[TorpX]

Yes, additional choices are good.



More notes....

I forgot to say, another reason I put back the contact silhouettes is that some of the ships had them (RSRDC's ships?), so you could zoom in, and have a few ships show up, while most disappeared. I found this disconcerting.

I also put in the internal ships names, Biyo Maru, Haruna Maru, etc. Partly, this was for my own convenience, but I think it is better than the bare discriptions of old split freighter, etc.



11. I installed SH3 just so I could extract the scene.dat file and test it in SH4. The reason I did this is to see if I could replicate the way waves influence the boat even while you are submerged. I really wanted to accomplish this, but no soap. I don't know what the difference between the games is, but it's there. I also remember that occurred in SHCE. Even at periscope depth, you were slowed by wave action. It made for difficult approaches at times; in heavy seas, you had to descend to 90 ft. or so, sprint ahead for several minutes, climb back to p/d to make an observation, then repeat. You couldn't always just speed along at periscope depth. It required making a tradeoff of speed vs. observation.



12. I tried to implement some kind of anti-hummingbird feature. This just didn't work. I'm aware this has been done for SH3 (NYGM, I think?), but I've concluded it requires changes to the game code. I tried various changes to the numbers for the pumps zone in the zones.cfg file. None of this produced the desired effect. I tried hard to get this to work. If this could have been combined with a periscope vibration effect (see 6.), it would have been a substantial gain in realistic gameplay, imo.



13. Crew changes. I made considerable changes to the crew set-up. For starters, I found the S-classes had crews that were too large, so they were cut down. I tried to have the numbers close to what N. Friedman gives in his reference, but at the higher end it gets to be a bit much. He gives a figure of 54 for Gato, but 71 for Balao, and Tench. Apart from Radar operators, I don't know what all the extra men are for. Anyway, it makes for a crowded crew page.

In the middle of this, I made the unhappy discovery that the game doesn't seem to do much with the compartment efficiency levels (the green bars on the crew page). I tried many changes and tricks in the subs' *.upc files to get the game to use them, but had no success. Even so, I decided to finish the crew changes. Maybe the game uses these things on some subtle level. It does use them in the propulsion compartment, at least.

I changed the Efficiency denominators for all the compartments. This is necessary when one changes the number of crew in the compartment. The game takes the Ef of all the men on duty (with whatever leadership bonuses they get), and divides by the denominator. There is both a normal denominator, and a battle stations denominator. These can be any value, but the game ignores fractional values, so a entry of 3.5 works the same as 3. This limits what can be done in terms of making subtle changes. The system I finally settled on was to use a normal denominator value of X for a compartment with X men on duty, and a BS value of Y/2 for that (fractions rounded down). This means normal Ef levels will always be toward the low side, and always get a large boost at BS.

It would be nice if there were a way to make more subtle changes, but don't really see a way to do it. If, for example, one has a torpedo room crew of 6 men, with 2 on duty on a normal shift, I used a Ef denominator of 2, with a BS Ef denominator of 3. Since you are starting with a value of 2, and the game takes no account of fractions here, you are very limited. Using a value of 1 would give a huge boost, and a value of 3 would make the Ef levels very, very low. Oddly (or perhaps not), it doesn't seem to make much difference in practical terms. Torpedoes can be launched just as well at low Ef levels, as at high levels.

I increased the sleep coef. for crew berthing, so crew will recover faster here. I did this to make it possible for a skipper to rotate some crewmen, even at BS, in case he anticipates a need for a prolonged chase requiring a high alert level. Crew in this compartment will not increase fatigue as quickly, even when awake, and will recover a little faster. I also added some slots here, so players can even add one or two men to their crews, if they want.

I changed the reloading weapons, and repair coefs. This should make these tasks a little more tiring. I made the watchstanding coef. higher at gun stations, so leaving men at these stations is more fatiguing. Crew sleeping at their guns will only recover half as quickly.

I kept the main coefficients for watchstanding, maintenance, and sleep (in most compartments), as is.

I changed the skill mix used for the compartments, the qualifications, and the basic values crew get. Mainly, I did this because I didn't understand the logic of what RFB used. This isn't to say their's are not good, or mine are better, but since I was changing everything above, I think the parts should fit together, and have some underlying logic.

Propulsion [all engines]
70% mechanical
30% electrical

Command [control room]
50% mechanical
50% electrical

Sensors [conning tower]
50% electrical
50% watchman

Torpedo [usually provide crew for guns]
50% mechanical
50% guns*

Crew Berthing [Hogan's Alley]
none

Damage Control
40% mechanical
40% electrical
20% guns*

Deck Guns
20% mechanical
50% guns*
30% watchman

Deck
100% watchman

*my belief is that 'guns' skill is actually weapons skill, as there is no weapons skill given.

I put back the 'Watch' qualification. I'm not sure why it was taken out, but I think it makes sense to use it.

I made it so that crew start their patrol or mission with some fatigue now.

I changed the starting crew mixes. Mostly this is inconsequential, but there are two crew you should be aware of. First is the Lieutenant-XO. He is the default 'XO' of your boat. He should (on average) have higher than usual leaderships values, and such. This doesn't mean he will actually be great; the game rolls dice on their abilities. The second is the CPO-COB. He is the 'Chief of the Boat'. He likewise should have higher than normal abilities for his rank. The XO is the first shift officer on the deck. The COB is the first shift leader in propulsion. Of course, you can change their assignments, if you consider them sub-par.

I put in more 'officer' slots. Officers are said to give their leadership bonuses to the entire crew. The extra slots don't seem to change Ef levels overall. It appears that the game only uses one officer at a time.

In general, I wanted to give the player a mediocre crew to start with, and let him build up a better, more experienced crew over time.



14. Aircraft. I did a lot of tests trying to improve the physics of a/c. Mostly this didn't work. The values of rudder drag, and wing drag in the *.sim files, that we would expect to use for this, had no effect. Possibly, this is due to the fact that aircraft are in the files 'obj_hydro'. [Shouldn't they be 'object_aero'?] I reduced the values of the max_force, so they are less rocket-like. I might have used even lower values, but there seemed to be a tendency for the planes to wallow in the air, or ditch in the water, when I tried this. These issues are partly a matter of pilot AI.

I checked, and altered where needed the eng_power values. For the aircraft, I used the full combined horsepower for this.

Then the max_force = 0.20 * eng_power / (mass * max speed)

[Note that this is different than what was calculated for ships.]

I noticed the 'Bettys' seemed to want to crash into target ships a lot. This seemed to be due to having a very low minimum altitude in the files. I changed them to level bombers, as this seems more sensible to me. Half a dozen planes didn't have engine sounds. I fixed that. I put in the Allied code names for the IJ aircraft for the displayable names.


A tried to get the AIR torpedoes to work. The 'Kates' in the game really just make low level bombing attacks. The 'torpedoes' were, in fact, bombs, always exploding right after hitting the water (or ship). I was able to get the Kates to drop torpedoes that would run underwater, but they failed to explode at target. I don't know why, but think this is probably fixable, so I left them in the mod. Someone may be able to supply the missing piece.




15. Torpedo changes. I reworked the torpedoes *.sim files. This, of course, to change malfunction elements. At the higher end, RFB 2.0 had a 100% dud rate. I reduced this. I also incorporated two new modes of failure: sinking torpedoes, and surface running torpedoes. I couldn't get the surface runners to make a spray, but they provide a decent simulation of a porpoising torpedo, otherwise. As far as I can tell, they are no more visible to enemy crews, than normal torpedoes.



I guess that's about it.