What is SH3's defenition of flooded?

[rulle34]

Originally Posted by Jungman

One way is too change it so no comparment can ever be destroyed -thus never the two second death screen. What happens is your comparments will have all its equipment destroyed and you will not be able to use anything in it such as engines for example. The asymtopic flooding (never gets to 100% so comparment is never destroyed but 99% flooded) will cause your Uboat to sink -then you hit the games limit of 300m or a more shallow bottom sea floor.

Then you will run out of air and die via death screen. Of course the pressure hull not crushing at depth might be a problem....never tested it yet.

Ah, you need to leave one comparment the 'Kill Zone' just make it the Command Room. That way the chances of that one out nine comparments being destroyed is reduced greatly, but you stilll will crush and die if you sink too deep or if your command room floods to 100%.

I think this sounds like a good way of solving this

[Gammel]

Can you do it, Jungman?

I´m praying for this since a long time...

and please remove the hull integrity reaches zero => death trigger too! :P

[HEMISENT]

Jungman, I like that idea. How difficult would it be to mod this. As for Gouldjg, I recall something in one of his last posts about being tied up for a few months with his work or something so we wouldn't be hearing from him for awhile.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Don't forget... in the above zone cfg settings... "armor level" was one of those things that needed to be changed in order to prevent sinking DD's with just a scrape along the DD's keel by the conning tower.

I don't think this value should be changed from RUb's alteration.

Edit: Removing the "Hull Integrity Reaches Zero=Destroyed Boat" is an interesting idea.... assuming the other changes are put in place and crush depth still causes instant death. Running out of air while trying everything in the book to return to the surface....

.... is an honorable U-Boatman's death!

[ICBM]

Very nice work people, making the command room the 'kill zone' and perhaps in combination with removing the hull integ. may be it.

Death to the death screen.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by ICBM

Very nice work people, making the command room the 'kill zone' and perhaps in combination with removing the hull integ. may be it.

Death to the death screen.

I agree... however I don't think anyone has put together the files to do this just yet.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

BIG bump!

[Jungman]

Ja, mehr harder than I thought. Where is that data stored for the hull integrety? I think it maybe hardcoded. This is a way around it that I hope.

Still trying to see if a way around it without causing a serious game imbalance. I am trying to make all comparments never get to 100% flooded except the Command Room. And hull pressure crush will only take points away from the Command Room to cause a hull pressure crush if too deep. It should take about 10x longer to die at depth.

It is a work in progress.

[Gammel]

great to see you working on this, Jungman!

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Three thumbs up for Jungman!

[Twelvefield]

Wow, this is interesting to me, given the end of my latest (and shortest u-boat career).

With RUB 1.43, in June 1941, I was trailing a convoy and shooting at targets, when I slipped up and got DC'd by a quick-witted Flower corvette. The damage was weak, but I didn't want to go back to persicope depth for another attack run. As I was slinking away, the escorts started pinging, or at least one boat pinged while another raced over my position and dropped a DC right on my bow planes, destroying them. I started to flood, and my depth increased, so I let my VII-C go below 150 at 3 knots before pulling her out of the dive. In the meantime, I set the damage control team to fix the flooding in the bows. Only, at 150, although the leaking was shored up, the sub did not want to raise her bows, and she continued downward. Helm answered flank speed ahead, but the bow was stubborn, and the depth guage was far into the red. Above me, DC's were coming down, but I don't think they went past 100 meters before their fuses detonated.

I blew ballast, and that levelled the boat at around 165, I think, but the sub would not rise. I reversed the engines full, thinking that the stern planes would pull me up arsy-versy. We did rise to above 120 this way, but the DC's were coming down. More hits, more flooding, and more sinking. I blew ballast twice more, and in full reverse we slowly rose to a depth of 40 meters.

There was no way the destroyers could miss. For a moment, I had hoped they were rejoining the convoy, but they were lining up for the kill. The only way I could get out from under the DC's was to go flank speed ahead, turn helm about, and try to speed away.

Damage to the engine prevented flank speed, and running the screws forward caused the bow to dive again, so I blew the last of the ballast. My U-boat never surfaced. She only made it up to 35 meters depth, and then she made a slow, parabolic dive for the ocean floor. Depth charges caused nearly every compartment to flood, so there was a lot of frantic pumping.

Eventually, we were back below 150 meters, bow pointed down. Once again, I engaged the engines into reverse, which caused the stern to pick up and hold the sub in a near-hover, albeit at a significant down angle. The crew valiantly shored up the leaks and pumped water, but this time the accumulated weight was too great. All I could do was watch the depth needle creep slowly in a clockwise motion. We were continuing downward at a rate of maybe a meter every 5 seconds.

A few kilos of ballast could have made the difference between the needle going clockwise and going anticlockwise. Certainly, we were so close to countering the dive. But the hard fact was that every few seconds were were going closer to Hell one meter at a time, and not Heaven.

The transition past crush depth was leisurely, and I had a lot of time to look around the sub and the various compartments as we settled into the watery tomb. I was actually looking forward to the death screen -- I figure I had spent a good half-hour trying to pull my sub from her terminal dive.

This is probably the kind of drama you are looking for with your own game. SHIII certainly does not lack in shock and suspense when it wants to. It's definitely most harrowing time I have spent just watching a needle guage. Still, I fould that this moment went beyond video-game entertainment, and it actually left me a bit shook-up, and a little unwilling to come back to the game. For some poor crew somewhere in the war, this was their final moment in real life.

So I guess the moral of the story is to be warned that sometimes when you get what you ask for, it may be too much.

Patrick O'Brian (my favorite author) has a great quote in "Letter of Marque" (although I paraphrase it here) : "There are many more tears shed over prayers that were answered than for prayers that were not."

[Jungman]

Rub 1.43 does have part of the Hollywood Mod made into to it which gives the boat a longer pounding and flood leaks before death screen. That is a good thing. gouldgd made that one.

It would be nice to make only the command comparment the 'death screen' so you can really sink well in to the deep. Or stuck on the bottom with air running out.

By making the other comparments damage from ever going beyond 99%, only the Command room will add flood damage points to get to the kill screen; but you will still sink as normal and still crush at depth normally, but it should occur 10x slower from a few seconds to 30 seconds since all the 'death points' from only the Command Room is going to reduce hull integrety to zero.

There was no way the destroyers could miss. For a moment, I had hoped they were rejoining the convoy, but they were lining up for the kill. The only way I could get out from under the DC's was to go flank speed ahead, turn helm about, and try to speed away.

That does bug me and thought about changing SonarDC to reflect true active sonar depth detection.

For it being 1941, Maybe the DD active sonars should be neutered to only go so deep? They are all set for -10m to -300m heightSensor.

I read the early war the sonar and ASW never thought the Uboat could go below 150; despite 180 meters.

So maybe 1939 to 1941 set the active sonar to only -150m.

1942-43 set for -200m. Still gives a Uboat a chance to get under the active sonars risking hull pressure death if damaged.

1944-45 Full -300m to reflect the Sword and Q sonars being employed to see deep and stay lock on. I would like to make a new version of SonarDC to include these changes.

In 1941, you should be able to get under the active sonar at 150 to 180 meters for sure. The DD get thier active sonar upgrades at different dates, and with 7 active sonar models you would never really know what is above you giving that random variable.
Does that/those DD have the newer sonar? You may wonder. Plus the passive hydrophones will still pick you up if you move too fast anyway.

[AlanSmithee]

Originally Posted by Jungman

It would be nice to make only the command comparment the 'death screen' so you can really sink well in to the deep. Or stuck on the bottom with air running out.

By making the other comparments damage from ever going beyond 99%, only the Command room will add flood damage points to get to the kill screen; but you will still sink as normal and still crush at depth normally, but it should occur 10x slower from a few seconds to 30 seconds since all the 'death points' from only the Command Room is going to reduce hull integrety to zero.

Question: Does flooding kill you by causing damage ("flood damage points" as you note above) or by completely filling a compartment resulting in the arbitrary death screen? I was under the impression that a compartment was considered destroyed under two conditions - 100% damage or 100% flooding. However, a compartment with 1% damage (assuming that the Critical Flotation was set up to allow flooding at this level of damage) could still fully flood without any additional damage, resulting in the silly "death by flooding" screen. If this is the case, I don't know if preventing compartments from going to 100% damage would fully solve the problem, though preventing them from going to 100% flooding would.

Unfortunately, I don't see how this can be done though zones.cfg. We could change how long it takes compartments to flood or how much damage they need to take before they start flooding, but zones.cfg won't let us stop them from reaching 100% flooded. There's got to be something else controlling this, but I don't have much in the way of hex editing skills.

Hopefully someone will have some insights, because this is a great idea and I'd love to see it happen. Many thanks to all who have been working on it.

[JBClark]

Originally Posted by Twelvefield

Wow, this is interesting to me, given the end of my latest (and shortest u-boat career).

...

This is probably the kind of drama you are looking for with your own game. SHIII certainly does not lack in shock and suspense when it wants to. It's definitely most harrowing time I have spent just watching a needle guage. Still, I fould that this moment went beyond video-game entertainment, and it actually left me a bit shook-up, and a little unwilling to come back to the game. For some poor crew somewhere in the war, this was their final moment in real life.

So I guess the moral of the story is to be warned that sometimes when you get what you ask for, it may be too much.

Patrick O'Brian (my favorite author) has a great quote in "Letter of Marque" (although I paraphrase it here) : "There are many more tears shed over prayers that were answered than for prayers that were not."

No kidding, this "game" can get suprisingly intense.

After a few hours late at night, with the lights out, the headphones on and the sound cranked, I sometimes forget that I am not actually on a uboat, 100m deep and sinking.

O'Brian is my favorite author too. And for the same reason. When I am reading O'Brian I am not sitting in my comfortable chair in my dry, air conditioned apartment; safe from any harm. I am swaying on the quarterdeck of an old 28-gun frigate, listening to Chips report "5 feet in the well and rising, your honor." I'm hoping to live 'till Sunday because I'm looking forward to the duff; and there was a rumor of a drowned baby. I'm constantly recalculating the odds of catching the chase before we founder.

Q: "Why are they called dog-watches?" A: "Because they are curtailed." :rotfl: And that little emoticon is not just cute. That literally was my reaction. And Aubry's too, if I remember correctly. The reason that joke was so funny to me was that when I read it, I was in the Great Cabin with those guys when Stephen said it. I mean, its a stupid joke. It wouldn't be funny if you weren't right there, living the context.

To bring this back to SHIII, I think Twelvefield has helped me understand the transformation I am experiencing. When I first bought this "game" it was because I loved the genre and I had played every submarine game ever published. At first glance, SHIII was slick. The eye-candy was impressive and the gameplay seemed a step forward.

So I started crusing and I wanted tonnage. If I died I said a bad word and reloaded. Soon I figured out how to survive a patrol and rack up big numbers. Well OK. This is kind of cool but it is starting to get boring.

Then I found this forum. It seemed to be populated by people who's credo was "Realism, uber alles." That intrigued me but it was interferring with my tonnage. I continued to play in my old "arcade" style while reading here for months. Eventually I realized that the realism crowd was onto something.

SHIII is the best game/sim I have ever found, due mostly to the dedication and scholarship of the folks here. To everyone who has ever published a mod: my thanks. And to everyone who has ever argued that the mod was wrong, and provided evidence: my thanks also.

Realism enables immersion, which advances understanding and justifies grown men playing computer games.

Thanks, Twelvefield.

[Twelvefield]

Well, dang it all, now I am blushing. You are most kindly welcome!

All I am trying to do right now is to try to find a way to express some of the lass tangible issues that are integral to the SHIII experience. A great deal of credit, of course, must go to the game developers, and an inestimable gratitude to the valiant modders.

The rest of the experience relies on our own imaginations, and then what must have been a wildly extraordinary, yet incontrovertable chain of real-world events that led to the submarine war.