Dont You Dare Say......

[tater]

Well, DDs appear at a rate that is maybe an order of magnitude higher than RL.

Really, to apply real world sinking rates for subs to the game, you first need to at least have the mission layers in the right ballpark as RL. The stock layers are so absurdly loaded with warships it's no wonder we get sunk more than we should.

So I'd say that if you are basing the effectiveness on the chance per patrol of being sunk by a DD, you need to weight things if you are using the standard layers. Weight the sinkings to the number of unique DDs you have seen on each patrol. A single SH4 patrol probably sees more DDs than a real sub saw in the entire war. That or weight the sub sinking rate to tonnage sunk. Right now my layers are gutted of escorts. None of this early 1942 crap with 8 ships escorted by 4 DDs as the convoy norm. Smaller convoys (now with mcoca's tool, they even zig-zag) early war (and fewer of those by a long shot), and they likely have a single DD escort at more, with Minesweepers or Subchasers as the other escorts (with a %, so escorts are not always there). I also axed the contact report generation, so the only way I see stuff 95% of the time is to spot it myself.

I did a patrol last night, Salmon Class, start of war out of Manila. Patrol area was west, not the invasion zone. I saw nothing for over a week. I stayed in the general western approaches instead of going where I knew I'd find targets. I finally got a contact report after a few days, but it was way too far away (I increased the contact report range to closer to default since I have now reduced the reports at the source). The next reports were spread out, but in a week I got maybe 3. Finallyu got a close one for a task force, and I was not well-placed to end around it. Made a best intercept before it got away (my task forces now all move at 15-17 knots). Sank a CA, damaged a CVE in heavy seas. Had to turn and fire all 4 aft tubes to damage the CVE. Interesting that Taiyo doesn't sink with 1 torpedo like the CVs. I then went to Surabaya without seeing another ship en route. This is my new machine, and I haven't put the hardcore torpedo failures in yet. If those were in I'd have come home empty handed I bet.

So I have found that if I act aggressively but realistically I needn't worry too much about getting killed. When I get bored and do stupid things that no one would likely have done, THEN I get killed. In the above example, I reloaded a save game from the time I got the contact report, and dashed in at flank on the surface since the seas were rough as a test. I sank a CA, a CVE, and 4 DDs (all DDs with deck gun), damaged another CL. I was riddled with holes from DD guns, even one of the CLs threw shots at me and hit. Eventually, one hit destroyed my engines. Oddly, a little after that I got a death screen even though I was in the process of sinking 2 more DDs with the deck gun and the boat was afloat without being hit after the engine killer hit. Perhaps you never get the screen shake of the hit that kills you?

So making super subs because we have way way way too many DDs around can result is the junk we see now, like me not being afraid in the least of getting in gun duels with multiple DDs on the surface. I'd rather tone down the layers, then see what happens.

The only way to keep the experience realistic in that sense is to CHOOSE to play as if the DDs were actually dangerous IMO. So I don't use the deck gun, I submerge and go deep if spotted (since I know at PD if I get rammed I'll sink the rammer), etc.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by tater

Right now my layers are gutted of escorts. None of this early 1942 crap with 8 ships escorted by 4 DDs as the convoy norm. Smaller convoys (now with mcoca's tool, they even zig-zag) early war (and fewer of those by a long shot), and they likely have a single DD escort at more, with Minesweepers or Subchasers as the other escorts (with a %, so escorts are not always there). I also axed the contact report generation, so the only way I see stuff 95% of the time is to spot it myself.

Can you release this as a mod? I'm sure that many realism fans would like it and if it was easy enough for me to combine it with some of my stuff I might be interested in this sort of thing as part of RFB.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by tater

...So making super subs because we have way way way too many DDs around can result is the junk we see now, like me not being afraid in the least of getting in gun duels with multiple DDs on the surface. I'd rather tone down the layers, then see what happens...

I don't think anyone here is talking about making super subs. I don't recall seeing any posts here suggesting that. Did I miss something? As far as I can see, every post here is saying that subs are too difficult to sink and that the DM needs fixing so that a single gun hit sinks the sub.

Anyway, with the latest version of RFB it's impossible to get into gun duels while succeeding at sinking any surface ship. You'd be dead before you had sunk as much as a large sampan.

[tater]

Sorry, I didn't mean to make it appear that you were trying to make a super sub. The default game does that by default was what I was getting at, and I figured the slower sinking stuff would anly increase the effect. I get get clobbered by guns every time I duke it out on a surface, and survive.

As for my layers, when i moved to the new machine a couple days ago I turned my layers into a JSGME format, and with some tweaking it worked. When I do it, I will have to include the US planes mod, or people will have to use it since I swapped out the US planes back before I figured out to edit mods as mods. Doh!

Your slower reload time is a great start, I get in surface battles sometimes to test stuff, in "real" play I don't use the gun. None the less, the sub would still live if I ran away on the surface without shooting and the surface combatants hit me again and again, lol.

I think my point about there being so many combatants that measuring sinking rates vs RL is not accurate without some serious weighting though.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by tater

...the sub would still live if I ran away on the surface without shooting and the surface combatants hit me again and again, lol...

Which is why I'm looking for ways to either increase the damage done by surface ship guns or make it so that the sub damage model is nerfed in such a way that the sub sinks after a single gun hit.

Right now I can probably make surface ship guns do the trick but I'd rather see if I can adjust the sub DM if possible. I've been looking at hull damage - maybe I'll give it a harder look tomorrow.

[tater]

Do you think that the ramming damage is FUBAR as a hardcoded thing, or that the outside hull of the subs is too strong, or what?

I sure wish the ramming damage was fixed, that really stinks since collision should be a real fear.

[Beery]

I'm looking at the bulkhead data in Equipment.upc and in the Submarine folder in each submarine's upc file. I'm not sure that this is the right area but anyway here's the data for a hull breach:

DamageDescription3= NULL, 0.6, 1, 0, 1, 1, Wall breached, 0, 0, NULL, 0, 0.2, 1

So that's Taken_DamageType = NULL (no idea what this means)
MinDamage = 0.6 (60%)
MaxDamage = 1 (destroyed)
MinMaintenance = 0 (no idea - maybe the minimum repair that can be made)
MaxMaintenance = 1 (no idea - maybe the maximum repair that can be made)
chancefactor = 1 (no idea what this means - perhaps chance to fix 100%?)
Message = Wall Breached
Spawned_damage_HP = 0 (no idea what this is)
Spawned_damage_AP = 0 (no idea)
Spawned_Damage_Type = NULL (no idea)
EfficiencyReduction = 0 (no idea)
repair_skill = 0.2 (perhaps crew repair skill necessary to effect repairs)
repairtime_in_hours = 1 (self explanatory)

So we can adjust certain factors and see where they lead us. I'd probably start by making the MinDamage = 1 so that all hull breaches were at maximum damage. Then if the boat still didn't sink immediately I'd mess around with the spawned damage numbers - maybe a value of 1 would destroy everything in the adjacent compartment. Then I'd mess with the MaxMaintenance, making it equal zero, hopefully making repair impossible. If not, then the chancefactor - make it zero and hope that means no repair possible. Clearly, if all else fails, bung the repair time to a ridiculously high number - say 1440 - 60 days to repair.

I'm sure there's scope there for making the hull act properly, if these values are indeed for hull integrity.

The big problem comes when balancing for DCs vs. shells. If we make all shells breach the hull and instantly sink the sub it seems to me that we might be making all DCs breach the hull and instantly sink the sub too. Might not be too bad if the DCs effects are minimized but anyway it will need some heavy duty testing. Maybe adjusting shell effect is an easier way to go.

[Hitman]

I play at 100% realism and some days ago I accidentally rammed a large Maru while manouvering to finish with my deck gun another. The result: ZERO damage to me... Go Electric Boat GO! You guys know how to build them tough:hmm:

[VonBlade]

Originally Posted by Beery

Which is why I'm looking for ways to either increase the damage done by surface ship guns or make it so that the sub damage model is nerfed in such a way that the sub sinks after a single gun hit.

As soon as we have a reliable enough TDC so I don't have to resort to my deck gun all the time, that'll do nicely. As it stands, we'd be just dead(er) in the water with nowt to show for it.

VB (yes, my sig is ironic btw)

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by tater

Right now my layers are gutted of escorts. None of this early 1942 crap with 8 ships escorted by 4 DDs as the convoy norm. Smaller convoys (now with mcoca's tool, they even zig-zag) early war (and fewer of those by a long shot), and they likely have a single DD escort at more, with Minesweepers or Subchasers as the other escorts (with a %, so escorts are not always there). I also axed the contact report generation, so the only way I see stuff 95% of the time is to spot it myself.

Cutting out the extra escorts is all good and well, but I'm not so sure about cutting all of the contact report percentages back to 95%. Early war, yes, intel on Japanese naval movements was very scarce, but by 1944 it was a totally different story. I have mine set up as follows:

-1941: 10%
-1942: 20%
-1943: 25%
-1944: 33%

Granted, I've not done a whole lot of testing with these numbers yet, but so far, they, along with the Fewer Radio Contacts mod, have worked out fairly well.

[tater]

Well, it should really be partially dependant on where the ships are.

Under areas of US air cover, a higher %. Submarines didn't routinely send contact reports since they were (rightfully) worried about japanese DF capability. Ultra is a different case altogether.

Right now my layers are a test, but I think the plan would be for certain convoys and TFs to be marked by much higher %s. Some with short times between reports, or perhaps even a medium %, but over a very short interval. Idea is that some would be shadowed or closely followed priority targets.

So yeah, hacking them way way back is only step one, but building them back up in a controlled way is step 2 (mcoca's tool is great for the generalizations, but then someone has to go back by hand and look at the path each takes and make the call).

tater

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by tater

Right now my layers are a test, but I think the plan would be for certain convoys and TFs to be marked by much higher %s. Some with short times between reports, or perhaps even a medium %, but over a very short interval. Idea is that some would be shadowed or closely followed priority targets.

So yeah, hacking them way way back is only step one, but building them back up in a controlled way is step 2 (mcoca's tool is great for the generalizations, but then someone has to go back by hand and look at the path each takes and make the call).

I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I just plugged in those numbers as a quick and dirty way of reducing the number of contact reports I receive, until a more refined campaign mod comes out later.