Anybody notice problem with S-Class Speeds?

[panthercules]

In doing some final testing on my Pitch Mod with the S-class boats, I thought at first I was having a problem with the mod's tweaks causing the sub to go too slow on the surface.

However, I deactivated my mod and experienced the same low speeds. Since I was building my mod on top of the ROW files as a base, I then went back to a pure stock 1.4 install and tried again, only to see the same speed problems.

In the game, I can only get the S-class boats up to 10 knots at flank speed, even in only 5 m/s winds/seas. However, several sources I found on the Web indicated that the top speed of the S class boats should be 14.5 knots. If that's correct, that means the game is almost 50% off in its speed settings for these subs. I've never really messed around with these boats, so I may have missed some posts about this, but is this something that has been discussed and fixed by some mods already? If so, I'd appreciate it if someone could post the fix here so I could incorporate it in my pitch mod. If not, I guess I'll just try experimenting till I find something that works.

[AVGWarhawk]

Well, I know the little bugger is constantly charging the battery. It takes a long time. Other than that, I do recall on a full charge and both props going, I get about 13 kts.

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Well, I know the little bugger is constantly charging the battery. It takes a long time. Other than that, I do recall on a full charge and both props going, I get about 13 kts.

Bingo - that was it !

I always dive and resurface for my tests, and it seems to take forever for the S-class to recharge the 2-3% of battery charge that was run down during the dive, so I was seeing the lower speeds because of the recharging. When I watched the battery level and waited long enough, as soon as it was fully recharged my speed went up to 13 knots.

That's still a tad too low, so I looked some more and found where, for some reason, the max speed was listed as 13 in the NSS_s18.cfg and NSS_s42.cfg files. I tweaked those up to 15 and now I'm getting top speed of 14-15 knots, as they should be.

Now I just need to try to figure out why the batteries are taking so long to recharge :hmm:

Thanks for the tip

[AVGWarhawk]

That is great you got the speed up. Trundling along at 13 kts for the end round takes a life time. The battery charge has been looked into and I believe to be hard coded. Then again, perhaps you have seen more in the files then others Good work!


PS. Can you pass that info on to LukeFF? I'm thinking RFB for this fix on the S!!!

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

That is great you got the speed up. Trundling along at 13 kts for the end round takes a life time. The battery charge has been looked into and I believe to be hard coded. Then again, perhaps you have seen more in the files then others Good work!


PS. Can you pass that info on to LukeFF? I'm thinking RFB for this fix on the S!!!

Yeah - I'm afraid the battery recharge thing may be hardcoded - nothing I tried last night (and I tried everything I could think of) seemed to have any effect on the recharge rate for the S-class

I did manage to extend the battery life/submerged duration of the S-classes, although I'm still looking for some source for what the real battery life/submerged range for those boats was supposed to be IRL before determining exactly the right setting for that.

I decided that since I was messing with these same files for my Pitch mod anyway, I would go ahead and include the speed fix for the S-class and the battery life fixes for all the boats while I'm at it. I only have the battery fixes for some of them worked out so far, so this will extend my testing cycle a bit, but I'm still hopeful of having it ready for release some time tomorrow.

I'll be passing this release along to swdw as I did the earlier release candidate, so he can work with his RFB team and decide about whether to incorporate some or all of this stuff in a subsequent RFB release for convenience.

[swdw]

Originally Posted by panthercules

Yeah - I'm afraid the battery recharge thing may be hardcoded - nothing I tried last night (and I tried everything I could think of) seemed to have any effect on the recharge rate for the S-class

I did manage to extend the battery life/submerged duration of the S-classes, although I'm still looking for some source for what the real battery life/submerged range for those boats was supposed to be IRL before determining exactly the right setting for that.

I decided that since I was messing with these same files for my Pitch mod anyway, I would go ahead and include the speed fix for the S-class and the battery life fixes for all the boats while I'm at it. I only have the battery fixes for some of them worked out so far, so this will extend my testing cycle a bit, but I'm still hopeful of having it ready for release some time tomorrow.

I'll be passing this release along to swdw as I did the earlier release candidate, so he can work with his RFB team and decide about whether to incorporate some or all of this stuff in a subsequent RFB release for convenience.

Will look at these, LukeFF did a lot of research on the S-class boats and made some changes accordingly on the speeds. Because the game does not seperate the S-18 and S-42 classes for a number of these settings, we chose to use the S-42 where they two types use a common file.

Once I explained how a standard bell was derived and how the other bells related (with quotes from some sources), LukeFF hsa scaled the speed settings for all boats to be correct as it can be made at each bell.

As for incoporating this pitch and rollmod into RFB, we're planning on it, and if we want a special tweak for the RFB files, we'll put on our most sorrowful face and ask PH with "hat in hand" for some help (In reality, he'd help us anyway cuz he's a great guy, but I just had to be a smart alec)

Panthercules, PM LukeFF, he may already have the info on battery life you need.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

That is great you got the speed up. Trundling along at 13 kts for the end round takes a life time. The battery charge has been looked into and I believe to be hard coded. Then again, perhaps you have seen more in the files then others Good work!


PS. Can you pass that info on to LukeFF? I'm thinking RFB for this fix on the S!!!

I just checked out my RFB test files, and both S boats are set for 14.5 knots (as they share the same SIM file). I also test-ran the S-18, and it made that speed in 5 m/s winds without any problems. So, we're good to go there. Would be nice to see some battery info other than what can be found online.

[AVGWarhawk]

When commissioned, the S-3 Class coastal and harbor defense submarine was 231' in length overall; had an extreme beam of 21'10"; had a normal surface displacement of 876 tons, and, when in that condition, had a mean draft of 13'1". Submerged displacement was 1,092 tons. The submarine was of riveted construction. The designed compliment was four officers and thirty-four enlisted men. The boat could operate safely to depths of 200 feet. The submarine was armed with four 21-inch torpedo tubes installed in the bow. Twelve torpedoes were carried. One 4-inch/50 caliber deck gun was installed. The full load of diesel oil carried was 36,950 gallons, which fueled two 1,000 designed brake horsepower four-cycle NELSECO type diesel engines built by the New London Ship and Engine Company at Groton, Connecticut...which could drive the boat, via a diesel direct drive propulsion system, at 15 knots on the surface in relatively calm seas. Power for submerged propulsion was provided by a main storage battery, divided into two sixty-cell batteries, manufactured by the Electric Storage Battery Company (EXIDE) at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...which powered two 600 designed brake horsepower main propulsion motors manufactured by the Westinghouse Electric Company at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...which turned propeller shafts...which turned propellers...which could drive the submarine at 11 knots for a short period of time when operating beneath the surface of the sea. Slower submerged speeds resulted in greater endurances before the batteries needed to be recharged by the engines and generators.

I find the 11kts submerged very interesting:hmm: