Any way to make the torpedoes just a bit stronger?

[jscharpf]

I'm using GWX3 so I understand it makes things more realistic. I don't normally mess with a good thing but I was wondering if I could just tweak the torpedoes just a wee wee bit

It seems that I always need more than one to sink a ship, regardless of what ship it is, and I spend hours chasing a wounded ship that never sinks, so I put a second torpedo into it and it then goes down.

That's tough with a Type II ..

Anyway.. just wondering if I could increase the strength by, say 25% or something like that.

[Paulebaer1979]

Originally Posted by jscharpf

Anyway.. just wondering if I could increase the strength by, say 25% or something like that.

Easy going:
- Open Torpedo.sim (Silent Hunter III\data\Library\) with Silent 3ditor
- Open "18: amun_Torpedo
- Set the value for "impulse" to a higher level
- Save the file
- Enjoy torpedos with more power

Edit: I just gave the to do list for the torpedo type II - did not copy that you´re cruising with a type II sub. But the other torps are in the file, too. And they´re named so easy to find.

[jscharpf]

Thanks!

[Fahnenbohn]

I agree with jscharpf. I think it's unrealistic when 2 torpedoes are necessary to sink a vulgar freighter !

But it's also unrealistic when a battleship is destroyed by one or two shells fired by another battleship !!!

I would like to find a solution to this problem. I've tried to set the Yamato's FlotabilityGenB's armor level to 125 : well it is much stronger, but also unsinkable with torpedoes !!

Does anyone know what's the formula to calculate the number of hitpoints lost by a **** when it is hit ? There are several parameters but i don't know how it works :

- the shells : are there values for each different type of shell ?

- the .zon files of each ship :

- types of boxes (FlotabilityShow, NFlotShow, FlotabilityUpper : what does that mean ?)
- armor level of boxes (what means the value "-1" ?)

- the zones.cfg file (in data file) :

- multiplier
- flotability
- hitPoints
- destructible
- armor level
- critic flotation
- critical
- critical chance

... i'm completely lost !! help please !

[jscharpf]

I can see where this could get ugly real fast lol.. Since I didn't want to break my game or have large warships sinking from me throwing a rock at them, I just took all of the torpedo values and increased them by 10%-25% somewhat arbitrarily. I did the same for some of the shells.

I have no idea how this is going to work .

Usually once I start messing with settings like this things get out of hand and I end up reverting back to original game/mods... life is sometimes simpler then

[CaptBones]

After finding this discussion and trying to remember how it was done, I started up Silent 3ditor and looked at Webster's Improved GE Torpedo for SH4v1.5. He adjusted the data\Library\Torpedo.zon "MinEF" and "MaxEF" values, not the .sim "impulse" values...he provided three options; 25%, 35% and 50% increases....and they seem to work quite well.

Next, I looked at the Torpedo.zon values in my stock SH3 and in my GWX3 Gold. In both, the "MinEF" and "MaxEF" values are below the 25% increase values that Webster applied in his aforementioned SH4v1.5 mod. In fact, those values in GWX3 Gold are less than the values in the stock game and the "MinRadius" and "MaxRadius" values are also reduced compared to the stock game's values.

So, if I was going to use an approach that seems to be "tried and true", I'd adjust the Torpedo.zon values back to what they were in the stock game or would even tweak 'em to match what Webster used in his Mod.

Yes, "good hunting" is likely to be easier with a bigger gun!

The Torpedo.sim "impulse" value does nothing to affect the damage caused by the torpedo. According to the folks who were studying and looking for ways to fix the torpedoes in the early days of SH3, the "impulse" is the force/acceleration applied to the target ship model, which causes the ship to shake and/or be lifted up by the "explosion" of the torpedo. Ironically, the problem they were trying to solve was the massive damage caused, often breaking even large ships in two and/or obliterating them with a single hit.

[Paulebaer1979]

Originally Posted by CaptBones

The Torpedo.sim "impulse" value does nothing to affect the damage caused by the torpedo. According to the folks who were studying and looking for ways to fix the torpedoes in the early days of SH3, the "impulse" is the force/acceleration applied to the target ship model, which causes the ship to shake and/or be lifted up by the "explosion" of the torpedo.

This value can cause damage to the target. In stock the value is 2000. In the mod (something with nuklear torps) the value is 75000. Strong enough to send every ship to the ground just with one hit anywhere. One hit with magnetic pistol below the ship and it´s destroeyd. One hit with contact pistol and it´s destroyed, too.
Change it and than make some tests against some battleships. I bet you will able to destroy a Nelson or similar with only one torpedo.

The other content of your posting is right, i guess. Didn´t try it but seems logical.

[CaptBones]

Yup...the discussions that took place back in the day when the need for torpedo damage Mods was being studied seemed to be largely initiated by the "anti-German" reduction in effectiveness found in the GWX eels. Personally, I haven't found that was too much of a problem and up until now have been going about the business of sinking targets without needing any "improved" fish, especially the "Nuc" variety (I had enough...too much...worries about dealing with those things, like ASROC and SUBROC, in real life).

But, I do want to reiterate, and stand by, what I wrote earlier about the Torpedo.sim "impulse" value. It does not affect the damage (hit points) applied to a target by the torpedo; it apparently applies a "velocity" to the target model. When increased by an order of magnitude (or several orders of magnitude), it seems to apply a velocity that instantaneously displaces the target model outside that model's boundary conditions, in effect "obliterating" the model, which immediately loses all hit points. The result is the activation, if you will, of the complete set of damage effects, including explosions, fire and smoke, secondary explosions, ship sinking, oil slicks, and generating of debris and lifeboats, etc., etc. A nice set of shoot-'em-up arcade game style results, but not anything like the request in the OP.

To get what the OP requested, changing the values in the Torpedo.zon file seems to apply more "hit points" to a larger area of the target model, resulting in more "one torpedo, one ship" results against your average merchant vessel (especially when combined with TDW's Ship Plane Fire Damage Mod, highly recommended). I suspect it beats trying to tweak all of the zone files for all of the ship models.

Just for the fun of it, I did some experimenting at the Naval Academy "Torpedo School" and "Convoy Attack" and was OK with going back to the stock settings and happier with a more modest improvement over the GWX settings...used MinEF = 115, MaxEF = 165, MinRad = 4, MaxRad = 6. I can't figure out why the GWX team used different sets of values for the different torpedoes; IIRC, the WWII German torpedoes, except for one, all used the same warhead, so I'm going to use that same set of values for all torpedoes in the game. If those values aren't satisfying, you might try: MinEF = 120, MaxEF = 165, MinRad = 4, MaxRad = 7 and see how that works, or stick with the stock values: 120-180, 3.0-7.0).

Good hunting all!