast.
I'd raised the hitpoints of the engines a bit to see if it made any difference, but only by 25 points, which wasn't enough.
The flooding time was the real key, at 180 seconds it was too fast, which is why the other engines would stop through flooding even though they weren't destroyed by the torpedo blast.
In RL, an engine room destroyed by a torpedo blast would be sealed off asap, so as to maintain the integrity of other parts of the vessel, and other engine rooms. The flooding of subsequent engine rooms would be a gradual affair, probably caused by unnoticed seepage until it was too late to be controlled while maintaining the function of the remaining engine(s), unless of course the effect of the attack was catastrophic, or the sealing bulkheads were compromised.
I just extended the flooding time of the engine room from 3 minutes to 1 hour and raised the hitpoints for the engine room by another 25 points to 150 to give engine rooms at the edge of the torpedo blast radius a better chance of survival, and the problem went away
If the engine rooms not destroyed by the blast are going to flood, they will still do so, but they'll take much longer and it means she's not going to stop anytime soon for you while you set yourself up to finish her off.
You'll have to chase and stalk her, unless you've done her enough combined damage to sink her.
I also raised the engine room floors up a bit from the bottom of the boat, to delay the onset of flooding further.
Problem solved, thanks again guys
