Adjust crash dive depth in TWOS

[Major Sunscreen]

Hi all,
Just a quickie this one- Im operating in the North Sea in shallower waters that are often less that 150m deep, in an area where air cover requires much diving to avoid aircraft.
Can someone point me to the file location where I might adjust the crash dive depth to 90m? This would be very helpful for me as I clamber from my bunk into the control room as soon as I hear the dreaded "Aircraft spotted"..

Cheers in advance.


Sunscreen

[bstanko6]

That's a dangerous idea. The Nord See is a variant shallow area. You are better ordering flank and diving your self.

My method:

1) Order Flank

2) Order dive, not specific depth.

3) Order depth under keel.

4) Make adjustments as needed.

[Major Sunscreen]

That's kind of what Ive been doing except the crash dive has the advantage of ordering flank speed and getting that initial loss of buoyancy going by flooding fully the buoyancy tanks. Yeah I appreciate that flooding then a partial blowing while trying to achieve a shallower depth is maybe not entirely prototypical but the glacial rate at which a normal dive takes place is not entirely in keeping with the sense of urgency an aircraft attack occurs either. Hence my desire to adjust the target depth to 90, which is a happy compromise for me in my game. Im on 100% difficulty so often the aircraft are 3000m or less inbound before they are spotted in anything like a medium fog so urgency is needed in a compromise context..

So if anyone does know the location of the relevant cfg file that would be super helpful

[Fifi]

You can always order a crash dive even in shallow waters...only thing is as soon as conning tower is about to submerge, reduce speed and set the depth you want.
(Or just set new depth)

[bstanko6]

I’m with you Fifi.

You are gonna hit that bottom so hard you may rupture the pressure hull.

Then it’s game over!

[Major Sunscreen]

Thanks for the contributions although I rather think the point of my post has been missed;


Im after the location of the relevant file to adjust the target crash dive depth.


The reasons for this are that the normal dive speed is too slow to avoid aircraft when using a realism setting that relies on the naked eyes of myself and my apparently blind ai crew, and the crash dive depth is too deep for the North Sea. It is fundamentally an escape manoeuvre that is set in to motion while the commander, in this case me, arrives on scene and assesses. Instead I find myself acting as the watch officer who instead has become merely a lookout on the bridge.


So simply the file location is required so that I can set a safe target depth that also pays lip service to the fact that the bouyancy tanks will have been flooded then partially blown to arrest the descent, as opposed to a normal dive routine where partial flooding occurs, trim is not adjusted forward and speed remains normal.

Cheers all and thanks again for the suggestions.

[Torpedo]

Originally Posted by Major Sunscreen

Hi all,
Just a quickie this one- Im operating in the North Sea in shallower waters that are often less that 150m deep, in an area where air cover requires much diving to avoid aircraft.
Can someone point me to the file location where I might adjust the crash dive depth to 90m? This would be very helpful for me as I clamber from my bunk into the control room as soon as I hear the dreaded "Aircraft spotted"..

Cheers in advance.


Sunscreen

Hi Major!
to adjust the depth of the crash dive depth to 90m you have to change the value you find in the .cfg file of each uboat. In TWoS this value is "CrashDepth=150" and you must change this value to "CrashDepth=90".
For example the cfg file for the uboatVIIA is "NSS_Uboat7a.cfg" and you find it in:

data\Submarine\NSS_Uboat7a\NSS_Uboat7a.cfg

open this file with a notepad and change the value 150 to 90
in the [Properties] category:

value in TWoS 150
...
[Properties]
PeriscopeDepth=12
SnorkelDepth=14
CrashDepth=150
MaxDepth=180
DiveDepth=300
SurfaceDepth=5
TorpLaunchMaxDepth=20
StormConditions=11.0.4; max wind speed [m / s], max rain intensity [0,1]
...

modified value 90
...
[Properties]
PeriscopeDepth=12
SnorkelDepth=14
CrashDepth=90
MaxDepth=180
DiveDepth=300
SurfaceDepth=5
TorpLaunchMaxDepth=20
StormConditions=11.0.4; max wind speed [m / s], max rain intensity [0,1]
...

so for the UboatVIIb the cfg file to be modified is:

data\Submarine\NSS_Uboat7b\NSS_Uboat7b.cfg

and so on for the other uboats.
I advise you to make a backup of the files you modify. The best thing is to make your own mod that you will activate with JSGME

Torpedo

P.S. You can activate this mod for the North Sea and deactivate it when you are in seas with greater depths.

[Major Sunscreen]

Torpedo, thank you very much indeed for your detailed response, exactly what I was looking for. Ill make a backup as you suggest. I appreciate you taking the time to write in such detail and provide step by step information.

Ive been playing SH5 with TWOS mod on 100% for 3 months now and am currently patrolling a square off the NE of England somewhat to the south of Scapa Flow. Having completed the Polish war, penetrated Scapa via the southern main entrance and now this patrol, Im really taking my time with it and more often than not prudence is definitely the better form of valour. This is why I dive immediately on hearing an aircraft report that is close, not so much for long range in good viz as my on station patrol speed I have adjusted to 4 knots which minimises my wake. Preserving my boat within the realms of acceptable risk is becoming something of a balancing act and with limited torpedoes and fuel not every contact becomes an attack.. If I could I would offload the sausages and hang deck gun shells in their place!

Edit, and just an hour after I write this 3 juicy freighters with 1 escort cross my path and I have 2 torpedoes left.. a long night of shadowing with a dawn attack if no other boats or friendly air attacks appear.. it seems I shall be testing the new dive depth in anger..

Thanks again for your time

[Sailor Steve]

Okay, there's some information that needs to be corrected here.

First of all, Major Sunscreen's dilemma and question are both correct. He (and everyone else who plays the game) needs to correct this. In fact, the creators got it wrong and need to correct it. The average crash-dive depth for a Type VII u-boat was only 70 metres, with a max of about 90. 150 metres is far to deep, and completely unhistorical.

Originally Posted by Fifi

You can always order a crash dive even in shallow waters...only thing is as soon as conning tower is about to submerge, reduce speed and set the depth you want.
(Or just set new depth)

That's nice, but also completely unhistorical. A crash dive involves the complete flooding of the main ballast tanks. Once that is done you are going down until you can pump half of that water out. Also the movable water is transferred completely to the forward trim tank. Half of that has to be pumped back to the aft trim tank before the bow can be brought up and the boat leveled. You cannot just "set the depth you want". Okay, you can in the game, but that's a complete cheat.

Major Sunscreen, I'm glad you got it sorted out so you can play it properly. Torpedo, thanks for your help.