[REL] Rik007: SH-3 Night surface attack project [REL]

[rik007]

I feel I'm not 20 anymore. So I'm a slow modder and for years SH-3 didnot have my attention anymore but everything came back a year ago when I upgraded my video card...
On an average I now worked a few hours per week on this project which delivers an enabler. Basically it could be a breakthrough or a failure: who knows?
For me it is a breakthrough and I hope it will be the same for you all. I create some movies this week to explain it and some demo's.

First I explain the project itself and my experiments into night surface attacks and what I think of it:



Then an example of a night surface attack in 'Otto Kretschmer-style', unprecedented I think:



Then a sample of the wheather transition bug which is in most environment mods. The wheather will suddenly switch around 00:26:



And the version with a correct - smooth wheather transition:



Then a demo with Northern Lights and detection:



I want to thank:
- Hsie for his exellent hardcode mod. If you read this: a few of your discoveries in your assembly files I re-used!
- hughesjr for his basic voice attack profile (unreachable on Steam)
- Jerry Mason and crew

Here you find the site with the u-boot journals:

https://www.uboatarchive.net/

Go to U-boat KTB for the logs.

Update 29-8-2024: Release 1.20 has arrived
This is what has changed compared to 1.19:

- Date/time bug:
There are multiple date/time variable in sh3. One of them controls the moon and the environment and one is the current date/time you see on the watches etc. The first one is not correct after a save/reload. After a reload this date is set to the start date/time of the current patrol or in case of a first patrol in a campaign this will be start date/time of the campaign. What is expected is that after a safe/reload sh3 should set this date/time to the current date/time.

The effect of this bug is that every time you reload a patrol your environment including the moon phase/position will jump back to the start of the patrol instead of to the current date/time.

The fix implemented in the moon mod for this is to overwrite the date/time for the environment with the current game date/time to make sure the calculations are done with the correct date and the moon and environment are shown as expected.

- SH-5 Moon mod settings for GWX 3.0
Profile for users who use GWX.

Of course I like to thank Fubar295, Dieselglock, JohnCarterOfMars, Doolar & Fitzcarraldo for their help during the testing!

Please find below the link to the project which contains instructions how to install or upgrade. Please read the installation instructions carefully.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/f920w...v1.20.zip/file

Please consult the documentation that comes with the mod but for your convenience:

For people who have never installed the Night surface attack project:

- Add all 1.20 mods from the zip-archive to your MODS folder
- run the patcher
- Enable all 1.20 mods using JSGME

For people who switch from 1.19 to 1.20:

- Disable all 1.19 mods using JSGME
- Remove all 1.19 mods from your MODS folder
- Add all 1.20 mods from the zip-archive to your MODS folder
- run the patcher
- Enable all 1.20 mods using JSGME

Run the patcher:
- Use your explorer to go into your MODS folder. From there go into the folder: SH-5 Patcher.
- Start Sh5PatchExe.bat, follow the instructions ("Press any key to continue") and if you get “Patch done succesfully, you can enable the mod: SH-5 Moon mod" with JSGME!” the patching is done and the "SH-5 Moon mod" is ready to be enabled with JSGME

Remark
For the testers that already have the fix installed there is no added value in the 1.20 except in case you want to use the GWX 3.0 profile.

If you intend to only install the fixes on top of v1.19 then here is the download:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/jx6yl...n_fix.zip/file

Disadvantage is of course that if you go this route that you have to keep the fixes in minds when you are messing with your JSGME mod stack



Regards,

Rik007

[FUBAR295]

Wow, really something. All of them would make nice addition mods.




I really like the weather transition ... Nice !!

[stork100]

Well this looks extremely interesting. Thanks for the videos. Congratulations on the work achieved thus far. Potentially a phenomenal breakthrough - this could change the way we all play SH3. Best wishes towards your work and the project Sir.

[Mister_M]

Hello Rik007,

Environment and detection are indeed extremly important to create a good submarine simulation... And the moon light (and northern lights) was an extremly important factor. So definitely an excellent idea to get this factor work correctly...

I suppose all this works with a fix to the hardcode itself, especially to get the albedo effect? BTW, I'm really happy to have watched your video where you explain what it is, I've learnt something today!

"If people are willing to learn how=to-hard-code-fix I might organize an online workshop."

==> Oh, yes, learning how to hard-code fix would interest me a lot.

"As how to contine: I will ask some people to 'beta-test' and depending on the results further steps will follow."

==> I'm interested.

[Dieselglock]

This sounds awesome. Cant wait to try it out. It would really change everything.

[rik007]

Thank you all very much! At the moment I'm working on notifications so that you are informed when it is full moon, quarter moon etc or if northern lights are sighted.

These messages should not appear when the u-boot is submerged. Ideally also if there is no WO on the bridge. Though I do not think only the WO sights the moon...

Then I will do some testing and polishing in the config files

If that is working fine I will contact the beta's for testing ...

Mister_M: you have been added to the beta list as well as for the to be hardcode modding workshop...

Stay tuned!

[iambecomelife]

Was very impressed with the weather transition and Northern Lights ... they look very eerie as they should.

Eagerly await more!

[John Pancoast]

Would be a great addition to FINALLY have moonlight affect visibility/detection. Northern Lights is ok, but not nearly as needed as having moonlight work as it should is.
It's omission is one in a long list of incredibly silly, ahistorical, arcadey aspects of SH3, especially seeing as a game released in 1994, AOD, had it. Looking forward to the mod!

Regarding the weather transition, long ago H.sie posted how a simple time change amount to a game file would provide this. I'm to lazy to look it up, think it was a cloudlayer.tga or some such. Is that what you've done?

I'm also confused by the phrase "enable night surface attacks", as they've always been very possible and very easy to do with every version of SH3, stock or modded.

Any plans to also correct the completely incorrect escort placements around the convoys? Even better, correct their silly ahistorical escort "tactics"? (different kettle of fish I know but one can dream )

I'm sure you realize this, but in the night attack by aircraft examples you list, a bright "night" north of the Shetlands is very different than a bright night further south. I.e, in the far northern latitudes, the "night" is more like daylight than it is a dark night.

Great to see the reference to scope use at night as night scope attacks are another item on the ahistorical arcade side of things that SH3 has always allowed, modded or not.

Regarding the moon at your back, it should be the other way around. The moon at the back of the convoy. Then the convoy is illuminated against the moonlight background while the sub is better hidden in the "dark front".

Regarding northern lights, I have seen them many times. They should only be a factor on clear nights, and a minor one even then. On anything other than a clear night, they are very rarely visible at all.

I'd be interested in the hex editing workshop if I have the time................at the time

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by rik007

Thank you all very much! At the moment I'm working on notifications so that you are informed when it is full moon, quarter moon etc or if northern lights are sighted.

These messages should not appear when the u-boot is submerged. Ideally also if there is no WO on the bridge. Though I do not think only the WO sights the moon...

Then I will do some testing and polishing in the config files

If that is working fine I will contact the beta's for testing ...

Mister_M: you have been added to the beta list as well as for the to be hardcode modding workshop...

Stay tuned!

Nothing wrong with having notifications of moon status when submerged. Charts, timetables, etc. of it's phases and their dates and exact times every month were around long before WW2.

[Borgneface]

Hello,
this is looking very good indeed! Really looking forward to the release of your mod...
Thank you

[fitzcarraldo]

Looking forward to this. Must have.

Many thanks for the work

Fitzcarraldo

[rik007]

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Regarding the weather transition, long ago H.sie posted how a simple time change amount to a game file would provide this. I'm to lazy to look it up, think it was a cloudlayer.tga or some such. Is that what you've done?

No: the 3d model is not correct in the scene.dat. I found that the original one had a second UV-channel in the clouds.obj. That one is missing so I restored it.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

I'm also confused by the phrase "enable night surface attacks", as they've always been very possible and very easy to do with every version of SH3, stock or modded.

You are correct! Sorry that I was not accurate on that one. In a dark night, without radar, the u-boot should have a huge advantage. So then you can come very close to the ships or make yourself invisible by adjusting the new light factors in a configuration file. So you can change them to the level you like.
The mod will change the light factor as stored in sim.cfg dynamically depending on the weather, moon etc. It is still arcade and a lot remains to be desired but we should cherish what we have not what we not have, right?

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Any plans to also correct the completely incorrect escort placements around the convoys? Even better, correct their silly ahistorical escort "tactics"? (different kettle of fish I know but one can dream )

No, I think it goes way above our capabilities. I worked for example on generating straddlers. In the picture you see that a straddler was generated nicely and once you attacked it even a destroyer detached from the convoy to attack you but it had side-effects so it failed. This took me around 8 weeks to get it working so I hope that manages a bit your expectation …. I want to finish the moon mod.

Little bit exaggerated but think of hardcode fixes as doing brain surgery with an anatomy picture from your schoolbooks as a reference. So you poke around in the brain where you assume motion is controlled and then the left arm suddenly raises. But that does not say we play some nice music on the piano. If we could have the original C++ source code this would be different. Then we could have effects like damp periscopes or periscope unusable in the night etc.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

I'm sure you realize this, but in the night attack by aircraft examples you list, a bright "night" north of the Shetlands is very different than a bright night further south. I.e, in the far northern latitudes, the "night" is more like daylight than it is a dark night.

Understood. It is not in SH-3. What do you suggest the effect should be?

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Great to see the reference to scope use at night as night scope attacks are another item on the ahistorical arcade side of things that SH3 has always allowed, modded or not.

I put that in the film as it was really new for me. We do not see that in the simulations. Also I did not understand for years what these commanders meant with seeing shadows until I read these U-boot logs.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Regarding the moon at your back, it should be the other way around. The moon at the back of the convoy. Then the convoy is illuminated against the moonlight background while the sub is better hidden in the "dark front".

You are correct as that is was so in reality I did some tests in Sh3 and saw that it was better to have the moon in your back as that decreases the odds of being detected. I think it looks at the illuminated front of the u-boot which is then towards the ships. So that gives the ships a slight advantage to detect you. In reality the illuminated front did not seem to be an issue and it was the other way around as you said. So that underlines that it was difficult to find a u-boot at night.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Regarding northern lights, I have seen them many times. They should only be a factor on clear nights, and a minor one even then. On anything other than a clear night, they are very rarely visible at all.

It will be only shown in clear nights and then randomly (configurable). It uses a particle engine which projects the northern lights before the clouds (whatever I tried) so it is better to have no clouds: so yes only in clear nights. The amount of impact on detectability is configurable. I think it is a nicety. I also considered phosphoric sees as some of the u-boot commanders complained about that and one was even detected.

As for the notifications in your other reply: I can send one notification per day with moon info. Not sure when. Noon? Sunset? Maybe I leave it out in the first version.

[Kal_Maximus_U669]

Hey rik007 hello...
It's super interesting what you've dissected....
These source code problems are really recurring...
The graphics engine has display problems... passing light... textures sometimes... super sampling.. anti alliasing... it is sometimes complex to find the right settings from one machine to another.. .
These problems are more pronounced on Sh4 which suffers from lousy HD... a driver adjustment from Nvidia would be welcome...
An effort from Ubisoft too...but I doubt they'll do it...lol
I am delighted with your modding, it is very encouraging...I wish you good luck in this colossal work...I really can't wait to test...but that said it will be ready...when it is ready..!!!

Kind regards, Kal Maximus U669

[John Pancoast]

Thanks for the replies. Love the brain surgery analogy! Moon info. notification, perhaps dawn? It would be known before the boat even left port, but perhaps that would work. Not a huge deal regardless.

Many thanks for your efforts.

[rik007]

Mister_M: you have a PM