[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[CapnScurvy]

OK, uploaded my Periscope_UpDown.wav file to the existing Google Site "Sound" folder.

The thing I noticed about the FOTRS .wav file is its very faint. You need to really listen to hear the motor effects. Shouldn't be a problem now. One other thing I noticed about the FOTRS v1.3 Sound folder, there's a .bak file for the sdl file......it doesn't need to be in there, its just taking up space.

[cdrsubron7]

Hey RR

Quick question. Are we testing the sounds, zones, and ship movements separately or all together? Not sure which way we're going here.

[Lt commander lare]

Hi i was wondering is this going to be for v1.5

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by Lt commander lare

Hi i was wondering is this going to be for v1.5

Roger that.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

Hey RR

Quick question. Are we testing the sounds, zones, and ship movements separately or all together? Not sure which way we're going here.

I was just concentrating on sounds, but paying attention to it all, but now I'm trying to concentrate on the ship movements aspect, but paying attention to it all.

Thanks for the scope sound, CapnScurvy. I'm going to check that out, and also compare the lengths of the stock files and the FOTRS files for the background sounds, including the creakings and such.

However, I seem to have a hard drive issue, and my SH4 install acts almost trashed again. Surely, I don't have a third hard drive in three months going bye-bye, do I?... I'm running chkdsk with all the trimmings now. I've been trying to get my 2nd computer going in the family room, and it has troubles with Win7 updating (shades of Vista), and now the errors on my "big" computer... hoo boy! - So I've requisitioned the wife's laptop here... - tic

[Rockin Robbins]

Does everyone agree that we have jackrabbits in standard FOTRS? Now if we choose to mess with ship horsepower to limit dragster powers, Webster says that will also mess with sonar because the game links sound volume with engine horsepower. We would have to boost volume of enemy ships by the same ratio that we reduce the sound with a horsepower reduction.

Sounda a bit tricky. Anybody checked out Jrex's fix to see if he has the same issue?

Cdsubron7, right now I want to test FOTRS 1.3 with FOTRS modules for sinking (already there as zones) and sounds. We need to import the merchies from FOTRS 2.0 too because we don't have to script them. They just should work when we introduce them. Warships, like the Akagi and Kaga, for instance, will need scripting. It's possible that the mission scripts from 2.0 could be more easily modified for SH4 1.5 than rewriting the 1.3 mission scripts. Who's going to volunteer for that? I'm thinking it's perfect fitzcarraldo territory because he's alread added ships to his FOTRS, both scripted warships and unscripted merchies.

Fitzcarraldo, are you up to it? FOTRS 2.0 ships only into our 1.3 with 2.0 zones and sounds.

I want to freeze the core mod as a pure AOTD_MadMax mod, or as close as we can possibly make it without leaving any glaring stupid stuff hanging out. Then we freeze the core mod and work on plugins!

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Does everyone agree that we have jackrabbits in standard FOTRS? Now if we choose to mess with ship horsepower to limit dragster powers, Webster says that will also mess with sonar because the game links sound volume with engine horsepower...

Yes, they are jackrabbits, able to do 0-60 in 3.4 seconds, cut a 90 degree turn in less than a 100 yards, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound - well, maybe just "draft shallow so a torp runs beneath"...

Is the HP thing why that in some mods, the feller at the sonar station doesn't seem to hear a thing, in spite of a ship doing about 10 knots at 3200 yards, and I all of a sudden get surprised by an ashcan attack?... and to think, I just thought the AI was smarter than me...

I haven't found any real clues as to what causes "The Noise", but I'm still thinking it's a file either playing incorrectly, or not at all, but none of the background sound files that I've found seem to contain, or hint at that "I'm here!" hammering on the pipe sound, if played alone. I might try to load some of the sounds up in an audio editor and look at their loop points, and make sure they all "cross at zero", as they say in the audio vernacular... but if there's a bum file like that, the sound heard should just be a digital-over "CLICK!" that would sound like it's trying to destroy the speakers it's played over... usually. One thing of it, there are audio issues in the "stock" game after time compression, where a lot of the background sounds quit playing... maybe I'll look there too, and see what stops playing in that situation. Where would one find what happens during time compression in the game's files, or is that something that's "hard coded"?

[CapnScurvy]

Is the HP thing why that in some mods, the feller at the sonar station doesn't seem to hear a thing, in spite of a ship doing about 10 knots at 3200 yards, and I all of a sudden get surprised by an ashcan attack?... and to think, I just thought the AI was smarter than me...

The issue is with you manning the Hydrophone and not hearing a ship passing by in visual distance. The Hydrophone guy usually works fine. I've found it's when a ship travels at a lower speed, under its given MaximumSpeed found in the ships .sim file. I used to think it was when a ship travels at less than half its MaxSpeed rating.......but, I'm not so sure anymore.

This really shows up with RSRDC where Lurker caused hundreds of waypoints to be made with ships changing speeds often. A good idea, but there's a reason why the stock game has ships traveling at mostly 9 knots or greater.

I'm not convinced there isn't a way of fixing this behavior. I've got some ideas, just haven't tested them.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Yes, they are jackrabbits, able to do 0-60 in 3.4 seconds, cut a 90 degree turn in less than a 100 yards, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound - well, maybe just "draft shallow so a torp runs beneath"...

Okay, I just did a harbor raid test. As with all harbor raids, the victims were not able to get underway from the pier. When they sank, they just settled to the bottom. I cut a video of the attack and I'm not even going to post it. I did have some nice subsidiary explosions well after the torpedo hit. The ships did not just go blub, blub, blub, sink as they do in the stock game. The sounds were awesome. I especially liked when a freighter opened up with a deck gun and the shell passed overhead. What a great sound!

But the video is a loser--unless as a cautionary tale on why harbor raiding just isn't very realistic in SH4.

But propbeanie, if we have jackrabbits, I'm willing to make an exception and put a good jackrabbit avoidance mod in the core FOTRS Ultimate, even though it's not a MadMax product.

I'm going to check out Jrex's mod. Can someone check out Webster's and report sonar behavior? As far as ship behavior they both do a great job of making jackrabbits into turtles. Both have some unpredictable effects on convoys, which will scatter somewhat soon after they spawn. The japanese merchant fleet wasn't that disciplined in convoy behavior and that might actually be a feature rather than a bug. We're going to claim that anyway!

[Rockin Robbins]

Jrex's Ship Acceleration Physics mod does compensate for sound changes with horsepower reduction. Every individual ship has to be tuned separately and our list of ships is different from his. A comprehensive list (which I have for stock, RFB, TMO and GFO but not FOTRS) will tell which ships need to be changed. It's not too difficult to pick a similar ship and make the numbers agree, but it is a project.

Next I look at Webster's mod. It looks very similar and appears to work the same way. Looks to be compatible with anything in FOTRS if we add the missing ships, especially DDs and DEs. I think we should go with Webster's fix. He also has a No Cheers mod that might be something certain people would be very interested in. It's Excel time for that chart!

[XTBilly]

RR, you're absolutely right about the convoy behavior.

I've been playing Webster's GFO from day 1 of it's release and I've never experienced odd sonar behavior. His solution on the jackrabbit problem works very well and has two side-effects that I've noticed.

1. The escorts stop their engines very often and use their momentum to maintain formation with the convoy and compensate the new ship dynamics. That means that our hydrophones cannot hear them constantly and their hydrophones are more sensitive with their engines stopped. That's absolutely normal. That makes them more dangerous and more difficult to target.

2. The convoy ships also change their speed to maintain formation with the convoy leader. That also means no guaranteed hits from 8500 yards and no engine sniper shots from long range.

In my opinion, Webster's fix makes the game more interesting and unpredictable as RR pointed out. I've no experience with JRex's SAP mod so I cannot comment on that.

One thing is for sure. FOTRS desperately needs a ship maneuvering fix. The ships behave exactly like stock.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Double R

Next I look at Webster's mod. It looks very similar and appears to work the same way. Looks to be compatible with anything in FOTRS if we add the missing ships, especially DDs and DEs. I think we should go with Webster's fix.

Just a point...........it's Websters GFO mod that has the Javelin DD I took the images of a few posts back. Does his mod still change the displacements from stock?

Originally Posted by XTBilly

I've been playing Webster's GFO from day 1 of it's release and I've never experienced odd sonar behavior.

Have you looked to see if he's using the stock game Campaign .mis files? Wouldn't suprise me that he didn't mess with them too much.

[XTBilly]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Just a point...........it's Websters GFO mod that has the Javelin DD I took the images of a few posts back. Does his mod still change the displacements from stock?



Have you looked to see if he's using the stock game Campaign .mis files? Wouldn't suprise me that he didn't mess with them too much.

No, I haven't. I'm not sure if I'll notice the difference, if any..

I used to play a lot with the IXd2 submarine, (pretending it was a Japanese I-boat), encountered the Javelin some times, but I was not able to spot any difference surely because I don't use the external camera.

Good, point here Cap'n . Maybe someone more experienced should answer your questions.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Just a point...........it's Websters GFO mod that has the Javelin DD I took the images of a few posts back. Does his mod still change the displacements from stock?

No campaign changes in his Ship Physics mod. But here is the Silent Editor dope on both FOTRS and Webster Ship Maneuvering Fix Javelins. FOTRS is on the left.



Looks like he left the displacement unchanged there. Note that these values come from Webster's Ship Maneuvering Fix, not GFO.

Now, if we use Webster's Ship Maneuvering Fix for stock as the base, here's the ships we will have to add to the mod. I think we only have to worry about small warships DD and smaller. Anything larger is just going to be sailing past us at 20 knots and not stopping for a beauty rest. That leaves us with NCVW, NDA_Sitori, NDD_1936A, NDD_1936B, NDD_1936C, NDD_A&B, NDD_Benham, NDD_C&D, NDD_Kagero, NDD_SU1, NDD_Type7y, NDD_Yugumo, NDD_Zclass, NDE_Akikaze, NDE_Kisarage, NDE_Momi (the ship Lurker forgot to give position info for the nav map!), NDE_Parker, NDE_ParkerII, NDE_PB102......I think that's it!

My spreadsheet with all the ships from all the supermods is in the download area now. Any ships in the mods are in addition to the ones in the stock game. To arrive at all the ships you might see in the mod you have to take all the ships from that mod plus the stock game.

[cdrsubron7]

Hey RR

While I browsing through the D/L section I came across a couple of small mods that might or might not be of help with the Ship Maneuvering. Links are below. Like I said I don't know if they would help any with our project or not, just thought I'd bring them to your notice.

Webster's Ship Manuvering Fix for v1.4 and v1.5

Ships Acceleration Physics v0.2b