help with fixing the shokaku sinking charactoristics

Originally Posted by Arclight

Hit a Shokaku with 3 torps and didn't sink, all you have to do is hit it poorly. Don't see the problem.

what mods were you using was this in a campaign version or single mission?

i have yet to need more than one torpedo in any single mission stock 1.5 game using no mods

if anyone wants to see what i am talking about then try this single mission using stock version 1.5 and no mods.

http://files.filefront.com/WEBSTERs+.../fileinfo.html

you can see for yourself what the average number of torps it takes to sink the ships but results vary so try it at least 5 times before coming to any conclusions

[Arclight]

Ok, I'm using NSM + PE, I think I mentioned NSM before;

I made a test mission, putting all 3 big carriers in a row: Hiryu in the back, Shokaku in the middle and Taiho up front. My boat is located at 90deg AOB to starboard of Shokaku at 2000m. I fire initial spread of 2 torps at default depth at high speed, contact pistol only; first at 1deg right spread from a starboard tube (1,3,5) and second at 1deg left spread from a port tube (2,4,6). Been firing like that for a couple of hours by now, I lost count.

Taiho consistently is wracked by secondary explosions from the second shot (1deg left spread), destroying the ship.

Shokaku consistently soaks up the damage and develops a moderate list to starboard. A third shot amidship finishes her of quick, listing badly while the bow sinks, the engine room is obviously her sweetspot. Single shots to the engine room before taking any damage cause a serious list, decks are partly submerged.

Hiryu seems to soak up the damage, only dropping the bow a bit. However, screams can be heard from the ship, as if it's sinking, but an hour later nothing seems to have changed. Third shot amidship drops the bow further to the waterline, give her a couple of minutes and she'll sink.

I also tried a different spread; first amidship, second 1deg right. Hiryu seems to shrug it off, without visable changes. Shokaku lists badly to starboard and the bow drops, decks partly submerged. Taiho develops a list to port (?!), bow drops slightly, screams as well.

My conclusion so far: Hiryu seems most resistant to damage, but the screams could very well indicate she would sink within hours. Taiho seems moderatly resistant, but also starts screaming. Shokaku has the most dramatic visable effects, implying indeed very low resistance to damage but is the only one that doesn't scream.

Whole thing has me puzzled. Gonna be comparing the files for all three to look for inconsistencies. Will toy with it some more and return the game to stock to see how that effects it. I'm willing to spend time on this and help if I can, I was a bit negative before because I didn't understand the motive. I know that if you hit a Shokaku at the port side in the engine room it will sink, but the whole thing is top heavy and the bridge is at port side as well, making it worse. To me, it all doesn't seem to illogical.

Originally Posted by Arclight

Ok, I'm using NSM + PE, I think I mentioned NSM before;

yes, the key is im trying to get a reasonably expected torpedo kill rate from all ships in a stock unmodded game.

nsm makes big changes to all ships so its cant apply as a compared to stock version.

once i can get all the ships to be killed at a random but average number of torps, or at least as close as i can get them to be, it will make all added on mods even better as a result IMO.

[Arclight]

Cool, and sorry for before. When someone yells "fire" I run off for an extinguisher without knowing where to bring it; I tend to get ahead of myself.

I've been firing lots of fish at her, and basically anything hitting midship or further aft but still forward of the screws will sink her in 1 hit. Under the right conditions she'll even withstand 2 hits (above screws + the bow). I can post a list of my findings if you want.

I increased the Armorlevel and hitpoints like you did, but I set them to Yamato levels (96 armor, 1500 hp); hits that normally sink it in 1 shot tend not to anymore. Took me 3 hits last try: 1 hit on the first mast aft from center, and she lived! Second went in the bow, but didn't blow a hole, presumably because of higher armor level. Bow still sank a bit though. Third went far aft and finished her of. Think you can leave the armorlevels alone, just increase hitpoints so she can take more hits.

Also tried messing with the "SH3ZonesCtrl" stuff; you'll see "sphere's" and "boxes" listed there. I think they represent the compartments of the ship, and changing there individual armorlevel settings seemed to influence the ships sinking times.

Guess you need a 3d editor to see where those zones are actually located. There's also a "type" listing that lists a number. In zones.cfg there's an index where you can look up what type of area those numbers represent (I think). For instance, the first box, "box 0", is type 113 which would translate to "KeelBB" according to that index. "box 1" is type 188, "BBFuelBunkers" in the index, etc.

I'll pick this up tomorrow, 5 am by now...

Originally Posted by Arclight

Cool, and sorry for before. When someone yells "fire" I run off for an extinguisher without knowing where to bring it; I tend to get ahead of myself.

I've been firing lots of fish at her, and basically anything hitting midship or further aft but still forward of the screws will sink her in 1 hit. Under the right conditions she'll even withstand 2 hits (above screws + the bow). I can post a list of my findings if you want.

I increased the Armorlevel and hitpoints like you did, but I set them to Yamato levels (96 armor, 1500 hp); hits that normally sink it in 1 shot tend not to anymore. Took me 3 hits last try: 1 hit on the first mast aft from center, and she lived! Second went in the bow, but didn't blow a hole, presumably because of higher armor level. Bow still sank a bit though. Third went far aft and finished her of. Think you can leave the armorlevels alone, just increase hitpoints so she can take more hits.

Also tried messing with the "SH3ZonesCtrl" stuff; you'll see "sphere's" and "boxes" listed there. I think they represent the compartments of the ship, and changing there individual armorlevel settings seemed to influence the ships sinking times.

Guess you need a 3d editor to see where those zones are actually located. There's also a "type" listing that lists a number. In zones.cfg there's an index where you can look up what type of area those numbers represent (I think). For instance, the first box, "box 0", is type 113 which would translate to "KeelBB" according to that index. "box 1" is type 188, "BBFuelBunkers" in the index, etc.

I'll pick this up tomorrow, 5 am by now...

yes thanks for helping, i was sticking to the auto target rather than trying different hit locations because i figured it was the best way to get constantly repeatable results. 1 meter left or right could or could not open different compartments that change results. the strange thing is if you look at the other fleet carriers the stock damage levels are all set the same (1 has a 50 hit point difference) so why they are acting so different is very strange.

as for the "boxes" i was afraid to mess with those things because i know nothing about what they are and how or if i could tell what any changes might do.

[Arclight]

Well, I don't know what the "sphere" entries are for, but the "boxes" can be traced with the index (zones.cfg) to compartments and parts on the ship; screws, rudder, engineroom, fuelbunker, etc. In S3 editor they usually show an armorlevel of -1 ("-1 means it has armor of general category."). Further down in "zones.cfg" you'll find the actual properties of the zones / compartments, listing stuff such as HitPoints for that zone, yet another ArmorLevel listing, and FloodingTime. By comparing the NSM zones.cfg to the original, I noticed this is actually where you'll find the biggest changes. Still, even with NSM, it isn't that difficult to send a Shokaku type to the bottom with a single shot.

There's also a remarkable difference between the 3 CV types;

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...iryuscreen.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...aihoscreen.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...kakuscreen.jpg

I think you'll notice Taiho has the most entries, followed by Hiryu and then Shokaku with only 2 "SH3ZonesCtrl" entries. :hmm:

The last "SH3ZonesCtrl" for all 3 is rather similar, with 40+ "box" sub-entries, made up out of fuelbunkers, ammobunkers, enginerooms, keels, etc.

Her's the thing;

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...e/Hiryubox.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...e/Taihobox.jpg

Hiryu, like in that example, has a "box" sub-entrie for most of the "SH3ZonesCtrl" entries. These boxes, according to the index, are masts, srews, rudder, etc. Not actually parts of the hull, but parts of the ship attached to the hull. Taiho, on the other hand is missing these single "box" entries for masts and such. Shokaku... well, she has only 2 "SH3ZonesCtrl" entries, the first one not containing any "boxes", and the second is the 40+ "boxes" one with the hullparts (enginerooms and such).

To me it seems Hiryu is the only ship with "complete" entries, followed by Taiho and then Shokaku. Quess what the order of vulnerability is in my tests? Hiryu shrugs of the first hit like nothing happened, Taiho shows it noticed getting hit and Shokaku... goes down like a brick.

Maybe Ubi never got around to actually finishing the Shokaku model (among others, apparently), which would explain this strange behaviour. :hmm:

Gonna see if I can blow of some screws; if it works for Hiryu (which has 4 screw "box" listings) but not the others (which don't have any such listings), I think we can say for certain that the actual 3d model could do with some more zones.

Is your head hurting? Mine is.

Ow, and as long long as you make backups of anything you mess with and keep them safe, you can mess all you want. And a reinstall of stock SH4 shouldn't be much trouble if something goes wrong anyway.