NYGM Ship Damage Mod V2 preview with pretty pictures!

[Der Teddy Bar]

The aim of the NYGM Ship Damage Mod Ver 2, within the limitations of the SHIII Damage Engine, is to make the ships more intuitive to sink with both more consistency and variation and to reward those who shoot well.

The NYGM Ship Damage Mod Ver 2 is a result of NYGM being able to now add, remove & change zones for any SHIII vessel or plane. For you to better understand how it was, and how it is now, I have included images of the before and after of the small merchant.

SHIII Default zones – The Default SHIII 1.4b Coastal & Small Merchant Zones image shows the ships with the original zones. Note the shared zones and how they do little to represent the structure of the ship/s. What is not seen here is that the NSFlotMain is 2 zones that overlap. This was why when you torpedo this area twice you got additional sinking which I feel is a bit gamey.





NYGM Ship Damage Mod V2 Small Merchant image shows the Small Merchant ship with the NYGM Ship Damage Mod Ver 2 zones. Note that this ship does not share its zones with any other ship. Note how the zones represent the vessel and that we have taken the Small Merchant ship from 5 shared zones to 12 exclusive zones.



I can say that the NYGM Ship Damage Mod Ver 2 will be a big improvement over the first version. We will have improvements in many areas such as being able to design the zones to the ship and add extra zones such as ‘bulkheads’ etc. We also will address the biggest issue in getting the default SHIII ships to sink, and that is shared zones.

Shared zones has been a big issue, for example, the original Tug boat shared zones with the medium to large merchant ships under New Merchants & Escorts under New Escorts.

I must dispel the idea that we have the ability to make a perfect Ship Damage Mod. I do not have the time to detail how or the many quirks in the way that damage is applied/calculated etc, these limit what can be done and are a constant challenge to me when rezoning the ships to be both more predicable and at the same time have variation while attempting to ensure that the ships cannot be gamed.

The NYGM Ship Damage Mod V2 will be a work in progress and ships will be delivered as they become available.

For the initial release...
The Fishing Boat – 1-3 deck gun hits or up to 100 20mm
Small Coastal Vessel & Trawler – 2-5 deck gun hits or up to 200 20mm
Elco – 1-4 deck gun hits or up to ?? 20mm
Tug Boat – 1+ torpedo and very sinkable with the deck gun.
Small Merchant – 1-3 torpedoes
Tramp Steamer/Coastal Merchant – 1-3 torpedoes
Coastal Tanker by AG124 – 1+ torpedo

For torpedoes…
1+ means that most of the time the ship will sink with 1 torpedo.
1-3 means that it should take no more than 3 torpedoes, and has a high chance of sinking with 1 torpedo.


For the Deck Gun…
The same rules apply as above with the exception that we are referring to effective hits. As such, small vessels may take more hits to sink than specified. Remember, the water line is modelled.


NYGM have also implemented 'sink' zones that ensure that a ship will sink when it should. That is, on occasion a ship would be 2/3rds sunk with water across the cargo holds with the player possibly being credited with sinking the ship, or it may require a few rounds before it will go under fully. This will now not be the case. These new 'sink' zones will come into their own during heavy seas as when the ship you attacked bobs into and out of the water, there is a chance that the new zone will slowly flood and sink a ship that in calmer seas would not have sunk.



Deck Gun
Included is the modified shells.zon to rectify the 88mm damage issue and to attempt to attain greater variation.

During some in game testing I discovered that the smaller blast radius of the 88mm gave a disproportionate result compared with the 105mm and has been the cause of end users complaints over its performance. Testing so far supports the fact that to accommodate the need to flood the ship the blast radius of the 88mm needed to be larger.


I have also changed the minimum & maximum HP to try and get some unpredictable variation into the deck gun. My concern is of course giving back an uber deck gun or the opposite of an air rifle. Please test this several times on the same ship and in game before commenting. My hope is that the HP range will have the effect of sometimes getting an easy kill and at other times a hard kill but never either or.


More to follow...