Real Battery Life Fix - AKA Advanced NASA Battery Fix

[VonHelsching]

Real Battery Life Fix by VonHelsching

AKA The Advanced NASA Battery Fix

*UPDATE* - Version for the Grey Wolves Supermod

*UPDATE* - Also Rub 1.45 compatibe version


*FINAL UPDATE* Underwater ranges corrected. Now all RL range references are in nautical miles.

-Thanks to:Captain America, Myxale, Stiebler, Gizzmoe and of course Redwine for their help -

From the begining, I had a gut feeling that something wasn't right with SH3 batteries. I checked the .sim files, but everything, all related data there, was as per www.uboat.net. (eg.underwater range for the VIIB: 90 miles @ 4 knots); Well, apart from the bugged battery of the XXI and the flawed surface range of IXD/2...but these are another story.

Also, the thread about the AOTD Coastal Tanker by AG124 (BTW, nice work) reminded me of Aces of the Deep...That was wrong with the batteries...I remembered that batteries in AOTD were an ISSUE, not something that you forget their existance, like in SH3. In AOTD sometimes, your batteries were depleted, BEFORE you ran out of O2 or got poisoned by CO2.

So, I made battery checks. All day and night during 4/3/06.

The testing grounds (seas) were west of Randall Banks, using the Happy Times single mission, O2 unchecked, using regulars crew. Tried with all subs except the VIIC/42, since it does not have a seperate .sim file. And found out what was wrong...

Remember the NASA Mars Climate Orbiter, which crashed on Mars due to a "navigational" error? Well, that proved to be one of the 10 most embarrasing software bugs ever, as I read. It was later proved that this bug was due to the fact that two subsystems of the NASA Orbiter were exchanging data of different metrics systems (metric / English)...

Well the same thing happened in SH3. Until today. And you were all thinking of playing with 100% realism...Well, you have not! Yet.

I have the privelege of presenting you the Real Battery Life Fix, from now on As Known As the "Advanced NASA Battery Fix".

Now, you will be able to boast that you are the true heir of Schepcke and Luth, since your u-boat batteries will scream "Empty" when you pass the true range limits:

- 35 miles @ 4 knots starting speed for IIA
- [43 miles @ 4 knots starting speed for IIB - RuB version only]
- 56 miles @ 4 knots starting speed for IID
- 90 miles @ 4 knots starting speed for VIIB
- 80 miles @ 4 knots starting speed for the rest of the VII series
- 63 miles @ 4 knots starting speed for all IX series and IXD/2
- 285 miles @ 6 knots starting speed for the XXI

In some cases, especially after 1943 close to the English coast, your battery might be empty before your O2, and you will have to wait until nightfall; otherwise you will be a nice target for the freshmen pilots.

In some cases, you will notice that your speed will fall dramatically, esp. after when having less than 25% of battery. And this now happens quite faster than before. Imagine that after trying to escape an ASW hunter group...

After the fix, your u-boats will have from now on around 50% less than the unhonourable underwater range you were falsely granted from the stock SH3. This differs a little bit from sub to sub due to weather conditions, crew, and my human errors in testing. The XXI is another story, since it's battery is seriously flawed. Anyway, it's battery now calls empty when you are 285 nautical miles away from your statring point.

So, now you understood what happened. The Devs put miles in the .sim files and calculated them as kms...So don't jump when you see the new underwater ranges.

This does not mean that the battery business is finished, since some of you may have already noticed in the stock game that the uboat continue to "drift" with < 1 knot for ~ 20 more hours, but I'm afraid that this might be hardcoded. Also, I'll have a look about the battery upgrades.

So, I pulled together a JSGME compatible global fix for all uboat types, and one version especially for RuB 1.45. Just uncompress to your MODS forlder and JSGME-it. Back-up first your submarine folder, just in case.

The fix includes part of my XXI flak and battery fix (XXI battery once recharged will automatically switch to full propulsion) and part of my IXD/2 range and torpedo fix (corrects surface range - 23700 m @ 12 knots), so no worries if you get any JSGME messages concerning the two above fixes. I will also update them , in their relevant subsim threads.


So the final link is:

http://rapidshare.de/files/15327786/...ix_v2.zip.html
or
http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/helsing...ery_Fix_v2.zip

*UPDATE - Version for the Grey Wolves Supermod below *

http://rapidshare.de/files/16397031/..._GW_v1.7z.html
or
http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/helsing...e_for_GW_v1.7z


*UPDATE - RuB 1.45 compatible version below *

http://rapidshare.de/files/15327823/....45_v2.7z.html
or
http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/helsing...RuB_1.45_v2.7z
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Link for the XXI Flak and Battery Fix v3

http://rapidshare.de/files/15327735/...ix_v3.zip.html

or
http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/helsing/sh3mods/XXI Flak and Battery Fix v3.zip

Link for the IXD/2 Torpedo and Range fix v4

http://rapidshare.de/files/15327883/...ix_v4.zip.html
or
http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/helsing...edo_Fix_v4.zip

Have fun, and don't run out of batteries!!!

VonHelsching