RUb 1.44 Shell Explosive charge /armour piercing power

[Beery]

Originally Posted by jason210

...Reload times depended on a variety of factors, including how well trained the crew were. To say that reload times should be 1 minute, or 30 seconds or whatever is artificial. Evidence points to quite fast reload times for these guns, generally.

Actually, evidence indicates that reloads were fast (around 4 rounds per minute) for the first 20 rounds and very slow (over a minute per round) for the remaining 180 rounds. The RUb team decided to take an average, since the game doesn't have the option of two reload speeds.

As to shell explosive power - here is another example - I fired an explosive shell at a lifeboat (using RUb) on a cargo ship. The lifeboat should have been knocked off it's davits but it wasn't.

What a shell does to a lifeboat is merely eye candy. It doesn't relate to structural or critical damage. having it be accurate would be nice, but it is merely 'chrome'.

Finally, at point blank range, where accuracy is not an issue, such a gun should be able to do at lot of damage to ship, such as an unarmed merchant vessel.

A hit, whether at medium, close, or point blank range, should do about the same damage. There is no appreciable loss in effectiveness as the range increases - only at long ranges does a reduction in speed decrease the effectiveness of the shell.

The only thing that's wrong with the default deck gun is its accuracy...

Not so. The stock SH3 deck gun shell is certainly too powerful. This deck gun shell nerf is not something that just popped into our heads and which we implemented without any thought. It was discussed, agreed upon, tested and tweaked. We spent many hours on it. It was not a caprice. It is based on research, discussion and consensus.

...and I really wish modders would leave the other variables alone and tinker with this one more. More misses and everything is righty-ho.

Firstly, if we could mod the accuracy, we would. But we can't. The variables do not seem to be accessible without the Software Development Kit, and there is no evidence that the SDK is going to be made available anytime soon.

Secondly, and more importantly, you seem to be trying to tell me what I should do with my spare time. What gives you that right? The mod is freely available to you. You are free to use it or not. I don't tell you how to play the game, I don't force you to use the mod, and I don't think any modmaker (or anyone else for that matter) needs a lecture on how he should spend his time. I mod what I want to mod. I have never modded anything based on what anyone else told me I should mod, and I never will. None of the mod team are told what to work on - they work on what they want to work on, and the best stuff (based generally on a loose consensus on the part of the mod team) gets into the mod. If you don't like the changes that are in RUb, DON'T USE THE MOD! Advice and info are appreciated, even criticism is encouraged, but when you tell me what I should be working on, that goes over the line. I am not your employee, I am not producing a product for you or anyone else. I do this mod-making thing primarily for my own enjoyment, and the fact that I'm happy to offer the product of my labour to the community does not make me beholden to anyone who uses the mod. You like it - fine; you don't like it - also fine, but you don't get to tell me what I should be working on - that is 100% my decision. If you think something is being ignored, and if you think time would be better spent if it was devoted to that thing, YOU should work on it. No one is preventing anyone from working on anything. It's not like any of us are keeping the necessary information from anyone - certainly the SH3 Mod Team are very open to prospective mod-makers - if you want to mod the game you will get help from us. It's not like this game is that hard to mod anyway. Most of the stuff that can be modded is easy to mod. The SH3 Mod Team's mods are so good because we have freedom to spend our time on what we want to do. If we start putting our own desires aside and catering to what other people think we should be doing, we will start to produce poor quality stuff because our hearts won't be in the work.

It seems that what's happening instead is that modders are trying to penalise our use of this weapon, by reducing the explosive / armour peircing power, or ammo, or reload, to try and balance things out this way. This seems to me to be the wrong approach, because it has the unwanted aforementioned side effects, and in a way these are more unrealistic than having a super-accurate gun.

That's your opinion. But to be perfectly frank it doesn't mean too much unless you're one of the guys who make the mod. When I nerf a deck gun and publish a mod with that nerf included, that has no penalising effect on you at all, because you have the option to use the mod or not to use it. If you decide to take the plunge and use the mod, then you must be willing to accept (at least until you make a decision about whether you like the mod or not) whatever penalties and benefits I and my mod-making colleagues dictate. That is what mods are all about. No one is 'punishing' you by releasing a mod. Most people accept a mod for what it is - a free gift. Some people seem to think that if they don't like the free gift, that it's a punishment. I just don't get that. If you don't like a mod I've helped to make, delete it and move on. Don't tell me I'm penalising you. You made the decision to put your game in my hands. I never forced you to do so.

How would you feel if you held a party, with an open invitation to anyone to partake of free food and drink, and at the end of the party I got a bullhorn out and told everyone at the party how I thought that the party was a bust, that the food was bland and unfilling, that the drinks menu was lacking, and that I felt that you should have bought Budweiser rather than Coors, and served beef rather than chicken? I don't think you'd be too pleased. What if, on top of that, I told everyone that I had been penalized by being prevented from eating beef at the party? It seems to me that that is the equivalent of what you're doing here.

The only thing wrong with the default gun is the brain of the person who's firing it! I've always used the gun judiciously...

That doesn't matter. The mod is not made purely with the intention of catering to the play-style of those who are conservative with the deck gun. The mod was made based on what the mod team wanted to make. We don't try to produce a mod that satisfies everyone - if we did there would be no mod. We publish the mod with the hope that others will enjoy it, but we do NOT intend that the mod should please everyone who downloads it. In fact, the RUb mod is SPECIFICALLY intended NOT to be enjoyed by the majority of players. It is a hardcore mod intended for a hardcore player who enjoys a certain view of realism and a challenge in terms of gameplay. If your view of realism doesn't coincide with ours, that is not our fault, nor is it something we should address. Popularity is not something the SH3 Mod Team has ever been concerned about.

In addtion to making the gun less accurate, another thing that could help restrict the effectiveness of it is to make the sub more vulnerable to attacks from guns on other ships. One hit from a destroyer should disable, if not sink a sub. If things were like this, simmers would be less likely to take on anything with a gun!

RUb does this.

Also, it should be easier to shoot the deck gun crew with machine guns...

RUb does this.

Here's another tip. Manning the gun should take time, and not happen instantly. There were preparations to be made. Also, guns were not 100% reliable. May be also the gun could jam, or develop a fault, that needed to be fixed. This is easy to implement - just damage the gun randomly.

These are good tips, but trust me, they have all been attempted, and none of them could be achieved. These are not easy things to implement - in fact they may be impossible without the SDK. If they were easy they would have been done by now.