Just a bump, to keep this important thread near the top of the Mods page.
Also, an update.
A. H.sie is still working on the torpedo reloads problem, but he is held up with real-life issues.
B. Most players of SH3 are familiar with the irritating problem of running along the surface in fine weather at time compression (TC)= 1024 or more, when, suddenly, you get the Black Screen of Death: 'You have been sunk by Collision.' What has happened has been that the weather has changed suddenly to dense fog, your idiot watch crew has not bothered to tell you, and you have moved with large jumps - as the game moves the U-boat 'piece' across its giant board - straight onto a ship without ever seeing it first. (At slow TC, this is not a problem, because the jumps are much smaller).
H.sie and I have had the idea that, whenever heavy fog first occurs as a change from other visibility, then the TC will drop to 16. Since TC=16 is not used for any other purpose, the cause will be obvious to the player, who can stop, check the weather, and take appropriate action.
C. I have found a way to provide the U-boat with slow-sinking properties at 1 kt or less when it is silent-running. This has caused a lot of technical problems:
i) the U-boat floats at 2 kts at periscope depth about 1-2 metres lower than previously.
ii) The GWX U-boat has different buoyancy properties from the NYGM, which is an issue that has to be addressed somehow.
iii) The same code is needed for all U-boats, which causes the type II U-boat to be tricky to control at periscope depth when silent-running.
These issues can be avoided. The periscope control problems (i) and (iii) are avoided by ensuring that the new code operates only at depths below 20m. (A better solution might be to extend the periscope lengths in the turms.) The GWX issue is avoided easiest by changing the U-boat mass in GWX back to neutral.
The idea is that a U-boat lacks the ability to pump water when silent-running, so that there is in real life a tendency to sink slowly when the speed is too slow.
The result of this new code is that your U-boat has a tendency to slip slowly downwards when silent-running at slow speed below 20m. The tendency is not very strong, but it has the effect that you will not wish any longer to run into a convoy on silent running from the moment you sight it. Silent-running now needs a little management, especially when avoiding warships at great depth. Depth is maintained on a U-boat by hydroplanes. If you are running level at 2 kts with silent-running, and you set a higher depth, the hydroplanes acquire a steeper angle, so that the U-boat loses buoyancy while it also loses speed to 1 kt. So suddenly you start to sink instead! The devs really did a great job on modelling U-boat manoeuvrability.
So what do you do when you are being hunted, and the U-boat is slow-sinking at 160m? You can secure from silent running, or you can increase speed to increase the water flow over the hydroplanes, so that they are more effective. Both options will make more noise, which may be detected by the hunters. Suddenly management of silent-running becomes important!
I have a fully modded version of SH3.exe for silent-running on my own computer, but Copyright (and SubSim) rules prevent me from distributing it for general testing. However, H.sie will soon be able to make an SH3 patch file for legitimate owners. I want H.sie to check out the code first, anyway.
D. Anvart and I are working on some ideas concerning the placement of radars on different turms. A little of this also requires intervention in the SH3.exe code.
We cannot tell yet how these ideas will develop; whether they will be successful or not. But H.sie and I don't need any other new ideas for a little while, thanks!
Stiebler.
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