Torpedo damage

[NZSharkbait]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

There are damage "spheres" and "boxes" inside the models, and a ship has a total of "hit points" that can be expended. The hit points are what determines the sinking, but hitting a ship in the same place, while it would ultimately do more damage to a real ship, with a 3D model it sometimes doesn't. The area targeted has already expended its local hit points total, so another hit there almost seems to do nothing, though you usually hit a little one way or the other, and some ships sink like that anyway. If you're using manual targeting, aim a bit forward, fire one, pause for the bridge, fire two, pause for the rear king post, fire three (in simple terms), and you should have a good spread. If using manual, you could "lock", hit pk, and fire, unlock move forward, hit pk again, fire, etc., aiming where you want to hit, hitting the PK for a new "aim", and the "TDC" does all your angle solving... spread the hits across a ship's total damage zone. I do usually concentrate on an area though, like the bow to the stack, or try to anyway... The game does seem to model a hit to the boilers, but doesn't do very well with prop and rudder damage...

Does varying the depth of torpedoes work on the 3D damage model? As an example, the large modern tanker is shown in the recognition manual as having a draft of 28', so, if I have time, I set the first torpedo to run at 26', the second at 22' and a third and (if needed) a fourth at 18' - my theory being that varying the depth can also spread the damage. It seems to work, because I have had large modern tankers split in half after only two hits just behind the forward deck houses.