Definitive torpedo depth/exploder status in 1.2

nomad_delta · 05-29-07, 05:26 PM

I've read through dozens of threads concerning this topic in the forums, some of which were posted before 1.2 was released and some after, and haven't been able to come up with any definite or final answers -- thus the new thread. So here's what I'd like to establish with some kind of certainty, as of patch 1.2. Also note that while I'd love to discuss what was true in reality and historically, for the purposes of this thread I'm primarily concerned with what is currently true in-game and as of patch 1.2:

1. Does changing the exploder setting to Contact or Contact/Influence do anything at all?

a. If it does make a difference, does it work correctly? (I've read in several threads that the setting may actually be reversed in 1.2; that is, when you set it to Contact it actually does Magnetic and vice-versa)

b. If the Contact/Influence setting does anything at all, does it ever work properly in game, and is it ever beneficial to actually use it?

2. What measurement/unit is the torpedo depth dial displayed in (feet? meters?) and does the unit/measurement change when the game is set to Imperial or Metric or does it always use one or the other?

3. Is a ship's "draft" the distance that it extends below the waterline, and is that (in theory) what I should be using to determine my torpedo's depth settings?

a. Is there a consistent part of all ships draft that is best to hit?, such as: "as low as possible without going under" or "dead center of the ship's draft" or does it vary with each ship? If it varies, where can I find this information for each ship type?

b. Where can I find accurate ship draft measurements for all ships that actually work in the game? I've noted that the measurements listed in the printed manual don't match the measurements presented in the in-game ship ID manual, and I have serious doubts about whether either of those accurately reflect what's actually modelled in the game, much less actual historical values. I'd be happy with any available method of solving this, such as a mod that corrects either (1) the ship models to make the drafts match the measurements in the in-game ID manual or (2) a mod that corrects the in-game ID manual to match the actual ship model drafts, or some combination thereof. I did find a mod that was supposed to correct the Jap ship model sizes, but it seemed to only related to the use of the stadimeter and not to draft lengths.

In the end what I'm really after here is to have my torpedos more reliably make contact with the "optimal damage spot" on the ships I'm firing at, but more importantly I'd like to understand how the system really works -- whether it's working as intended or not. At this point I think it's equally likely that I'm either just doing something wrong, or that there are one or more bugs still in the torpedo system that are confusing me.

Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts/ideas. Maybe when I get home I'll try to run some controlled testing to get some actual hard data to work with.

Cheers!

nomad_delta

GTHammer · 05-29-07, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomad_delta

3. Is a ship's "draft" the distance that it extends below the waterline, and is that (in theory) what I should be using to determine my torpedo's depth settings?

a. Is there a consistent part of all ships draft that is best to hit?, such as: "as low as possible without going under" or "dead center of the ship's draft" or does it vary with each ship? If it varies, where can I find this information for each ship type?

I've be planning on running some new tests to try and get some of these answer myself. The above is the only part I can definitively answer at the moment.

3. The draft measurement is the depth the ship extends beneath the surface.

a. If you are using contact torpedos or wish for them to make contact and then detonate it is best to hit low, under any armored belt if the ship has one. However, for maximum damage a torpedo should explode underneath the keel, thus directing all of its energy into the ship. For this to occur the torpedo must past just beneath the keel. Or at least thats how it should work...I'm off to fire off loads of torps on diff settings. We'll see how it goes.

Jaber · 05-29-07, 06:24 PM

Great thread! I think there are a lot of us out here with these same questions.

I started getting much better torp effectiveness once I switched to 'Contact' setting and aiming for low (but not under). Previously when I had set to Influence the torps would explode too early or seem to not induce much damage....

SirMoric · 05-29-07, 06:56 PM

Yes, the magnetic exploder works. I've used it from time to time and been succesfull a couple of times putting large holes in the bottom of ships and even breaking them apart.

I'm not keen on using them though, since I don't like "loosing" torpedoes to faulty devices, especially not after I've begun using 100 pct realism where my accuracy is rather bad and only one hitting in a spread of four need to explode.

rgds

GTHammer · 05-29-07, 06:58 PM

Ok well here's what I've found out after a few rather infuriating efforts. Apparently my computer has issues with the external view, no matter how low I set the graphics settings....

Anyway...The Mogami Heavy Cruiser from the training mission is listed as having a draft of 4.4 meters. This converts to approximately 14.44 feet. I fired a number of torpedos at the target to determine the depth required for the torp to pass under keel. I did jump from 25 feet to 28 feet, decided to for go the foot by foot thing. My torp set for contact+influence passed under the keel without exploding. Sadly my computer crashed shortly after I watched this occur. However after rebooting and reloading I fired another torpedo set to run at 28 feet and to explode by contact alone. This torpedo passed 1/3 of the way under the keel and then exploded. I had read something about this before. Apparently the switch is backwards or setting for contact gives you only influence...(Didn't have the patience for another reboot and reload to fire one set on contact that actually hit the side.) Oh yeah and duds were off.

So in conclusion....1. The draft depths in the manual/chart are off. The dial has to be set in feet because 28 meters would have been way to deep. 2. Torpedos set to explode by contact+influence don't, they will explode by influence when set to contact though....

This info is pertinent to 1.2 without any mods affecting ship dimensions or torp stats. Oh and if anyone has any ideas why my computer likes to crash while I'm in the external camera...feel free to chime in...Thanks

Jaber · 05-29-07, 11:12 PM

Ok, I got home a bit ago and tried this a number of times. First off I am using SH4 1.2 with mod RFB 1.27 at 100% realism (no map contacts and external camera unchecked) but with the original Torpedoes_US.sim.

I performed the testing using the torp training within the school using the S class sub. I performed the test 12 different times (total of 48 torps) with various Contact and Influence settings/depths.

What I noticed is I never had a 'Contact' only torp go off 'early.' Typically Influence/Contact torps would only go off if very close to the hull, if at all (unless direct contact.)

What I did have is a problem with the selector switch staying in the ‘Contact’ position. When I clicked to a different torp and came back it would be selected back to the default Contact/Influence position. Sometimes it would take 4-5 tries before it would stay there. Maybe this fault was only my computer, but this could explain some of the issues we are all experiencing with the Contact and Influence settings…

On another note it was interesting see the failure rate of the orginal torpedoes_US.sim; about a 1 in 5 failure during the brief testing I did. And those seemed to me a mix of duds or bad gyro. (this does not take into account any 'dud' influence detections).

The Avon Lady · 05-29-07, 11:25 PM

Somebody yesterday on the SH4 Mods forum posted this link:

US NAVY TORPEDOES, by Frederick J Milford, Part Two: The great torpedo scandal, 1941-43.

As it says, historically both exploder types and the depth mechanism were messed up untill later in the war.

So the question is if these are bugs imitating reality or reality imitating buigs? :p

As far as the exploder switch not keeping its position between switch screens or torps, this is definitely a bug. In SH3, the equivalent switch retained its position. But both games suffer also from the torpedo settings not being saved between game sessions, which is a pity.

nomad_delta · 05-29-07, 11:25 PM

I've noticed the exact same problem with the game not 'remembering' the Contact/Influence setting on each torpedo. Mine does the same thing -- every time I change torpedos it resets it back to the default. I end up having to change the setting on each torpedo right before I fire it.

nomad_delta

Jaber · 05-29-07, 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

...As it says, historically both exploder types and the depth mechanism were messed up untill later in the war....

It was interesting that I did notice quite a bit of variation to torps that were set to the same depth. Some higher/lower than other ones. At first I thought draft of the ship was off, but really think after all the talk it was the depth mechanism. You think this was actually programmed in to be off just a tad sometimes...?

What eles interesting out of all of the testing tonight isthe importance of a spread across a ship to destroy it effectively (with contact). You could land all 4 torps dead center with no sink... It was also impressive to watch how fast the ship went down when the Influence actually did work. Zip!

spdklls · 05-30-07, 07:33 PM

I asked about this once before.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...731#post518731

Since then I've discovered that the recog manual is just plain wrong about the draft on certain ships.

Heavy seas will often cause your torps to go low, but if you have the correct draft for a ship and set torpedo depth 1 - 3 ft under this, the results are very dramatic. Many ships will split in two with one shot under the keel

, as opposed to four or five into the sides. The mag detonator seems to need to be within 5 ft to actually work though. I think this is the problem when playing metric measures. One notch on the dial in imperial is one foot, while on metric one notch would be almost four feet.:hmm: You don't have fine enough control on metric, causing a lot of low misses.

nomad_delta · 05-30-07, 07:47 PM

spdklls: So you've actually been able to somewhat reliably get magnetic detonations by setting torpedo depths to 1-3 feet below the ship's draft? Just to confirm, are you setting your torpedos to Contact or Contact/Influence for this? (there was some speculation that the setting might be reversed, so if you're getting actual magnetic detonations that should confirm whether or not that's true)

I guess that brings us right back to my original question #3b, "Where can I find accurate ship draft measurements for all ships that actually work in the game?" -- without accurate values for the ship drafts in the game, all of the other questions become moot.

I wonder if there's a way to pull the information directly from the game data files?

nomad_delta

nomad_delta · 05-30-07, 08:00 PM

I just thought of another important question to add to my original list:

4. Does the year during which you are playing have any effect on torpedo running depths? I've read in several threads that historically there were many problems with torpedos during the early years of the war, including inaccurate depth mechanisms -- but it's never been really clear to me whether and how that might actually be modelled in the game. In particular most historical documents I've read (including that excellent link that The Avon Lady posted) suggested that MK14 torpedos were running 5-11ft below their intended depths due to calibration problems. Does anyone know whether the game actually tries to replicate the 1941-1943 torpedo depth issues?

spdklls · 05-30-07, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomad_delta

spdklls: So you've actually been able to somewhat reliably get magnetic detonations by setting torpedo depths to 1-3 feet below the ship's draft? Just to confirm, are you setting your torpedos to Contact or Contact/Influence for this? (there was some speculation that the setting might be reversed, so if you're getting actual magnetic detonations that should confirm whether or not that's true)
nomad_delta

I had it set to mag influence/contact, the default. Sorry I wasn't clear on that!!

wstaub · 05-30-07, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spdklls

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomad_delta

spdklls: So you've actually been able to somewhat reliably get magnetic detonations by setting torpedo depths to 1-3 feet below the ship's draft? Just to confirm, are you setting your torpedos to Contact or Contact/Influence for this? (there was some speculation that the setting might be reversed, so if you're getting actual magnetic detonations that should confirm whether or not that's true)
nomad_delta

I had it set to mag influence/contact, the default. Sorry I wasn't clear on that!!

And for Me I need it to be set to Contact only to get the Magnetic Detonation. This just goes to show that the game reacts differently for some people.

# Follow-up on Post 20

-Pv- · 05-30-07, 08:53 PM

I use only the combo setting on a non-modded game. I always shoot to hit as low as possible and when the torp has the good luck to pass under (because this torp worked, or the wave action was favorable) I get very nice destruction from proximity only detonation. Is it possible I'm getting an invisible contact detonation rather than prox? Yes.

An advantage of using the combo setting is if I fail to get it under, I will get a good contact hit low on the hull. I've yet to use more than 3 torps to sink any medium size ship. The two pax liners I've taken out so far were done both in very stormy weather with two torps. From my understanding reading the 1.3 patch list, I infer that there are discrepancies between the logical draft and the visual model so torps can "appear" to pass under visually or early when approaching the target and still explode when set to contact. It may be that the setting isn't reversed as much as the visual observation is not accurate as to what's actually happenening. Possibly the ship is larger or lower in the water in the logic than the visual.

An example of getting easily confused by observation alone was the convoy halt bug after the 1st explosion. It surprised many of us to learn it was because we sank the command ship and the AI was slow to select a new command ship to set the course and speed to escape.
-Pv-

05-29-07, 05:26 PM	#1
nomad_delta Planesman Join Date: May 2007 Location: San Francisco, California Posts: 185 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	Definitive torpedo depth/exploder status in 1.2 I've read through dozens of threads concerning this topic in the forums, some of which were posted before 1.2 was released and some after, and haven't been able to come up with any definite or final answers -- thus the new thread. So here's what I'd like to establish with some kind of certainty, as of patch 1.2. Also note that while I'd love to discuss what was true in reality and historically, for the purposes of this thread I'm primarily concerned with what is currently true in-game and as of patch 1.2: 1. Does changing the exploder setting to Contact or Contact/Influence do anything at all? a. If it does make a difference, does it work correctly? (I've read in several threads that the setting may actually be reversed in 1.2; that is, when you set it to Contact it actually does Magnetic and vice-versa) b. If the Contact/Influence setting does anything at all, does it ever work properly in game, and is it ever beneficial to actually use it? 2. What measurement/unit is the torpedo depth dial displayed in (feet? meters?) and does the unit/measurement change when the game is set to Imperial or Metric or does it always use one or the other? 3. Is a ship's "draft" the distance that it extends below the waterline, and is that (in theory) what I should be using to determine my torpedo's depth settings? a. Is there a consistent part of all ships draft that is best to hit?, such as: "as low as possible without going under" or "dead center of the ship's draft" or does it vary with each ship? If it varies, where can I find this information for each ship type? *b. Where can I find accurate ship draft measurements for all ships that actually* work in the game?** I've noted that the measurements listed in the printed manual don't match the measurements presented in the in-game ship ID manual, and I have serious doubts about whether either of those accurately reflect what's actually modelled in the game, much less actual historical values. I'd be happy with any available method of solving this, such as a mod that corrects either (1) the ship models to make the drafts match the measurements in the in-game ID manual or (2) a mod that corrects the in-game ID manual to match the actual ship model drafts, or some combination thereof. I did find a mod that was supposed to correct the Jap ship model sizes, but it seemed to only related to the use of the stadimeter and not to draft lengths. In the end what I'm really after here is to have my torpedos more reliably make contact with the "optimal damage spot" on the ships I'm firing at, but more importantly I'd like to understand how the system really works -- whether it's working as intended or not. At this point I think it's equally likely that I'm either just doing something wrong, or that there are one or more bugs still in the torpedo system that are confusing me. Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts/ideas. Maybe when I get home I'll try to run some controlled testing to get some actual hard data to work with. Cheers! nomad_delta

05-29-07, 06:58 PM	#5
GTHammer Machinist's Mate Join Date: May 2007 Location: Iowa Posts: 127 Downloads: 4 Uploads: 0	Ok well here's what I've found out after a few rather infuriating efforts. Apparently my computer has issues with the external view, no matter how low I set the graphics settings.... Anyway...The Mogami Heavy Cruiser from the training mission is listed as having a draft of 4.4 meters. This converts to approximately 14.44 feet. I fired a number of torpedos at the target to determine the depth required for the torp to pass under keel. I did jump from 25 feet to 28 feet, decided to for go the foot by foot thing. My torp set for contact+influence passed under the keel without exploding. Sadly my computer crashed shortly after I watched this occur. However after rebooting and reloading I fired another torpedo set to run at 28 feet and to explode by contact alone. This torpedo passed 1/3 of the way under the keel and then exploded. I had read something about this before. Apparently the switch is backwards or setting for contact gives you only influence...(Didn't have the patience for another reboot and reload to fire one set on contact that actually hit the side.) Oh yeah and duds were off. So in conclusion....1. The draft depths in the manual/chart are off. The dial has to be set in feet because 28 meters would have been way to deep. 2. Torpedos set to explode by contact+influence don't, they will explode by influence when set to contact though.... This info is pertinent to 1.2 without any mods affecting ship dimensions or torp stats. Oh and if anyone has any ideas why my computer likes to crash while I'm in the external camera...feel free to chime in...Thanks __________________ GT USS Hammer

05-29-07, 11:25 PM	#7
The Avon Lady Über Mom Join Date: May 2005 Location: Jerusalem, Israel Posts: 6,147 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Somebody yesterday on the SH4 Mods forum posted this link: US NAVY TORPEDOES, by Frederick J Milford, Part Two: The great torpedo scandal, 1941-43. As it says, historically both exploder types and the depth mechanism were messed up untill later in the war. So the question is if these are bugs imitating reality or reality imitating buigs? :p As far as the exploder switch not keeping its position between switch screens or torps, this is definitely a bug. In SH3, the equivalent switch retained its position. But both games suffer also from the torpedo settings not being saved between game sessions, which is a pity. __________________ "Victory will come to us from the wombs of our women." - Houari Boumedienne, President of Algeria, Speech before the UN, 1974

05-30-07, 07:33 PM	#10
spdklls Watch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 21 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Imperial or Metric I asked about this once before. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...731#post518731 Since then I've discovered that the recog manual is just plain wrong about the draft on certain ships. Heavy seas will often cause your torps to go low, but if you have the correct draft for a ship and set torpedo depth 1 - 3 ft under this, the results are very dramatic. Many ships will split in two with one shot under the keel, as opposed to four or five into the sides. The mag detonator seems to need to be within 5 ft to actually work though. I think this is the problem when playing metric measures. One notch on the dial in imperial is one foot, while on metric one notch would be almost four feet.:hmm: You don't have fine enough control on metric, causing a lot of low misses.

05-29-07, 06:24 PM	#3
Jaber Swabbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 13 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Great thread! I think there are a lot of us out here with these same questions. I started getting much better torp effectiveness once I switched to 'Contact' setting and aiming for low (but not under). Previously when I had set to Influence the torps would explode too early or seem to not induce much damage....

05-29-07, 06:56 PM	#4
SirMoric Seaman Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 33 Downloads: 32 Uploads: 0	Yes, the magnetic exploder works. I've used it from time to time and been succesfull a couple of times putting large holes in the bottom of ships and even breaking them apart. I'm not keen on using them though, since I don't like "loosing" torpedoes to faulty devices, especially not after I've begun using 100 pct realism where my accuracy is rather bad and only one hitting in a spread of four need to explode. rgds

05-29-07, 11:12 PM	#6
Jaber Swabbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 13 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Ok, I got home a bit ago and tried this a number of times. First off I am using SH4 1.2 with mod RFB 1.27 at 100% realism (no map contacts and external camera unchecked) but with the original Torpedoes_US.sim. I performed the testing using the torp training within the school using the S class sub. I performed the test 12 different times (total of 48 torps) with various Contact and Influence settings/depths. What I noticed is I never had a 'Contact' only torp go off 'early.' Typically Influence/Contact torps would only go off if very close to the hull, if at all (unless direct contact.) What I did have is a problem with the selector switch staying in the ‘Contact’ position. When I clicked to a different torp and came back it would be selected back to the default Contact/Influence position. Sometimes it would take 4-5 tries before it would stay there. Maybe this fault was only my computer, but this could explain some of the issues we are all experiencing with the Contact and Influence settings… On another note it was interesting see the failure rate of the orginal torpedoes_US.sim; about a 1 in 5 failure during the brief testing I did. And those seemed to me a mix of duds or bad gyro. (this does not take into account any 'dud' influence detections).

05-30-07, 07:47 PM	#11
nomad_delta Planesman Join Date: May 2007 Location: San Francisco, California Posts: 185 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	spdklls: So you've actually been able to somewhat reliably get magnetic detonations by setting torpedo depths to 1-3 feet below the ship's draft? Just to confirm, are you setting your torpedos to Contact or Contact/Influence for this? (there was some speculation that the setting might be reversed, so if you're getting actual magnetic detonations that should confirm whether or not that's true) I guess that brings us right back to my original question #3b, "*Where can I find accurate ship draft measurements for all ships that actually* work in the game?**" -- without accurate values for the ship drafts in the game, all of the other questions become moot. I wonder if there's a way to pull the information directly from the game data files? nomad_delta

05-30-07, 08:00 PM	#12
nomad_delta Planesman Join Date: May 2007 Location: San Francisco, California Posts: 185 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	I just thought of another important question to add to my original list: 4. Does the year during which you are playing have any effect on torpedo running depths? I've read in several threads that historically there were many problems with torpedos during the early years of the war, including inaccurate depth mechanisms -- but it's never been really clear to me whether and how that might actually be modelled in the game. In particular most historical documents I've read (including that excellent link that The Avon Lady posted) suggested that MK14 torpedos were running 5-11ft below their intended depths due to calibration problems. Does anyone know whether the game actually tries to replicate the 1941-1943 torpedo depth issues?

05-30-07, 08:53 PM	#15
-Pv- The Old Man Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 1,434 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	I use only the combo setting on a non-modded game. I always shoot to hit as low as possible and when the torp has the good luck to pass under (because this torp worked, or the wave action was favorable) I get very nice destruction from proximity only detonation. Is it possible I'm getting an invisible contact detonation rather than prox? Yes. An advantage of using the combo setting is if I fail to get it under, I will get a good contact hit low on the hull. I've yet to use more than 3 torps to sink any medium size ship. The two pax liners I've taken out so far were done both in very stormy weather with two torps. From my understanding reading the 1.3 patch list, I infer that there are discrepancies between the logical draft and the visual model so torps can "appear" to pass under visually or early when approaching the target and still explode when set to contact. It may be that the setting isn't reversed as much as the visual observation is not accurate as to what's actually happenening. Possibly the ship is larger or lower in the water in the logic than the visual. An example of getting easily confused by observation alone was the convoy halt bug after the 1st explosion. It surprised many of us to learn it was because we sank the command ship and the AI was slow to select a new command ship to set the course and speed to escape. -Pv-