Breakdown Mod

[YellowFin]

Are there any?

I'm reading religiously the war patrol reports, see WWII Pacific Submarine Warfare Reality.

Most crews on patrol had not only the enemy to worry about, but also the readiness and accuracy of their own equipment.

Examples:

• One boat had only one destillator for most of a patrol. The crew was noticeably less prepared and stress resistant due to limited fresh water supply.
• The amazing story of USS S-27, court martial protocols included, shows that magnetic compasses could be extremely unreliable for most of the time
• Many patrol reports indicate extended periods where one or more diesel engines weren't avaliable. Reasons include poor production quality, using equipment at its limits, etc.
• Salt water would frequently enter the boat through the conning tower on smaller boats in certain circumstances (namely weather from astern). This would almost always result in TDC, scopes, radio equipment or in-boat communications breakdowns
• One boat was unable to use the high power scope as soon as it left the base, as water entered the periscope and "fogged" one of the optic systems.

As we can see many of these breakdowns can occur even without enemy interaction. I don't believe the game models that. Other than after being depth charged or fired upon our boats are always in pristine condition.

I have no modding experience to speak of so I wonder is there a way to cause breakdowns of equipment, which is modeled as individual components of a boat fairly detailed? Could, say the damaging of bow planes, through a leak in one of the hydraulic systems or a short on one of the electric systems be triggered through a random process?

In theory a "disciplined" gamer can simulate some of the equipment failures without an actual mod:

All we need are breakdowns that we can simulate using in-game mechanics. Let's take the breakdown of the high power attack scope. We can simply not zoom in to pretend it isn't working. In order to determine whether it broke down we can roll dice, or use a program like R to simulate random events with a given probability.

In either case we need a list of breakdowns we can simulate in-game as well as associated probabilities. Some breakdowns should be determined daily, others can be determined on leaving base and a daily repair success can be simulated.

I believe breakdowns of machinery within a a few days from base usually meant returning to base, i.e. to the submarine tender, without actually ending the patrol.

Here is a list of break downs we can simulate as a player:

• No or limited use of scopes, and radar. Sonar breakdown can't be simulated by player action. Radio breakdown can only be simulated for emission, not for reception.
• Limited speed, surfaced and submerged
• Limited charging capability
• Limited diving ability (e.g. a leak whose repair won't withstand a certain water pressure)

In certain areas which commonly proved to be problematic (e.g. fuel loss, shorts, hydraulic fluid loss or contamination, contamination of fresh water with fuel, injuries to crew and officers outside of enemy action) we are not able to simulate anything. I am also unsure as to what probabilities (daily, weekly, for the patrol) should be assigned to these breakdowns and what probabilities should be assigned to their correction.

Some problems with engines occurred frequently, like worn out parts, parts not receiving lubrication, etc. and were equally frequently and speedily fixed with onboard means and thus may not need simulation.

[J0313]

So have you made any headway with the game code?

[Treetop64]

Harpoon and War in the Pacific:Admiral's Edition are the only games that I have, and can recall, that simulate maintenance and breakdowns to any degree.

I liked that, for an example, in Harpoon if you used radar too much the equipment would be much more likely to break or be put off line more often and for longer periods for maintenance.

In WitP:AE ships systems (sensors, weapons, propulsion, etc) incrementally and cumulatively lose small percentages of their effectiveness the longer they're transiting or on patrol, if they see any increased use, or even if they go through very rough weather. Invigorated use (combat, a day or two of rapid transit at full speed, etc) sees this effect multiplied.

That's the thing about going underway, something always breaks or has to be torn apart for upkeep. Military vessels in particular, of any size or capability, are extremely maintenance intensive. Most people really have no idea what it's like. It's one of the reasons why military vessels have such large crews.

I would have loved to see this done for SHIV. Especially for the early diesel-electric powerplants in the Porpoises, and early electronic sensors. Though it's understandable why the devs steered away from this. Not only for the potential frustration it might induce but also in the inherent difficulty of correctly developing and implementing such eventualities.

[YellowFin]

Originally Posted by J0313

So have you made any headway with the game code?

No I have not unfortunately but I intend to give it another go these days. Do you happen to have any pointers? Old threads, etc?

[propbeanie]

Didn't Traveller's mod try that, and I have vague memories of others... The way the game is built does not lend itself well do such attempts though, main case in point being that you cannot separate the screws into "left" and "right". Probably the easiest way is to set yourself some parameters down on paper, and roll the die for each every so often. If you roll a "1", system is broke and you can't use it. Roll a "2", and it is partially broke, and can only use 1/2 of it, etc. But really, the game is broken enough as it is, and as you progress through it, there is some gimmes, and some takembax... It almost evens out.

thats an interesting idea

i think the best way to make this work is to do it in the form of a mine seeded throughout the game that is weak so it does minimal damage but require you to make repairs.

i dont really see how else you could do it since you cant change the game engines core code

this would in turn also cause ships in the game to also be randomly disabled so you come upon damaged ships for easy targets or warships failing out of task forces that you can pick off

[YellowFin]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Didn't Traveller's mod try that, and I have vague memories of others... The way the game is built does not lend itself well do such attempts though, main case in point being that you cannot separate the screws into "left" and "right". Probably the easiest way is to set yourself some parameters down on paper, and roll the die for each every so often. If you roll a "1", system is broke and you can't use it. Roll a "2", and it is partially broke, and can only use 1/2 of it, etc. But really, the game is broken enough as it is, and as you progress through it, there is some gimmes, and some takembax... It almost evens out.

I will check out Traveller's mod. I could live with not being able to access the individual propeller shafts. What I mean by components is the ship systems page, where quite a number of sub systems are modeled as individual components (periscope, radio, batteries, torpedo tubes, pumps, compressors and so on). I am wondering if these can be accessed directly by a mod. Some sort of code would roll a die and, given a certain result, would go and damage one of these components and give the player a challenge to work around.

For people who in absence of such a mod want to mod themselves using dice, here is an algorithm to simulate an m-die using a k-die, using the minimum number of rolls (scroll down to the first answer):

https://math.stackexchange.com/quest...al-number-of-e

Basically it explains how you can obtain the outcome of a probability experiment, say accurate to two decimals, i.e. the 100-sided die, by using a 6-sided die.

[YellowFin]

Originally Posted by Webster

thats an interesting idea

i think the best way to make this work is to do it in the form of a mine seeded throughout the game that is weak so it does minimal damage but require you to make repairs.

i dont really see how else you could do it since you cant change the game engines core code

this would in turn also cause ships in the game to also be randomly disabled so you come upon damaged ships for easy targets or warships failing out of task forces that you can pick off

How is the damage / sabotage implemented in SH3? I remember there being the option to turn this on in SH3Commander.

The problem with the mine I see is that the bulkheads will be damaged, more than, say pumps or radios. Bulkheads wouldn't usually take damage on a normal patrol, except if you ram a floating object.

I also see a general problem with a damage mod: What if you are in TC and one of your critical systems gets damaged? Most player probably wouldn't notice until it's too late and they have to dive, with a drained battery or a leak?