[TEC] The ships' behaviour at sea

[BigWalleye]

Originally Posted by TorpX

I never said I adjusted it to help a ship sink. However, making ill-considered changes can interfere with them sinking. If, for example, a ship with a surface draft of 4.0 m is given a submerged draft of 5.0 m, when torpedoed, it will flood down to 5.0 m and sit there, absorbing great blows and floating all the while.

Better to set the submerged draft of the ships to 0, and let the game do it in it's own way.

I must say that I have never seen the behavior you describe. Every ship class in NYGM and every ship class in MFM 3.2 has a Submerged Draft value substantially greater than its Surface Draft value. Other posters say that GWX3 ship classes all have a nonzero Submerged Draft value. I haven't checked them all personally (126 classes for MFM 3.2!), but AFAIK, they all sink. Sometimes it may take an hour or more, just like the eyewitness accounts describe. But they sink. I've never had one get "stuck." I suspect that the 2 supermods (and probably LSH3 and WAC as well) change other parameters to get what each mod's developers consider is a "proper" sink rate. You are most likely correct that changing zero Submerged Draft values in stock SH3 could lead to some funny behavior. There are a lot of complex interactions in the model, and varying just one could cause other problems. The supermod teams have spent a lot of time on issues like plausible sink rates, and a quick-fix solution to one problem can result in unexpected consequences. It is probably more productive to find a supermod that fits your gaming style and accept the ship class parameters pretty much intact, rather than trying to roll your own.