[WIP] U-boat Surface Riding Tweak

[Dirk Gently]

Release version 1.0 - All playable subs included (except VIIC/41 for those who has modded it in)

All subs tested but VIIB has been tested more than the others, so if there's any issue please give feedback and I'll look into it.

All submarines have "more weight" in the water and aren't bobbing around ontop of the water like vanilla. The environment mod you're using will give different results as some have shorter waves and some have longer waves. This mod will work well with both. You will not see the propellers out of the water as much and you won't see the bow dive planes above the waterline unless the weather is really, really bad. As far as testing goes, the involuntary 10m dives in bad weather are completely gone. The sub wants to stay afloat unless you want to dive!

Submerged performance should remain the same as without the mod.

Technical stuff; All subs have increased Mass to slightly lower than surface displacement and surface UD-drag is increased slightly. Draft is increased by a few decimals to even further reduce the "rising aft" eyesore. This should not affect speed at all.

Compatibility; Should be compatible with most mods.
Tested and working with these mods;
- German Uboat Compilation
- GWX3.0
- Vanilla

DOWNLOAD
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Note: I created a new thread to get the correct prefix and first post without too much hassle. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Proof of concept mod.
This is only the VIIB as it's the only Sub I've fully tested so far.

All weights and displacement changed from Long Tons to US tons assuming that's what the game uses since it also seem to be using US miles for range.

I'll explain in further details exactly what the final tweaks are and I'd appreciate feedback on this one. During testing the boat never went below 6 meters in bad weather. It cuts through some waves while riding others, depending on whether she's rising or falling when she hits the wave. I managed to keep the stern lower than default and make the bow rise to keep the boat afloat rather than going for those infamous 10m dives with crew on deck. You'll rarely see the propellers out of the water.

It's worth noting that I've only tested the mod with MEPv6 installed, which I believe affects waves somewhat.

Warning: The mod only affects a tiny .sim file in the VIIB Submarine directory

[Dirk Gently]

As far as I know, all the submarine types uses the same base model for each type. Am i right?

Type IIA and IID uses the same model
Type VIIB and VIIC uses the same model
Type IXB, IXD and IXD2 uses the same model

If that's the case, then they need the same mass vs displacement ratio in the actual .sim file in order to run "properly" in the water. The in-game information remains as default Ubisoft, however. Also, if that's the case then it would be really simple to transfer my "formula" to all the other subs without much effort. Mass and displacement affects surface behavior far more than I first anticipated. I just implemented "the formula" on type IIA and IIB and it seemed to work wonderfully. As the IX's are far heavier though, I still need to test them to see whether it needs some individual tweaking in order to work as intended. Testing is somewhat slower now as I need to use career mode in order to test each sub. Installing GWX+mod soup seems to have broken single missions.

Finished so far;
IIA, IIB, VIIB, VIIC.

I'll release a version 1.0 some time this week. I have a lot to do before christmas so I can't work non-stop on this mod at the moment.

PS. I'm still working on finding the correct range settings as it seems to me that GWX's numbers are close to double the actual range, at least at 10 knots. The correct range may actually be a lot harder than anticipated because it's only possible if the game has (near) correct fuel consume at all other speeds as well, which is highly unlikely.

[bigboywooly]

Don't forget the SH3 world isn't correctly scaled either, the distances across the Atlantic are longer than are actual IIRC

[JeromeHeretic]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

Don't forget the SH3 world isn't correctly scaled either, the distances across the Atlantic are longer than are actual IIRC

I was looking to wiki and type 7 was able move 15700 km in fuel economy regime. When i tried with full fuel reserve run on economic speed, it shows max distance about 20 000 km. So... maybe it is not acurrate value, but is close to reality. IMHO this value don't need change.

[Dirk Gently]

Originally Posted by JeromeHeretic

I was looking to wiki and type 7 was able move 15700 km in fuel economy regime. When i tried with full fuel reserve run on economic speed, it shows max distance about 20 000 km. So... maybe it is not acurrate value, but is close to reality. IMHO this value don't need change.

That's actually 15700km (VIIC) at 10 knots, which is far from fuel economy.

Ranges @ 10 knots
VIIB - 16 112 km
VIIC - 15 700 km
VIIC/41 - 15 700 km
IXB - 22 000 km
IXC - 24 910 km
IXC/40 - 25 650 km

Ranges @ 8 knots
IIA - 3 000 km
IID - 10 460 km

EDIT: The actual straight air distance between Kiel and New York is 6100km in real life but 9881km in SH3, so "realistic ranges" is pretty much off the table. Maybe GWX was onto a more or less usable number. A type VII should be able to run @10 (~) knots from Kiel to USA-coast and back then at least, if the weather isn't awful.

EDIT2: When I think about it, the number GWX uses might actually be measured around that exact voyage (Kiel-New York) as it seems pretty much spot on at nearly double real world Uboat range, which adds up nicely. So I think we'll just stick with GWX3.0 calculations and not spend another calorie on it.

[Dirk Gently]

Release version 1.0

Download link in the first post. Please give feedback.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Dirk Gently

All weights and displacement changed from Long Tons to US tons assuming that's what the game uses since it also seem to be using US miles for range.

The US Navy uses long tons for all displacements. As far as I know the game follows this standard. Also the game uses nautical miles, not statute (land) miles.

[Dirk Gently]

Yes but the map is far longer so the distance between Kiel and New York is ~1,8 times longer than in real life in air distance.

[gap]

Originally Posted by Dirk Gently

Yes but the map is far longer so the distance between Kiel and New York is ~1,8 times longer than in real life in air distance.

SHIII was created by a Romanian game developping studio whose employees were likely much more familiar with the metric system than with the imperial or US customary system.

Most if not all of the game physic parameters that I am aware of, are expressed in metric units. Lengths make not exception to this rule: the primary unit of length used in game is neither the nautical mile nor the land mile, but the meter, and even 3D models are scaled according to the metric system, one unit of length of the exported models being equal to 10 in-game meters.

In-game distances not matching real world ones is not due to the usage of one type of unit rather than another one but, as noted by someone alse, it is a shortcoming of the equirectangular map projection chosen by the devs. In this type of projection latitude/longitude subdivisions have the same length unrespective of the latitude at which they are measured. In other words, rather than a sphere the SH world is a cylinder, and its distorsions become more obvious as you move from the equator to the poles. To make things even worse, devs have adopted the convention that 1 deg of longitude/latitude is equal to 120 km, probably for making calculations easier. That means that even at the equator, where map distorsions should be lessere important, distances are ca. 1.07 times bigger than in real world.

Interesting mod and thread btw. Keep up the great work

[JeromeHeretic]

Yes, but developers are chaotic. For example naval bases and this things in Campaing_XXX files are set as number of meters from zero point (which is where greenwich meridian meets equator), but in Locations.cfg they use degrees with i think 6 decimal digits. So if you want the same coordinates used in both files (i use it as i do lighthouses like naval base), you must recalculate coordinates for locations by rule X/2000/60.

Is possible, that they are the same chaotic in other places of game too.

[Dirk Gently]

Chaotic is the word. SH3 is a rare gem of a game though. I love it and probably will for another 13 years or more.

[Dirk Gently]

Version 1.0
I came across a really bad storm last night and noticed my VIIC was a bit stiff so I'm going to release a version that corrects that. I know exactly which parameter to tweak so I hope I get time to do it after work today.

[JeromeHeretic]

Hey, man, im trying your mod now and i'm in prety storm with realy big waves now and its amazing (wtih VIIB boat)! It realy looks much better!
But still i have feeling, that sub is not "heavy enough", even if it's realy big difference. Sub is not moving anymore as "rubber duck in the bath". But when i was looking from back, sometimes it bend to sides in angle about 45 degrees. It's too much IMHO, or do you think it was possible? (But i think you can't do much with this anyway...).
When im looking from side and observe moving from side, it looks almost good, but still i have feeling, that small waves have too big impact on moving of sub. That is what i thought by "not heavy enough". And this is part which i think you can tweak?

[Dirk Gently]

You're right about the side rolling and it's taken care of in the 1.1 release which will be released asap. I've just had some crash issues that needed sorting out and I've got a ton of work before Xmas-holidays (I am a teacher, so grading tests and setting marks takes up most of my time at the moment).

Using "the correct" gravity point according to the VII manual was not a fantastic idea for storms because the way water works in the game. I need to find a middle ground between reality and what works best in game in all weather conditions. What works best in smooth water sadly doesn't work well in the worst storms and if you use a different environment mod than I do, which changes wave length and height, the results will also differ slightly.

I still think it will be possible to create a general version that works quite well on all environment mods.

[JeromeHeretic]

Don't be sad about it, your results are much better as any from my experiments. And with so short time... i'm sure you'l find some good compromise settings.