Tough Ships

[Shadow Wolf 07]

I just started the process of replacing my stock ships in my missions and the USN Campaign missions, using Usio's, Collins and VN's ships. The difference in appearance quality is like night and day!

I was flying one of my own ship attack missions today and noticed that Usio's Japanese carriers are much tougher than the stock (balsa wood) versions. I dove down on her from 10,000 feet with a Stock F6F-3 (weps set at normal strength) loaded with two 1000lb-ers, slammed them into the flight deck, just aft of the island - no sinker. 3 more of my wingmen followed and put 6 more thousand pound bombs into her (JMK_Akagi Class) and she still lived to launch fighters! With the stock ships, Usually 2-4 bomb hits will put them out of action.

I think I may have to pre-damage these monsters to 75% and set the fighyter launch event to a strength trigger of "equal to or greater than 50%". I never got to see if the follow on Avengers got her with torpedoes because while engaging the fighters, I collided with the wreckage of one I shot down.

Thoughts? Comments?

[DauntlessDriver546]

I always thought the modeling on the stock Japanese carriers was accurate... hmmmm... they lit up pretty good at Midway...

And I've run into wreckage too... last night I was returning from a patrol flight out of Wewak flying a Hien, and everything was smooth as glass until final approach... I would have touched down on the very end of the runway, right down the middle... didn't see the guard tower that was randomly there... flew right into it... :faint:

[bearcat241]

The shortcut to 75% pre-damaging would be a 75% reduction in the systems lifepoints in the dp.

[SYSTEMS]
system.0=%system_name.0%,45000,-1
system.1=%system_name.1%,45000,-2
system.2=%system_name.2%,45000,-3
system.3=%system_name.3%,45000,-4
system.4=%system_name.4%,45000,-5
system.5=%system_name.5%,45000,-6
system.6=%system_name.6%,45000,-7
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Talon]

Pen32Win did a dp package that makes the ships more realistic.It covers the Usio ships,VN ,stock and other ships by developers.The AA fire is cut down also.Ithink it has 130 to 150 dp's in it and it's here at SOH.I've been using these dp's since 2006.


Talon

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Thanmks Talon, I'll look for it. With respects Bearcat, that would be the hard way, while making the substitutions in Mission Builder I can just use the predamage tab to set the percentage I want.

[bearcat241]

Yeah, i certainly understand your approach...i guess i was also thinking of the permanence of a simple, one-step solution. MB only gives you the pre-damage quick fix for that particular mission you're creating. But every time you want to use the same "hard" ship as a substitute in an existing mission you have to load that mission in MB to make the pre-damage modification prior executing the mission. And multiplying this MB work by 50-90 ships can be more tedious than dp editing. Also, once you edit and save a pre-existing mission in MB you almost certainly lose any special triggers, effects and weather originally designed by the author. Just food for thought....

[scruff]

bearcat,i just looked at jkm akagi dp file and the systems numbers go up to 48.can you give me all the relevent info on how to change them.its a bugger to sink,all of usios ships are.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

I see what you mean scruff, I just took a look at Usio's "Akagi" dp too and it has systems 0 thru 48 as U said with the numbers 30000 to 15000 to 300 and 150. Knowing what to change to what value is a guessing game for me

Another wierd thing happened too:

I made the change in the Carriers, BBs and Cruisers in one mission a few days ago. I test flew it this morning and that's when I noticed the above mentioned "toughness". I went into mission builder a while ago to make the predamage editions and on loading. I got failure notices for the Sendai, Mogami and Tone class - "...would you like to replace with JMK Ise?" - I clicked yes but later closed without saving. Even his light cruisers are built as aircraft carriers. I fixed that by changing the category of each ship on the dp to 4 or 5 and I even took the flight deck info off the cfg file. But what I really can't understand is why MB gave me an error on loading the JMK Tone, Sendai and Mogami in the fisr place, but no errors for the JMK Battleships or Carriers? Also, why did the error occur in MB and not when the mission loaded in single missions? I imagine it has something to do with the dp and/or cfg and if I had opened the mission/map tab for details and goals, the error might have occured then. Strange...

[Hern07]

At Santa Cruz the Shokaku took 4 one thousand pound bombs and survived.. She could not land planes though.

[Talon]

Here'a s the link to the DP's by Pen32Win.If you use them remember to delete the CDP.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/index.ph...fo&FileID=8532


Talon

[bearcat241]

Scruff, Shadow Wolf...all of the system parts with the higher numbers are the ones to focus on. Anything with mid to high five figures is sure to profoundly harden a target and delay its destruction. By reducing these higher values by 75% or whatever you think is appropriate, you will essentially achieve the same effect as pre-damaging in MB, but without having to contend with MB's temperament. Plus, as i said before, the item's strength is permanently reduced for any application in new missions or as substitutions in existing missions.

Another correlating factor that plays into this is the damage dice of your weapons used against the target. Every bomb, torpedo and rocket dp has a damage dice imbedded into its gunstation that determines how many hitpoints it will deliver against the lifepoints of the individual systems in a target. For example, this highlighted red portion is the standard dice for all of my 1000lb bombs, regardless of the sources:

[GUNSTATIONS]
gunstation.0=3,21,8,0.00,0,0,0,0,0,0,7d7*40000,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,42000

The MS stock standard for this sized weapon is:

[GUNSTATIONS]
gunstation.0=3,21,8,0.00,0,0,0,0,0,0,1d1*10000,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,16000

First, 10000 hitpoints is not my idea of a 1000lb high explosive weapon in CFS2. Secondly, the parameter of 7d7* builds a random effectiveness factor into the detonation, as opposed to the straightforward predictability of using 1d1* parameter. A 1d1* setup will always detonate with the same range, magnitude and collateral effect. A 7d7* setup will surprise you with random results; one hard target will take two direct hits to destroy and another just one; a set of "hard" hangars will take collateral damage from a near miss and burn in one case, while another similar near miss does nothing but produce smoke and dust....i like that idea.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarificaton of the systems inf I'm gonna go ahead and "soften" the ships as you recommend and save the trouble of doing them individually in each mission that I substitute them into. First I'll try Pen32Win's mod that Talon tipped and see if that does it.

I'm seriously thinking of using your random damage fix for the 1000 pounders too. Did you do a similar change for the 500 lb and smaller weapons to include rockets?

[bearcat241]

....Did you do a similar change for the 500 lb and smaller weapons to include rockets?

Yep....none of my weap dices are stock. Even my addon weaps are changed likewise. And in making these types of mods, i pretty much used the 7d7* param in all weaps no matter the type in order to keep the randomness factor involved. But the numerical hitpoints i did vary depending on the size and type. I won't even bother to post any more examples on other types here because i think any reader can now understand the relational methodology and make these mods according to their own preferences. Its your thing, do whatcha wanna do...

[Shadow Wolf 07]

" ...Its your thing, do whatcha wanna do..." An Isley Brothers fan eh?

That seems to have done it. I reduced the strength on Usio's dps by 25%, added Pen32Win's hardness settings and inctreaed the strength of the US weps to 1d1*20000 etc. It took all the bombs of myself and 5 wingmen but she went down.

In the mission I flew, when I return, I have to help defend my own TF. Unfortunately Colin's carriers and the VN escorts I used don't throw up anywhere near as much FLAK nor are they as tough as Usio's ships. I can fix that by throwing in a couple of Usio's US cruisers with the AA dp to fill out the defensive umrella.

[bearcat241]

" ....Unfortunately Colin's carriers and the VN escorts I used don't throw up anywhere near as much FLAK nor are they as tough as Usio's ships. I can fix that by throwing in a couple of Usio's US cruisers with the AA dp to fill out the defensive umrella.

Don't be shy about swaping ship dp's to get Usio's flak defenses into other makers' ships. Just be sure to transfer special effects like wakes, bow splashes and smokestack from the subject's old dp into its substitute dp from the donor.

[Pen32Win]

BC that's a great idea for generating randomness but it will only work in the case of direct hits against a targets DP boxes. For ships it's prefect. for near misses against ground objects it won't make any difference.

Here’s why:
CFS2 creates ground bomb damage in two different ways.
1. A direct hit on the infrastructure item’s DP.
2. A near miss with the bomb striking the ground.

In case 1 the damage value in the bombs DP Gunstation section is used.
A 1000lb bomb looks like this:

([GUNSTATIONS]
gunstation.0=3,21,8,0.00,0,0,0,0,0,0,1d1*10000,0,0 ,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,16000

It delivers 10000 Hit Points to the DP of the object the bomb hits. Just as you said. Pretty simple and straight forward so far. If the bomb/rocket makes a direct hit it acts just like a bullet as far as the target DP is concerned.

Case number 2 is were things get messy. First off there are 4 different “weapon_type”s that cover all of the different bombs. Type 1 is the lightest, like the 30 & 60kg and 250Lb’ers. Type 2 covers the 250kg and 500lb bombs. Type 3 is for the 1000lb bomb and Type 4 is used by the 800kg and 2000lb bombs.

Now that that’s clear let’s make mud. When a bomb strikes the ground in CFS2 the program selects 1 of 3, yes 3 and not 4 FX to trigger. You’d think there would be 4 FX since there are 4 different weapons types, right? Nope. Here’s how things work out. The 3 Effects are the fx_gndexpl_s, m & l. Type 1 bombs use the “s” FX. Type 2 uses the “m” FX and Types 3 & 4 both use the “l” FX.

Why does this matter? In CFS2 the AI aircraft do not hit their targeted objects DP unless it is a very large object like the Factories or Hangar Type A Large. They even miss those sometimes. So 97+% of the time when an AI Aircraft is attacking with bombs the resulting damage is caused by the 3 grndexpl FX. And that is what was making CFS2’s ground bomb damage act so erratic and why the ground objects DP were set so low in the number of hit points required to destroy them.

The Stock FX numbers relating to damage they cause look like this:
Small:
Hitpoints=500.00, 600.00
Range=100.00, 200.00

Medium:
Hitpoints=150.00, 200.00
Range=100.00, 200.00

Large:
Hitpoints=2000.00, 2200.00
Range=100.00, 200.00

No, I didn’t paste them out of order and Yes the above numbers match of weapon type is correct. I know this for certain because I added different colored smoke to each of the FX for testing. Just ask my Beta testers how much that freaked them out…LOL OK, these FX are the root of the problem. They don’t match the damage numbers in the weapons DP’s as they should. CFS2 is very good at reproducing a bomb blast radius but they dropped the ball on the FX end and ended up creating wimpy DP’s for the Ground Infrastructure to compensate.

Now the solution! Here are the numbers for the new FX:
Small:
Hitpoints=1000.00, 1500.00 <<These Ranges gives you randomness.
Range=50.00, 75.00

Medium:
Hitpoints=5000.00, 5500.00
Range=90.00, 100.00

Large:
Hitpoints=10000, 20000
Range=100.00, 150.00

Notice how they match up with the different weapon types better? I had to do some fudging with the Large FX because of the lack of a 4th FX for the Type 4 Weapons but it works out well. What these FX do is allow the creation of more realistic Ground Object DP’s without making them indestructible to bombs. BTW, this will also fix the damage done by the AF=Midway Arty Shells and any aircraft that crashes near a building.

If you want to test this just Zero-Out the Hit Point Ranges of the 3 grndexpl FX. Then go bomb a small easy to destroy target, like a Hut. As long as you don't make direct contact with the target's DP Boxes you can bomb it all day and it won't matter how many Hit Points are in the Weapon's DP. You'll never destroy it....

These fixes are part of my Bomb Blast package I released back in late 2004. Search for af_bb_pak.zip.... It'll fix the ground bomb blast and all of the stock ground infrastructure DP's too.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Interesting Pen32Win, does your bb pak do anything to increase or decrease effectiveness against ships?

[Pen32Win]

Howdy SW;

There are also two different ways to damage ships. Direct hits and near misses. In CFS2 there are 3 water explosion (Splash) FX also. The Stock FX, they do no damage. In the BB pak is a new set of them which will fix that.