[WIP] Wolves of the Kaiser:1914-1918 Mod

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

Ok fair enough. However don't forget none of them really worked against subs though. There's a reason mines(no matter how bad they were early war if it went off....) and depth charges stayed around and the others faded away. Though one can argue the "cruiser mines" were the precursors to the hedgehog and squid weapons of WW2.

Yes; these devices will be very poor weapons - in the picture I posted, you will notice how small the lethal radius for most of them is. For the most part, your odds of survival will be better in 1914-1916. As you WWI sub warfare fans know, most deaths in the Imperial Navy's submarines came in 1917-1918, when DC's were more common, acoustic detection was better, and after the British began mass producing copies of the German contact mine.

I am trying to think of ways to make warfare much more dangerous than it is in standard SH4 - there should be more aborted patrols, and plenty of mundane ways to die - after all, this was the case in real life:

-Your sub could suffer a catastrophic mechanical failure, because submarines were a new and hazardous technology (also to your benefit I want to have enemy ships straggle from convoys). I will try to see how mechanical failures were implemented in other mods.
-You could run into wrecks, shallows, etc b/c of bad navigation (easy to implement - just add collisionable static shipwreck/rock object locations to the SH4 map)
-Failing to navigate friendly minefields (easy to implement)
-Torpedoes can detonate prematurely, right after firing (not sure it can be done without eliminating the arming distance for the torpedo - I'll have to ponder that one).

If you can think of any other risks, people, feel free to contribute.

[Ludwig van Hursh]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Yes; these devices will be very poor weapons - in the picture I posted, you will notice how small the lethal radius for most of them is. For the most part, your odds of survival will be better in 1914-1916. As you WWI sub warfare fans know, most deaths in the Imperial Navy's submarines came in 1917-1918, when DC's were more common, acoustic detection was better, and after the British began mass producing copies of the German contact mine.

I am trying to think of ways to make warfare much more dangerous than it is in standard SH4 - there should be more aborted patrols, and plenty of mundane ways to die - after all, this was the case in real life:

-Your sub could suffer a catastrophic mechanical failure, because submarines were a new and hazardous technology (also to your benefit I want to have enemy ships straggle from convoys). I will try to see how mechanical failures were implemented in other mods.
-You could run into wrecks, shallows, etc b/c of bad navigation (easy to implement - just add collisionable static shipwreck/rock object locations to the SH4 map)
-Failing to navigate friendly minefields (easy to implement)
-Torpedoes can detonate prematurely, right after firing (not sure it can be done without eliminating the arming distance for the torpedo - I'll have to ponder that one).

If you can think of any other risks, people, feel free to contribute.

If their are random mechanical failures with the sub could there be the potential of being unable to reach base due to the random failure being a rudder or engine. So would it be possible to call a rescue ship of some kind?

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by Ludwig van Hursh

If their are random mechanical failures with the sub could there be the potential of being unable to reach base due to the random failure being a rudder or engine. So would it be possible to call a rescue ship of some kind?

Traveller in his mod figured how to do that. Also not the rudder please, if that gets broke it's impossible to make it back at all since you can't steer on one engine. That's why Trav made the rudder indestructible because of how unrealistic a game over it was. Also didn't sub crews in WW1 and 2 have the ability to turn off arming distance for emergency's? Anyways you should make it something like 10-15 feet so it doesn't explode in the tube.

[Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt]

An oter option of sinking of your submarine is that a friendly ship exchanges you for an enemy ship (some submarines of all parts were sunk or damaged by friendly ships);
An other is that your submarine can sink by the shell explosion of the ship just sunk, but is important that that your submarine is very near to the ship sunk(U-28 was sunk by shell explosion of the tanker Oliver Branch).

Being sunk from friendly fire randomly is afaik impossible ingame.being sunk from target explosion can be done adjusting the range and damage points from cricial parts of an exploding vessel

[avers]

hi IABL, near the end of WW1, there were mutinies on board a lot of German ships, are you gonna model these?

There were mutinies among the Hochseeflotte in its German bases. One could make that newspaper messages.afterall german capital ships remained mostly in port after Skagerrak

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by avers

hi IABL, near the end of WW1, there were mutinies on board a lot of German ships, are you gonna model these?

Yes actually! I plan to create a mutineer "nation" in the nationalities files to represent ships that fell under control of the Left Wing sailor's councils in 1918. They will be a potential threat to you in late 1918, but by that time the war will be almost over, and you will probably be ordered to sail to a British port for internment under the Royal Navy.


By the way I'm having a great time modding in new shore objects....more screenshots & video coming!!!

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Yes actually! I plan to create a mutineer "nation" in the nationalities files to represent ships that fell under control of the Left Wing sailor's councils in 1918. They will be a potential threat to you in late 1918, but by that time the war will be almost over, and you will probably be ordered to sail to a British port for internment under the Royal Navy.


By the way I'm having a great time modding in new shore objects....more screenshots & video coming!!!

Wait so have you given the game a last mission of sorts where you sail into Scapa under the British guns?

[Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt]

I know that some submarines had the order to quell the revolt (sinking mutineer ships) and other were interned in the neutral harbours (not RN or french).
Remember that there were 2 mutinies: one on february 1918 in Cattaro (Austria-Hungary) and an other on november 1918 in the german harbours (specially in Kiel)

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

Wait so have you given the game a last mission of sorts where you sail into Scapa under the British guns?

Not yet-vessel movements have not been done. Adding British warships to the game right now, and constantly tweaking the environment. After all, who wants to sink WWII cruisers in a WWI game. Armored Cruisers help put you in that WWI mood. Note the coal smoke, which makes the ship visible from a long distance. Found some errors in the modeling that are still being corrected but I just wanted to show it to you people - thank you so much for the views and support. I will be removing the WWII crew, with their strange clothing, and replacing them with WWI Royal Navy figures. Remember the boilers from earlier? This model has one inside, which I successfully added without flickering through the hull - actual 3d boilers, engine parts, etc will fall out if the ship explodes. I also have some ideas for ship crew damage modeling (which will be optional, if you find that sort of thing disturbing). Taking a look at the SH4 controllers, I think I can implement some ... interesting stuff. On another note, I managed to get submarine masts to fold down without affecting the periscope - by simply attaching a mast object to the Porpoise class diving plane...I didn't even have to add any animations. This simplifies things greatly because I do not have to replace a periscope (my original workaround).

[iambecomelife]

[QUOTE=iambecomelife;2345734]Not yet-vessel movements have not been done.

Adding British warships to the game right now, and constantly tweaking the environment. After all, who wants to sink WWII cruisers in a WWI game. Armored Cruisers help put you in that WWI mood. Note the coal smoke, which makes the ship visible from a long distance. Found some errors in the modeling that are still being corrected but I just wanted to show it to you people - thank you so much for the views and support.












I will be removing the WWII crew, with their strange clothing, and replacing them with WWI Royal Navy figures.

Remember the boilers from earlier? This model has one inside, which I successfully added without flickering through the hull - actual 3d boilers, engine parts, etc will fall out if the ship explodes.

On another note, I managed to get submarine masts to fold down without affecting the periscope - by simply attaching a mast object to the Porpoise class diving plane...I didn't even have to add any animations. This simplifies things greatly because I do not have to replace a periscope (my original workaround).

[CCIP]

Looking phenomenal as ever, IABL! I have a real soft spot for turn-of-the-century British armored cruisers - and considering the sheer number of them, built around a very similar overall layout, this is probably one of the most important models to have in the game. And I've always been a fan of your smoke

[Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt]

WOW!! wonderful

[Char]

Looking Good as Always man. My Levels of Hype for this mod are higher than I'd like to admit.