Realism- and gameplay-related hardcode fixes for SH3.EXE - Page 21

CherryHarbey · 10-13-10, 02:27 PM

h.sie,
you talked me in to it, I'll give the patch kit a try next time I'm in port.

I guess without feedback on version C, D etc there may not be a version Z.
Version A is a great piece of work and for that alone I owe you the feedback on later versions.
many thanks,
CherryHarbey

LGN1 · 10-13-10, 03:07 PM

Hi h.sie,

here are some notes about diving procedures,...

http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTBNotesDiving.htm

I am a bit sceptical about your plan. If I understand it correctly, the main amount of compressed air was used when fully surfacing (modeled in SH3) and after ordering a crash dive (when the Untertriebszelle had to be emptied again). During diving the boat was always trimmed with a bit positive buoyancy (in order to keep this state you had to use compressed air when going deeper!). Some of these small changes could also be made by using pumps,... without compressed air. So, I don't know how you want to choose dCA. My feeling is that dCA was very small.

Cheers, LGN1

PS: I am wondering whether the Untertriebszelle (Quick diving tank) is simulated in SH3. My feeling is that yes and it is emptied in SH3 only when the boat is leveled out after a crash dive (it does not use compressed air, I think Edit: WRONG. It does!). If you interupt the sequence it is not emptied --> crash dive blues. I guess this is a true bug. So, it might be a good idea to reduce the CA whenever crash dive is ordered (and fix the crash dive blues

).

h.sie · 10-13-10, 03:56 PM

Hi LGN1,

Thank you for your effort in doing research. But now I am a little bit confused, because it's getting more and more complicated and even contradictorily and it seems that I first have to study uboat physics before starting to mod compressed air.

does anyone have historical data about how many CA is used for a depth change into surface direction? or in other words: how many depth changes were possible without surfacing and reloading CA? without that information it doesn't make sense to start to program.

and in the meantime I could look into the crash dive blues bug.

h.sie

Philipp_Thomsen · 10-13-10, 08:47 PM

Does anybody know if its possible for a submarine to stay afload and head home with one fully flooded compartment?

Probably depends on which compartment, I figure.

I think a small compartment, with fully charged batteries and compressed air, a sub can make back to surface?

The reason I ask is due to the possibility of change sh3.exe to do not display the death screen in case of a fully flooded compartment.

Rubini · 10-13-10, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

Does anybody know if its possible for a submarine to stay afload and head home with one fully flooded compartment?

Probably depends on which compartment, I figure.

I think a small compartment, with fully charged batteries and compressed air, a sub can make back to surface?

The reason I ask is due to the possibility of change sh3.exe to do not display the death screen in case of a fully flooded compartment.

Hi PT,

How are you mate?
Yes, that instant depth screen is another annoying immersion killer that perhaps h.sie could look at it too...in true a very important one if could be fixed!

LGN1 · 10-14-10, 02:08 PM

Hi,

I think the boat had only 3 compartments that could be flooded separately from the others. If one was flooded you could not surface anymore (just trying to escape from the boat if not too deep).

The whole idea of flooding in the single compartments in SH3 is not very realistic (the compartments in SH3 have not much in common with the compartments in real-life). So, fixing the 'instant-death' would not make it in any way more realistic, IMHO. Imagine the radio/hydrophone room flooded completely. How would you go to the bow?

A better solution probably would be that if the water reaches a certain level, water starts to flow to the next rooms,... At some point you have so much water that you cannot keep depth, you sink, and get crushed. The big question is whether this can be modded

Cheers, LGN1

Edit: With the tower and the control room flooded you could still surface in principle.

h.sie · 10-14-10, 03:34 PM

I have the same information: 3 separate sections, subdivided by 2 pressure-resistant bulkheads. pessimistic that the functionality LGN1 described above can be modelled without SDK. but I'll put it on the todo list for later times with hopefully more experience.

apropos experience: in the last days I got 2 requests from people who wanted information about the tools I use and how to do their own fixes in sh3.exe. somewhere I wrote that I'm a hobby programmer. that's true, but it's also part of my profession and the tools I use are not freely available. I needed five years of education to learn assembler and this cannot be compressed into an instant weekend crashcourse. so please don't be angry with me if I'm not cooperative in this matter.

regarding compressed air (CA): without historically based data it makes no sense for me to start programming. so I let CA untouched for some time until things become more clear -> put to todo list.

LGN1 · 10-14-10, 03:37 PM

Hi h.sie and all,

it seems that the usage of compressed air after ordering crash dive is actually modeled in SH3

It seems the devs included this!

Just dive and blow ballast so that your compressed air is reduced a bit (you have more than the dial shows. So, with a full compressed air tank you do not see if a small amount is used). Now when the dial is not max. order a crash dive and watch the compressed air dial. Close to the final depth, the dial moves

So, it seems the three main sources for compressed air usage are indeed modeled in SH3: blow ballast, complete surface, and after a crash dive

It seems the devs did things better than we (at least me) thought in the beginning

And the best thing: If you order a new depth before you level out, no compressed air is used, but you suffer from the crash dive blues in NYGM,...

It seems everything fits perfectly. Untertriebszelle is indeed modeled!

Cheers, LGN1

Rubini · 10-14-10, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LGN1

Hi h.sie and all,

it seems that the usage of compressed air after ordering crash dive is actually modeled in SH3

It seems the devs included this!

Just dive and blow ballast so that your compressed air is reduced a bit (you have more than the dial shows. So, with a full compressed air tank you do not see if a small amount is used). Now when the dial is not max. order a crash dive and watch the compressed air dial. Close to the final depth, the dial moves

So, it seems the three main sources for compressed air usage are indeed modeled in SH3: blow ballast, complete surface, and after a crash dive

It seems the devs did things better than we (at least me) thought in the beginning

And the best thing: If you order a new depth before you level out, no compressed air is used, but you suffer from the crash dive blues in NYGM,...

It seems everything fits perfectly. Untertriebszelle is indeed modeled!

Cheers, LGN1

That is good to know! i never noticed any of these behaviours (and neither pay full attention on the matter too). But some comments: the crash dive blues isn't present on stock sh3 or any other mod than NYGM and it's a colateral effect from the hummerbird mod, not a mod itself, almost a bug, so it can't count as a feature for all.

Also just left the CA as it is now isn't that good, this is why we bring this issue to the discussion.

I just want to reaffirm that something must be done to make CA issue more realistic and challenge (obviously if, in the end, h.sie yet have the time and motivation to make it

). Perhaps just making all the above more sensible, more visible to the player? Maybe if we make the dial shows correctly even any small CA consume since the begginning could be enough - as it is now, without eagle eyes on the matter, we can only notice CA variation when we order Blow ballast and nothing more...this is the true problem...

h.sie · 10-14-10, 05:22 PM

Hi Rubini,

the max. value in-game for CA is 205. In Dials.cfg for the CA gauge you have a max. value of 200. So values above 200 cannot be shown. Setting the max. value to 205 in Dials.cfg should do the job (not tested yet).

h.sie

Philipp_Thomsen · 10-14-10, 08:39 PM

I still keep hating the death screen.

I think that even if you are totally doomed, sub to the bottom of the sea, nothing else you can do, I would prefer to hit ESC and leave the game.

I find extremely distasteful that death screen popping up in my face when I still think there's hope.

Another issue is the death screen popping-up when you're away from computer or in high time-compression. You have no idea what happened, and theres no info on how did you die.

But seems like Im alone on this one...

10-14-10, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

But seems like Im alone on this one...

Not really.
There may be several options to improve/change things.

You started me looking at this issue long ago.
I have a few very informed thoughts now on this issue.

h.sie · 10-15-10, 01:23 AM

Hi PT,

Hitting the ESC-key is no step forward regarding realism, since real kaleuns also didn't have an ESC-key (forgive me, I couldn't resist). And: High Time-compression also is not realistic. So if you want realism, just don't use TC and so the sudden-death-screen-problem interconnected with high TC disappears. Or in other words: Why do you want the game to behave realistic if you don't operate it in an realistic way?

Why don't you see things positive: The feeling of frustration that you have when death screen is shown, could be seen as part of realism, because real kaleuns surely also were frustrated when things got out of their control, didn't behave as they wanted and death (screen) knocks at their door.

To be honest, even if I want to change the death screen problem: I simply do not know where to start and how to realise it with a simple fix and without re-writing the whole Uboat damage model. Of course it is possible to change the in-game condition when a Uboat is considered as lost. But one has to think about the consequences of such changes.

Imagine there is no death-screen when dieselengine room is floated: Then I would also have to prevent that crew can be moved through this room, e.g. from torpedoroom to communications room. The guys in the torpedoroom are locked.

And, as LGN1 already said: One single floated compartment is not realistic. There are only 3 sections in real Uboats (which are subdivided by 2 pressure-resistant bulkheads). So, in order to make things more realistic, I have also to model that water can flow from one compartment to an adjacant compartment, if there is no bulkhead between them.

And: what happens when you sit at the ground of the sea in 20m depth and the boat doesn't move up because of a completely floated compartment. In real life the crew would try to leave the boat using their tauchretters (oxygen supply that helps swimming to the surface), but this situation is not modelled in SH3. So I fear to open a can of worms when I begin to mod this.

I fear this problem can only be solved in a good way by completely re-writing the Uboat damage model.

Maybe someone now asks: Why doesn't he do that? My answer would be: Take the simple Windows game Minesweeper and try to mod it so that it gives you bonus points instead of penalty every time you hit a mine. Tying to realise that you will get an impression of what can be done in Assembler without SDK and what cannot be done.

@privateer: Although I am pessimistic regarding this topic, I am curious for your idea. Maybe there is a simple solution I didn't see!

h.sie

makman94 · 10-15-10, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by h.sie

Hi makman,

thank you for your words. for you and a few other people (me included) this might be true, but looking on the download counters for V15C (20 downloads) we are a minority. but I don't care about that. the intention of my work is not downloads or tribute (I am too old for that kind of intention), it's only to have a good game. and I would even continue if there were 1 download (initiated by myself).

By the way: I promised you a DIY for tweaking WP/WO range estimation.
I didn't forget that. Until the DIY is ready, contact me via PM regarding that.

h.sie

i know that you haven't forgot me H.Sie !
take your time....i am not in rush...i am also waiting with interest your next achievements

Bravo !

Volk2 · 10-15-10, 04:18 AM

Even some simple, dramatic picture of a sinking uboot would be better than this "game over" screen. Anything would be better. I also hate it.

In some older thread, Hans proposed a movie played instead of this death screen. If only you could tell sh3 to show on death some .tga or even better tga with a .bik in the background (like the game start-screen with periscope in tga and a movie in .bik) it would be great.

10-13-10, 03:07 PM	#302
LGN1 Ace of the Deep Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 1,138 Downloads: 147 Uploads: 12	Hi h.sie, here are some notes about diving procedures,... http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTBNotesDiving.htm I am a bit sceptical about your plan. If I understand it correctly, the main amount of compressed air was used when fully surfacing (modeled in SH3) and after ordering a crash dive (when the Untertriebszelle had to be emptied again). During diving the boat was always trimmed with a bit positive buoyancy (in order to keep this state you had to use compressed air when going deeper!). Some of these small changes could also be made by using pumps,... without compressed air. So, I don't know how you want to choose dCA. My feeling is that dCA was very small. Cheers, LGN1 PS: I am wondering whether the Untertriebszelle (Quick diving tank) is simulated in SH3. My feeling is that yes and it is emptied in SH3 only when the boat is leveled out after a crash dive (it does not use compressed air, I think Edit: WRONG. It does!). If you interupt the sequence it is not emptied --> crash dive blues. I guess this is a true bug. So, it might be a good idea to reduce the CA whenever crash dive is ordered (and fix the crash dive blues ). Last edited by LGN1; 10-14-10 at 03:40 PM.

10-13-10, 03:56 PM	#303
h.sie Admiral Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 2,192 Downloads: 131 Uploads: 0	Hi LGN1, Thank you for your effort in doing research. But now I am a little bit confused, because it's getting more and more complicated and even contradictorily and it seems that I first have to study uboat physics before starting to mod compressed air. does anyone have historical data about how many CA is used for a depth change into surface direction? or in other words: how many depth changes were possible without surfacing and reloading CA? without that information it doesn't make sense to start to program. and in the meantime I could look into the crash dive blues bug. h.sie __________________ My Mediafire page: http://www.mediafire.com/hsie Last edited by h.sie; 10-13-10 at 04:22 PM.

10-13-10, 08:47 PM	#304
Philipp_Thomsen Old Gang Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Drunk at the whorehouse Posts: 2,278 Downloads: 146 Uploads: 0	Does anybody know if its possible for a submarine to stay afload and head home with one fully flooded compartment? Probably depends on which compartment, I figure. I think a small compartment, with fully charged batteries and compressed air, a sub can make back to surface? The reason I ask is due to the possibility of change sh3.exe to do not display the death screen in case of a fully flooded compartment. __________________ To each his own

10-14-10, 02:08 PM	#306
LGN1 Ace of the Deep Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 1,138 Downloads: 147 Uploads: 12	Hi, I think the boat had only 3 compartments that could be flooded separately from the others. If one was flooded you could not surface anymore (just trying to escape from the boat if not too deep). The whole idea of flooding in the single compartments in SH3 is not very realistic (the compartments in SH3 have not much in common with the compartments in real-life). So, fixing the 'instant-death' would not make it in any way more realistic, IMHO. Imagine the radio/hydrophone room flooded completely. How would you go to the bow? A better solution probably would be that if the water reaches a certain level, water starts to flow to the next rooms,... At some point you have so much water that you cannot keep depth, you sink, and get crushed. The big question is whether this can be modded Cheers, LGN1 Edit: With the tower and the control room flooded you could still surface in principle. Last edited by LGN1; 10-14-10 at 03:38 PM.

10-14-10, 03:34 PM	#307
h.sie Admiral Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 2,192 Downloads: 131 Uploads: 0	I have the same information: 3 separate sections, subdivided by 2 pressure-resistant bulkheads. pessimistic that the functionality LGN1 described above can be modelled without SDK. but I'll put it on the todo list for later times with hopefully more experience. apropos experience: in the last days I got 2 requests from people who wanted information about the tools I use and how to do their own fixes in sh3.exe. somewhere I wrote that I'm a hobby programmer. that's true, but it's also part of my profession and the tools I use are not freely available. I needed five years of education to learn assembler and this cannot be compressed into an instant weekend crashcourse. so please don't be angry with me if I'm not cooperative in this matter. regarding compressed air (CA): without historically based data it makes no sense for me to start programming. so I let CA untouched for some time until things become more clear -> put to todo list. __________________ My Mediafire page: http://www.mediafire.com/hsie

10-13-10, 02:27 PM	#301
CherryHarbey Engineer Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Derby, UK Posts: 200 Downloads: 86 Uploads: 0	h.sie, you talked me in to it, I'll give the patch kit a try next time I'm in port. I guess without feedback on version C, D etc there may not be a version Z. Version A is a great piece of work and for that alone I owe you the feedback on later versions. many thanks, CherryHarbey

10-14-10, 03:37 PM	#308
LGN1 Ace of the Deep Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 1,138 Downloads: 147 Uploads: 12	Hi h.sie and all, it seems that the usage of compressed air after ordering crash dive is actually modeled in SH3 It seems the devs included this! Just dive and blow ballast so that your compressed air is reduced a bit (you have more than the dial shows. So, with a full compressed air tank you do not see if a small amount is used). Now when the dial is not max. order a crash dive and watch the compressed air dial. Close to the final depth, the dial moves So, it seems the three main sources for compressed air usage are indeed modeled in SH3: blow ballast, complete surface, and after a crash dive It seems the devs did things better than we (at least me) thought in the beginning And the best thing: If you order a new depth before you level out, no compressed air is used, but you suffer from the crash dive blues in NYGM,... It seems everything fits perfectly. Untertriebszelle is indeed modeled! Cheers, LGN1

10-14-10, 05:22 PM	#310
h.sie Admiral Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 2,192 Downloads: 131 Uploads: 0	Hi Rubini, the max. value in-game for CA is 205. In Dials.cfg for the CA gauge you have a max. value of 200. So values above 200 cannot be shown. Setting the max. value to 205 in Dials.cfg should do the job (not tested yet). h.sie __________________ My Mediafire page: http://www.mediafire.com/hsie

10-14-10, 08:39 PM	#311
Philipp_Thomsen Old Gang Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Drunk at the whorehouse Posts: 2,278 Downloads: 146 Uploads: 0	I still keep hating the death screen. I think that even if you are totally doomed, sub to the bottom of the sea, nothing else you can do, I would prefer to hit ESC and leave the game. I find extremely distasteful that death screen popping up in my face when I still think there's hope. Another issue is the death screen popping-up when you're away from computer or in high time-compression. You have no idea what happened, and theres no info on how did you die. But seems like Im alone on this one... __________________ To each his own

10-15-10, 01:23 AM	#313
h.sie Admiral Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 2,192 Downloads: 131 Uploads: 0	Hi PT, Hitting the ESC-key is no step forward regarding realism, since real kaleuns also didn't have an ESC-key (forgive me, I couldn't resist). And: High Time-compression also is not realistic. So if you want realism, just don't use TC and so the sudden-death-screen-problem interconnected with high TC disappears. Or in other words: Why do you want the game to behave realistic if you don't operate it in an realistic way? Why don't you see things positive: The feeling of frustration that you have when death screen is shown, could be seen as part of realism, because real kaleuns surely also were frustrated when things got out of their control, didn't behave as they wanted and death (screen) knocks at their door. To be honest, even if I want to change the death screen problem: I simply do not know where to start and how to realise it with a simple fix and without re-writing the whole Uboat damage model. Of course it is possible to change the in-game condition when a Uboat is considered as lost. But one has to think about the consequences of such changes. Imagine there is no death-screen when dieselengine room is floated: Then I would also have to prevent that crew can be moved through this room, e.g. from torpedoroom to communications room. The guys in the torpedoroom are locked. And, as LGN1 already said: One single floated compartment is not realistic. There are only 3 sections in real Uboats (which are subdivided by 2 pressure-resistant bulkheads). So, in order to make things more realistic, I have also to model that water can flow from one compartment to an adjacant compartment, if there is no bulkhead between them. And: what happens when you sit at the ground of the sea in 20m depth and the boat doesn't move up because of a completely floated compartment. In real life the crew would try to leave the boat using their tauchretters (oxygen supply that helps swimming to the surface), but this situation is not modelled in SH3. So I fear to open a can of worms when I begin to mod this. I fear this problem can only be solved in a good way by completely re-writing the Uboat damage model. Maybe someone now asks: Why doesn't he do that? My answer would be: Take the simple Windows game Minesweeper and try to mod it so that it gives you bonus points instead of penalty every time you hit a mine. Tying to realise that you will get an impression of what can be done in Assembler without SDK and what cannot be done. @privateer: Although I am pessimistic regarding this topic, I am curious for your idea. Maybe there is a simple solution I didn't see! h.sie __________________ My Mediafire page: http://www.mediafire.com/hsie Last edited by h.sie; 10-15-10 at 05:36 AM.

10-15-10, 04:18 AM	#315
Volk2 Medic Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 160 Downloads: 25 Uploads: 0	Even some simple, dramatic picture of a sinking uboot would be better than this "game over" screen. Anything would be better. I also hate it. In some older thread, Hans proposed a movie played instead of this death screen. If only you could tell sh3 to show on death some .tga or even better tga with a .bik in the background (like the game start-screen with periscope in tga and a movie in .bik) it would be great. __________________