Going deep vs. slugging it out on the surface

[captgeo]

I myself always dive to evade DD's, you can lose them pretty easy in deep water, but the shallows usually takes a bit of time, or you lose.

[Friscobay]

Originally Posted by captgeo

I myself always dive to evade DD's, you can lose them pretty easy in deep water, but the shallows usually takes a bit of time, or you lose.

Aye. I too, will take her down upon identifying a long-distance craft as a Japanese DD, of which I have only been running up against them while currently operating in the South China, in pairs, threes, and even a line of four followed by a subchaser heading to what looked like Saigon. While I have torpedoed several already, I will also whip out my ''discretion is the better part of valor'' card when needed and submerge and sneak away.

[Sniper297]

"I'm getting fairly familiar with tweaking the game. Care to share which file/ values I would need to modify to get harder hitting enemy deck guns?"

Data\Library\shells.zon to increase the power of shell explosions.

Data\Submarine\NSS_SubType\NSS_SubType.zon (replace SubType with whichever one you're actually modding, NSS_Gato.zon or NSS_Salmon.zon for example) you can reduce the overall armor and hit points of a sub.

Which is really unnecessary in the stock game, one of them silly little river gunboats has enough mojo to knock you into perdition in a very short time once they get the range. My policy is when the star shells fire, searchlights come on, or I see muzzle flashes and shell splashes the jig is up and it's time to pull the plug. Regardless how shallow the water is I got the advantage underneath because they can't submerge, they got the advantage on the surface because of more guns. The rare exceptions to that policy always involve rain / fog / extreme low visibility when the SJ radar gives me the advantage. Darkness ain't no help when the illumination starts.

[Sniper297]

Forgot to mention, as long as you're modding might as well fix the "going deep" part - stock SH4 programming shows that the developers read the wrong books, the diving time is realistic only for a new boat with a new crew who hasn't done any drilling on fast dives yet. Actual time to periscope depth for even a big fleet boat was 30-35 seconds, not 2-3 minutes.



Find the ballast flood speeds in the sim files, make them about double then time standard "periscope depth" P key and "crash dive" C key from fully surfaced with the stopwatch, adjust as desired.

[Snarf]

*correction* i'm in Mid '44 not '43

Thanks for that tidbit Sniper, and I always thought it was that clumsy tubby fellow who I put on watch up on the shears. 2-3 minutes is a lifetime when you're being shot at.

[Armistead]

He's playing TMO, all those issues have been corrected.

[Sniper297]

He's talking about 2-3 minutes to get under, something uncorrected it, so I would advise checking. You never can tell which mods overwrite other mods modifications or who has mod soup. TMO version I have sets the Gato main ballast at 48000 and leaves the dive ballast at the default 9000, what I did was set main at 38000 (little less than double) and the dive at 18000 after a bit of trial and error. Oddly that gets the whole sub under in less time with P rather than C, since crash dive takes a steeper angle so the stern sticks up longer. Either way it's about 35-40 seconds from the klaxon to the periscope shears going under, faster than that would be too much like supersub. Running decks awash (25 to 27 feet) it's about 15 seconds to periscope depth.

[merc4ulfate]

I love going deep




It is so much easier to hide from those who want to pound you ...

With Depth Charges.