Problem with ships not sinking and possible fixes

benrig89 · 11-07-10, 05:31 PM

Hello! I recently pulled SH4 out of the mothballs and started playing again -- immediately addicted, and it's nice to see ol' subsim is still around. I recently downloaded the yamato playable ship mod (nice work there) and have had a blast running around shooting up convoys.

However, I've encountered a problem. With certain surface warships, they won't sink. No matter how many times you hit them, they just. Won't. Sink. I pulverized a heavy cruiser with sustained fire from nine 18 inchers for twenty minutes and it did not sink. Sure, it was on fire from stem to stern, and settled in the water, but did nothing from there.

This came to a head recently when I stumbled across two King George V battleships with four Kent heavy cruisers in tow. After a successful 'crossing the T' and pounding the entire force for a good thirty minutes, the smoke cleared and I saw that both BBs were down by the stern, their bows sticking up from the water at an angle of 30 degrees and submerged up to their fore turrets. The cruiser decks were awash, and completely aflame. So, these guys were sinking, right? Wrong. I got into external cam and hustled over for inspection. Long story short, this is what I found:

--The BBs took forever to get to the half-sunk position they did -- much longer than most sinkings in SH4.

--The 'crushing bulkheads' sounds were playing, as expected

--BUT the ships were not 'sunk'. In the map, they still showed up, and in the bridge, one could 'target' them with the binocs and the deck guns would open up and try to fire at the hull, most of which was > 40 feet underwater!

--For the cruisers, which were still mostly above water, no amount of shelling seemed to affect their half-flooded state.

--Further tests revealed that, from the moment they first started 'sinking' the process increasingly slowed, as did the random motion of the ships from wave action, until they were virtually standing still. At some point, even though they CLEARLY should have been sunk, they were just sitting there in equilibrium, and according to the game, good to go.

Needless to say, this was highly highly HIGHLY frustrating. I mean, here I had six clearly destroyed ships, and no credit for them.

So what I'm looking for are ideas on how to fix this. I assume I could go into individual ship files and fiddle with the flood settings, as I assume this is where the problem lies, but I have no idea where to even start with that -- totally a modding noob. I hit these guys consistently below the waterline, so I'm pretty sure the problem is with the flood settings. Anybody else encountered and/or fixed this problem?

Not all the warships have this problem: in fact, I've only seen it so far with the Kent heavy cruiser and the KGV BB, though I suspect others have this issue as well.

11-07-10, 05:31 PM	#1
benrig89 Nub Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 2 Downloads: 7 Uploads: 0	Problem with ships not sinking and possible fixes Hello! I recently pulled SH4 out of the mothballs and started playing again -- immediately addicted, and it's nice to see ol' subsim is still around. I recently downloaded the yamato playable ship mod (nice work there) and have had a blast running around shooting up convoys. However, I've encountered a problem. With certain surface warships, they won't sink. No matter how many times you hit them, they just. Won't. Sink. I pulverized a heavy cruiser with sustained fire from nine 18 inchers for twenty minutes and it did not sink. Sure, it was on fire from stem to stern, and settled in the water, but did nothing from there. This came to a head recently when I stumbled across two King George V battleships with four Kent heavy cruisers in tow. After a successful 'crossing the T' and pounding the entire force for a good thirty minutes, the smoke cleared and I saw that both BBs were down by the stern, their bows sticking up from the water at an angle of 30 degrees and submerged up to their fore turrets. The cruiser decks were awash, and completely aflame. So, these guys were sinking, right? Wrong. I got into external cam and hustled over for inspection. Long story short, this is what I found: --The BBs took forever to get to the half-sunk position they did -- much longer than most sinkings in SH4. --The 'crushing bulkheads' sounds were playing, as expected --BUT the ships were not 'sunk'. In the map, they still showed up, and in the bridge, one could 'target' them with the binocs and the deck guns would open up and try to fire at the hull, most of which was > 40 feet underwater! --For the cruisers, which were still mostly above water, no amount of shelling seemed to affect their half-flooded state. --Further tests revealed that, from the moment they first started 'sinking' the process increasingly slowed, as did the random motion of the ships from wave action, until they were virtually standing still. At some point, even though they CLEARLY should have been sunk, they were just sitting there in equilibrium, and according to the game, good to go. Needless to say, this was highly highly HIGHLY frustrating. I mean, here I had six clearly destroyed ships, and no credit for them. So what I'm looking for are ideas on how to fix this. I assume I could go into individual ship files and fiddle with the flood settings, as I assume this is where the problem lies, but I have no idea where to even start with that -- totally a modding noob. I hit these guys consistently below the waterline, so I'm pretty sure the problem is with the flood settings. Anybody else encountered and/or fixed this problem? Not all the warships have this problem: in fact, I've only seen it so far with the Kent heavy cruiser and the KGV BB, though I suspect others have this issue as well.