Torpedoes too needy and require constant care and attention?

[Trygger]

Running latest unstable as of this time. (B129. Preview 14.)

Vanilla. No mods.

I'm running semi-realistic torpedo duds. (Angle and stuff matters but maintenance is what matters most.)

Is it me, or do the torpedoes require maintenance far, far too often? Like my maintenance guy is often spending his entire shift maintaining the torpedoes non-stop. I'm not sure how to interpret the maintenance thing when you click the torpedo tube.

The little torpedo symbol. Is black good? Is red good? Does the red meter fill up with lack of maintenance, or does it start full and empties the longer it goes without maintenance?

Whatever it is, it feels like not even 5 minutes after the last maintenance, they have to be maintained again, and as mentioned my maintenance guy is often in a cycle of maintaining the torpedoes endlessly. (Maintain tube 1-4, stern tube, tube 1-4, stern tube, tube 1-4, stern tube, sleep, wake up, maintain tube 1-4, etc.)

Is this intended behavior? Does realistic torpedo duds reduce the maintenance requirements? (Since angle matters more, does the maintenance level drain slower because it's not as important?)

Is it even realistic from a historical perspective? I know in earlier builds, maintenance was originally preheating the torpedoes, and it was renamed to maintenance probably because some of the torpedoes didn't require preheating and it was changed to maintenance as a catch-all term.

[Er]

I believe the length of time it takes to preheat the torpedoes is non-historical and is that way to keep in the 'gamey' elements. Diving on sunken ships? Following big green dots? It's designed to attract younger gamers and people who have a limited knowledge of submarine warfare --but want to learn. I'm encouraged by the modding community and there should be a mod that makes torpedoes more realistic in the workshop.

[Trygger]

Apparently the torpedoes start black, and turn red when maintenance is done. The red bar is how long they remain maintained for.

I think the reason for my confusion was how they renamed preheating to maintenance.

I still think it's required a little bit too often.

With preheating it makes sense for it to be done so often. It's something you do when you find a contact as you get into position to fire. Maintenance implies it's something that has to be done 24/7 to ensure the torpedo works properly even when out of combat, which isn't the case. (There's no penalty for only doing maintenance right before you fire.)

I don't have much knowledge on this, but I thought IRL the maintenance would only be something you'd do at the start and end of each shift.

I think the real issue is just how it's explained to the player in the UI. A little "Red torpedoes have been recently maintained. The meter indicates how long until the maintenance bonus expires." tooltip would have cleared most of it up.

[Twelvefield]

Someone who was brilliant dug up a technical manual with illustrations that describes exactly how these torpedoes work, it's extremely detailed and fascinating reading. If I can find the link, I will pass it on, or maybe someone else kindly will.

As I recall, there's two kinds of maintenance, inside the tube and outside. Outside the tube, you can do real work on the torpedo motor, guidance, and payload. There's a large overhead rail that can hang one torpedo so you could get under it, and of course use the rail to load the torpedo into its tube.

Inside the tube (or thereabouts), there are still access points the engineer has on hand to make adjustments to the programming, the gyroscope, and to use a plug-in electrical heater.

[Dewgle]

Torpedo maintenance used to be called torpedo 'warming' and the player would 'preheat' their torpedoes which is why they turn red and slowly turn black again. It was Stosstrupp, another community member that informed me how torpedo warming actually worked and I've been trying to spread that knowledge ever since.

TLDR: Torpedo warming was only done electric torpedoes and it was something could be done indefinitely inside or outside the tube. So the devs changed the wording to be more accurate but the frequency has remained about the same.

You warm/maintain your torpedo and it will maintain that premium state of performance for about 20 minutes before the torpedo turns black again.

So the devs were incorrect but that doesn't stop me from appreciating what they were trying to do. No other subsim game had ever tried to integrate torpedo warming & maintenance into the simulation before and I didn't even know torpedo warming was a thing until Deep Water Studios showed it to me with this game. I've learned so much because of that initial spark. And I can also appreciate the attempt to mix historical simulation with gamification.

It can't be easy trying to make history fun and appealing to a wide audience. And you must understand the necessity. Just spend an hour scrolling through the negative reviews of this game. Aside from finding negative reviews because the user didn't like their progress getting wiped with every major branch update, some dropped a bad review because the game's learning curve was too much.

Real torpedoes had a maintenance schedule. Long term maintenance was something done every week to every few months and involved inspecting and replacing of the gyroscope, the device that enabled the torpedo to make it's initial turn after leaving the torpedo AND helped it maintain it's course on the way to the target. Or inspecting and replacing old batteries inside electric torpedoes that were no longer holding a charge like they used to. Or inspecting the diaphragm responsible for helping the torpedo maintain it's depth.

More frequent maintenance would involve inspecting and topping off the high pressure air stored inside G7a T1 steam propelled torpedoes due to common slow leaks of stored air over time.

I'm working on updating an older mod that eliminates torpedo maintenance while giving the torpedoes stats something resembling their 'maintained/warmed' state while I know another mod-maker friend is working on a mod that extends torpedo maintenance time to a few days or longer.

Mods make everything better for those wanting a more custom-tailored game experience.

[athenian]

Originally posted by Trygger:

Running latest unstable as of this time. (B129. Preview 14.)

Vanilla. No mods.

I'm running semi-realistic torpedo duds. (Angle and stuff matters but maintenance is what matters most.)

Is it me, or do the torpedoes require maintenance far, far too often? Like my maintenance guy is often spending his entire shift maintaining the torpedoes non-stop. I'm not sure how to interpret the maintenance thing when you click the torpedo tube.

The little torpedo symbol. Is black good? Is red good? Does the red meter fill up with lack of maintenance, or does it start full and empties the longer it goes without maintenance?

Whatever it is, it feels like not even 5 minutes after the last maintenance, they have to be maintained again, and as mentioned my maintenance guy is often in a cycle of maintaining the torpedoes endlessly. (Maintain tube 1-4, stern tube, tube 1-4, stern tube, tube 1-4, stern tube, sleep, wake up, maintain tube 1-4, etc.)

Is this intended behavior? Does realistic torpedo duds reduce the maintenance requirements? (Since angle matters more, does the maintenance level drain slower because it's not as important?)

Is it even realistic from a historical perspective? I know in earlier builds, maintenance was originally preheating the torpedoes, and it was renamed to maintenance probably because some of the torpedoes didn't require preheating and it was changed to maintenance as a catch-all term.

There are no maintenance requirements for torpedoes in the game. Preheating torpedoes reduces the chance for duds according to torpedo type (25% for T1, 40% for T3, or something like that). The reason your engineer works on the torps all the time is because he is designated as 'Mechanic', with a certain priority for reloading/preheating torpedoes.