Greetings, Grüss Gott, and all.
Praising and Polishing:
After a long period of SH3 + GWX 3.0 I decided to test my new machine, and bought SH5. Despite the graphics, I almost had my heart stopped at the first test run, that I gave money for THIS pile of ******, even with a few selected mods it seemed an arcadised, and simplified version of every silent hunter, tailored for the braindead mainstream gamer, who have speed up reflexes for boom-headshot, but nothing else inside their skull.
Luckily I gave a try to Wolves of steel after that...
First, let me say that you are wrong, this project is -almost- as great in the meaning of enhanced simulation experience, as GWX...
First of all, it startes from a horrible pile of rubbish, and turn it into a Silent Hunter game, so thats a LOONG headstart against GWX, which is superb work, but stock SH3 is just... Stock, not a simplified console game. So when GWX can directly start to enhance the simulation, Wolves Of Steel first -restores- (almost) all the main SH3 functionalities into SH5.. And thats a VERY great thing, as this is the only reason I kept playing this.
So for me WOlves of steel is a lifesaver. Especially as SH5 + WOS saves load eight times faster than SH3 + GWX saves on the same machine XD
Of course the tons of AI tweaking and fine tuning, years of testing, and enhancement of damage scheme, etc. are better in GWX, but hell, GWX is also started from an 1.0. And I know that development for WOS is currently stopped, but as with GWX, it can start up again.
---------------------------------
Now, after the big praise (which I can't echoe enough, especially the real navigation + ability to -correctly- use stadimeter for range, and sextant to shoot latitude, with even the fine tuning for every aspect ratio) I need some help, as there's no such thing as manual yet. (I read all the documentations for all the mods before I started to post this)
The damage scheme problem:
With all map contact updates turned off, I was able to surpass (after 4 dead savegames...XD) the mythical baltic mission, with one lousy small merchant gunned to death, (german man-o-wars destroyed -everything else- before I could even have a blink at whats floating in the area) I went to Kiel, and FINALLY started the "free" patrol mission on the eastern shores of Britain.
After some fabulous miserability trying to find myself in real nav, (good progress made, I can find my latitude sometimes more precise than my navigator's celestial, (according to visual dead fix on the exit of ports, etc.) but longitude... huh. I can only tell the -timezone-, from the dusk/dawn. Which is still a LARGE area of sea in W-E direction
D ) I made it near the given area of patrol.
There I found my first target, a Hog Islander. I saw a jeep onboard, but I think it still wasn't a troop transport, but a simple one. Also according to the recognition manual, troop transports could be USA only, and this was bearing a UK white ensign flag.
There I made a savegame, calculated range, speed, (overcalculated by 1 knot as almost always... It's not 11, thats for sure, more likely 10.) bearing and angle on bow is 90 90 like always when I try to ride easy, and so I started to destroy that bastard.
As with every testgame, I made several attempts to eradicate the poor islander. Here's the reloads with their respective outcome:
1.: Hit by 1 torp, impact, went in a half circle, stopped after a hour, sank until water washed over sometimes its stern, stopped there hanging. Hours, nothing.
SHot with gun until the bow broken off. Game counted it as sunken. Bow sank, rest of the ship stopped floating, like it's freezen in place, but does not sunk.
2.: hit by 2 torp!! between bow and middle, holes next to eachother. GREAT holes. SHip went a half circle, stopped after a hour, sank to half of the waterline, stopped there hanging. Hours, nothing. 10 hours and nothing...
Shot it until it broken EXACTLY into two halves. Both halves remain floating dynamically, but was stuck together when their cracked ends started to sink... Ship counted as sink, but remained there without sinking. All parts still reacting to water physics, not like in the first attempt, but never sunk.
FROM HERE ON, I USED MAGNETIC INSTEAD OF IMPACT.
3.: hit by 3 torp. First 2, right after the middle, exact same spot, very big hole. Went a half circle, stopped after a hour, sank til middle of waterline, but nothing else. several hours, nothing. Fired 3rd torpedo that one set to impact, hit the stern. Very huge explosions, fire, smoke, big hole. ANd nothing changed. For hours.
4.: hit by 2 torp, exact same spot, behind the middle- great explosion, ship instantly broken into two halves. The two halves closer ends sank just a very little, but hanging there, floating, and the ship still never went underwater. Counted as sank.
5.: hit by 2 torp, reproduced the same behaviour as in attempt 2, just I dont used the gun, but waited for at least 10 hours... nothing. Half sunken, stopped, like most of the time.
Actually I enevr was able to put the rest of the ship underwater.
Now I understand that for some reason all modders like to lower torpedo damage, and I know that on some cases middle sized merchants was able to crawl out of harms way with even 3 torpedo hits, but in the MAJORITY of the times even a 6000 ton merchant was instantly sunk by only one torpedo.
What is the problem, that this Hog islander never capsize, and never even tilt to either side, only sometimes gets it stern lower than its bow, (no problem that the bow was hit, or the stern, the bow never get's lower than the stern...) but usually only the whole ship equally sink half way, then stop there floating?? What's the problem? Why can't I put it under the water?
D and why is there arent any flooding, or any kind of behaviour instead of
uniform half-sunk, and a slightly lower stern on each attempt? It's a 4000 ton ship, and not even 3 torpedo is enough for it, when even 2 is -should- be too much in 7 times out of 10.
So what's the thing Im missing here, and how the damage and flooding scheme is working?
Thanks, with respect
Good winds, and Godspeed
Daniel