Solution for real battery charging/life in TWOS

[gezahu]

I was so pissed off by battery life that decided to do something about it here is how you can tweak your battery life to real values in TWOS, (fair warning: it wont be simple I worked a lot to figure it out):

1. With goblin you change the electric range from 500/1 to 25 miles / 2.5 knots of the sub you want to tweak.

2. Open C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Silent Hunter 5\data\UPCDataGE\UPCCrewData/SpecialAbilites.upc

find this:
[SpecialAbility 7]
ID=Ability-Reduce-Battery-Recharge
NameDisplayable=Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Name
Description=Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description, Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description, Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description, Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description, Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description
Levels= 3
AbilityType=BatteryConsume ; -vdr1981
AbilityValue= -30, -32, -35

change to this:
[SpecialAbility 7]
ID=Ability-Reduce-Battery-Recharge
NameDisplayable=Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Name
Description=Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description, Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description, Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description, Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description, Ability-Reduce-Battery-Consume-Description
Levels= 3
AbilityType=BatteryConsume ; -vdr1981
AbilityValue= -50, -60, -70

3. Start a campaign

4. At bunker save

5. Go to desktop and open the saved game ActiveUserPlayerUnits.upc file change "promotion points" to whatever value more than 3

6. Get back to game, open your recently saved game at bunker

7. Start a new patrol

8. Get out to open sea

9. Check your underwater endurance at 4 knots should be around 40km, check recharge time should be 2 hours, but dont worry.

10 Save

11. Open again and right away before anything upgrade your motor officers battery ability.

12. Check your underwater endurance. Should be around 97km. check recharge time should be around 5 hours (lot of progress ah?)

13. Save

14. Open again upgrade motor officer again. Check endurance should be 120km, recharge time around 6 hours (if that fits you you can stop here)

15. Save

16. Open again upgrade motor officer, check endurance. Should be around 160km the hystorical value, check recharge time should be around 8 hours which is a little bit more than it should be but I could not shorten it any more.

You are done, for the actual campaign your underwater endurance at 4 knot is 90nm and can recharge in 8 hours. But be aware that for other campaigns, and single missions where you did not initiate batteries yo have 40km range at 4knots.

Someone who knows the inner workings of the game better might track down what this procedure actually changes, and tweak further the files and make a "real battery" MOD out of it.

PS: I have no idea why this works it was a try and error thing, so dont ask.....

[vdr1981]

Thanks Gezahu! Fine work. I'll do some testing for my self using your findings...

[finchOU]

I'm all for Mods that increase realism. So can you explain why the change so we are all on the same page? Is there a reason the Battery drains faster in SH5 then in real life? Sell me on it.

[gezahu]

Originally Posted by finchOU

I'm all for Mods that increase realism. So can you explain why the change so we are all on the same page? Is there a reason the Battery drains faster in SH5 then in real life? Sell me on it.

The stock game is way off.

Submerged range is for sure:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Type_VII_submarine

150-170km at 4 knots (with my tweaks it is 160), not upgraded motorman in TWOS gives some 80km with 10+ hours recharge, upgraded motorman gives 110 with some 12+ hours of charge (i tested it cant remember the point is that is is too way off).

For the recharge time I could only find data for similar submarines (british) the 8-9 hours.

On page 133 of this book:
http://www.uboatarchive.net/Manual/Manual.htm

The ampers are given and a smarter guy then me calculated the recharge time from the capacity of the batteries and the charge ampers or power. His numbers are: 7-78 hours fast charge and 11.67 hours normal charge. Here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...postcount=7870

From operational perspective being able to cruise a full day (16 hours at 4 knots) than fully recharge at night (in 8 hours) makes a perfect sense.

[gezahu]

Here is the math behind:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...postcount=7896

To work out the recharge time use formula Ah / Amp = time.

therefore assuming that your craft is travelling at 'Slow Ahead' using the information above the battery has a rating of 9160Ah, as the information states the charging is done in 3 phases, so for phase 1 the battery is charged at 1650 Amp.

9160Ah/3=3053.333

3053.333Ah/ 1650Amp=1.85 Hours

for phase 2 the amps are slowly reduced from 1650Amp to 415Amp giving an average of 1650-415=1235Amp

3053.333Ah/ 1235Amp=2.47 Hours

phase 3 3053.333Ah/ 415Amp=7.35 Hours

giving a total for normal charging off 1.85+2.47+7.35=11.67 Hours

for a 'Fast charge' the information states that it reduces the time by 1/3

11.67/3=3.89
giving a 'fast charge' time of 11.67-3.89=7.78Hours.

These figures are only an approximation as recharge systems do not work at 100% efficiency today never mind 80 years ago! you could probably add another 20% - 40% to these figures.

Les

[vdr1981]

What I would like to "hit" is 150-160km/4kn with recharge time from 5% to 100% 10-12h.
Do you have any suggestion for range values in sim file?

[gezahu]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

What I would like to "hit" is 150-160km/4kn with recharge time from 5% to 100% 10-12h.
Do you have any suggestion for range values in sim file?

I dont think 10+ hours is hystorically accurate. With fast recharge it should be little less that 8 hours. My tweaks are now about right for 10 hours but I would go for less.
But if you want to increase recharge time go for significanly more range like 40-70 miles if it increases range go down with speed 0.1-0.2, so like 50 or 70nm / 2.4-2.3knots would be your pick.