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

[SquareSteelBar]

Originally Posted by Stiebler

...I have now a completely functioning surrender mod (for the second time), this time based around the concept of:
1. Use Report Contacts button (reprogrammed) to notify an intention to abandon ship. SSB has given me a nice shiny new red Report Contacts button to adorn the radio controls.
2. Then send Radio Status Message to BdU. This brings up a dialog box informing the player that the boat is abandoned, and there are 10 minutes in which to self-sink (scuttle) the boat.
3. Then the black screen of death, modified to show how many crew survive and whether you are rescued by Allies or U-boat...

Excellent news, mate.

[h.sie]

@Silent_Ace: I had to read an earlier post of you 3 times to understand what you meant:

You wanted a fix that allows only TC=1?

[Silent Ace]

That's what I thought but I think is too radical a move that is not like most players.

[h.sie]

@Silent_Ace: Yes, too radical in my eyes.

Do it yourself: Look into Commands_en.cfg. There all user interaction command should be. Try to disable those for changing TC.

[SquareSteelBar]

Originally Posted by Silent Ace

What do you think of the idea that future patch out the possibility of accelerating the time during the game.

That can easily be done in ...data\Cfg\Main.cfg and My Documents\SH3\data\cfg\main.cfg -> change Maximum TC value to 1

[h.sie]

In my Assembler-Mod archive from earlier trials to mod buoyancy, I found an almost completed fix, which only needs testing and fine-adjusting:

It models water slowly leaking into the sub when in silent-running and thus pumps are not working. This is modelled by very slowly increasing the Sub's mass.

So if you order silent-running, in the first time nothing worse happens and all works well, but after some time the boat gets heavier and it's harder to maintain depth (Not implemented yet, but the LI could additionally inform you about that: "Cannot maintain depth - we must use the pumps" or similar - as in Aces of the Deep). So you have either to increase speed in order to get dynamic buoyancy or you have to stop silent-running. When silent-running is ended, the UBoats mass slowly decreases in order to model pumps pumping out the water.

This fix also models a negative overall-buoyanvy, so that GWX players will have negative buoyancy for very low speeds, similar to the NYGM Anti-Hummingbird-Mod.

I stopped working on this fix due to burn-out from modding some months ago, but it's almost done and needs testing and parameter fine-adjusting, especially:

* How fast does water flood into the boat?
* How fast do pumps pump it out?
* Shall the water flood in without any limit?

I will continue this fix after the wolfpacks, if I find some people willing to do some testing.

@Hitman: I know your suggestions were different a little bit, but positive buoyancy for low depths was hard and caused problems.

[Stiebler]

I have now released the patch-kit for this mod, see here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=184951

H.sie and I agreed that it was necessary to start a new thread to avoid confusion with all the wolf-packs discussion.

Stiebler.

[Hitman]

@Hitman: I know your suggestions were different a little bit, but positive buoyancy for low depths was hard and caused problems.

No problem, we just propose the ideal and most realistic thing and then it depends on your patience to do what you find best possible

[Hitman]

We were discussing this in another thread,

Another nice feature that sadly we have been unable to recreate is the depth charges unbalancing the sub and sending it into an uncontrolled dive or rise. Effectively, a sub hovering is in balance in the water, and as anyone who has been near a small ship knows, you can actually move it with a push of your hand, even it weigths a few tons. So imagine what a depth charge exploding and displacing tons of water over/under her keel can do ... there were instances recorded of subs whose tail or nose was hovered above the surface in 45º angle by a depth charge, and the sudden move of all things inside plus the extreme angle, can easily send it in uncontrolled dive.

and so the idea arose: Any chances of programming a random ocurency of depth charges exploding under or over the submarine at close distance unsettling it (Besides damaging)? Probably displacing the sub a random number of metres up or down at random would suffice to represent this. A UBoat could be blow to the surface as in real life

[SquareSteelBar]

Originally Posted by h.sie

I would like to know: Is there still anybody who wants but cannot use these patches, because either:

1) He/she fears to patch, maybe due to low computer skills, or

2) Has an incompatible sh3.exe version ??

Tell me. I'll try to find a solution

Just found an old backup of the starforce protected sh3.exe [v1.4b] which came with the UBI patch silent_hunter_3_dvd_1.4b_emea.exe. That's the official sh3.exe from June 14th, 2005, 03:05 PM.

Tried just for fun to patch it to v1.5G1 but no luck -> "Sorry, no compatible version of sh3.exe found"

Very weird....

MD5: 338fa5c2af43b81a8529eb6aac325813

@h.sie: I don't worry about this, it's just for your information.




.

[LGN1]

Originally Posted by h.sie

...

I stopped working on this fix due to burn-out from modding some months ago, but it's almost done and needs testing and parameter fine-adjusting, especially:

* How fast does water flood into the boat?
* How fast do pumps pump it out?
* Shall the water flood in without any limit?

I will continue this fix after the wolfpacks, if I find some people willing to do some testing.

Hi h.sie,

sounds great IIRC, in the original U-Boot Handbuch you can find data for the capacities of the pumps at different depths (L/min). The 'flooding' speed should also depend on the depth. I guess it will be hard to find any hard numbers on this because it probably differed a lot between different subs Isn't the last point solved by the fact that at some point you sink too quickly and get crushed

Anyway, as you can see I'm willing to help and test But I think wolfpacks are more important

Cheers, LGN1

[h.sie]

With Stieblers permission I show his PM in which he wrote some critical comments about my current work for wolfpacks. He didn't want to bring rain into the sunny discussion here about wolfpacks, but in my opinion, sceptic comments are also helpful and constructive.

Stiebler:

Great work, by the way, with what you have done so far with wolf-packs. But there could be alternatives, and I'm not sure what your end-point is:

If you just want to disrupt the defences, then Sergbuto's mod as in NYGM works perfectly.

If you want to see explosions in the convoy, the same mod works perfectly.

If you want to see AI U-boats closing on a convoy and sinking merchants, it might be easier just to move the U-boats as destroyers (as others have said), and randomly wreck merchant ships in the convoys by damaging them/reducing their hit-points. No need for torpedoes or aiming. I believe that that is how the old Aces of the Deep used to create the illusion of sophisticated wolf-pack attacks.

Or are you aiming to mimick the SH5 wolf-pack pattern, where groups of 3-4 U-boats sail into a convoy, fire torpedoes randomly at long range, and sail away again?

Something to think about, anyway.

[LGN1]

Well, I just can speak for myself, but for me the main purpose of the wolfpacks are to a) disrupt the escorts and b) to see an attacked convoy.

Now you might say, as Stiebler does, that the present wolfpacks do the job. I agree, but only partially. The main difference is that in h.sie's work YOU have an influence. It's no longer a matter of luck whether you get into contact with a convoy that has AI subs attached. Instead, your finding of the convoy matters.

At present there is absolutely no advantage (only disadvantage) in sending contact reports (in the middle of the Atlantic). But back then U-boats had to send them (not during the whole war). With h.sie's work you now have an incentive to shadow a convoy and send contact reports! It's no longer seeing a convoy and attacking it.

Instead you have to shadow it, figure out its main course (not easy if you use my zigzagging campaign layers), send a contact report, hope to get a positive reply from BDU... if not, continue shadowing, send another report, hope again,...maybe a positive reply. Now you can time your attack! But then how accurate was your course information? Will the AI sub find the convoy? ... for me this a completely different experience than attacking convoys with AI subs attached. Obviously, I have not yet done it, but I guess that it will be a tremendously satisfying feeling when I have brought an AI sub into contact with a convoy. Probably more satisfying than having sunk a ship.

Honestly, for me it's hard to understand how one can say that the present AI subs do a satisfactory job

Regards, LGN1

PS: Shadowing convoys and not being allowed to attack was a common fate back then. I can imagine well how frustrating this must have been sometimes for the crews. My hopes are that h.sie's work will introduce this aspect to SH3.

[Hitman]

If you want to see AI U-boats closing on a convoy and sinking merchants, it might be easier just to move the U-boats as destroyers (as others have said), and randomly wreck merchant ships in the convoys by damaging them/reducing their hit-points. No need for torpedoes or aiming. I believe that that is how the old Aces of the Deep used to create the illusion of sophisticated wolf-pack attacks.

Actually AOD simulated the torpedoes from the other UBoats. So much so, that you could even get hit by one of them! (As in real life, where there were some close calls)

Well, I just can speak for myself, but for me the main purpose of the wolfpacks are to a) disrupt the escorts and b) to see an attacked convoy.

Seeing an attacked convoy, i.e. enemy ships being hit by torpedoes was a rare occurence that mainly happened in the early war, when coonvoys and wolfpacks were smaller and operated close to england, in short ranges. For the wolfpacks formed after Drumbeat, 1942 onwards, convoys were huge and defences scattered, hence wolfpacks operated more by profitting from gaps opened than really converging for a simultaneous attack. It was rare then to see another uboat hit something, but it was not uncommon to find a gap left by two escorts that had fallen behind while holding down and depthcharging an uboat that had attacked 3-4 hours before.

[LGN1]

Hi Hitman,

I mean a convoy that has been attacked, e.g., burning ships,... I'm not interested to see the attack itself (although I guess it would be entertaining).

Cheers, LGN1