[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[Cobra5150]

I recently tried FOTRS, but I dislike the nav map. I spend a large portion of time there. I tried to edit the nav map to my own liking in FOTORS but had some trouble. In RSRDC the NAV map has a ton of more detail as far as location names and the look is much nicer. If there was a way to edit FOTORS' nav map (adding island names, changing overall look and removing or increasing the resolution of the nomograph) I'd spend some more time with it because I love the overall graphics and feel.

[Moonlight]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Wow! Thanks... going for a look...

Edit: OK, there's a ~LOT~ to choose from there... was it by itself, or part of a group? If in a group, what kind of group, merchants or warships? Did the computer "lag" when you were in the area? And the final and biggest question: Do you have the cdrsubron7 campaign fix applied?...

1 It was all on its lonesome.
2 There was no lag.
3 cdrsubron7 campaign fix applied

The ship was not going into the Bungo Suido its heading was roughly a West by North Easterly direction, it was dark at the time and it was a burning wreck when I left it still floating.
I've replayed a savegame from a few days after I saw it and went back but the ship was not there, I even replayed the mission and it wasn't there again.
A picture says a thousand words, this was taken after both torpedoes failed to hit it, its very dark so there's not much to see, if you look carefully you can see the propellers are out of the water.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Cobra5150

I recently tried FOTRS, but I dislike the nav map. I spend a large portion of time there. I tried to edit the nav map to my own liking in FOTORS but had some trouble. In RSRDC the NAV map has a ton of more detail as far as location names and the look is much nicer. If there was a way to edit FOTORS' nav map (adding island names, changing overall look and removing or increasing the resolution of the nomograph) I'd spend some more time with it because I love the overall graphics and feel.

That's a tough one. I really don't know which one is more authentic. I'll take a look and see what I think. No matter what I decide, that's a great idea for a plugin mod, either way. One way we have the Lurker_hlb3 map, the other way we have the Lurker map in the core mod and the stock map as a plugin mod.

We haven't even gone down the primary goal of FOTRSU, which is to revolutionize the way you play the game. When we're done, there will be a collection of FOTRSU Certified Mod Plugins. With them you'll be able to choose enemy AI, plotting system, nav map configuration, keyboard layout, add ships, change the smoke and lots of other things players have never been in control of before. We'll have a system so you KNOW which order to install the plugins, which ones conflict with each other so you don't use both of them at the same time.....it will be a foolproof way to select plugins to give the player control of his own game, not some mod crew made up of egocentric crazy people like US!

First we'll solidify the core mod, then enter phase 2, where we start issuing plugin mods and acquaint you with how our plugin system works and why you can be confident you won't create mod soup.

We've already started our JSGME research to come up with a set of best practices where it is concerned. We've already made some surprising discoveries, which have already rocked some of the establishment around here and their "traditional" rules for fixing mod soup. There's much more to come in that vein as well. Regardless of its faults, so long as you don't willingly blind it (as presently accepted mod soup procedures do), JSGME has the ability to tell you to fix the situation yourself. Complete and rigorous demos coming soon.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Moonlight

1 It was all on its lonesome.
2 There was no lag.
3 cdrsubron7 campaign fix applied

The ship was not going into the Bungo Suido its heading was roughly a West by North Easterly direction, it was dark at the time and it was a burning wreck when I left it still floating.
I've replayed a savegame from a few days after I saw it and went back but the ship was not there, I even replayed the mission and it wasn't there again.
A picture says a thousand words, this was taken after both torpedoes failed to hit it, its very dark so there's not much to see, if you look carefully you can see the propellers are out of the water.

Stunning... -the whole gang's back there, ready to drop some boom on ya... So it was going mostly West? Kind of like maybe zigging every 10km? I'll keep looking, because you've got all the "fixes" in place. I think I'll include the Jap_HarborTraffic file, because that's were the problem DDs from before were coming from, but I didn't see anything out there in it... Maybe it is that 007 group gone all wrong, and his "charges" are long gone, because this guy can't get any "traction" with which to move... How fast was he traveling, Moonlight?

-- Forgot to ask, any other mods or homemade file changes in your install?

[Moonlight]

^It was static propbeanie that's why I mentioned it, the ship was trying to travel from the West and to go in a North Easterly direction, it probably spawned on that spot and just stayed there unable to move.
The only mods I'm using are "bigger better protractors" and the "3000 yard bearing tool" they shouldn't interfere with anything else.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Moonlight

The only mods I'm using are "bigger better protractors" and the "3000 yard bearing tool" they shouldn't interfere with anything else.

Well they shouldn't BUT, if you're using my 3000 Yard Bearing Tool and its for the 1920x screen resolution....that mod takes up a lot of memory to run!!

Not that RAM memory has to do with causing ships to levitate (least I'm not sure about it) but, it doesn't do us much good to hear problem reports for FOTRSU and discover there are outside mods added to the mix that can cause issues all on their own.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Moonlight

^It was static propbeanie that's why I mentioned it, the ship was trying to travel from the West and to go in a North Easterly direction, it probably spawned on that spot and just stayed there unable to move.
The only mods I'm using are "bigger better protractors" and the "3000 yard bearing tool" they shouldn't interfere with anything else.

Nothing spawns near there. However, I have found some bad "Looping" on some vessels in the Jap_HarborTraffic file, which is what I found wrong with the Destroyers that went 'round the world, adding one to their number every 24 hours... They were supposed to terminate at a given WayPoint, but the didn't, and just kept going and going and going... like the Energizer Bunny... I'm not sure if that's what you're seeing, because I haven't looked to see where some of these vessels are that I've found in the text file, but bad looping causes troubles, just like bad ship calls... This'll take a while.

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by Moonlight

1 It was all on its lonesome.
2 There was no lag.
3 cdrsubron7 campaign fix applied

The ship was not going into the Bungo Suido its heading was roughly a West by North Easterly direction, it was dark at the time and it was a burning wreck when I left it still floating.
I've replayed a savegame from a few days after I saw it and went back but the ship was not there, I even replayed the mission and it wasn't there again.
A picture says a thousand words, this was taken after both torpedoes failed to hit it, its very dark so there's not much to see, if you look carefully you can see the propellers are out of the water.

Seems similar to the post I made awhile back.

[propbeanie]

Very much so cdrsubron7. Yours was from before your Campaign fixes, correct?

In the meantime Moonlight, there is a Corvette that spawns to the West of you once every two or three days that is supposed to do a zig-zag up along the Eastern coast of Kyushu. He gets real close to shore in shallow water and has extremely tight turns to make with the waypoints way too close together. It was probably "automatically" edited to add the zigs. I moved the spawn point into a harbor South of there, deleted half of the intermediate zigs, and gave it a chance to terminate. I've also done similar to two other nearby groups. There is a LOT of traffic that goes by that Eastern Kyushu shore, so I'll be a while yet going through 1289 groups, each with at least one vessel. Then there's the double-checks, and then a hand-off to cdrsubron7 so he can find the mistakes ~I~ added into the mix...

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Very much so cdrsubron7. Yours was from before your Campaign fixes, correct?

In the meantime Moonlight, there is a Corvette that spawns to the West of you once every two or three days that is supposed to do a zig-zag up along the Eastern coast of Kyushu. He gets real close to shore in shallow water and has extremely tight turns to make with the waypoints way too close together. It was probably "automatically" edited to add the zigs. I moved the spawn point into a harbor South of there, deleted half of the intermediate zigs, and gave it a chance to terminate. I've also done similar to two other nearby groups. There is a LOT of traffic that goes by that Eastern Kyushu shore, so I'll be a while yet going through 1289 groups, each with at least one vessel. Then there's the double-checks, and then a hand-off to cdrsubron7 so he can find the mistakes ~I~ added into the mix...

Correct.

[Cobra5150]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

That's a tough one. I really don't know which one is more authentic. I'll take a look and see what I think. No matter what I decide, that's a great idea for a plugin mod, either way. One way we have the Lurker_hlb3 map, the other way we have the Lurker map in the core mod and the stock map as a plugin mod.

We haven't even gone down the primary goal of FOTRSU, which is to revolutionize the way you play the game. When we're done, there will be a collection of FOTRSU Certified Mod Plugins. With them you'll be able to choose enemy AI, plotting system, nav map configuration, keyboard layout, add ships, change the smoke and lots of other things players have never been in control of before. We'll have a system so you KNOW which order to install the plugins, which ones conflict with each other so you don't use both of them at the same time.....it will be a foolproof way to select plugins to give the player control of his own game, not some mod crew made up of egocentric crazy people like US!

First we'll solidify the core mod, then enter phase 2, where we start issuing plugin mods and acquaint you with how our plugin system works and why you can be confident you won't create mod soup.

We've already started our JSGME research to come up with a set of best practices where it is concerned. We've already made some surprising discoveries, which have already rocked some of the establishment around here and their "traditional" rules for fixing mod soup. There's much more to come in that vein as well. Regardless of its faults, so long as you don't willingly blind it (as presently accepted mod soup procedures do), JSGME has the ability to tell you to fix the situation yourself. Complete and rigorous demos coming soon.

Excellent! Modular plugins are the most sensible way to go in the long run and having a good protocol to avoid mod soup will be amazing! Many features come down to taste. Having so many options can be mind boggling and once you have an idea of the mods you want, finding them incompatible is frustrating.

There are tons of features from a pool of mods big and small spanning ten years, that if researched and broken down, consolidated for authenticity, stability, and scope. Then implemented into FOTORS with modularity in mind, would be absolutely wonderful. What an homage to the game and community that would be. I want to be involved anyway possible.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Cobra5150

... I want to be involved anyway possible.

oooohhh... another guinea pig... - er, sorry... Crash Test Dummy... Whooops!!! "Certified Tester"...

First page of the thread here is the download link for Public Beta v0.40. It uses JonesSoft Generic Mod Enabler (JSGME) to install it. Have at it, give it a whirl, let us know your experience with it, any anomolies you find, where you were when it happened, what day and time it was, extenuating circumstances, etc...

There is a small patch FOTRSU40_3rdPatch.7z to get the Campaign level cleaned up a little, and that gets applied applied via JSGME. If and when you go to uninstall the mod, we had issues with JSGME, and have had to make a FotRSU_RepariToStock.7z file that gets used by JSGME to restore some files we accidentally delete from the stock game that do not get restored. When beta 50 comes out, there will be a CapnScurvy fix that will plug that issue.

It is recommended that you have a 64 bit OS, dual-core computer with over 3 (2.5+) gig of RAM, though it will run on less. If you have a 64-bit OS and over 3 gig of RAM, it is recommended that you use the Large Address Aware (LAA) program (see also TechPowerUp), or NTCore's Explorer Suite (one or the other, not both), and enable both the SH4.exe file in your game folder, and the JSGME.exe file, which may be in the same location (dependent upon your installation). Both programs do similar functions, in letting older programs "see" over 2 gig of RAM. The use of one of those apps on JSGME ~might~ eliminate or minimize the error that causes our issue, and the resultant need of the 'RepairToStock' patch, but we haven't fully tested it yet to say for certain just yet. More on that later... You might also be interested in the 7-Zip program to help you unzip all this stuff... 7-zip will unzip most downloads correctly, the way the Modder built it, while using the Windows Archive Manager oftentimes will create a double folder structure on you. Just be aware of that. Any questions, give a shout, and if that isn't enough torture for you to bear, just PM Rockin Robbins and let him know you want to do more.

Happy Hunting!

[Rockin Robbins]

Actually, future editions will include a copy of Large Address Aware, MultiSH4 and a copy of my anti-mod soup videos. The new video will incorporate both the videos I have made, PLUS instructions on the use of Large Address Aware on JSGME.exe IF my death match between Large Address Aware and FOTRSU comes out good tonight.

[Rockin Robbins]

The video is driving me crazy. So many nearly identical sequences over a 27 minute period and I'm getting confused over which is which. You know what that means? Nobody would ever finish watching the video anyway.

So I reenacted the install/uninstall of GFO with and without Large Address Aware. Without, GFO is corrupted (same seven files when it happens) about half the time. Apply Large Address Aware to JSGME.exe and GFO works great every time.

So it was time for the LAA/JSGME vs FOTRSU match of the century. First, without LAA JSGME couldn't handle it at any time. It was always seven files, ConteVerde's 5 files and the German Flag texture files.

Stage 2 was applying LAA to JSGME.exe. This worked perfectly for GFO, what will happen here? Biff! Bam! Boom! There were the same seven errors.. Inspection reveals that all 7 files use the -remove feature.

As CapnScurvy found in independent tests, on the German flags the feature is used improperly as the mod contains substitute files would take the place of the originals anyway. In the ConteVerde, that is not the case. So I removed all the -remove files for the seven files. Instantly, LAA plus JSGME installed and uninstalled all 3.6 GB of FOTRS Ultimate correctly every time. 4 times done, 4 times correct.

So we can explain away the German flags issue. That's just a stupid modder trick. But the ConteVerde stuff isn't so easily explained. I'll just leave the stock stuff untouched there, but changing in a new radar silhouette to get the position marker. All will be right in Denmark, even though absolute full understanding isn't achieved.

And yes, large size rendered JSGME unreliable for restoration of GFO. LAA fixed that instance. It had no effect at all in the reliability of FOTRSU. It isn't a DOS or Windows error. I don't use DOS or Windows. So something isn't quite right in the -remove handling of JSGME and we don't care what it is. We'll work around it.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

...........the ConteVerde stuff isn't so easily explained. ......................... So something isn't quite right in the -remove handling of JSGME and we don't care what it is. We'll work around it.

You buy 'em books, and you buy 'em books....they just eat the covers off of them!!

Did you not look at the Conte_Verde file AFTER I explained why the JSGME "-remove" feature causes the German flags to be REMOVED from the Stock game (at this post).

Again, a picture is worth a....:




The EuroLiner.dat file is one of the 5 files that JSGME doesn't know what to do with when you use a new "modded" file like the one in Green....then "-remove" it like the one in Red. Both being in the same file.

I said last week the guy who put this file together should be the guy to fix it....let him explain why there's two different .dat files in the same folder as well. A "EuroLiner" one, and a NPL_Conte_Verde one?

Emulate Stock....Emulate Stock!