Two silhouettes on the shade
 

With apologies to Herman's Hermits. :D

I always play with map contacts on, and when you zoom in on the gray silhouettes from a radar contact, you get a fair idea of ship types from the silhouettes. Recently I started adding minesweepers (NMS_NO13) in the mission editor, and instead of the silhouette of a destroyer it has the same silhouette as a merchant ship. Like most minesweepers in WWII this one is a converted destroyer, got guns and depth charge racks and active sonar, so it should have the same silhouette as a destroyer.

Anyone know where the map silhouettes are defined?

silhouettes
 

Hi Sniper,

I had a look around, try \data\sea\NDD_akizuki\NDD_Akizuki_sil.tga
I got it open in Corel and it is in shades of gray. Also there are files in those folders with a suffix of _lr which suggests "long range" ?

Any ideas on how I can configure my Gato to have the 40mm twins fore and aft, and a 5.25 fore and aft ? So far, I have a 5.25 bow and 40mm singles. I have reduced the recoil times so they fire really quickly. With AP rounds they shred a destroyer which I find very satisfying.

Also, there is an irritating bug or delay that wont let me onto the deck gun after I have surfaced. Meanwhile the enemy are scoring hits. Any ideas on these 2 issues ?

thanx
T K W

1. Maybe.
2. Sometimes.
3. I don't know.
4. It depends.
5. On the advice of counsel I'm taking the Fifth on the 5th. :03:

Seriously I'll have to get back to you, it's been several years since I last hacked my SARGO for single 40s fore and aft along with SJ-1 radar and forward 4 inch 50 as default, gotta hunt around to remember how I did it. GATO is a different animal, since I never play with anything but a SARGO. When testing it I found that player control is only for the aft 5 inch 25, the forward one is AI control only, that's all I really remember about the GATO class.

Having seen twin mount BOFORS fired in real life I find it hard to believe any WWII sub would actually have had one, a sponson on a FORRESTAL class aircraft carrier is a lot bigger than those little platforms on a GATO, and keeping that beast firing at a steady rate required a LOT of loaders with plenty of elbow room on both sides. :o

As for the TGA file that one is actually for the recognition manual, so maybe I need to clarify what I mean by map silhouettes;

https://scontent-msp1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...98&oe=5D298981

Each type has a distinct shape, you can tell by the shape the general type. Destroyers and cruisers are close to the same size, but the little pimples on the sides of the cruisers distinguish those from the destroyer shape. No telling if it's a light cruiser or heavy cruiser, but you know it's not a battleship because the shape is different. Merchants as you can see have a rounder shape, problem is the minesweeper is a warship and has the merchant ship silhouette. That's the one I'd like to change.

Okay, here's an old how-to thread;

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=211849

First problem I see is I opened the UnitParts1Gato.upc and did a search (edit, find in notepad) for "Upack40mm", found only Upack40mmSingle
- no duals. Same for Balao.

However, UpgradePacks.upc has a

[UpgradePack 11]
ID= Upack40mmTwin
NameDisplayable= Twin 40mm AA Gun
FunctionalType= UpFTypeWeaponFlak
UpgradePackSlotType= USDeckGun
Type=NULL
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptionCurrent= NULL, NULL, 0
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions1= 1941-05-08, NULL, 1000
IDLinkUpgradePackElements= 40mmTwinUS

So the upgrade does exist. Next step is to get really crazy and see if I can add twin mount 40s to a PORPOISE class.

"If the problem can't be solved with rum, you're not using enough rum."
- Captain Jack Sparrow :arrgh!:

Hello Sniper29,

I have just checked the FotrsU version and yes, we also have the merchant silhouette. Look for the Data > Sea > NMS_NO13 > NMW_NO13_shp.dds
And then copy one from any NDD folder and rename as as below.

https://i.ibb.co/Z8pvSwY/Capture.png

Hooray!
 

Thanks, that works! :Kaleun_Cheers:

So the trick is shiptype_shipname_shp.dds, little 5KB file with a blank white rectangle image, the shape is actually in the alpha channel.

NDD_Fubuki_shp.dds N = Nippon, DD = Destroyer, Fubuki = name, each ship has it's own dedicated _shp.dds file so in theory you could change seaplane tenders to a different shape to distinguish them from actual carriers, or even make escort carriers more rectangular or whatever.

Never expected that, I was assuming a single image in menu\gui\layout or something, with all the shapes on one image and something in the configuration of each ship that takes it from a section of the image. This will be much easier to mod, time to play with making small medium and large for merchies and/or them evil culprits with deck guns.

Almost forgot the sleeping Kraken,

"Also, there is an irritating bug or delay that wont let me onto the deck gun after I have surfaced. Meanwhile the enemy are scoring hits. Any ideas on these 2 issues ?"

No idea how to hack that, problem is the subs have a set depth that the gun crews won't go on deck, so you can't either. For US subs it's 21 feet, on surfacing even with emergency blow they hang at 22 feet for a minute or so before rising to 21. Reflects real life, they blew the tanks with high pressure air, but that left some water in the tanks. US subs finished emptying the tanks using low pressure blowers, took 15 minutes or so to come up to full surface trim. German U-boats directed the diesel exhaust into the ballast tanks instead of using low pressure blowers, in theory the oily exhaust coated the inside of the ballast tanks to reduce rusting. Either way there will be delay.

Another option;

www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=211613

My subs are hacked for that, with 40mm BOFORS (even single!) fore and aft I can start blasting destroyers when I rise to 30 feet or so, if decks awash is set for 26 to 27 feet it's harder for the bad guys to see or target the conning tower while you're punching holes with a 40mm. You could also surface all the way, but as soon as the AA gun button lights up go to one of those and fire at the closest destroyer while you're waiting to get above 22 feet.