[REL] RFB/Real Fleet Boat for 1.5

[Munchausen]

Originally Posted by theluckyone17

I post asking for help, not trash talking someone's mod. I'll use Oblivion as a reference here... I've spent hours, if not days, getting FCOM installed and working. When I ran into performance issues, I research it, post about it.

What's FCOM?

[Indy676]

Originally Posted by OlegM

What I DO KNOW is that in dozens of books on naval warfare I don't ever remember reading about transports that kept chugging along after three hits, with guns manned, zig zagging. I remember reading about one hit sinkings fairly often, about ships going down like stones etc - that IME does not happen often enough in RFB (it didn't happen at all in my few RFB patrols).

Then just look at the patrol of Otto Kretschmers U99, as he sank the two "helpcruisers", passanger cargoes equiped with guns, The Laurentic with 18K tons took 4 torps, the Patroclus with 12K tons took 6 torps to sink and they where shooting back furiously.
Its only one example, but it shows, it could happen.
Greets Indy

[OlegM]

[quote=Indy676]

Originally Posted by OlegM

The Laurentic with 18K tons took 4 torps, the Patroclus with 12K tons took 6 torps to sink. Its only one example, but it shows, it could happen.

I know that story. Wasn't one of them famous for being filled with empty cannisters or something that made it virtually unsinkable?

If that's the case it's no more of a "quirky incident" than Lusitania. However I agree there should be great variability in both resillience, AND the way ships sink. Honestly in my (albeit limited) RFB experience I saw none of that variability. Plus ships seem altogether "too alive" when heavily damaged (guns manned, ships zigzaging...).

[Indy676]

Originally Posted by OlegM

If that's the case it's no more of a "quirky incident" than Lusitania. However I agree there should be great variability in both resillience, AND the way ships sink. Honestly in my (albeit limited) RFB experience I saw none of that variability. Plus ships seem altogether "too alive" when heavily damaged (guns manned, ships zigzaging...).

OK, this, I believe, is a shortcoming of SHIV. If a ship is equipped with guns, it will use them, till the sinking message appears.
On my last patrol, I sunk 18 ships, 15 cargos and 3 tankers, with 26 torpedoes, and 5 or 6 duds. None of them took more than 2 torpedoes and 10 to 20 rounds of the deck gun. One thing that should be tweaked as soon as possible, is, that the guns of the merchants should be destroyable. If I can shut down the guns of a merchant, it would be easier to sink it with the gun.
Greets Indy

[tater]

If the ship can still make way, and there is a submarine around, they would run, and evade. If the ship was armed, they'd shoot, too—their lives literally depend on it.

They do not zig-zag, BTW, they "constant helm." I wish we had real zig-zags in SH.

Had you read the SDM readme (within the large RFB readme) you would understand that the ships defending themselves to the last minute is a trade-off.

The way SH works, is that when a ship reaches a certain level of flooding, it will certainly sink. At that point, the game marks it as sunk, the crew abandons ship, and you get the "she's going down!' message. This is true in stock, even if the ship would not actually sink for hours, days, whatever. In RL, you didn't know a ship was sunk until, duh, it sank. As a result, in RL you might finish off a ship that would certainly have sunk on her own, but how could you know? The only way to delay this "instant success" message means that the crew of the ship (guns in this case) continue to function. It's a trade off. It also results in people thinking that they did not get a 1 hit sinking, or a 2 hit sinking, etc, when in fact they did, they just didn't wait long enough before finishing the target off (which would have sunk anyway).

Note that this is indeed "instant." In stock, if the 1 fish is enough, the second the damage is applied, the game tells you she's finished, even with other fish on the way, and the target showing no sings of sinking yet (the splash has not fallen back into the sea).

Before the latest version, many people had ships take 4 hits and steam away, this simply does not happen to me in the current version. At this point, if I did see that, it would be a welcome variation since I've not had any merchant survive even 3 hits.

tater

PS-regarding the very low FR issue. I had FRs that were literally pulsing between 70-80, and TWO with the PE in RFB. I wonder if profoundly low FR can cause the game to skip over some damage? Meaning the game is busy with drawing a frame and the damage doesn't get applied... I have no idea, just throwing that out there. Work on your vid card settings, I really did improve my RFB FR a lot with nhancer (sticky thread top of the general SH4 forum).

[lurker_hlb3]

Originally Posted by jazzabilly

Thanks for your attention to this, Tater, very much appreciated.

the convoy has been heading between 160 deg. and about 135 deg. (SSW). On each 'incident'.

Well I have found two more 2 ship convoys that fit the information you provided, and still not having any problems. Is there any other info that can narrow done your problem

[tater]

For 10k AOs, only 30% sank with 1 hit. 40% sank with 2 hits, and 30% sank with 3 hits. 100% sank with 4+ hits. Plenty of 10-20k AOs steamed haway from 2-3 hits, however, looking at the damaged data (not sunk). One 14k AO was hit with 6, and got away, though claimed sunk.

I wrote this a couple pages up, and I just came across some new data. In addition, I read the wrong row on my spreadsheet, and overreported sinkings.

The one ship that took the most to sink, Kyuei Maru, a 10k AO, was listed in Alden as 6 hits for a sinking. There is no way to know the way they were fired. The Japanese Wartime Convoy History, OTOH, breaks this attack to 3 separate attacks of 2 hits each, spread out over the day. 2 hits for damage. 2 more hits for damage. A 5th hit for damage, then a 6th to sink her. That adds some "hit with X fish but survived" numbers to the spreadsheet (damage results are more useful than sinkings, really, since it allows us to look at the % hit with X fish that lived). The revised results are:

The numbers are the % of ships hit with X torps that actually sank:
1 hit: 00% sank
2 hits: 53.9% sank
3 hits: 66.67% sank
4 hits: 60% sank
5 hits: 85.7% sank
6+ hits: 100% sank

No 10k AO in the war sank with one fish.

[OlegM]

Originally Posted by tater

No 10k AO in the war sank with one fish.

Were they all empty? Because I would expect an oiler full of oil to go down when hit with even one torpedo (probably in flames).

[tater]

Bunker oil need to be injected as a vapor to burn effectively. It is even heavier than diesel, if you are familiar with how they work. It also floats. Once water floods a hold, the oil floats on TOP, and actually helps keep the ship afloat. Progressive fires can of course happen, but SH4 doesn't have progressive fire, and in any event, tankers were generally quite tough to take down in RL.

Some that blew apart more easily might have been holding refined products (avgas, diesel, etc)

I read a japanese report of a ship hit in a hold full of avgas. Fires started in the next hold (#2), which was full of shells, and depth charges. The avgas then caught fire. She was afloat for many hours, burning. You never know, sinking is... variable. A 5k tonner I saw in that doc was hit with 2 and took almost 40 hours to sink.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by tater

I remember a LONG time ago, when the first realistic torpedo mod came out. There were always wierd findings where on patrol it would seem like none worked, and another they'd work fine.

All of the failure rates are based on chance, i.e., a roll of dice, so to say. So, I guess one could get really lucky and not have a single dud at all at certain angles of impact. However, defects like deep runners are modeled to occur 100% of the time, so no favorable chances there.

[jazzabilly]

A question for the RFB team - re: aircraft

It would seem to me that in RL one would encounter many more a/c than you presently do in RFB. Particularly in active theatres of the war (Formosa during the invasion of the Phillipines, Guadalcanal, etc.)

Now, granted that most would not be dedicated ASW patrols.

Would it not make sense to add more a/c that would sim. CAP's or other enemy a/c that might attack your sub as a target of oppurtunity? I assume that my idea might be complicated from a simulation point of view.

Or is this a question better directed to Lurker/RSDC?

[lurker_hlb3]

Originally Posted by jazzabilly

A question for the RFB team - re: aircraft

It would seem to me that in RL one would encounter many more a/c than you presently do in RFB. Particularly in active theatres of the war (Formosa during the invasion of the Phillipines, Guadalcanal, etc.)

Now, granted that most would not be dedicated ASW patrols.

Would it not make sense to add more a/c that would sim. CAP's or other enemy a/c that might attack your sub as a target of oppurtunity? I assume that my idea might be complicated from a simulation point of view.

Or is this a question better directed to Lurker/RSDC?

The current aircraft set up is "as designed" (i.e ASW related only)

[Te Kaha]

In RFB 1.5, I was playing an American career and encountered a japanese convoy (3 DD's, 6 tankers) west of the Marianas. I hit the 1st tanker with 1 fish, huge explosion, she's going down, and away she was. I hit the 2nd tanker with 1 fish, huge explosion, she's going down, and away she was. I hit the 3rd tanker with 1 fish, huge explosion, she's going down, and away she was. The whole convoy action was a matter of maybe 5 minutes, 1 hit sinks a ship, as sure as if you're hitting a tree with your car - bang you're dead.

Playing the sim remembered me of RN Capt. Walkers famous SSSS radio message (Saw sub, sank same)

Now, take RFB 1.52, with all current patches applied;

German campaign, Ops Monsun, hit 2 tankers, 1 fish each. One sank after appr. 6 hours, the other survived.

Next patrol, encountered a huge convoy north of Ireland. Hit one large tanker with 2 torpedoes, and she survived. Hit 2 freighters with 1 fish each, and they survived.

3rd convoy, hit a large oiler with 2 fish, she sank. Hit a large modern tanker with 3 fish, and she sank appr. 1 hour later as the large oiler, even though 2 hits happened before I hit the large oiler. Hit another tanker with 2 fish, and she sank. Hit 2 freighters (small composites) with 1 fish each, 1 sank, 1 survived.


Comparing these 2 examples (RFB 1.5 and RFB 1.52), the second wins hands down for me. Ships don't explode instantly when hit by 1 torpedo filled with a couple hundred kilos of explosives. Ships are NOT stuffed with explosives or flammable stuff in any spot one can possibly hit (ammunition carriers exempted in RL maybe - but they don't explode either when hit in the bow while the ammunition is carried in the aft compartment).

[IronPerch]

Hi,

i've been lately more in cockpit than in conning tower and somehow during that time my crew has developed a telepatic way to spot the ships (= applied 1.52 patch + hotfix). I get visual reports a way before anything can bee seen (even when the weather is calm and clear or before the radar does the job). The contact are real, but a crew with superman's eyes is a bit realism killer.

I remember reading that W_Clear's Environmental mod had this kind of issues in a past? Or is my installation corrupted or something like that?

I also see the bearing markers with my binoculars... Did they come along with the latest patch?

Otherwise the mod is getting better all the time!

[jazzabilly]

Surface search Radar not functioning! I have the 'hotfix' applied, but it doesn't work @ all. In fact, as I recall it worked a lot better before the latest patch. It consistently fails to pick up contacts that are clearly visible, and despite having greater range than hydrophones, I have yet to find a ship w/ radar.

Nov '42, Gato Class boat.

currently installed mods: (in order)
RFB v 1.52_102408
RFB v 1.52 patch_18_Jan_09
RFB v.1.52_RadarHotfix
RSRDC_RFBv1.5_V420
RSRDC_V4XX_patch1