Seeking an opinion from the community....

[Bubblehead1980]

After much work from others and myself, I have what was quest to get my personal install how I want it to a full on modding project, sort of adding on and updating.Now, plan to share these updates with everyone but undecided on an issue so figured would seek the opinions of those who will probably use said mod.

Depth charges in the game have always bothered me, some detonate very close and do little damage, other times they wipe your boat out or cause catastrophic damage.I have discovered this is because depth charges use hit points, which can vary with each one from 5 to 50 hitpoints, this is random. Most are probably somewhere in the middle but then may have a few all cause on the high scale, which causes the unrealistic" death blows" when charge is not that close.

I already lowered the distance in which the maximum damage is done unless charge is close and it has helped, damage does seem to accumulate and death blows are rare unless a lucky charge lands right on your deck and explodes.

Another issue is te "depth precision" setting which basically allows the AI to set charges at different depths based on players depth.For example , player is at 300 feet and depth precision is set to 5 meters(games uses metric system, much to my annoyance) , then the charges will explode at 300 feet or within 5 meters (above and below) .The problem with this is in RL the japanese did not have that option with their charges.From what I have read, their early charges could be set at 50, 100 , and 200 feet and lacked the punch explosive wise.This was why US subs who had test depths of 250 and 300 feet(could go much deeper if needed) were able to evade them early in the war.Of course the idiot Congressman May blabbed about this, the Japanese modified their design.The new charge had more explosive power and an exploder which could be set at 50, 100, 200, 300, and later,400, 500 feet, these later charges were indeed sub killers.

Unfortunately, I don't see how an get the game to give us that much accuracy in depth charge performance so I tried something out.I set depth precision to 1 meter, figuring not all exploded right at the depth, maybe slightly below or above but all were preset on that depth.Meaning if you are at 300 feet, depth charges will explode there or withing 1 meter.Now, I have tested this and it definitely gives a much more realistic feeling to a depth charge attack but suddenly found the death blows were back because in an effort to simulate the consistent explosive power of each charge, I put the hitpoints at 35 for each other.A few close(not killing close) but close quickly adds up the boats hitpoints, next thing I know hull damage is at 100, game over.

Now, plant o try lowering hit points some, perhaps the effective distance as well, see how it reacts.Can't go too low though or they simply never cause damage and depth charges are mere noise makers that shake the boat.

I suppose the opinion I am seeking is what does everyone think about the depth precision? Fix it as I have or leave it at default ? Anyone have advice? Something I am missing.

I released one version of my depth charge mod last week, it does not address the depth precision issue(well i lowered it from 7 to 5) and made it so charges have to be very close for a killing blow.

The goal is to have more realistic depth charge performance without taking away their ability to actually kill the sub or seriously damage it.Like everything with this game, its finding the balance.