One compromise - used in the
Longer Repair Times mod for SH3 - is to eliminate collision damage altogether. This was done by altering the SH3Collisions.act file (I see there is a similarly named SHcollisions.act file in SH4, so I assume it wouldn't be difficult to implement).
This also eliminates any damage from bring rammed, (or from plowing into the wharf
). In practice I've found these limitations easy to live with - I don't play while drunk, merchies don't seem to want to ram you in SH4, and warships will kill you regardless if you surface close to them.
I didn't know about setting the depth below seafloor (going to have to try that
), I've always just brought the boat very close to the bottom, shut off the motors and pretended we were resting on the bottom.