Flooding & Damage Control - Small story & questions

[Umfuld]

Originally Posted by rb4door

What is the little piston looking thing with a timer counting down? is this the time required to "stop" the flooding?
Also what is the little grey box with the X in it? it also has a timer on it - i'm not sure what it signifies.

Those show the time it will take to stop flooding and the time you will die if you don't.

You'll notice that as your men work the X timer will go up, as the more you pump out the more time it will take for critical flooding.


I hadn't played in a long time until recently, and I had something happen like you are describing. Not sure if it's the same, but it sounds much like it.
What happened was I would save the ship from the critical flooding (ei: stop the X timer from it's death countdown) and then move on to other repairs.
It wasn't for awhile, and repeated sinking like you described, that I realized there was more info in the flooded department.

Clicking on the little icon in the bottom right of the department info panel (not the department itself where you saw the piston and X, but the box where it lists the info of the highlighted department) rises the text, and I finally did that and saw another timer.
I'd stopped the critical flooding, but hadn't pumped out the entire department. Thus the sinking. Once I did that I had full control again.

May or may not be what happened to you. But it's my guess it is.

[rb4door]

ah cheers umfuld - handy to finally know what that X means.

Is there anyway of stopping that valve in the command room when it starts leaking and spraying water all over my chief engineer? It gets annoying after a few hours of game play. Sounds like you are taking a shower the whole time

That experience has made me quite scared of destroyers and convoys now.
My patrol today I just hunted single ships, too nervous going in for ships that have protection!

I wont feel sorry for the destroyers I sink anymore.

[TheJaguar]

Originally Posted by rb4door

That experience has made me quite scared of destroyers and convoys now.
My patrol today I just hunted single ships, too nervous going in for ships that have protection!

I wont feel sorry for the destroyers I sink anymore.

Now that's realism in a game! Well said door.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

To address your question about depth-keeping while wrestling with flooding...

Any time that you have a situation that changes your depth or relative bouyancy in a significant and rapid way... (Crash Dive or fast dive, severe flooding, or blowing ballast especially repeatedly) ... It takes some time for control input / dive-plane attitude changes, to overcome the momentum / mass... and for you to see a reaction.

Water adds weight / mass to your boat fast and can magnify these effects.

Furthermore, if you blow ballast and then immediately make forward speed... your U-boat crew will try to maintain the last depth ordered or current depth... Therefore, since you have blown compressed air into the tanks... turning off the E-motors caused you to ascend again.

You encountered a rapid sequence of events and basically your boat was out of control for a time.

(concerning flooding: stopping the flooding and pumping the water out are two different things. Your crew does the former and your pumps do the latter.)

Try to think in terms of making emergency maneuvers with an 18-Wheeler (in 3-dimensions) and you can visualize it better.

Also, remember that U-boats are much heavier than an 18-Wheeler.

Now that the science is out of the way, it was just the other day that I was saying to someone... Sometimes, simply surviving a close call is the best adventure.

If all your tonnage came easy... you'd get bored pretty quick.

Glad ya made it! I'll bet you remember it longer than the last ship you sunk!

[rb4door]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

Now that the science is out of the way, it was just the other day that I was saying to someone... Sometimes, simply surviving a close call is the best adventure.

If all your tonnage came easy... you'd get bored pretty quick.

Glad ya made it! I'll bet you remember it longer than the last ship you sunk!

exactly!

As terrorfying as it was - it was a complete battle in its own right to save my sub, and an adventure into the game I havnt seen before