[REL] Real Fleet Boat

[czACha]

I agree with Driftwood. Guys from RFB modes team pls. I know exactly that it was very big problem with MK14 torpedo. But it was:
1. too deep running (3 meters)
2. dud problem especially when the torpedo hit on angle close to 90 degrees (sic!) problem with contact detonators
3. too soon explosion made by problems with magnetic detonators
4. problems with holding gyro angle – torpedo simply turned around – seldom problem
I there were problems with torpedo up to late 1943 and highest score for a sub (not even one captain) around 110 000 BRT.
Love your mode, especially this compromise between map update and as well with not given too much information.
Please give some of us maybe little hardened but not as this one version with torpedo run. 10 shots and no one going on the truck – a little too frustrating.
Thank you for you job anyway – I replaced the file with original one and too easy I have to admit.

[perisher]

Originally Posted by Driftwood

Is there a way to disable this particular part of RFB 1.27 so I can do some testing?

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...&postcount=692

[Beery]

RFB will keep the dud torpedo mod. As far as I can see the dud rate is realistic - those early war type 14s were very poor indeed and because of the way supply worked I can't see how clusters of duds would be unrealistic. So removing the mod just doesn't seem right to me. I know this won't be a popular decision but I don't see an alternative - the standard torpedoes are far worse in terms of accuracy and players using the standard game's torpedoes will be getting far more tonnage than real skippers could possibly get with Mk.14 torpedoes.

I will study the Torpedoes_US.sim file and actively look for solutions to the 18-20 degree gyro angle issue starting today, but since in 90+% of reports it seems to occur only when the player is doing something that real sub skippers didn't do (i.e. going into harbours and shooting docked ships at very close range), again I don't see how changing it will help to encourage historically accurate play. In RFB targets are scarce, so frustrated players will tend to go looking in ports (I've done it myself once - the only time I got the 18-20 degree gyro angle bug), and until we get good port defences so that harbour raids are a death sentence (as they were in reality) players who are into realism really should try to resist that temptation.

Personally I suspect the gyro angle bug has something to do with measuring a ship's height using the lower magnification on the periscope. The only time I had it happen that was the case, and for some reason when I adjusted the height of the ship's mast the gyro angle fixed itself. It's certainly the case that when a ship gets below 1000 yards it becomes necessary to use the lower magnification. Maybe someone could test this?

I may end up taking the gyro angle problems out of the torpedo mod, as the gyro angle factor is probably what's making the 18-20 degree bug worse. Anyway, from what I've read gyro angle problems were a minor issue with the Mk.14s compared to the dud rate due to the exploder, but I have to do more reading to make sure that's right.

In the meantime, players who dislike this part of the mod can remove the Torpedoes_US.sim file from RFB's Data\Library folder before installing RFB.

By the way, this need not be the end of the discussion - by all means rail against the decision and give more reasons for me to kick this mod out or adjust it. Constructive criticism is the only way forward.

[Quagmire]

Unfortunately, the way the sim calculates the failure percentage may be the demise of the hardcore torpedoes mod. From what everyone is posting it seems that the failure rate is "die-rolled" at the beginning of the patrol/mission, not on every shot. This rate value skews the failure values in Torpedoes_US.sim to give you a bad partrol or a good patrol.

Now the stock torpedos_US.sim is very forgiving so the skew to its failure rate will just give you a few duds on a bad patrol. However mod the file to be more realistic and now a bad patrol "die-roll" will be skewed off the charts. This can lead to almost every torpedo failing the same way which would be unrealistic. Especially for gyro errors. If only the devs had coded the sim to "die-roll" for failure on every shot we would have a chance.

Now a solution would be (and I think Beery is on to this) to remove the gyro failure chance from the torpedoes_US.sim file but leave everything else. If it were me I would leave the depth errors at stock as well since this can lead to the "torpedo passing straight through the ship" bug.

Leave the dud rate hardcore though. It is at least comforting to know you hit and got a dud rather than the torpedo just running off on its own. It helps soothe the pride a little when you at least know that your manual solution was good.

[Galanti]

Originally Posted by Beery

RFB will keep the dud torpedo mod. As far as I can see the dud rate is realistic - those early war type 14s were very poor indeed and because of the way supply worked I can't see how clusters of duds would be unrealistic. So removing the mod just doesn't seem right to me. I know this won't be a popular decision but I don't see an alternative - the standard torpedoes are far worse in terms of accuracy and players using the standard game's torpedoes will be getting far more tonnage than real skippers could possibly get with Mk.14 torpedoes.

I will study the Torpedoes_US.sim file and actively look for solutions to the 18-20 degree gyro angle issue starting today, but since in 90+% of reports it seems to occur only when the player is doing something that real sub skippers didn't do (i.e. going into harbours and shooting docked ships at very close range), again I don't see how changing it will help to encourage historically accurate play. In RFB targets are scarce, so frustrated players will tend to go looking in ports (I've done it myself once - the only time I got the 18-20 degree gyro angle bug), and until we get good port defences so that harbour raids are a death sentence (as they were in reality) players who are into realism really should try to resist that temptation.

Personally I suspect the gyro angle bug has something to do with measuring a ship's height using the lower magnification on the periscope. The only time I had it happen that was the case, and for some reason when I adjusted the height of the ship's mast the gyro angle fixed itself. It's certainly the case that when a ship gets below 1000 yards it becomes necessary to use the lower magnification. Maybe someone could test this?

I may end up taking the gyro angle problems out of the torpedo mod, as the gyro angle factor is probably what's making the 18-20 degree bug worse. Anyway, from what I've read gyro angle problems were a minor issue with the Mk.14s compared to the dud rate due to the exploder, but I have to do more reading to make sure that's right.

In the meantime, players who dislike this part of the mod can remove the Torpedoes_US.sim file from RFB's Data\Library folder before installing RFB.

By the way, this need not be the end of the discussion - by all means rail against the decision and give more reasons for me to kick this mod out or adjust it. Constructive criticism is the only way forward.

I hadn't noticed the possible correlation between lower mag and the gyro thing. That's interesting, I will look into it. However, I see the bug whether I'm in the middle of the ocean or potting marus in harbour.

[tater]

Dunno if this is possible, but it might be interesting to try. If you are having a bad patrol with the gyro error, find the "randomseed" in the save/campaign data wherever that is (I know I saw it). It would be interesting to edit a campaign without the problem to look at that seed and see if it is deterministic for a given random seed.

If everyone has the problem with all torps and a given seed, then we might be facing a single die roll applied to all random events (which would suck).

This would explain a lot, sadly. Why all DDs that we know are set to a decent skill ignore us sometimes, and other times hammer us, etc.

[Beery]

I've given the torpedo file a good look-over. I can't see how the gyro angle deviation alteration in the file could be making that gyro angle bug worse. The max gyro deviation for early war torpedoes is actually LESS than vanilla SH4, although the chance is higher, but even at its higher value it's only 3%. With those numbers I just don't see how it can possibly be posing a problem so often for people. I think the problem has to be somewhere else, but I haven't a clue where to look.

[tedhealy]

You and I must be the only ones not seeing the gyro error on a regular basis Beery. After 5 patrols, I have 50,000 tons sunk, 10,000 behind number 1 on the leaderboard. A bit high for my liking, but much better than the 3 or 4 times the leader I'd have with stock sh4. The gyro error has never been a big problem. It's the premature exploders that have gotten me the most.

I've tried to make a lot of approaches to 1000 yards or less, so I've used the lower magnification on the scope quite often without getting massive gyro error. My firing procedure is to launch a salvo 3 or 4 fish in quick succession while changing the gyro angle by half a degree or so to either side depending on range and TDC solution. I always set to high speed and change the depth to 12 to 20 feet for contact or +3 feet to the draft of the ship for magnetic.

I'm perfectly happy with the hardcore torpedo mod, if anything I'd say the contact problem should be increased. Torpedoes that hit straight on at 90 degrees should rarely if ever work until the faulty torpedoes are fixed.

[tater]

Yeah, I've not had the gyro problem, either.

[Quagmire]

This is one of those great problems that will require a lot of detective work. Its like finding a cure for cancer. The root of the problem is in there somewhere.

Here is a clue that may people have seen. If you are having the 18-20 deg gyro offset bug (in deep water or in a harbor) and you:

1. save the game
2. exit to windows
3. revert back to the stock torpedoes_US.sim
4. restart SHIV and resume from the last save

your torpedoes will run normally once again.

Who knows what is happening. My theory is that the modded file sends the randomised failure "die-roll" off the charts. Putting the stock file back skews everything back to normal range.

.

[Jaber]

For what it is worth...

I did some testing the other day to determine the actual position indication of the Contact vs Influence switch that was interesting to watch the failures. I fired about 48 torps (12 missions) from the torp school using RFB 1.27 but with the original Torpedoes_us.sim. Out of the 48 torps I had five that were obvious failures (there could have been more due to depth but did not count as I was checking magnetic vs influence at different depths). What is interesting is out of the 5 failures, 2 of them were bad gyro angles, way off.


During actual patrols I seem to get about the same average of duds, but cannot completely confirm the failure rate of bad gyro vs bad solution as I do not follow all the torps with external view.

[Driftwood]

Originally Posted by Quagmire

This is one of those great problems that will require a lot of detective work. Its like finding a cure for cancer. The root of the problem is in there somewhere.

Here is a clue that may people have seen. If you are having the 18-20 deg gyro offset bug (in deep water or in a harbor) and you:

1. save the game
2. exit to windows
3. revert back to the stock torpedoes_US.sim
4. restart SHIV and resume from the last save

your torpedoes will run normally once again.

Who knows what is happening. My theory is that the modded file sends the randomised failure "die-roll" off the charts. Putting the stock file back skews everything back to normal range.

.

Got a CTD when I tried this. It appears that SHIV stock does NOT like playing a saved RFB campaign.

[czACha]

I am very pleased that the discussion is going to continue.
That is right Beery, we are getting more tonnage like real captain did but we are having far more patrols as well.
I agree that standard file with torpedo behavior is far too easy.
The MK14 torpedo was one of the most advanced warfare this time. Engineers spend almost 16 years under developing this stuff. Only the magnetic device responsible for exploding torpedo under the vital parts of the ship hull had 45 kg self weight. Finally MK14 was the deepest secret of warfare. EVERYONE from purchasing department was so proud of this product that they did not want to hear anything against that torpedo.
From the very beginning more and more captains claims very high level of dude torpedo. After few moths officials said to set the depth parameter 3 m higher because the torpedo usually went too deep. After that occurs that magnetic field was not tested well before. Tests were made on closed waters with calm surface and very few of them made with real warhead – too expensive they say. Explosion was much too soon or very near the ship but far enough to make any serious damage. Captains even dismounted the magnetic devices during patrols but than finally the last fault appeared. Contact detonator, It was maybe good design but done from not too good materials. The torpedo does not explode very often and especially when the angle closed to 90 degrees! The material the percussion cup was made of was not good enough. Shot down Japan planes propellers, have good enough material for this job and after all this changes in late 1943 MK14 become real weapon.
Sorry for my English. But that is story I know. If you can do something what can slightly reflect that facts I would be much appreciated.
BTW what do you think about making sub submerging time shorter when the cru is on the state of battle station?

[Bando]

Beery,

The discussion about the torpedo flaw is almost exclusively about the Mk 14. The Mk 10 torpedo is the standard torpedo of the S class sub. This torpedo should have been tested and developed when WW2 started. Since the CCIP mod they (Mk 10's) also are full of flaws. A few posts back I told you I fired 36 in a row that went through the target without exploding.

Was the Mk 10 such a bad torpedo, or are the Mk 14 flaws also in place for the Mk 10?

Regards Bando

[Quagmire]

Originally Posted by Driftwood

Got a CTD when I tried this. It appears that SHIV stock does NOT like playing a saved RFB campaign.

Sorry to hear that. You didnt restart SHIV with RFB entirely removed, did ya? I meant to just remove the torpedoes_US.sim file. If that is all you did then you are probably experiencing one of the many other save game CTD issues.