Minefields and RUb1.44

[Stiebler]

The number of minefields found in the unmodified SH3 has been hugely increased around Britain for RUb 1.44. I found this out the hard way - an unnerving experience, since there is no crew warning of a mine hit, no bang, just suddenly heavy damage to the U-boat and massive flooding. At high time compression, the boat is sunk before you realise what has happened.

I'd like to propose to the modders that the instructions, which contain several nice graphics display of minefields around German naval bases, should be extended to include a textual account of defensive minefields around Britain. This won't much affect RUb's realism since it was customary to declare defensive minefields, so as to prevent your own ships and those of friendly countries from sinking on them.

Here's my list, obtained by a study of the file campaign_scr.mis (in RUb1.44) with the Mission Editor:
1. Massive minefields off Britain's east coast from Dover up to Scapa Flow after April 1940. Assume they extend to 100 km out from the nearest section of coastline (that's a big minefield!) Assume generally that you can sail over them safely while surfaced, but not while submerged. This makes diving a risky business, since the chance of a mine strike is essentially random. (There are other minefields off Britain's east coast too, but most are very close inshore and quite small, intended to guard entrances to harbours).
2. On Britain's west coast, assume all shallow waters in squares AM02, AM52 and AM53 are mined by November 1940, guarding the north-west approach to the Irish Sea (the waterway between Londonderry and Tobermoray down to Stranraer)
3. The south-west approaches to Britain and the Channel are almost mine-free.
4. A line between the Hebrides Islands (Scotland's north-west coast) and the Faeroe Islands is lightly mined from depths of 5 to 100 metres (January 1942).
5. A double line between the Faeroe Islands and Iceland is similarly lightly mined by November 1940. It's risky now to travel from the North Sea to the Atlantic.
6. Assume no significant minefields elsewhere, specifically off the east coast of the USA, off Freetown or off Capetown. There may be very small local minefields guarding harbour approaches.

Comparison of the original minefields in SH3 and in RUb shows that not one in SH3 has the radius set, while all the new minefields in RUb do have the radius set. This might affect stability. I get repeated crash-to-desktops from RUb1.44 when patrolling 100 km off Hull (east coast of Britain) in mid 1940, and there is a huge new minefield nearby with large minefield radius and a very high density of mines set at 100. This CTD is not a problem with the un-modded SH3. Maybe the code for SH3 was never tested with high density minefields with radius set? There may, of course, be other explanations, nothing to do with minefields.

This is placed in the general forum since knowledge of minefields is clearly of wide interest with the popularity of RUb. Any modders like to comment on the radius effect?

[Keelbuster]

Stiebler,

I'm glad to read your post - I had my first time-compression sudden-death experience with mines today, on my usual route into the channel from the east. I wasn't sure what happened, but having read your post I feel better about the whole thing. It all happened so fast that I suspected a mine, but was also worried about bugs introduced by the mods. And, later, I hit a mine near Hartlepool, which was non-fatal, but close; 3 dead and major flooding, sunk, hit the seafloor, barely stopped critical flooding, surfaced, conning tower aflame...total nightmare. But thanks so much for investigating this. I'm going to stay further offshore now.

About the whereabouts of minefields, we should have some warning. Maybe the rub modders can add skull 'n crossbones to parts of the map to mark suspected or known minefields.

What is the safest route out to the atlantic from the interior bases (i.e. Kiel, Bergen, Wilhelmshaven)?

The second issue, the crash around Hull, also haunted me recently! In fact, I started a new campaign, assuming that having installed rub1.44 mid-campaign had corrupted the profile in some way. Maybe it has, but either way I'm going to avoid Hull until this is addressed or fixed.

How many patrols have you survived? I'm on 7, and starting to feel like my luck is running out.

Also, it's too bad that Time Compression doesn't automatically stop when you sustain damage!

K.B.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Stiebler,
There is a bug in the RUB minefields off the East Coast of England.

I don't agree that a neon sign should be put up in the manner of a graphic of where they are. Why? Because the enemy only ever had a general idea at best and that is all the player should have.

[Enfilade]

This is an interesting thread in that in a previous career, my U-Boat was destroyed presumably by a mine off Lowestowe (sp?) ..eastern coast of England - near Channel. Date would have been late '39-early '40. I managed to get a view of a big fountain of water before the 'you're cactus, Abandon Career' screen flashed up. What is the bug that you're referring to?

[Der Teddy Bar]

I was improving upon the original great work in the locations and dates. Attempting to be as historically correct as the scarce data allows.

I had made a combination of my improved minefileds and that of the RUB.

In testing the density and framerate hits I kept crashing at/around the same area while making my dash up the east coast of England. I tracked it down to the minefield opposite to Hartlepool.

[oRGy]

Interesting info teddy bar. Hope you've passed the info on to Beery and co.

Stiebler, thanks for bringing up that 100-setting. I put together the minefields based on historic data, and had it pointed out that that setting was way to high. I thought I had changed all those before final submission, but apparently not.

I also posted a warning some time ago, but these things disappear down the list as time goes by.

Der Teddy Bar said a while ago that he was working on fixing the problems and making them more realistic, and he's probably better equipped to do so than I am. Sorry for any problems.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by oRGy

Interesting info teddy bar. Hope you've passed the info on to Beery and co.

I don't usually touch campaign files. This is an Ops mod issue. I passed it on a couple of weeks back, but haven't heard from the guys yet. I'm looking at the SCR layer now. What needs changing to bring the minefields in line with the stock game's mine listings?

[Beery]

I'm just curious - shouldn't all minefields have more than one waypoint? The very last one in the file has only one.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Originally Posted by Beery

I'm just curious - shouldn't all minefields have more than one waypoint? The very last one in the file has only one.

I'll send you some of my work regarding the minefields. As no interest was shown for it I did not proceed that far.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by Der Teddy Bar

I'll send you some of my work regarding the minefields. As no interest was shown for it I did not proceed that far.

Thanks. I'm not sure whether the Ops mod is still a going concern or not. I haven't heard anyone talk about it for a while. I am very concerned with squashing this bug, but I have almost no idea when it comes to the Campaign folder stuff.

[Stiebler]

Many thanks to those who responded to my original post, confirming the problem with Rub 1.44 of Crash-to-Desktop when patrolling off Hull, on the east coast of Britain.

Thus encouraged, I've been looking closer at the problem. Originally, it seemed to be due to the excessive mine density (100) of MineField#8 lying between Hull and Hartlepool. However, altering the value from 100 to 1 (as originally intended) did not prevent the CTD. Removing giant minefields #7, #8 and #9 altogether from the same area also did not resolve the problem, but I found that the CTDs always occurred after the lookouts had reported a ship and I tried to go to UZO view. On another occasion there was a CTD as soon as I surfaced next to a ship in view. But the problem can never be precisely repeated, even when following exactly the same pre-plotted path going round and round in elongated circles, always 100-120 km from the eastern coast between Hartlepool and Hull. Sometimes you get the crash, sometimes not. Most frustrating.

Probably minefield#8 should still have its mine density reduced to 1 instead of 100, since Sailor Steve has stated that this was what was intended. Since the CTD is intermittent, I tried again to provoke it from the un-modded SH3 with patch 1.4 installed, with long patrols in May 1940 100 km out between Hartlepool and Hull, but no CTD ever occurred.

So what to conclude?
1. Since the CTD only occurs when the U-boat is off Hull, the U-boat itself is involved.
2. Since the CTD does *not* keep repeating in exactly the same time and place, some other moving factor is probably involved. However, modder Der Teddy Bar attributes the crash to the “Hartlepool minefield�, although it occurs for me even when #7 and #8 (and #9) are removed altogether. Did Der Teddy Bar mean a different minefield?
3. Since Rub 1.44 uses different ship/convoy routes from the un-modded SH3, there may be a 3-way interaction between U-boat, a ship (probably a destroyer, the only ship commonly encountered), and a minefield not yet removed.

Suggestion:
This CTD could probably be cleared up if the modders of the ship movements and the modders of the minefields separately test their patches (without any other modifications) by patrolling for one game month (some time between June-August 1940) 100 km offshore between Hartlepool and Hull.

Probably Rub 1.44 has uncovered a hitherto unsuspected bug in the code of SH3, not seen previously because the circumstances needed to create it were never present. But a change to the ship routes and/or the minefields might fix it. Presumably they were never tested together by their modders.


To answer Keelbuster's question: how best to travel between a German home port and the Atlantic via the North Sea?
Pass between the Faeroes and Iceland, and pray that you don't hit a random mine. And accept a Biscay base as soon as possible. The U-boat sailors used to call the dangerous Faeroes-Iceland gap the “Rose-Garden� after a popular German song to the effect that “we shall meet again as lovers in the rose garden�. At least one attempt was made with a U-cruiser (type IX-D2) to avoid the Rose Garden by entering the Atlantic between Iceland and Greenland. Despite sailing in late summer, the U-cruiser hit an iceberg and had to return for repairs.

Stiebler.

[oRGy]

Good info stiebler.

Did you try removing all minefields altogether and then testing?

[Stiebler]

No, I didn't try removing all minefields. Also I may have overlooked something:

I'd done all testing with revised mods installed to a standard saved U-boat patrol, for comparative purposes. This may have been unwise - I can't tell. Now repeated with revised mod *installed while in port* and sailing out to a position along a line 100 km east of the Hartlepool-Hull line.

Now no crashes yet encountered after weeks of circling, but also very few ships seen either. The revised mod so tested is the standard campaign_scr.mis file, with minefield#8 set to density 1 (instead of 100). It looks as though this may be the culprit after all, but the irregularity of the CTD makes it very hard to be sure.

One other point in connexion with minefields around the UK in RUb 1.44: some of the assigned patrol grids are in mined areas. For example, AN16 is often assigned for patrol. If the player assumes that it is unsafe to operate within 100 km of the British east coast, only a tiny portion of AN16 can safely be patrolled. Some of the patrol areas in RUb 1.44 should be reassigned if they are on the east coast of Britain.

Stiebler.

[Beery]

Great info Stiebler.

I wonder if it would be possible to home in on the problem by saving every few minutes until the problem happened, and trying to pin it down to a certain area on a certain date. If it's caused by a scripted element the time and place it happens should stay the same.

On the Minefield 8 issue, is this just a matter of changing a single value? If so I'll do it myself for the next RUb version.

A thing I noticed yesterday is that the final minefield in the SCR layer has only one waypoint. Could that cause a problem? I thought they all had to have at least two waypoints.