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U-Bones · 04-08-07, 10:54 PM

I got home early and had time to poke about a bit more.

I was somewhat wrong. It seems that a given sub is not locked down to the same setting all the time. I have seen Gar and Porpoise change and my current working theory is that every sub load randomly interacts with zones.cfg like this

1. Selects either the Attack or Obs periscope.

2. Get CriticalFloatation from Critic Floatation.

3. Set FloodingSpeed, formula is (1 / FloodingTime)

Interestingly, stock 1.1 had identical data in both periscopes, so they were not using the randomization potiential they build in.... OR the nasty alternative is that none of this is intended and everything is broken and that is the cause of all the spastic damage - but I do not think that is the case.

IF the engine is loading any other Sub data from zones.cfg, I do not think it is coming from the sub section

So basically, I think that the fruit of this excercise is

1. We now know that each compartment no longer has its own flooding threshold or speed - it is set globally on the sub.

2. We now know how to set these global variables.

3. With two known sources for the data, we can introduce a little uncertainty here. Maybe one setting floods slowly at 33% damage, the other much faster at 66%.. or similar scenarios, you get the idea. You would not know which you get on a given patrol unless you peek in your save.

4. The extent of the random selection is yet to be determined - I will have to look at a lot more saves before I can absolutely say there are no other sections looked at besides periscopes (not so far that I have observed). My expectation is that it only looks at the two periscopes.

5. The criteria for the random selection is yet to be determined. I looked for and excluded two sub/type and general early/late patterns. All I have noticed is that it seems to randomise in short runs of 1 to 6. My expectation is that it is purely random in that it does not depend on anything user selectable.

6. A big question that this brings up is - how does this impact other vessels ? aircraft ? do they also use zones.cfg differently than they did in SH3 ? I know that I will not be using ships imported from SH3 until this is understood better... not like there is a shortage anyway.

7. Another question. Why was this hidden so weirdly ? Why didnt these two simply get placed into the new UPC files ? Time crunch ? Oversight ?

8. Starting values set by stock 1.1 zones.cfg are
CriticalFloation = 0.300000 (direct from Critic Floation)
FloodingSpeed = 0.016667 ( from 1 / FloodingTime which was 59.999996)

9. I am still assuming that Crit Floatation means what it did in SH3. I will test that tomrrow night.

This also explains why some of my early testing re flooding was so wacky - I was tweaking stuff that had no effect on the game.

Hope this all makes better sense now.

04-08-07, 10:54 PM	#9
U-Bones Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Treading Water Posts: 847 Downloads: 56 Uploads: 0	I got home early and had time to poke about a bit more. I was somewhat wrong. It seems that a given sub is not locked down to the same setting all the time. I have seen Gar and Porpoise change and my current working theory is that every sub load randomly interacts with zones.cfg like this 1. Selects either the Attack or Obs periscope. 2. Get CriticalFloatation from Critic Floatation. 3. Set FloodingSpeed, formula is (1 / FloodingTime) Interestingly, stock 1.1 had identical data in both periscopes, so they were not using the randomization potiential they build in.... OR the nasty alternative is that none of this is intended and everything is broken and that is the cause of all the spastic damage - but I do not think that is the case. IF the engine is loading any other Sub data from zones.cfg, I do not think it is coming from the sub section So basically, I think that the fruit of this excercise is 1. We now know that each compartment no longer has its own flooding threshold or speed - it is set globally on the sub. 2. We now know how to set these global variables. 3. With two known sources for the data, we can introduce a little uncertainty here. Maybe one setting floods slowly at 33% damage, the other much faster at 66%.. or similar scenarios, you get the idea. You would not know which you get on a given patrol unless you peek in your save. 4. The extent of the random selection is yet to be determined - I will have to look at a lot more saves before I can absolutely say there are no other sections looked at besides periscopes (not so far that I have observed). My expectation is that it only looks at the two periscopes. 5. The criteria for the random selection is yet to be determined. I looked for and excluded two sub/type and general early/late patterns. All I have noticed is that it seems to randomise in short runs of 1 to 6. My expectation is that it is purely random in that it does not depend on anything user selectable. 6. A big question that this brings up is - how does this impact other vessels ? aircraft ? do they also use zones.cfg differently than they did in SH3 ? I know that I will not be using ships imported from SH3 until this is understood better... not like there is a shortage anyway. 7. Another question. Why was this hidden so weirdly ? Why didnt these two simply get placed into the new UPC files ? Time crunch ? Oversight ? 8. Starting values set by stock 1.1 zones.cfg are CriticalFloation = 0.300000 (direct from Critic Floation) FloodingSpeed = 0.016667 ( from 1 / FloodingTime which was 59.999996) 9. I am still assuming that Crit Floatation means what it did in SH3. I will test that tomrrow night. This also explains why some of my early testing re flooding was so wacky - I was tweaking stuff that had no effect on the game. Hope this all makes better sense now.