Domino effect.

[Sniper297]

I don't wanna play dominoes, is there a way to shut it off? Coming into harbor I ran over a sunken wreck while running on the surface. Okay, I'll accept some minor damage from the scrape, but "periscopes destroyed!" what did I do, roll over upside down before I hit the wreck with the keel?! Then of course the infamous domino effect where every system on the boat (and even some systems back in the warehouse) are destroyed in rapid succession for 5 seconds then the death screen. I'm running 1.4 with GFO, nothing but default bugs here. Find every sub zone and add 10,000 hit points? What does it take to get a list of all the damage zones, where they are, and what systems they affect?

[torpedobait]

This is not a direct answer to your question, but more of a question about your question. Why on earth are you running 1.4? Get yourself an upgrade to 1.5 (the one with the Uboat missions) and then start one of the major mods. Way less buggy and way more enjoyable.

[Sniper297]

I have the D2D version which has a different executable from the disc version, does not require a key disk in the drive because it didn't come on a disk. Options for 1.5 today are to buy the whole "gold" version, if available, requiring the key disk and all that farting around with StarForce, or a STEAM version which is always a pain for a moddable game. Main reason I didn't buy SH5 was DRM. It's not a matter of principle, it's a problem I've always had keeping key disks clean and unscratched. Not to mention all the trouble I had removing StarForce after uninstalling SH3, I eventually had to format the main drive and reinstall XP to get the DVD player working again after ubisoft stomped all over my system registry with their paranoid DRM crap.

[Sniper297]

Back on topic, the main adjustment looks like the \Data\Submarine\NSS_(subtype).zon file, at the bottom 33 collisionable object.

Fields are;

Armor Level = (25 default) NOTE armor in CM 0-100
Hit Points = (320 default) NOTE the amount of hit points this ship can take
Crash Depth = (152 default) NOTE the maximum depth this ship survives
Crash Speed = (2.0 default) NOTE the number of hit points to be accumulated in 1 sec when ship under crash depth
Rebound = (default 0.45) NOTE the rebound coeficient 0-1 to be used when colliding with other objects.

That last is a mystery, the note tells nothing about higher or lower equals more or less "rebound", whether the severity of the bounce causes damage, or if the rebound is used in explosives damage or not. I hunted this forum for discussion on it, but there are more questions than answers and some of the answers are wrong. After some trial and error I changed armor level to 44, hit points to 900, crash depth to 220, and crash speed to 0.1. That seems to alleviate some of the more ridiculous slambang one after another damage effects without getting completly ridiculous. At one point during testing I jacked the numbers up high enough to motor right up to 1000 yards from a Kongo on the surface before taking enough damage to die, that's not what I'm looking for.

Zones.cfg might or might not have an effect on this, it's difficult to tell what type of "u-boat" a Sargo class is, or if the "flt" in some of the datablocks means "fleet boat" or not. But the values in the NSS_Sargo.zon (or NSS_Gato.zon or whatever sub type you use) definitely have an effect on how fast you get damaged.

[Sniper297]

Another topic, diving speed. A super cruiser miraculously appears from the 4th dimension coming toward you at warp 9, firing from three hundred 95 inch cannon simultaneously at 38,000 rounds per minute. Obvious thing to do is dive, but conventional wisdom has it that fleet subs were slow divers because they were bigger than U-boats. I timed a "standard" dive (no such thing in wartime, they were all "crash dives" even if it was just for practice) and it took 2 minutes to get to periscope depth. Order crash dive and it took a little over 1 minute to get the entire sub including the stern flag staff under.

From a wiki article;

The Gatos were slow divers when compared to some German and British designs, but that was mostly because the Gatos were significantly larger boats. Sufficient fuel bunkerage to provide the range necessary for 75-day patrols from Hawaii to Japan and back could only be obtained with a large boat, which will take longer to submerge than a smaller one. Acknowledging this limitation, the Bureau designers incorporated a negative (sometimes called a "down express") tank into the design which provided a large amount of negative buoyancy at the start of the dive. Normally kept full or nearly full at the surface, the tank was emptied to a certain mark after the boat was submerged to restore neutral buoyancy. At the start of the war these boats could go from fully surfaced to periscope depth in approximately 45–50 seconds. The superstructure that sat atop the pressure hull provided the main walking deck when the boat was surfaced and was free flooding and full of water when the boat was submerged. When the dive began the boat would "hang" for a few extra seconds while this superstructure filled with water. In an attempt to speed this process, additional limber, or free flooding, holes were drilled and cut into the superstructure to allow it to flood faster. By mid war, these measures combined with improved crew training got dive times down to 30–35 seconds, very fast for such a large boat and acceptable to the boat's crew.

With that in mind (Run Silent Run Deep fans will remember the constant drills Clark Gable ran to get from surfaced to periscope depth and ready to fire in 35 seconds) I started playing with the \Data\Submarine\NSS_(subtype).sim file.

At the bottom 10/11 unit submarine is the last datablock, ballast.
mainBT flood speed = 20000
DiveBT flood speed = 9000
Is Diesel-Electric = true

Last line doesn't affect anything about diving speed, but after more trial and error I came up with;

mainBT flood speed = 38000
DiveBT flood speed = 18000
Is Diesel-Electric = true

With those numbers, cruising at 15 knots with tanks blown dry fully surfaced;

Periscope depth
hull under in 30 seconds
top of conning tower under in 45 seconds.
periscope shears under in 1 minute.
level at periscope depth 1 minute 10 seconds.

Crash dive
hull under in 20 seconds
top of conning tower under in 35 seconds.
periscope shears under in 45 seconds.
level at 120 feet in 1 minute 5 seconds.

I know not what course others may take, but as for me that feels more realistic than having these drunken lubbers lollygagging around for 2 minutes under fire while Mister Panic screams about all the damaged systems at an auctioneer's speech pace.

What I would really love is more control over buoyancy - real subs had dozens of tanks, in addition to the main ballast tanks being divided there are assorted internal trim and buoyancy tanks. Got flooding in the after torpedo room and can't stay level, pump from the after trim tank to the forward trim tank, give me a 20 second blow in 6C and 6D to put a bubble in those tanks. Can't maintain depth, pump from safety to sea 5 tons. This all or nothing design for one of the most important aspects of controlling a sub is pretty lame.

[Admiral Halsey]

I have the Gold Version and all I had to do was install it. No starforce, CD keys or anything like that.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

I have the Gold Version and all I had to do was install it. No starforce, CD keys or anything like that.

Same here.

At the bottom 10/11 unit submarine is the last datablock, ballast.
mainBT flood speed = 20000
DiveBT flood speed = 9000

FYI:

I don't have the files in front of me, but the RFB values for the Porpoise class are 70000 and 14000.

I don't blame you for being unhappy with very slow dives. A long time ago, before I knew anything about the game files, I was bedeviled by my S-boat taking ~5 min. to get to p/s depth. Crash dives were faster, but still, it wasn't good. At the time, my "solution" was to stay submerged if there was any likelihood of seeing warships in gun range. Not fun.