HMS Marulken - modding

[PL_Andrev]

As you know the most active threads at subsim forum are SH3/4/5 mods.
Modding is the core, critical and the strongest featore of Silent Hunter series.

For example: the first mode for SH5 (Kriegsmarine historical accuracy ensign) was published after 2 days after SH5 release date (notice that Nazi Haken-kreuz is banned in EU, similar to Kyokujitsu-ki Japanese navy military ensign in Korea).

I've just downloaded "build 144" of HMS Marulken to see directories structure and I have to say that all in-game units / weapon data / navy ensigns / textures / missions are highly-coded and hided deeply at game files.

Hard to say it but HMS Markulen is not friendly moddable at this stage and is not possible to dominate Silent Hunter series. Cooperation and multicrew option is not key to seccess here.

:roll:

[Onkel Neal]

This game is not meant to replace the single player Silent Hunter games, you have to remember, Ubisoft had a team of 30 guys and a huge corporate support system for their game. In our case, there are two developers. They had a unique take on the submarine sim, where the game is played primarily with 4 guys as a crew, and the controls and actions are more manual than previous subsims. That's the target for this game, and yes, cooperative multiplayer is the key to the success of this game, because that's what this game is about :yep:

As for modding the game, first we have to make the game, you know.

[PL_Andrev]

This game is not meant to replace the single player Silent Hunter games, you have to remember, Ubisoft had a team of 30 guys and a huge corporate support system for their game. In our case, there are two developers.
It looks you a little missed the Subsim's community power - look how many modders does mods for easy-moddable Silent Hunter series and what they did for Silent Hunter series:

SH3: Grey Wolves mod, Knights of the Abbyss mod
SH4: Fall of the Rising Sun mod, Japanese campaign (!!!) mod
SH5: Wolves of Steel megamod

With this project at current stage a lot of modders have a chance to active dev support, fix spotted bugs or implement critical development suggestions.
Of course I'm not talking about game engine, or game key features but about add-ons like ships, planes, submarines, missions and much much more.

As for modding the game, first we have to make the game, you know.
Unfortunatelly I cannot agree with this, Neal - as you cannot change location of load-bearing walls in your home.
Believe me, at first stage you should decide what is unmoddable (engine, interface) and what is or can be modable (Silent Hunter: ships database, weapon database, missions, textures). When you enter "too deep" in programming is too late to add moddability feature into game in future.
This fault was made with brillant Battlestations series: no mission editor and no moddability: in result BS died when Silent Hunter is still alive here.

More:
Now we have two playable submarines in game: Swedish HSwMS Sjolejonet class (playable at build 144) and German type VII (you're working on it).
I have no problem if modders add more German, Italian, French, US, UK or Russian subs in game and create multi-crew or multi-player missions with them.
:D

[Onkel Neal]

Oh, I wouldn't say I missed the community's power :arrgh!:

I thank you for your comments, wise council. You are right, things would work much better if the community can assist and add to the game. I will bring this up in the next dev meeting.