The "Myth" about torpedo depth settings.

[WernerSobe]

Hello, Im the author of Natural Sinking Mechanics.

Ive figured that many skippers (especialy those who came from sh3) always try to set up their torpedoes as deep as possible. While the reasons are obvious, youre trying to maximaze the damage by hiting the keel.

However ive found something interestning when i was working on the last version of the mod and looking into compartment layout of every ship, and learning about how the damage system works.

Now at first take a look at these picture, i took it while i was modeling the zones.



it shows the compartment layout of kinposan maru. Red colored parts are the keel, engine rooms and fuel bunkers. Clear are the main comparments. Blue are ballasts and green superstructures.

Now what happens when a torpedo strikes a ship (somewhere). Basicly it generates a bubble, lets call it damagerange. Every compartment that is inside that bubble will take damage. The special about the keel is that it has a small chance to break the ship in halfs. Now the damage range is set so high that the torpedo will always damage every compartment in a fair distance around the impact. Meaning you are always damaging the keel and the main compartments above every time you hit a ship, the depth doesnt matter. I agree that its not quite accurate but thats how the game is designed. So basicly you can forget about torpedo depths.

[AVGWarhawk]

Anyway to change this? I know you have delved into it quite a bit.

[WernerSobe]

actualy yes.

You could make the torpedo damage range very small. But then you would lose the ability of damaging more then one compartment at once.

[AkbarGulag]

Man, thats like being told my credit is no good at the lunch bar. Does this mean (looking at the model) that the 'Armoured Belt' is also a myth?

EDIT: Would modding the torps to have a larger damage value but smaller bubble achive this effect? Or are the bubble and damage inter-related?

[Sailor Steve]

Well, maybe that's true in the game, which is too bad, because in real life having the torpedo go off under the keel was a huge benefit.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Well, maybe that's true in the game, which is too bad, because in real life having the torpedo go off under the keel was a huge benefit.

Indeed but Im afraid the magnetic influence fuse is broken (as in does not work) making a beneath the keel shot impossible.

So were stuck with trying to poke holes in the ships side.

[WernerSobe]

Originally Posted by AkbarGulag

Man, thats like being told my credit is no good at the lunch bar. Does this mean (looking at the model) that the 'Armoured Belt' is also a myth?

Yep there is no Armor belt. Battleships are set about the same way. It doesnt matter wether you hit a BB at 3 feet or at 20. It will in both cases damage the keel zone and the main zones around the impact.

Originally Posted by AkbarGulag

EDIT: Would modding the torps to have a larger damage value but smaller bubble achive this effect? Or are the bubble and damage inter-related?

Torpedo damage works like this. Lets say you hit a ship with a torpedo that hits for 300 damage and has a damage radius of 5 meters... now what happens?

1. The overall hull hitpoints will be reduced by 300. If there is no more hitpoints left ship is being destroyed. If its not destroyed by HP...
2. The torpedo generates a bubble of 5 meters radius. Every zone that is touched by that bubble will be damaged by 300 hitpoints
3. Every affected zone will start flooding depending on the amount of damage and the parameters set in zones.cfg. Flooding means that zone slowly adding weight to the vessel and changing its center of mass. So a zone with 400 hitpoints damaged with 300 hitpoints will flood up to 3/4. When a zone has no more hitpoints it cannot flood any more.

Now the problem with the damage system is that the zones are in most cases completely destroyed by torpedo hits. If you increase the damage it will just make instant blowing up by total hull hitpoints more likely but it wont actualy change the zones flooding because they are already at max dmg.

Anyway. It is possible to balance everything out and make it all work with smaller damage radius. But thats a monster task, that i think cannot be accomplished by a single person in a matter of lifetime of that game, i know what im talking about :-)

[tater]

Seems like with a smaller radius the balance would have to come with fewer compartments on smaller ships and merchants such that sinking would occur with fewer damaged. The highly compartmentalized nature of warships would then make more sense...

Assuming I understand correctly. The balance problem would be that not enough damage would happen (flooding) for each hit.

On warships, this would make some sense, but on merchants, no. You'd see maybe more realistic warship sinkings, but merchants would be too hard to sink.

Is that correct?

tater

[Ducimus]

An idea that the NYGM team had, who i beleive ran accross the same problem, was simple.

Shorten the length of the keel zone so its a small area, not running the whole length of the ship. And then move the keel zone to different locations on each ship type to keep the player guessing on where the "sweet spot" is.

[AkbarGulag]

Originally Posted by WernerSobe

Anyway. It is possible to balance everything out and make it all work with smaller damage radius. But thats a monster task, that i think cannot be accomplished by a single person in a matter of lifetime of that game, i know what im talking about :-)

I hear ya mate, I guess that rules that out ^^

I like the sweet spot idea Ducimus, at least this will allow for some player skill to accomplish a sinking.

That and also the idea of an 'Hourglass ship' sound feasible, yet both sound time consuming. I'm picking EVERY ship in SH4 would have to have keel mods or other compartmental modification.

Be good to hear an answer on Tater's question, then at least if the bubble effect was made into a mod, those who prefer hunting taskforces would have something worth trying.

[switch.dota]

Originally Posted by WernerSobe

2. The torpedo generates a bubble of 5 meters radius. Every zone that is touched by that bubble will be damaged by 300 hitpoints

You are trying to tell us there is no such thing as less damage toward the outer edges?

[Redwine]

Originally Posted by switch.dota

You are trying to tell us there is no such thing as less damage toward the outer edges?

Hi Switch ...

Thats the way i follow in Die Slowly for v1.2... i reduced considerably the torpedo damage radius to not spread too much the damage and limit it to a samller zone, reducing the probability to spread the damage to adyacent compartements.

The problem was then... the "unsinkable ships" ... those are some strange ships wich apperas in campaign with certain load up, and they takes up to 10 torps to sink... then i was enforced to increase torpedo powr and found a balance between the "normal" ships" and those rare "unsinkable ships".

Another parameters to tweak wich cause effect on this are the "thereshold penetration" and the magnetic detonation distance.

The thereshold penetration stablish a boundary to penetrate.

In example .... a torpedo with a damage radius random between 2 and 3 meters... and a thereshold penetration of 5 meters... the torpedo will not cause damage ...

A torpedo with damage radius random between 2 and 3 m, and a thereshold penetration of 2 m, torpedo always will cause damage.

A torpedo with damage radius random between 1 and 3 meters, and a thereshoild penetration of 2 m, 50% of the torps will cause damage and 50% will not.

If you have a torp with a random damage radius between 3 and 6m.... a penetration thereshold of 2m, and a magnetic detonation range of 2m... and ... in the impact the ramdom value for damage radius was stablished by the sim, in 3m, the magnetic pistol detonate it at 2 m of the hull.... only 1m will attempt to penetrate the hull... but... the thereshold penetration is 2m, so... 1m is not enough... and will have no damage.

In that condition, the torp needs 1 m more of random radius to penetrate the hull, it is 4m or more...

Thereshold penetration will stablish the torpedo hole size too... similar how do it the damage radius, because the thereshol penetrartion consume som of the damage radius of the torp.

Another factors are of course the armor of the ship and the compartement, wich consume some of hitpoints.

And the armor factor, wich seems to be a multiplier for armored zones.

The multipliers for cargo too... according to wich kind of cargo you have you can set a multiplier for the explosion.

In example, 1 for cargo, 2 for fuel, 4 for ammo.

Originally Posted by WernerSobe

Anyway. It is possible to balance everything out and make it all work with smaller damage radius. But thats a monster task, that i think cannot be accomplished by a single person in a matter of lifetime of that game, i know what im talking about :-)

Is much job but not imposible, i reach to a "good" balance in Die Slowly, almost good for me, it is a matter of personal taste, i like the ships can be sink by flooding, but i do not accept the complete elimination of destroy by hitpoints...

If i shoot more than enough torps, 9in example 4 or 5 torps to a medium merchant i want a ship destroy message.

If y shoot a single one or 2, i want it sinking by flooding, but not away of my sight or sonar range, to not losse the ship destroyed confirmation, with a very slow flooding times, ships can sink a day later out of your range and you will have no confirmation and no credit for the kill.

Plus the ships with too long flooding times, and too high hitpoints, can sacape out of your range of confirmation even with an amazing quantity of torps.

I my settings i attempt to have a "balance', of course it is a matter of personal taste, where if you hit eneogh torps, you have an instant kill, if you dont, the ship may be stoped and never sinks, or sinks by flooding but not too much time later, to not losse the kill, some ones may take 1 hour or more, most half hour, but most under 1 hour.

Plus there is so bad to not have armored belt on BBs.... :hmm:

Hope this can help as feed back.