Okay... so how is this guy still floating?

Pal_080 · 06-10-08, 08:59 PM

Ok I'm very new to the game but today I managed to get in a decent area with a HUGE convoy of about 20 ships, and they all looked like battleships and destroyers... no weak merchants. So I fire off all my torpedoes and turn around and get a second shot with the rear tubes. I hit 5 ships in total but only two sank! One ship shook off the torpedo like it was nothing while the other two looked like they would go down at any moment.... but they just refused to die!

One of the two badly damaged ones had a strong list to the port side, it looked like it would continue to flip over... but it just sat there. At least it's engines seemed to have stopped

But this one? I don't even understand. The bloody thing is half underwater and it's steaming ahead at almost regular speed as if nothing happened!? Should it be slowly going under?

Arclight · 06-10-08, 09:44 PM

Well, at least it shouldn't be steaming anymore. In RL, the forward motion of the ship would drive the bow under (much like the dive-planes on your boat, don't know if or how SH models this). But it comes down to the fact that the ship is still afloat, disabled, but afloat. It's only a kill when it's heading to the bottom.

Several mods make changes to how damage is modeled, maybe there's something wrong with the order in which they where installed? I've certainly not seen any ships survive that where torn up like that in my game. And if you're not using any mods, you might wanna consider NSM (natural sinking mechanics). I'm using it and like I said, I never had a ship in that condition not sink on me.

I'm sorry, I don't think I can help you further with this, only scratching the surface myself.

Pal_080 · 06-10-08, 10:04 PM

hah, I'm glad just to hear that it should have gone down. I thought that maybe it had achieved some sort of perfect balance and someone here would tell me so... but I guess I just got very unlucky with some random glitch or whatever. I'm only using a garphics enhancing mod so I don't think that would cause it. Although I did have RSRD installed and then uninstalled it so maybe it has to do with that.

Here's the other ship by the way. This one had stopped but still wouldn't sink although I can see this maybe happening in reality. (more so than a ship which is angled toward the ocean floor but still propelling at fair speeds)

Arclight · 06-11-08, 12:41 AM

Yeah, that looks a lot more reasonable. Getting a hit on the engineroom or far aft to blow of a screw usually disables a ship, bringing it to a stop, although not necesarilly sinking it. Best advice I can probably give you is to fire 2 fish at each target, and hit them some distance apart. Hitting them twice in the same spot generally doesn't do much, though stock SH uses a "hitpoint" system for damage, instead of simulating flooding and having a ship sink by that. That's why I'm using NSM; in stock, ships usually go down in seconds, minutes at best. With NSM it can literally take hours, although rare. Never saw a ship capsize or lift the stern or bow right up in the air in stock.

As you probably know, ships are built up in watertight compartments. Punching a hole in just one is not enough with the bigger ships, especially warships, those are built to last! (and withstand some damage, obviously)

Had a run in with a huge european liner once; fired a spread of 4, got 3 hits. Ship was listing badly, bow low in the water, but it didn't sink. It came to a stop after a while, so I went on over to finish her of. Thing was, I pulled up on her starboard bow, while the first spread hit the port side. It took 3 more hits to get it to finally sink! Ran into another one of those sometime later; fired a spread of 2 (all I had left), and watched her go up in a big fireball at the first hit! Must have hit a fuel bunker...

And that's just it; if you hit the sweetspot, all it takes is one. But sometimes you can keep firing without any real results. If you want to be sure of a kill on the first go, hit it more than once.

Pal_080 · 06-11-08, 02:31 AM

One of the things I love most about this game is the way the ships sink. I just love the explosion on impact and watching the boat slowly tilt until it's totally done for and picks up speed as it decends to the ocean floor. I mean it's not something you see in real life very often (thankfully) and I think this game does a good job at recreating a torpedo strike. I basically always fire at least 2 torpedoes into a target to make sure of critical damage and more than one hole/impact point.

Maybe I should try out that NSM mod but if it makes ships take more to go down then I might find myself having troubles. Although I do find that ships sink rather quickly for my liking in the normal version. Since I'm new to the game I really enjoy watching a boat sink as it takes on water and more of the deck goes under.

Arclight · 06-11-08, 03:14 AM

From NSM .pdf (intro bit):

"What is NSM?

Natural Sinking Mechanics will greatly increase your silent hunter expirience by making the ships sink in a more natural way. Entire damage system has been reworked. Ships will no longer sink by hitpoints but only by physical action, such is flooding and losing bouyancy or balance. The new damage system will be explained further on, it is a good idea to find out how it works. This is a realism mod. The ship sinking rates and the different sinking behaviers has been tweaked as much accurate to historical records as possible. Expect all ships sink much slower then they do in stock game. The sinking rate depends on where the ship has been damaged. Sometimes you will see ships sinking in a matter of seconds and sometimes they will take hours (but that being rare).

What is new?
NSM4 is a complete rewamp. It has new compartment layouts for every ship (even sampans) and a completely new zones.cfg that is much more compatible with othermods. There are two new key features:
1. The new keel damage. For the first time torpedo depth becomes a factor. Now you can effectively use the vacuum effect when a torpedo explodes under the ship. You can now literely break the neck of the vessel with a single well placed shot. It is no longer random. If you want to find out how it works, read the part about keel damage later on.
2. There is a completely new balance between different ships. If you have been using previous versions of NSM you will find that your torpedoes are stronger but less reliable. You will need less hits to sink something and the ships are much better balanced agains each other."

I think you would find that ships display even more awesome behaviour while going down, imho much more awesome then stock. This is also the main + about this game for me; nothing like seeing a huge 10000+ ton ship slip slowly below the surface. It's the only reason I ever watched Titanic; to see that ship go down!

And again, it's all about where you hit them. Practice makes perfect.

Doolan · 06-11-08, 11:03 AM

I feel your pain.

The game makes a (decent) abstraction when determining whether something is sunk or not. Even if most of the deck is awash, provided the flooding is under control and there's enough air to keep the thing afloat, technically it's not sunk and the situation could possibly be remedied.

I do have a problem though when a ship in that condition steams merrily at full speed.

That's something the game can't really simulate as of now, since there are no hydrodynamics involved at all. Provided the engine room is in good condition the ship will steam forward without sinking further or receiving extra damage based on hydrodynamics.

I'm not sure if a relationship between the two conditions could be established in a mod, like reducing the ship's speed (automatically damaging the engines?) when other compartments are flooded.

howler93 · 06-11-08, 12:56 PM

Imagine how frustrating it must've been for real skippers

One of my best gaming moments ever was FINALLY finding the Yamato...slithering into position, and managing, over the course of many hours, to hit her broadside 12 times. Did she go down? No...she limped off into the sunrise. As frustrating as that was, it felt like Melville's "White Whale." A truly priceless SH4 moment for this skipper. Regardless, enjoy it all.

Cheers,
Howler

Pal_080 · 06-11-08, 10:18 PM

Okay where can I get this Natural sinking Mechanics mod. I'm no pro so I don't think I'll be taking advantage of the location damage very much, I usually just fire and hope for the best. seems to work fairly well most times.

But watching the ships sink has to be one of the best parts of the game for me as well. a satisfying reward for a job well done.

gimpy117 · 06-11-08, 10:27 PM

had a carrier do that to me...the flight deck was awash and everything...

Arclight · 06-11-08, 11:44 PM

Heck, I've had ships listing so bad in heavy seas that waves where washing over the bridge...

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=119504

You'll find most (if not all) major mods there. I you don't like it, it's easy to uninstall, like with all mods enabled through JSGME (JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler);

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=105421

It's a little program that goes in your SH4 folder. It creates a new folder ("MODS") to which you can install/unzip the mods you download. The program shows 2 lists; the left one lists avaible mods, the right one installed mods. Just select the mod you want, click a button and it will enable/disable it. Note that with several mods the order in which you enable them becomes important. Instructions on the program and the mods can be found on these forums easily enough.

If you need any help, just ask.

Pal_080 · 06-12-08, 12:18 AM

Thanks again. But that mod has a giant warning saying it's not to be used with the u-boat add on, only with v1.4. I have the uboat addon... but I'm gonna download this mod anyhow. i'll just assume it will only mess something up if I play the german campaign...?

Also.. I just spent almost 2 hours positioning myself for a convoy and managed only yo sink 2 ships even using the sub with 6 forward torpedoes.... Doh!

Arclight · 06-12-08, 12:36 AM

I only get 2 targets on every pass on a convoy as well. You have to fill a lot of shoes as a SH4 skipper (in RL you'ld have your crew to keep track of things you can't). It's hard enough to quickly churn out 2 good solutions, let alone 3. Just concentrate on hitting 1, do your best to hit a second one, and then slip away and speed ahaed of the convoy again to have another go. 6 fish for 2 kills isn't bad, RL skippers even had to deal with a 70% dud rate on the Mk.14 early to mid-war. Can you imagine launching 6 torpedos, getting 4 hits and only 1 (if your lucky) actually exploding? Your doing alright, don't be to hard on yourself and keep practicing.

Uhm.. V1.5 changes how the game handles files, so there's a chance you'll muck up more then just the german campaign. If it says "not compatible" stear clear. Most mods are moving to "1.5 only", so it's probably just a matter of time. Have a look around the "SH4 mods workshop" forum for information, maybe pose the question over there. I'll have a look as well, will let you know if I dig up anything.

*from what I'm reading, at least the "light" version of NSM works fine with 1.5 as long as you stick with the fleet boats. Disable if you want to play U-boat. Quess you assumed right.

Pal_080 · 06-12-08, 01:09 AM

I can't believe how helpful you have been, thanks once again. There sure is a lot to this game but I'm learning it and I love it so much. I'm only playing on 0% realisim though lol. I'm not sure if I'll ever switch to manual firing/aiming, it sounds so complicated but soon I'm gonna switch on batteries, Co2, Compressed Air, torpedo duds, realistic priscope movements and those tpyes of things.

I'll remember that advice of getting ahead of a convoy after I've had one strike but it seems like a convoy will usually change it's heading and speed up once i've alerted them and it makes it hard/impossible to catch up/keep up without getting the attention of the ships with depth charges.

Pal_080 · 06-12-08, 01:19 AM

bahaha, I think it messed something up because I just loaded up my saved file and the entire convoy is in flames lol. At least i'll get to enjoy the sinking. Hopefully this glitch will only apply to these boast since they were already loaded in the game when I installed the mod. I hope every merchant ship doesn't burst into flames when I come across it lol.

06-10-08, 08:59 PM	#1
Pal_080 Watch Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 22 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Okay... so how is this guy still floating? Ok I'm very new to the game but today I managed to get in a decent area with a HUGE convoy of about 20 ships, and they all looked like battleships and destroyers... no weak merchants. So I fire off all my torpedoes and turn around and get a second shot with the rear tubes. I hit 5 ships in total but only two sank! One ship shook off the torpedo like it was nothing while the other two looked like they would go down at any moment.... but they just refused to die! One of the two badly damaged ones had a strong list to the port side, it looked like it would continue to flip over... but it just sat there. At least it's engines seemed to have stopped But this one? I don't even understand. The bloody thing is half underwater and it's steaming ahead at almost regular speed as if nothing happened!? Should it be slowly going under?

06-10-08, 09:44 PM	#2
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	Well, at least it shouldn't be steaming anymore. In RL, the forward motion of the ship would drive the bow under (much like the dive-planes on your boat, don't know if or how SH models this). But it comes down to the fact that the ship is still afloat, disabled, but afloat. It's only a kill when it's heading to the bottom. Several mods make changes to how damage is modeled, maybe there's something wrong with the order in which they where installed? I've certainly not seen any ships survive that where torn up like that in my game. And if you're not using any mods, you might wanna consider NSM (natural sinking mechanics). I'm using it and like I said, I never had a ship in that condition not sink on me. I'm sorry, I don't think I can help you further with this, only scratching the surface myself. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

06-11-08, 12:41 AM	#4
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	Yeah, that looks a lot more reasonable. Getting a hit on the engineroom or far aft to blow of a screw usually disables a ship, bringing it to a stop, although not necesarilly sinking it. Best advice I can probably give you is to fire 2 fish at each target, and hit them some distance apart. Hitting them twice in the same spot generally doesn't do much, though stock SH uses a "hitpoint" system for damage, instead of simulating flooding and having a ship sink by that. That's why I'm using NSM; in stock, ships usually go down in seconds, minutes at best. With NSM it can literally take hours, although rare. Never saw a ship capsize or lift the stern or bow right up in the air in stock. As you probably know, ships are built up in watertight compartments. Punching a hole in just one is not enough with the bigger ships, especially warships, those are built to last! (and withstand some damage, obviously) Had a run in with a huge european liner once; fired a spread of 4, got 3 hits. Ship was listing badly, bow low in the water, but it didn't sink. It came to a stop after a while, so I went on over to finish her of. Thing was, I pulled up on her starboard bow, while the first spread hit the port side. It took 3 more hits to get it to finally sink! Ran into another one of those sometime later; fired a spread of 2 (all I had left), and watched her go up in a big fireball at the first hit! Must have hit a fuel bunker... And that's just it; if you hit the sweetspot, all it takes is one. But sometimes you can keep firing without any real results. If you want to be sure of a kill on the first go, hit it more than once. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

06-11-08, 03:14 AM	#6
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	From NSM .pdf (intro bit): "What is NSM? Natural Sinking Mechanics will greatly increase your silent hunter expirience by making the ships sink in a more natural way. Entire damage system has been reworked. Ships will no longer sink by hitpoints but only by physical action, such is flooding and losing bouyancy or balance. The new damage system will be explained further on, it is a good idea to find out how it works. This is a realism mod. The ship sinking rates and the different sinking behaviers has been tweaked as much accurate to historical records as possible. Expect all ships sink much slower then they do in stock game. The sinking rate depends on where the ship has been damaged. Sometimes you will see ships sinking in a matter of seconds and sometimes they will take hours (but that being rare). What is new? NSM4 is a complete rewamp. It has new compartment layouts for every ship (even sampans) and a completely new zones.cfg that is much more compatible with othermods. There are two new key features: 1. The new keel damage. For the first time torpedo depth becomes a factor. Now you can effectively use the vacuum effect when a torpedo explodes under the ship. You can now literely break the neck of the vessel with a single well placed shot. It is no longer random. If you want to find out how it works, read the part about keel damage later on. 2. There is a completely new balance between different ships. If you have been using previous versions of NSM you will find that your torpedoes are stronger but less reliable. You will need less hits to sink something and the ships are much better balanced agains each other." I think you would find that ships display even more awesome behaviour while going down, imho much more awesome then stock. This is also the main + about this game for me; nothing like seeing a huge 10000+ ton ship slip slowly below the surface. It's the only reason I ever watched Titanic; to see that ship go down! And again, it's all about where you hit them. Practice makes perfect. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

06-11-08, 10:27 PM	#10
gimpy117 Ocean Warrior Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Kalamazoo, MI Posts: 3,243 Downloads: 108 Uploads: 0	had a carrier do that to me...the flight deck was awash and everything... __________________ Member of the Subsim Zombie Army

06-10-08, 10:04 PM	#3
Pal_080 Watch Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 22 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	hah, I'm glad just to hear that it should have gone down. I thought that maybe it had achieved some sort of perfect balance and someone here would tell me so... but I guess I just got very unlucky with some random glitch or whatever. I'm only using a garphics enhancing mod so I don't think that would cause it. Although I did have RSRD installed and then uninstalled it so maybe it has to do with that. Here's the other ship by the way. This one had stopped but still wouldn't sink although I can see this maybe happening in reality. (more so than a ship which is angled toward the ocean floor but still propelling at fair speeds)

06-11-08, 02:31 AM	#5
Pal_080 Watch Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 22 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	One of the things I love most about this game is the way the ships sink. I just love the explosion on impact and watching the boat slowly tilt until it's totally done for and picks up speed as it decends to the ocean floor. I mean it's not something you see in real life very often (thankfully) and I think this game does a good job at recreating a torpedo strike. I basically always fire at least 2 torpedoes into a target to make sure of critical damage and more than one hole/impact point. Maybe I should try out that NSM mod but if it makes ships take more to go down then I might find myself having troubles. Although I do find that ships sink rather quickly for my liking in the normal version. Since I'm new to the game I really enjoy watching a boat sink as it takes on water and more of the deck goes under.

06-11-08, 11:03 AM	#7
Doolan Torpedoman Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 112 Downloads: 16 Uploads: 0	I feel your pain. The game makes a (decent) abstraction when determining whether something is sunk or not. Even if most of the deck is awash, provided the flooding is under control and there's enough air to keep the thing afloat, technically it's not sunk and the situation could possibly be remedied. I do have a problem though when a ship in that condition steams merrily at full speed. That's something the game can't really simulate as of now, since there are no hydrodynamics involved at all. Provided the engine room is in good condition the ship will steam forward without sinking further or receiving extra damage based on hydrodynamics. I'm not sure if a relationship between the two conditions could be established in a mod, like reducing the ship's speed (automatically damaging the engines?) when other compartments are flooded.

06-11-08, 12:56 PM	#8
howler93 Medic Join Date: May 2007 Location: Telluride, Colorado Posts: 162 Downloads: 13 Uploads: 0	Imagine how frustrating it must've been for real skippers One of my best gaming moments ever was FINALLY finding the Yamato...slithering into position, and managing, over the course of many hours, to hit her broadside 12 times. Did she go down? No...she limped off into the sunrise. As frustrating as that was, it felt like Melville's "White Whale." A truly priceless SH4 moment for this skipper. Regardless, enjoy it all. Cheers, Howler

06-11-08, 10:18 PM	#9
Pal_080 Watch Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 22 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Okay where can I get this Natural sinking Mechanics mod. I'm no pro so I don't think I'll be taking advantage of the location damage very much, I usually just fire and hope for the best. seems to work fairly well most times. But watching the ships sink has to be one of the best parts of the game for me as well. a satisfying reward for a job well done.

06-11-08, 11:44 PM	#11
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	Heck, I've had ships listing so bad in heavy seas that waves where washing over the bridge... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=119504 You'll find most (if not all) major mods there. I you don't like it, it's easy to uninstall, like with all mods enabled through JSGME (JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler); http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=105421 It's a little program that goes in your SH4 folder. It creates a new folder ("MODS") to which you can install/unzip the mods you download. The program shows 2 lists; the left one lists avaible mods, the right one installed mods. Just select the mod you want, click a button and it will enable/disable it. Note that with several mods the order in which you enable them becomes important. Instructions on the program and the mods can be found on these forums easily enough. If you need any help, just ask. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

06-12-08, 12:18 AM	#12
Pal_080 Watch Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 22 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Thanks again. But that mod has a giant warning saying it's not to be used with the u-boat add on, only with v1.4. I have the uboat addon... but I'm gonna download this mod anyhow. i'll just assume it will only mess something up if I play the german campaign...? Also.. I just spent almost 2 hours positioning myself for a convoy and managed only yo sink 2 ships even using the sub with 6 forward torpedoes.... Doh!

06-12-08, 12:36 AM	#13
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	I only get 2 targets on every pass on a convoy as well. You have to fill a lot of shoes as a SH4 skipper (in RL you'ld have your crew to keep track of things you can't). It's hard enough to quickly churn out 2 good solutions, let alone 3. Just concentrate on hitting 1, do your best to hit a second one, and then slip away and speed ahaed of the convoy again to have another go. 6 fish for 2 kills isn't bad, RL skippers even had to deal with a 70% dud rate on the Mk.14 early to mid-war. Can you imagine launching 6 torpedos, getting 4 hits and only 1 (if your lucky) actually exploding? Your doing alright, don't be to hard on yourself and keep practicing. Uhm.. V1.5 changes how the game handles files, so there's a chance you'll muck up more then just the german campaign. If it says "not compatible" stear clear. Most mods are moving to "1.5 only", so it's probably just a matter of time. Have a look around the "SH4 mods workshop" forum for information, maybe pose the question over there. I'll have a look as well, will let you know if I dig up anything. from what I'm reading, at least the "light" version of NSM works fine with 1.5 as long as you stick with the fleet boats. Disable if you want to play U-boat. Quess you assumed right. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.* Last edited by Arclight; 06-12-08 at 12:56 AM.

06-12-08, 01:09 AM	#14
Pal_080 Watch Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 22 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	I can't believe how helpful you have been, thanks once again. There sure is a lot to this game but I'm learning it and I love it so much. I'm only playing on 0% realisim though lol. I'm not sure if I'll ever switch to manual firing/aiming, it sounds so complicated but soon I'm gonna switch on batteries, Co2, Compressed Air, torpedo duds, realistic priscope movements and those tpyes of things. I'll remember that advice of getting ahead of a convoy after I've had one strike but it seems like a convoy will usually change it's heading and speed up once i've alerted them and it makes it hard/impossible to catch up/keep up without getting the attention of the ships with depth charges.

06-12-08, 01:19 AM	#15
Pal_080 Watch Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 22 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	bahaha, I think it messed something up because I just loaded up my saved file and the entire convoy is in flames lol. At least i'll get to enjoy the sinking. Hopefully this glitch will only apply to these boast since they were already loaded in the game when I installed the mod. I hope every merchant ship doesn't burst into flames when I come across it lol.