[TEC/WIP] Torpedo Malfunctions

[Rongel]

Two duds in a row, must be my lucky day!

I've been looking into torpedo malfunctions for some time now, and here is what I found!

There is somekind of torp malfunction system in SH 5, but it's very rare that malfunction happens. Editing torpedo.sim for dud chanches hasn't any effect at all in game. But it seems you can edit circle runner, gyro deviation and depth keeping values succesfully.

But I found this quite exciting thing in the UPCDataGE special abilities-file: Reduce Torpedo DudChance. So rather than messing with the individual controls (which many of them don't work at all) I just edited and inverted these values:

default:
[SpecialAbility 17]
AbilityValue= -10, -20, -30, -40, -50

edit:
[SpecialAbility 17]
AbilityValue= 99, 70, 50, 30, 0 (example values, they can be higher for more effect)

So basically the special ability gives you 99 % more malfunctions! Don't tell it to the captain I tested the values in my shooting range for hours and came up with these results, so here is my list of malfunction effects:

TI torpedo: Cirlce running and maybe depth and gyro deviations, no duds at all.
TII torpedo: Duds, cirlce running, depth/gyro deviations, the whole lot!
Magnetic detonation: Premature explosions
Impact detonation: Premature explosions

Conclusion: Editing the special ability gave much more malfunctions than stock settings. But there doesn't seem to be much malfunctions for TI torpedo, so you won't see them in action neccessarily. I read somewhere that SH3 doesn't have either duds/premature explosions for impact TI torpedoes. SH 5 seems to use SH 3 system and not SH 4 .

Changing the special ability procents is a nice and fast way to get more malfunctions, but probably the sim file needs some adjustments too. Especially TI torpedo has to be less effective. Maybe I'll make a small mod with this so that people can try it out, or you can change the values yourself. The torpedo malfunction system is a mess and testing random things is time consuming process! So beware, broken torpedoes are coming your way!

EDIT: New results are just in, I launched four T I torpedos at a tanker, one was magnetic, other three impact. The first of the torps did a 50 degree turn and missed the target, and then started the premature explosions, all the torps exploded before hitting the target. So impact torpedoes can also detonate too early!

[mobucks]

OoooOOOoo neat. Thanks for this it will be good to use for us realism geeks. I liked in TMO how the torps basicly were all duds unless setting them to 1.0m depth, slow, and hitting 90deg perpendicular. Not sure what the common malfunctions of the KM torps was, but was there a way to perhaps have less chance of dud through torp settings/hit angle like TMO?
Ah the memories!
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"

[Rongel]

Originally Posted by mobucks

OoooOOOoo neat. Thanks for this it will be good to use for us realism geeks. I liked in TMO how the torps basicly were all duds unless setting them to 1.0m depth, slow, and hitting 90deg perpendicular. Not sure what the common malfunctions of the KM torps was, but was there a way to perhaps have less chance of dud through torp settings/hit angle like TMO?
Ah the memories!
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
"Torpedo is a dud, sir!"

I need also some uncertainty in my game. Nothing better than to stalk a convoy and finally fire salvo of torpedoes and the first one explodes right in your eyes and alerts the whole gang! SH 4 had quite good dud-system. The weird thing is that SH 5 looks like it has the same options, but it just doesn't work.

Dud torpedoes actually seem quite rare, I get circle runners, premature explosions, angle deviations but very few duds. And they seem to come in groups

[Halface]

hmmm i havent had a dud yet....

have dud enabled in options etc....

but no dud but i always use impact on my torps

[Rongel]

Originally Posted by Halface

hmmm i havent had a dud yet....

have dud enabled in options etc....

but no dud but i always use impact on my torps

Hmmm x 2. Somehow it seems that my good results editing the special abilities have dissapeared. Or can it be that it so random, no malfunctions at all, then suddenly all fails. I'll try using different settings in my new campaign and report more later.

[Rongel]

Last night I was messing with the dud settings again and it seems I made a quite significant find!

I put the dud possibilities ridiculously high and started to fire at docked ships. I used T1 torpedoes with a impact detonation. I knew that circle runners and other malfunctions work well, but to get actual duds, is really difficult. So I was amazed that this one ship got a lot of duds, 4-5 in a row. I tested it several times, changed it's location to get diiferent AOB and same results. I almost couldn't sink it.

Then I realised... Ta-daa! It was an imported ship from SH 4! I tried again with another imported ship and got same results, about 50% duds. I got absolutely no duds with stock ships.

So it seems that dud torpedo settings work with .dat-ships but not with GR2-ships!

Actually that makes sense, because the malfuction settings are from SH 4 and made originally for .dat-ships. I didn't test it, but I wouldn't be suprised if magnetic torpedoes work okay with imported ships as well.

So we could make a torpedo dud-mod, but it would only affect new ships, which isn't right ofcourse. The rules of the world should be the same to all it's entities. Maybe TDW could explain why this happens (differences with .dat files and GR2-files), and tell if in future there could be a way to fix this.

PS. I know I have seen a stock ship that got one dud, but no idea why or how it happened.

[Sepp von Ch.]

Any news please Rongel?

[Rongel]

Originally Posted by Josef von Posorschitz

Any news please Rongel?

Hi!

Well no news sadly, I'm taking a small break from SH 5 (had a new game!) but ofcourse will come back soon. I'm also following the TDW's importer/exporter progress as it will help this.

Simply put, the SH 4 damage 3d model seems to work even with SH 5 ships. The perfect thing would be that we find some differencies with the 3d models. Then we could just export them out, "fix" the 3d models and import them back in.

[Bilge_Rat]

I have been doing my own tests with this using Rongel's findings. you can really tweak malfunctions using the crew special abilities file. This opens up a lot of possibilities.

The torpedo.sim file may also require some tweaking although duds, gyro problems, deep runners, circle runners are all in there.

[Rongel]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

I have been doing my own tests with this using Rongel's findings. you can really tweak malfunctions using the crew special abilities file. This opens up a lot of possibilities.

The torpedo.sim file may also require some tweaking although duds, gyro problems, deep runners, circle runners are all in there.

Yep, that is true. The bad thing is that even with tweaking the special abilities, the dud probability never affects GR2 ships. It works 100 % correct with the imported ships but not with basic SH 5 ships...

[Bilge_Rat]

Hmm, interesting, set dud probability to 100% and torpedoes still work flawlessly. Looks like duds may have to be put on hold until someone figures out the solution.

This was so easy to tweak in SH4, I wonder why they switched to GR2 ships. Is there an advantage over DAT.?