Realism- and gameplay-related hardcode fixes for SH3.EXE

[Wolfstriked]

Originally Posted by LGN1

@UltimaGecko:

Thanks for the long and detailed comment In addition to the documents you mentioned I also read the original handbook of the VIIC. In the section dealing with the CO2... they use a volume of 400 m^3 air in the VIIC and an average consumption of 30l/h per each crew member. Where did you get the 525 m^3 for the VII from? One problem is that I never found a source giving the air volume of the II and IX

@Wolfstriked:

There are mods around that have removed the stable UZO via the cameras.dat file. IIRC, Sergbuto's free cam mod was the first Just look for it. If you use a modded cameras.dat, you can see how Sergbuto did it back then and implement it in your cameras.dat.

Cheers, LGN1

Nice to know but Silent Editor is like black magic for me.I change things and they work and then don't.Right now in my game I have this wonderful mod installed and all that works is the WO goes to bridge.I checked that all the mods were enabled and still no go.This is with stock game as I have disabled all the mods I was using to see if they were conflicting.One was....Thomsens ships or water was making the boats surface at 0 speed....removed them both and the sub slowly sinks.

[LGN1]

Originally Posted by Hitman

In any case you can calculate the proportion basing on the tonnage of the UBoat, as in general the proportion between internal air volume and size will be very similar.

Hi Hitman,

I tried this and made a small calculation, but got unreasonable numbers from it (maybe I just made a mistake ). The problem is that I find it hard to estimate the volume of all the equipment: Diesels, torpedo tubes, batteries,... You could determine the ratio of the full volume and the air volume for the VII, but I'm not sure whether the ratio would be the same for the IX. I guess not because I think the volume of the equipment does not grow as fast with the size of the boat as the full volume

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, this will never be an exact science. Arguing about one or two hours more or less is over-kill, IMHO. Especially if you keep in mind that the time scales should be correct in terms of the 'SH3 time scales' (e.g., usual hunt duration for escorts,...). My FEELING is that 'SH3 time' is usually faster than 'real time'

Cheers, LGN1

[Hitman]

Didn't know that.So how did the captain actually go about it.Did he use the scale to read the tickmarks for mast height and scream it to the WO who entered it into the TDC?Or did the cap'n count the tick marks and then use the RAOFB and send all the info it gives to the WO?I am so lost in how a uboat actually operated.

Basically they made a WAG estimation (Wild Ass Guess)

But seriously, in the naval academy distance estimation was practiced to death, according to Uboat Ace Georg Lassen they even went out to sea 8 times a day just to exercise it. In short distances -i.e. shooting distances which are about less than 2000 metres- it worked so well that the hassle of recognition manuals, stadimeters, etc was not worth the effort and actually delayed the process.

What the captain/IWO did was look at the ship, estimate the size of it and use the lense as reference. They knew that a ship of this or that size would cover the whole lense at this or that distance and that sufficed normally to get a good estimate. If you take a look at my GUI for SH3 you will see that I added in socpes & uzo station a copy of one of those tables that were sometimes stickied to the periscope for quick reference.

I myself have becomed pretty efficient at range and AOB estimation in SH3 after some practice and knowing what I had to do. When you get the hang of it, it beats any other method in quickness and if not as accurate, at least it is good enough except for long range shots (>2000 metres).

[Hitman]

II guess not because I think the volume of the equipment does not grow as fast with the size of the boat as the full volume

You are probably right on that

But I can then suggest to use other submarines of similar tonnage whose data are widely published for comparison, i.e. the US fleet boats. A 9D2 is close to a Gato, and the older Perch Class are close to a 9B. It could well serve as measure for that ratio/proportion growth, as all of them were dieselelectrict WW2 subs

[Wolfstriked]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Basically they made a WAG estimation (Wild Ass Guess)

But seriously, in the naval academy distance estimation was practiced to death, according to Uboat Ace Georg Lassen they even went out to sea 8 times a day just to exercise it. In short distances -i.e. shooting distances which are about less than 2000 metres- it worked so well that the hassle of recognition manuals, stadimeters, etc was not worth the effort and actually delayed the process.

What the captain/IWO did was look at the ship, estimate the size of it and use the lense as reference. They knew that a ship of this or that size would cover the whole lense at this or that distance and that sufficed normally to get a good estimate. If you take a look at my GUI for SH3 you will see that I added in socpes & uzo station a copy of one of those tables that were sometimes stickied to the periscope for quick reference.

I myself have becomed pretty efficient at range and AOB estimation in SH3 after some practice and knowing what I had to do. When you get the hang of it, it beats any other method in quickness and if not as accurate, at least it is good enough except for long range shots (>2000 metres).

Do you do shots at bearing 360 and slow speed?I can't for the life of me remember how I was s o good when I last played SH3.I am more confused the second time around.I think I just got as close as possible on surface,with straight run towards where I thought the ship was headed and just eyeballed hitting the fire button and it was dead accurate.I sunk another ship today and thats 2 for the week.

[FIREWALL]

Is this mod a release yet ?

[UltimaGecko]

Originally Posted by LGN1

@UltimaGecko:

Thanks for the long and detailed comment In addition to the documents you mentioned I also read the original handbook of the VIIC. In the section dealing with the CO2... they use a volume of 400 m^3 air in the VIIC and an average consumption of 30l/h per each crew member. Where did you get the 525 m^3 for the VII from? One problem is that I never found a source giving the air volume of the II and IX

My internal volumes are probably a bit off (that's why I went with calling them 'nebulous' numbers). I had to work with random internet sources and displacement.

But using the 400 cubic meters (which I would trust more than my 525 (and my IX is probably a bit high as well) you've got 22.4kg of breathable oxygen, which translate to about 633 crew hours of oxygen (e.g. with 42 crew about 15 hours per person - disregarding engine burn and other waste). That'd get you faster CO2 buildup too (but I had already put a buffer of about 1 hour on my calculation, so it's still around 2 hours of 'renewable' CO2 removal.

The other values are based on the actual volume or mass of gas needed, so they won't be affected by a volume change (e.g. 50L of O2 will still get you the same amount of oxygen).


Initially submerged displacement seems like it would work since displacement is basically a measure of the weight of a given volume of seawater. But this would be incredibly dubious (also why I came out with 525 cubic meters). The problem is that much of the internal space is taken by fuel and equipment and steel. In order to get a close approximation of the internal airspace, you would need to know the volume of space taken up by steel, machinery, food, fuel and such. Which basically gets you right back to square one.

I probably wouldn't recommend comparing the ship to an American ship either. Slight differences in internal space may greatly affect the internal space.

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Basically they made a WAG estimation (Wild Ass Guess)

Sounds like me on a good day!

[h.sie]

@UltimaGecko:

Thanks for the detailed data! Your post contains so much information, that I still couldn't understand all you wrote. I'll have to read again. Your conclusion seems to be "between-the-lines" - hard to understand for me as a non-native english speaker. What is your conclusion? Do you agree with our approach or don't you?

In my opinion it is much more important to have a good game balance between the UBoat and the opponent destroyers, than to exactly fit historical data. (I remember an old thread of Stiebler regarding this topic).

What is the benefit of modelling historically accurate diving times, if in-game the destroyers endurance when hunting an Uboat is much shorter than in reality? So I agree with LGN1, that we have to fit the Uboats diving-times to the time-scale of sh3 which seems to be shorter. So we can only estimate the diving times. But this simple and qualitative approach we used (a renewable and a non-renewable oxygen component and their dependency on silent-running, torpedo reload, repairs) is a big step forward compared to stock sh3 (only renewable "oxygen" part, no dependency of diving-times at all).

Since our O2 model is only an coarse estimation and a qualitative approach instead of an exact model, it would not make any sense in my opinion to add more detailed dependencies like the crews experience on O2 consumption.

But we can surely discuss about fine-adjusting the diving-times and the balance between renewable and non-renewable part of O2.

h.sie

[h.sie]

@FIREWALL:

V15E3 seems to be stable (=release)

V15F2 is beta.

[sharkbit]

Originally Posted by Hitman

If you take a look at my GUI for SH3 you will see that I added in socpes & uzo station a copy of one of those tables that were sometimes stickied to the periscope for quick reference.

I myself have becomed pretty efficient at range and AOB estimation in SH3 after some practice and knowing what I had to do. When you get the hang of it, it beats any other method in quickness and if not as accurate, at least it is good enough except for long range shots (>2000 metres).

Hitman-I use your GUI. It is awesome. Love the simplicity. I'm still working to get proficient at estimating ranges, speed, and AOB visually. I'm getting better at it every day.

I highly recommend it.

[Hitman]

Thanks Sharkbit It's all a matter of practicing enough

@H.Sie, did you finally shelve the idea of implementing real buiyancy, i.e. the UBoat changes depth when moving too slow for the dive planes to produce an effect?

Until now it was a compromise, either positive (GWX) or negative (NYGM) and never the two things depending on the situation as the real submarines do. But with your ability to add code maybe we could do one of two things:

Option A:

Have positive when <14 metres depth (Positive at periscope depth) and
Have negative >14 metres depth (I.e. when submerging deeper for evading).

Option B:

Have positive when normal running and
Have negative when silent running and below 2 knots, as that is a good way to reflect bilge pumps being shut off

[h.sie]

@Hitman: Bouyancy is still on my (growing) todo-list, although I HATE that topic in the meantime. Bouyancy was one of the reasons for my rest from modding. I fear to touch it again too soon, because I fear to lose my interest in sh3.exe modding at all.

Your 2 options above differ from Stieblers solution (his silent-running mod). So we have to decide what's the objective before I start to program in the future (if I start).

Sinking Rates (in cm / minute) in dependency of: (Speed, Depth, Silent-Running)???
This is a 3-dimensional problem.

Also a problem are the different buoyancy models of the supermods, especially GWX and NYGM (WAC and LSH have neutral buoyancy, I think).

Sinking rates adjusted for GWX may be not fine for NYGM. So I'll have to program only for neutral buoyancy. That means: Users of NYGM and GWX first have to disable the bouyancy model of their supermod.

This all was too complex for my simple mind.

I'll now start to implement Stieblers most important fix, the U-Tanker fix (maybe I adapt it a little bit to fit my personal taste). At the same time, LGN1 and me are working on a nice surprise.

h.sie

[Wolfstriked]

Originally Posted by h.sie

@Hitman: Bouyancy is still on my (growing) todo-list, although I HATE that topic in the meantime. Bouyancy was one of the reasons for my rest from modding. I fear to touch it again too soon, because I fear to lose my interest in sh3.exe modding at all.

Your 2 options above differ from Stieblers solution (his silent-running mod). So we have to decide what's the objective before I start to program in the future (if I start).

Sinking Rates (in cm / minute) in dependency of: (Speed, Depth, Silent-Running)???
This is a 3-dimensional problem.

Also a problem are the different buoyancy models of the supermods, especially GWX and NYGM (WAC and LSH have neutral buoyancy, I think).

Sinking rates adjusted for GWX may be not fine for NYGM. So I'll have to program only for neutral buoyancy. That means: Users of NYGM and GWX first have to disable the bouyancy model of their supermod.

This all was too complex for my simple mind.

I'll now start to implement Stieblers most important fix, the U-Tanker fix (maybe I adapt it a little bit to fit my personal taste). At the same time, LGN1 and me are working on a nice surprise.

h.sie

Simple mind

H.sie,any chance to extend the amount you stand on deck while submerging.I hate(such a strong word)the way your instantly at the command room and really liked how SH4 allowed you some time to enjoy the dive sequence.Of course if its simple to mod go for it....just a cosmetic thing so....

[h.sie]

@wolfstriked: your wish is something for an animation or graphics modder, but not for me. I wouldn't know where to start. Sorry.