[Beery]

Originally Posted by jason210

I've been playing RUb all day. I think I can live with the gun - it just takes some getting used to after being spoiled with the default gun for 6 months.

Something that I find hard to accept are the depth charges. I was 108 m underwater, and on the surface was destroyer. In the default SHIII, I would expect to hear a report that depth charges were in the water, but this was not reported in RUb. Ok, I can live with that.

Nothing has been changed in terms of depth charge reporting. The crew won't report depth charges if they don't hear them. If the DCs drop behind the sub the engine noise will cover them up. Also, if the hydrophone guy is tired or unqualified he'll do a worse job.

Suddenly and unxepctedly, I heard some depth charges going off. They weren't close, but the sub was badly damaged. I had hull integrity turned on (via SHIII commander) and this remained at 100%, but the rear batteries were destroyed, the main pump destroyed, and most of the rest of the equipment was damaged.Oh, I forgot to say, my radio operator was killed, and I had flooding in several compartments.

I was sinking so I blew the ballast tanks twice. This slowed the sinking down. I managed to get all the water out, and started to come up. I didn't want to break the surface of course, so when I got to 40m I ordered periscope depth. By this time I had repaired everything that could be repaired. As the sub leveled out periscope depth, it began to sink again! I re-ordered periscope depth and we were making 2 kts, so there should have been enough speed for the hydroplanes to keep the depth - but not so. It continued to sink. There were no leaks and there was no water in any compartments. At 47 metres I blew the ballast again and started coming up again. Again, as I neared the surface I ordered periscope depth. The destroyer was still up there, and I did not want to break the surface.

It levelled out at periscope depth, and I raised the periscope and caught a brief glimpse of the Destroyer before the periscope went under...I was sinking again! This time I didn't stop sinking....

I was in a type VIIB and it crushed at 320m.

Sounds like an exciting and nail-biting patrol. Pity it ended in death. The next version of SH3 Commander includes a 'Surrender' option. You will have the ability to surrender your boat if you're willing to let discretion be the better part of valour.

Three things here. First, the sounds of the explosions did not seem loud enough to have caused all that damage. They were quiet. The damage seemed to happen without any drama. This can't be explained away as unimportant ear candy - the sound and damage have to go together to form the immersive experience.

The depth charge explosion sounds are unchanged from the standard SH3 sounds. This may be a bug in the standard game, or it may be that the DCs exploded at the rear of your boat (which goes along with the fact that you didn't hear them in the water, although it doesn't explain the amount of damage throughout the boat). RUb does indeed make depth charges have more impact on the interior equipment. It makes damage less immediately deadly. One thing to note is that DCs in RUb are substantially LESS damaging than in standard SH3.

Second, why was I unable to maintain depth?

The flooding in RUb has a much greater impact on your ability to stay buoyant than in the standard game. What happened was that you blew ballast, twice, but the boat was still flooding. Maybe you had the flooding somewhat under control, but when it came time to blow ballast a third time there was probably not enough pressure in the ballast tanks to surface the boat. When you tried to surface by using your dive planes, either they were damaged, or your batteries were flooded, or your engines were damaged, or perhaps your boat had simply taken on too much water. Any one of these would have caused your attempt to fail.

Third, why did my radio operator die?

I've no idea. When SH3 calculates damage I think it assigns it based on the proximity of the compartment to the blast. If the damage is too much for a man in that compartment he will die. Maybe he was thrown off balance by the blast, or maybe he had some other accident.