[Onkel Neal]

Onkel Neal has made a Best of SUBSIM nomination.
Nomination Category:

Most Helpful with SH4 + Mods

Nomination basis: very detailed and helpful post
Forum: Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific

Nominated Member: Bubblehead1980
Nominated Post: Link

Something I always disliked about stock and event he best mods, was it was far too easy to rack up tonnage in early war (1941-mid 1943), the torpedoes were just far too reliable. Thus, when I set out to created my mod for TMO,
I put a lot of time and effort to get a result that would in most cases keep tonnage at realistic levels by mimicking torpedo performance of early but also throughout the war and making sure was not so easy to rack up tonnage, to simulate. I conducted a lot of research and then quite a bit of testing. I'd estimate I spent a solid month and a half testing on the torpedo aspect of the sim.

Magnetic Detonators..

The magnetic detonators by default were tied to wave height (silly), so if player was firing in calm or mild seas, magnetic torpedoes were quite reliable. Then if firing in choppy or heavy seas, they tended to prematurely detonate more, but were still far too reliable.

I toyed with the settings so wave height was not the factor, then toyed with the percentage chances until I found, based on a research, a realistic level of
premature detonations that were random.

The result was what I desired, much as real life Captains and crews, player has no idea if the magnetic detonators are going to function. Really adds tension and aspect to game. The disappoint of doing an approach and firing solution perfectly, then torpedoes prematurely detonate, really brings a new aspect to this sim and mirrors reality much as possible.


Dud Torpedoes
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The contact detonators were far too reliable as well, especially when set to magnetic and the torpedo impacted the target vs running below.

I had to play with the impact angles and dud chance percentages to obtain historical performance.



Deep Running Torpedoes
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Another issue was torpedoes running deeper than set. In Stock and most mods can "game" this from start, knowing this was a problem (where it was no definitively proven until late 1942 and issue not resolved in MK 14 until early 1943).) so they set torpedoes to minimum depth and magnetic detonators would do the rest.

I altered the max depth for deep runs and also the chances to gain historical results. Its random, some will run deeper than others, sometimes not at all.


These issues combined ensure historical performance of torpedoes and make for a immersive experience. Sometimes, extremely frustrating. Yet, when do finally sink even one ship, its quite rewarding.