Correction of torpedo damage power in SH4

[tater]

The Mk 27 was not designed to sink ships. Its acoustic homer would result in a hit at or around the target's screws. It was meant to damage the screws or rudder, allowing the boat to get away (it was to be used against escorts).

Note that any/all changes need a ton of testing since the DM is more complex that simple hitpoints (unless you prefer all ships to explode and instantly sink). It is a mistake, IMO, to rely too strictly to scaling damage hitpoints to some kg warhead value. They simply do not map very well. They might if the damage model in the game was consistent and accurate, but it is not. The only way to really tell will be testing. You need to read der teddy bear's threads, observer's threads, wernersobe's threads, and even redwine's threads in their entirety to begin to understand the DM, IMO. I have more than once, and it still confuses me.

You might want to use the search function on various ship damage mods since several of the stock DMs are rather broken, if you calibrate to the wrong targets, nothing will work properly.

And BTW, "total loss" != sunk.

Looks like from your stats that about 30% of 5k merchants should survive a single hit.

tater

[Gorshkov]

Originally Posted by tater

And BTW, "total loss" != sunk.

Really? In one incident after single hit ship broke on two, bow sank but remaining part of hull was safely towed to port. Forsooth - not total loss! :rotfl:

Originally Posted by tater

Looks like from your stats that about 30% of 5k merchants should survive a single hit.

That is why average is somewhere 1.5 torpedo per sunken ship for large merchants for late war period which fact I want to introduce in my mod on German side. In reality US Fleet Boats had worse torps so their skippers will have to fire them more to achieve similar effect.

PS. No tons of testing! I am trying to create mod similar to Webster's mod but with more in-depth each torpedo type damage power analysis. "Use it or not but do not dare to demand anything!" - that's what I hear in RFBeta thread all the time. Now I repeat this "saint sentence" here!

[tater]

The mk 27 is a good indicator of why simply scaling HP to TNT doesn't work.

You said in the OP that it was overpowered, but it needs to have the RL capability of wrecking the propulsion or steering of the target. If scaling it to TNT results in the inability to do that (because there is no indication that the ship DM is terribly well scaled to kg of TNT), then you'll break things.

If it was as easy as 438kgTNT=170HP, things would be easy indeed. The AP value is a multiplier as well. PITA to sort out many times.

Depth charges, for example, have higher HP than that scaling.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Gorshkov

Really? In one incident after single hit ship broke on two, bow sank but remaining part of hull was safely towed to port. Forsooth - not total loss! :rotfl:

That's one example. Many steamed into port or were beached. For game purposes, that means they do not sink.

That is why average is somewhere 1.5 torpedo per sunken ship for large merchants for late war period which fact I want to introduce in my mod.

PS. No tons of testing! I am trying to create mod similar to Webster's mod but with more in-depth each torpedo type damage power analysis. "Use it or not but do not dare to demand anything!" - that's what I hear in RFBeta thread all the time. Now I repeat this "saint sentence" here!

Damage power analysis means nothing without understanding the DM. I'm not demanding anything, I won't use your mod, the only way I see u-boats is as targets. Your earlier complaints, however, were about realism, so I assume that you are attempting that after a fashion. The only way to do that is loads of testing because the game is not perfect, so scaling the damage to kg TNT simply does not guarantee good results.

You can pretend it does, but it does not.

Also, be aware that many stock ship DMs are either crazy, or copied from another completely different kind of ship.

Liberty Ships are large, but they were also cheaply built. Having 2 to sink them maybe 90% of the time seems not unreasonable, but it might not scale to other ships (built using better construction techniques) well.

[Gorshkov]

Originally Posted by tater

That's one example. Many steamed into port or were beached. For game purposes, that means they do not sink.

For 19 examples I found only one ship which could steam into port herself. Moreover in reality "total loss" ships were almost always abandoned by their crews and later towed by other ship manned by skeleton crews. In SH4 no such thing can happen. Thus "total loss" means sank in this game!

Originally Posted by tater

Liberty Ships are large, but they were also cheaply built. Having 2 to sink them maybe 90% of the time seems not unreasonable, but it might not scale to other ships (built using better construction techniques) well.

liberty ships were built right here in new orleans and were made fast and cheap without much concern for quality. i have been told by local historians that something like 30% of them simply broke in half and sunk on their own during the war most were not even in rough seas just stormy weather so they built them with the understanding most would never make more than 5 or 6 trips before being sunk or sinking on their own. this is what the local history is saying. they had to even add a reinforcing band along the midships to keep them from self destructing by flexing and breaking in half in rough seas.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Gorshkov

For 19 examples I found only one ship which could steam into port herself. Moreover in reality "total loss" ships were almost always abandoned by their crews and later towed by other ship manned by skeleton crews. In SH4 no such thing can happen. Thus "total loss" means sank in this game!

No, sunk means the ship floods and sinks. You know, it ends up at the bottom of the sea.

You could hit a ship in SH4 with ONE deck gun round, and it would burn forever. If you watched it burn a few days, it would have to have burned to the waterline, and be a total loss. Still, not sunk.

Sunk by the game's definition means incapable of remaining afloat. That is what sunk MEANS in SH4 (and in plain english).

The abandoned, floating ships that were later towed, or required another ship to scuttle are NOT sunk, period. IN game terms, those are the ones that you look at burning, with decks awash and say, "WTF is the matter with that damn thing, it just won't die!" Then you scuttle her with a single fish or the DG.

If you leave her, she is NOT SUNK. The RL skipper would never know, he'd shoot, se her burning, dive to evade escorts, and never hear breaking up. He'd have to assume damage, and he'd be right to do so since he did not sink her.

BTW, if your RL u-boat (or fleet boat) skipper had been able to stick around, he would have scuttled that "total loss" ship using either an extra fish, or the DG. Period. So if you want to count them as sunk, add another torpedo to the number it required to sink (meaning that you add a "damaged" with however many hits it did take, and a sunk with that number plus one.


tater

[Gorshkov]

@Webster: Right! Moreover not only Liberty-class but also most merchants built during the war were designed as cheap and fast-building in mind. No one cared about their damage sustainability. Thus they were sunk with 1.5 torpedo on average.

@tater: If you meet during your SH4 patrol any burning wreck towed to port simply let me know! Now I do not know anything about such game behavior so I decided to eliminate majority of "total loss" wrecks remaining above the water surface hours or days with realistically powerful torps on German side. The most hard to sink vessels will be always suitable targets for gunfire as before but I am sure stock sinking model won't let these funny "unsinkable ships" to emerge so often as in RFBeta!

[tater]

Using the stock DM plus your mod, you'll sink everything with 1 fish, probably. Rejoice!

[Gorshkov]

OK, I improved HP values on German side by torpedo type as follows:

- T I (1943) - as noted before I estimated its warhead weight at 380 kg of Hexanite in 1943 which means 178-287 HP using Keltros formula. Identical HP are assigned to FAT/LUT variants.

- T-II (1942) - because T-II was withdrawn from service before 1943 i I think last variant form 1942 had smaller 330 kg warhead equals 146-237 HP.

- T-III (1943) - as T-II successor it had the same 380 kg warhead as T-I in 1943 and thus possesses the same HP value 178-287 HP. Also idenitcal numbers are assigned to FAT/LUT variants.

- T-IV (early 1943) - first acoustic torpedo in service. So I think it had warhead weight 200 kg as being bottom line value in historical data for this kind of German torps. This equals 89-143 HP in SH-4.

- T-V (late 1943) - later T-IV modification entered service in 1943/44 period, Thus I credited it with 239 kg warhead and 106-171 HP.

- T-VII LUT (1945) - experimental design never entered service so all here is pure guessing. In stock SH-4 it is available in 1945 so I treat T-VII as German Mk-16 equivalent and estimate its warhead mass at 430 kg equals 191-310 HP value.

- T-XI (1944) - last passive acoustic homer also never saw real battle. As in T-VII case I credited it with 278 kg warhead i.e. upper warhead mass limit for German passive homers found in technical data and 124-200 HP value.

US torps HP values still remains the same as in my previous post. However I consider Cutie's strengthening if tests show it is unable to damage destroyer's propulsion.

[Gorshkov]

Originally Posted by tater

Using the stock DM plus your mod, you'll sink everything with 1 fish, probably. Rejoice!

BS, tater! I have already tested German torps and I must say NO merchant sank after ONE hit, even hit by T-I! I had to fire second fish to sink them all: Victory, Troop Transport and Liberty. T2 tanker sank after spread of two T-IIs. Submarine Tender did not sunk even after two T-I hits.

Of course you can say it is unimportant because it was only one test. OK, but this test also questioned above tater's statement..."probably" at least!

[tater]

I still think you should seriously consider some testing on numerous targets as a reality check. Obviously it will vary based on the DM in question.

That's the trouble with modding, it starts out stand alone, then ends up a can of worms.

I'm trying to make constructive criticism, BTW (in case it's not apparent for some reason).

tater

[Gorshkov]

OK! Well, I'd like to allow you to try my mod so I uploaded it on FileFront. Thus you can download it here: http://hosted.filefront.com/GorshkovPL/

Beware it is in early BETA stage so I do not take any responsibility for any damage it can cause. For more instructions please read readme. txt file inside mod directory!

PS. I've forgotten to add in readme.txt file this mod is JGSME-friendly, of course!

[Rockin Robbins]

Early betas are fun because they ALWAYS do something you didn't expect. And half the time what you unexpectedly find turns out to be useful.

[Gorshkov]

In later versions I'd like to adjust AP and min-max radii parameters. Yet this task must wait because I am too tired researching U-boat.net archive and many technical websites...