version 2 is up:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ti7b7a...LST_TMO_v2.zip
version 1: This mod will substantially increase the sinking time of ships in TMO 2.5. The basic idea and parameters come from the "Better and Realistic Flotation" mod made by Arclight for SH5 which have been tweaked for SH4. The mod increases the flooding time of various underwater compartments so sinking is more progressive.
version 2 takes a more novel approach: The HP damage generated by each torpedo has been reduced by roughly 50%, but the various ship's compartments have been tweaked so the flooding damage generated by each torpedo remains about the same. This roughly doubles the amount of Hit Points each ship has and makes it less likely it will sink from HP depletion and more likely it will sink from progressive flooding, since it now takes roughly twice as many torpedoes to deplete all the hit points. This also has the added benefit of delaying the "ship sunk" message in many cases.
The flotability factor of various ship's compartments has also been adjusted to accelerate sinking when much of the ship is flooded. This makes it less likely that a ship will hang around when its deck is already under water.
What does this mean in practice?
For small merchants and warships (DE, DD), one torpedo still more or less garantees a kill. For larger ships, 3-4 torpedoes also basically garantees a kill.
Where it gets interesting is if you only get 1-2 torpedo hits on a larger ship. Without the "ship sunk" message and with the progressive flooding, you now have to judge whether to use 1-2 extra torpedoes to finish the job or wait to see if it sinks by itself.
This mod works well with TheDarkWraith's "Ship Damage from Fire" mod.
All feedback will be appreciated.