[WIP] Day of Infamy

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Hitman

If you link a sub hull to an invisible airplane but of course having the sub at sea level it should be able to move up and down on the water. Main problems are the inverted movement (Plane dives to attack and raises after and before the attack, the opposite of what the sub does) and that IIRC the planes have a minimum speed and below that they fall. But GWX did Gimps for SH3 that travel at slow speed, so there must be something around that solves the issue



Well if you could create an invisible torpedo boat that spawns the animation of a sub going to peri depth and raising the scope then shooting a torpedo at you and disappearing, that would already be something great. You would be able to simulate being detected by a submerged sub that stalks and shoots at you.


Anyway ... sorry for hijacking your thread Scurvy, maybe a moderator could split it?

No problems with hijacking here.

The discussion regarding making objects work in different ways to circumvent the limitations of the game are the kinds of things that "Work in Progress" threads should contain.

[Hitman]

Thxs Scurvy

Come to think of it, the idea of the invisible plane with a sub attached could work because it would travel at peri depth or surfaced, as if scanning the sea, and then dive when close to a target, going well below it and shooting. Of course that is not completely realistic, but since you would not see how deep it shoots, it would hardly matter.

The important thing is that you could eventually spawn one or several subs to attack your target with a radio message, simulating wolfpacks.

Again, an enemy sub can be simulated like this travelling surfaced and diving to attack you. By day you would detect him and dive to kill him, but at night it could eventually surprise and kill you by diving in the darkness and shooting at you. Not a bad option.

[CapnScurvy]

......the idea of the invisible plane with a sub attached could work because it would travel at peri depth or surfaced,

It would??

Hitman, I'm just thinking off the top of my head, BUT, wouldn't any plane coming into contact with the ocean (zero altitude) explode on contact? My experience with planes is that they can do several different flight patterns.....A Dive Bomber will travel at a set altitude, then dive onto a target, drop its bomb(s) then pull out and fly off. A Torpedo Plane will fly in low to the surface, drop its ordnance, pull up, and then fly off as well. In either case, if the plane hits the water for any reason.....the main reason being a degradation of the hit points assigned to the plane..... the plane loses altitude and breaks up at sea level.

So, how does a plane side step this programed effect?

[Hitman]

You mean that because of the sub hull being considered a part of the airplane the game would think it is hitting the water? Had not thought about it


Maybe the sub can be just a visual effect? You would not be able to destroy it then, however.

[Jeff-Groves]

Remove the waterinteraction controller in the sim.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

Remove the waterinteraction controller in the sim.

Ah Haaaa! Well that just might work. I wonder if removing the controller would have a problem with the unit_airplane object....meaning the game expects the airplane to have the waterinteraction controller enabled, or CTD. Worth looking into.

Thanks Jeff!!

[Jeff-Groves]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Ah Haaaa! Well that just might work. I wonder if removing the controller would have a problem with the unit_airplane object....meaning the game expects the airplane to have the waterinteraction controller enabled, or CTD. Worth looking into.

Game Engine does not expect the controller just because it's an airplane.
It will still fly as always. I've watched planes fly under water. Just not very well.

[Hitman]

It will still fly as always. I've watched planes fly under water. Just not very well.

Great to hear The fact it goes even lower (deeper for the visible sub hull) is not relevant for us except on coastal areas, where it will dissapear under the bottom (Unless the game considers the sea floor also as terrain and then it would hug it not going any deeper - which again would be great!)

[Hitman]

There's also this guy here who claims to have working submarines in SH3 that dive and shoot torpedoes. You could try talking with (Warning, he's chinese and barely can speak english) or directly take a look into his work:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=221933

[TorpX]

About AI sub depth:

Wouldn't it be just as good to have the subs stay at periscope depth? Perhaps the periscope could be made to lower periodically, or as part of reloading, or something. I don't see that it is too important if they cannot go deep, as they would only be attacking at p/s depth or surfaced.

[Jeff-Groves]

Originally Posted by TorpX

About AI sub depth:

Wouldn't it be just as good to have the subs stay at periscope depth? Perhaps the periscope could be made to lower periodically, or as part of reloading, or something. I don't see that it is too important if they cannot go deep, as they would only be attacking at p/s depth or surfaced.

You could create an animation of the scope going up and down and attach the visual node to it an see what happens.

[fitzcarraldo]

Love Kamikazes!!! I hope they will attack my sub and bang bang bang!!!

Very very promising. Waiting the definitive supermod for SH4, I think.

Many thanks and best regards!

Fitzcarraldo

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Fitzcarraldo

Love Kamikazes!!! I hope they will attack my sub and bang bang bang!!!

Hi Fitzcarraldo, yes they will attack your sub. Not all attempts will get a hit....some will be near misses. Depends on several factors. If your crew scored an AA hit, chances are the Kamikaze will miss its target. There's also a "random" chance of getting a miss. But, if one does hit you, you're done!

Something I've noticed about planes in general. If their equipped properly (have the correct ordinance yet to be delivered) they will single out a higher class of ship before attacking a lessor one. Meaning they will attack a BB before a CA, or a DD before attacking your sub.....even if your sub is clearly in the planes path. It must be a scripted thing to have planes do this.....much like the attack pattern of a Dive Bomber compared to a Torpedo Plane.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Yes, I've got plans to change the stock environment.

For instance, here's a stock image of a calm sea/clear sky (all images are about the same time of day, facing the same direction):




Just for comparison, TMO 2.5 (for some reason TMO starts the same mission an hour earlier ):





Something I've been playing with:





I don't know if I like the glare that much or not!? It only shows like this when looking in the direction of the sun. But then again, there should be glare when looking towad the sun!!

All of these images are from the U.S. Campaign first default mission (Dec. 9, 1941) from Pearl, with an "Out at Sea" starting position.

The following is an image of the stock game looking back toward shore......remember seeing a T3 Tanker sometimes anchored toward the shore line outside of Pearl? The tanker is centered in this non zoomed image:




Here's the same shot with TMO 2.5 (the T3 wasn't positioned on this mission ). However, notice TMO's scale of the same distance object's, the Ohau Islands size is quite smaller. OK, dont't strain your eyes trying to find the island....it's almost invisible except for the refelection:





With TMO (and the stock game for that matter), the Ohau Island is almost lost in the background. Only the reflection remains??
No way the island should not show, yet the reflection does!?!


Mine:





The T3 can be seen fairly clearly.....so is the Island.


Here's a zoomed binocular view of the T3 from TMO. The refelection tells you there's an island there:





Here's mine:





This isn't the interface I'm going to use....it's stock, I just used the stock interface because the "environment views" are the only thing I was working on in these images.

Still have some changes/tweaks planned, but you can see I've got something in mind.

Thanks for asking!

Hi; sorry again to interrupt but may I ask how you made the shoreline visible at greater distances? I tried to do this yesterday evening for "Wolves of the Kaiser" by adjusting the free camera in cameras.dat, but it didn't work...the shoreline is still only visible when you are about 5 miles away. Thanks a lot!

By the way, I already tried the "invisible plane" AI submarine trick in SH3 and it worked (see pic below, with my submarine next to an AI craft); no reason why it should not work in SH4. I planned to modify the GWX aircraft rockets to serve as torpedoes. I will be working on WWI AI U-Boats myself, so if I finish them before you I'd be happy to lend the files - you'd just have to replace the hull objects with World War II models.

How do i sink your ai sub?