[pabbi]

Maybe this helps, found this inside my bookmarks.
It's written by Ducimus


It's been awhile since i've thought about this, so bear with me.

Anyway, there's two ways a battery charge is handled in SH4, depending on if this function is true or false. Those ways are , in laymans terms, the Uboat way, the fleet boat way.

The Uboat way, (aka Direct drive)
- One propeller stops turning because in theory one engine is brought off the line
- Your top speed is reduced
- The battery charges

The only problem with this, is that in SH4, the battery charge takes way too long because the battery multiplier is hardcoded. When working on that uboat mod i attemped, i found a work around for this. Which was taking that one crew super skill parameter that reduces battery usage, and applying that on a really low setting on submerged endurance in the sim file. The result was, a realistic battery recharge time. The acutal battery is maybe 1/4 of what it previously was. The uber skill reduces the time to drain that so it performs like a regular battery. And because it's 1/4 the size of what it previously was, it recharges much faster - about the time it should take to recharge given the discharge rate.


Now then, the fleet boat method, (aka indirect drive)

This is a psuedo adaptation by the developers. Basically the engines area always on. Engines in this case, do not directly power the props. The electric current they generate does. Therego when your charging your batteries, both props keep turning.

Now you may not have noticed because the values prior to the recharge fix i worked out were too high, but battery recharge times will vary based on your speed. The faster you go, the longer it takes to recharge your batteries. The slower you go, the quicker the recharge. If your sitting there, at a dead stop, your basically ideling your engines like a tractor trailer at a rest stop. On the plus side, recharging your battieres doesn't reduce your top speed (though it should).

The way i worked out recharge times in that beta patch for TMO 2.0 was from all stop to 2/3rds it will take roughly 4.5 hours to recharge your batteries. From ahead standard, 8 hours, and from ahead full to ahead flank, 15 and a half hours. (So in theory, the faster you go, the more engines you put "on the line", and the longer the recharge)

I don't know if what i wrote makes any sense. I was up to 3:30 AM last night, and im barely into my first cup of coffee.