[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[propbeanie]

I have gotten my SH4 installs re-done and working OK. I still have to do the finishing touches with MultiSH & JSGME on the 1.4 & 1.5 installs in order to get set-up for the FotRS installs, and then do the experimenting. Any special requests on the experimenting? Otherwise, I was just going to do more sound testing...

Rockin Robbins, I do like the idea of a numbering convention, aka: "nomenclature". No need for a "steering committee" though, right? Wouldn't want to make this too much like work. Otherwise, we're liable to end up with a safety committee, & who-knows-what-else... Just draft a few old heads from here and do it. You might start the numbering lower, like at 010 (zero-one-zero), and skip some series for possible future use. Just thinking, tho - one has to be careful of "zeroes" versus "Oh's" and "ones" versus small "Ell's". Wouldn't wanna confuse ole fahrtz like me too much...

[Rockin Robbins]

Just added two more active participants to the FOTRS Ultimate team, for a total of ten! Thanks to all who are working to make a very exciting mod.

[Rockin Robbins]

Tonight, I test out FOTRS 1.3 plus 2.0 sinking zones and sound with a raid on a Chinese harbor, something I never do. I want to see if we have go-cart DDs and how the sound works out. AAAAAAnd that hasn't worked out well. Shoved to tomorrow!

[propbeanie]

I've returned from the deep open seas North and East of the Phillipines in a homemade "Quick Mission". I used SH4 v1.4 with the full v2 FotRS mod, so that I could get a feel for what it is as-is. I do not remember much of my high skrul German, and I managed to hit a few buttons that a minimally competent skipper wouldn't dare get close to, but I did manage to stay beneath the waves at a safe depth for the most part...

and I found "The Sound"!!! Oh my gosh... I'm still hearing it... and I've been out from under the headphones for a while now. Very strange. The sound didn't start for me right away. I went below the thermal layer (about 208ft) for stealth, waited for the lead ship to pass over me, then came up to periscope depth and attacked. I shot 10 fishies at 3 targets, got two duds and one miss - about right for me on "Auto" - wounding all 3 targets I shot at. The FotRS v2 graphics are astounding compared to stock. The night is darker, the water is wetter, etc... Some of the explosion sequences do repeat, just like stock, but man, they sure are perty - and there's FIRE!!! It's when I went after the leftover Furutaka cruiser that I encountered the sound. I also discovered that the ship doesn't target well, just like it doesn't in stock. I hit it with ONE torpedo, out of about six tries... It "hopped" over some of my shots - it just had to have... I'll review the "save" footage later...

I'll try to do some captures from the saved game later. I also managed to record that sound, by using my ASIO audio app while the game played the WDM audio. I'll cut the parts we don't need, and post a link for it somewhere later. My guess is that it comes after using time compressions *and* having been deep - maybe...

I'm off to do the SH4 v1.5 FotRS Ultimate test next, using the same Single Mission. More later, if I don't get distracted by the game...


Edit: FotRS v2 parts in Silent Hunter v1.5 gets the same sound, only I got it to happen as soon as I came back up from down deep below the thermal layer, which in this case was approx 242 feet. I did not use the same Quick Mission, since I got in too much of a hurry, and forgot to copy the scenario over to the other SH4 folder before I started playing. The scenario might have a bearing on it. But still. Definitely audio, and tomorrow I'll start playing each audio file in the folders individually, since it's in the main audio and not a 3d sound, music, or sound effects. I'll post back if I find it. Maybe someone else has already found it?... Tomorrow, I'll do just some straight diving deep and coming back up, and also some surfaced time compression, and see if either one or the other or both have an influence on the behavior.

I got some "video" and screen captures, but they look awful, compared to the game itself. I'll have to have my 16 y.o. son show me how to do that stuff so it looks as good as possible... :wink:

[propbeanie]

I have not been able to find a specific file that makes "The Noise". I've been through a lot of the .wav & .ogg files and haven't found anything yet. Just a few suspects, but they really aren't close. Maybe there's something in a .dat file, or some other type of file that might be able to carry something audio... ?? Any ideas?

A few notes:

• Under stock, when using time compression, some of the background audio stops, and other sounds change above 4x. With the FOTRS stuff, full v2 or the Ultimate, there are still multiple "background" sounds playing as normally when doing 32x TC - is that part of the sound issue?
• There isn't any sound of the periscope motor going up or down.
• The Furutaka heavy cruiser is definitely sitting "shallow", at about 10 foot, and not 17 foot of draft, though it looks fine in the periscope, other than the targeting arrow being "high".
• In the full v2 in SH4 v1.4, the Recognition Manual is blocked by the dials, and the pages can't be turned. It was advised back when to use a higher screen resolution, but when that is used, the book just gets bigger too... Not an issue in the current proposed "Ultimate".
• The player's boat seems to be able to speed up and slow down too fast in the proposed "Ultimate" version. I hadn't paid too much attention to that in the full v2. Is it like that in stock also?
• There are no lifeboats... Must've gotten the whole crew with the torps, eh?...

I might have more later. I am going to have to load up something "normal" though, and get away from "The Sound" for a while, else the rest of my sanity will be gone...

[XTBilly]

Hehehe... "The sound"

I thought I was the only one hearing this. My own explanation is that "The Sound" has something to do with the creaking sounds. I seriously believe that: the program tries to play one of the creaking sounds, for some reason it is unable to complete it and restarts again & again, creating "The Sound".

"The Sound" is completely different from the ticking sounds reported by cdrsubron7. It's "The Sound" makes the game unplayable. The only solution I've found so far is to save and reload.

Thanks for reporting it Propbeanie! People started to look at me strangely.
Maybe an exorcist will help to get rid of it...

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by XTBilly

Thanks for reporting it Propbeanie! People started to look at me strangely.
Maybe an exorcist will help to get rid of it...

If people are just starting to look at you funny, Billy, consider you're self lucky. I've been getting strange looks for years.

BTW, how's work coming on your sinking model for the ships in FOTRS?

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by XTBilly

... Thanks for reporting it Propbeanie! People started to look at me strangely.
Maybe an exorcist will help to get rid of it...

I've started to look at *myself* funny... "what are you trying to *do*, drive yourself NUTZ?"... lol - it's a short drive, btw...

Anyway, I agree, and think it sounds like a file that's trying to play, but fails and keeps trying. I found the "tick" also, but it's NOTHING compared to "The Sound"... It's like the cook in The Hunt For Red October who's banging on the pipes in order to give up the sub's position... Only no one can find the guy... Some boats it seems to come on easier, but it might just be the situation at the time when it happens.

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

... BTW, how's work coming on your sinking model for the ships in FOTRS?

I haven't done any timing, or anything remotely close to "scientific", but the "sinking" model is definitely better in FOTRS, and it takes a few more torps to take the Ise BB and others of that ilk out. Usually (in stock), it only takes four torps, but for the most part (in "Ultimate"), at least six, sometimes seven, and once it took eight (my bad). I'm going to try a Yamato SM and see what it'll take. Destroyers most times take two, as do smaller merchants. It took me five into a troop transport last night. A loaded tanker still usually only takes one well-placed one. Can't imagine why... I have no idea how many hits it takes to take down a Furutaka. They're protected by magic, or something. I made a SM with a Furutaka "anchored", and shot torp after torp at it, one at a time, and found it to be at about 10 foot draft, but STILL had the occasional torp go under it still... weird. Never did sink it, and ran out of torps on my S12...

The graphics are awesome:




That's like after the eighth hit...

I especially love the smoke. There's 3 other shots I've got in the "root" of that photobucket directory where these are. I haven't used photobucket in a while, and they are def full of junk when you go to their page anymore. Be careful what you click on... I'm thinking about re-sizing these a bit smaller, and just attaching them here. Attempts at video of in-game stuff have been miserable looking so far, especially daylight scenes, though it looks great "live" while playing. I just don't know what I'm doing with game video capturing. I've got a 2nd computer with an ATI AIW that I'll try to set-up to play the "Ultimate" on, and I'll try that and upload to toobyu, IF I'm successful...

[XTBilly]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

If people are just starting to look at you funny, Billy, consider you're self lucky. I've been getting strange looks for years.

BTW, how's work coming on your sinking model for the ships in FOTRS?

Ahhhh... That's the side-effects of been depth charged too many times.

I was kidding myself thinking that I could achieve a serious damage/sinking model working only with the zones.cfg file. This method has been tried again by Ducimus, Bilge Rat and Maddy. The results were good, compared to stock arcade sinking ships, but this was not enough for me. Took me a lot of time to roughly understand how this file works. I did make some progress, good progress I could say, correcting some of the side-effects, achieved some of my goals. But my vision on how a ship takes damage and sinks cannot be achieved by the zones.cfg only. My modding skills are insignificant to try the method used by Observer and Werner Sobe. I have to work with the default ship compartments.

The \SEA folder is the key. That means making changes to all the ships.
And Maddy was generous enough to provide A LOT of ships!

But, in the \SEA folder I found treasure! I exploited it and it worked! It's an entirely new approach, never been used in SH4.

After that I had to revise a formula for altering ship hit points based on tonnage and armor. Everything worked as intended. After that, another formula to simulate the damage mechanics of individual ships. All of this was done to each and every ship. After serious testing, the formulas had to be altered again and again and again.... Each time changing ALL of the ships.

I've reached a point where all the work in the \SEA folder is complete. I'm now fine tuning the zones.cfg in order to get the desired results. But with the new damage system in effect, I had to unlearn the things I've previously learned on the zones.cfg. That's where I'm working now.

I don't like to say big words, but this model will change a lot the way ships are damaged and sink. You can forget sinking a BB with a torpedo at it's magazine. The ship will suffer, greatly, but it will not sink. It's up to the captain to finish it with 1-2 well placed torpedoes or 5-6 more. In fact, hitting the ship in wrong compartments may reverse the damage done previously.

I tried to exclude some arcade things in the damage model. This is a realism mod. Sometimes realism is achieved by extreme ways. The Yamato, for example, had 1500HP in stock. Now it has 7280HP! But a whole lot of mechanics working under it, to make it sink more realistically. But that's for all of you to decide.

I'm in a good way, I believe that v1.0 may be released for testing next week.
As a bonus, it includes some changes to ship acceleration. It's not perfect, but the ships do not accelerate like my Yamaha XJR1300 does!

Sorry for the long post,

Regards,
Billy.

[Wilcke]

Hello to all!

Just dropped by and saw all the activity. I see RR is at it again! FOTRS sounds great and it motivated me to re-install SH4 1.4 and SH4 1.5 again. If you guys need any help in testing things out I can run a few missions as I like to stay up late these days.

I know my sig is way outdated!

As always, regards!

Wilcke

[Rockin Robbins]

Awesome! Wilcke and I had a lot of fun testing RFB back in the day. I surely will hook you up with some crash testing just as soon as we get a couple of modules hooked up to the core mod. So far we have FOTRS 2 sound and sinking zones attached. Yes, we have a Natural Sinking Mechanics type sinking mod working in SH4 v1.5. This is a first after a nine year run with the game!

More to come. I want to get the 2.0 merchants in (because they don't have to be scripted) next and then do some severe testing.

[Wilcke]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Awesome! Wilcke and I had a lot of fun testing RFB back in the day. I surely will hook you up with some crash testing just as soon as we get a couple of modules hooked up to the core mod. So far we have FOTRS 2 sound and sinking zones attached. Yes, we have a Natural Sinking Mechanics type sinking mod working in SH4 v1.5. This is a first after a nine year run with the game!

More to come. I want to get the 2.0 merchants in (because they don't have to be scripted) next and then do some severe testing.

Super look forward to it!

[propbeanie]

For me, I want a sound when the scope is going up or down. At the other end of the audio spectrum, we NEED to calm the CREW down... Much too enthusiastic when you hit a target, or *anything* for that matter... Also, how can THEY tell that a torpedo detenoted just a pinch early, as opposed to a real hit? They sound the same to me, yet the crew is silent for the defect, and over-exuberant for the hit "We HIT her we HIT her we HIT her!!!" "Quiet!" and it goes on for *every* hit. Yikes! Give me "The Sound"! Please!

I did have a destroyer break in two tonight. I've never done that before. Don't know if it's the particular ship, or the fact that it got hit by three fishies. I'd made me a test SM with a dozen or so anchored ships ("Docked") - or so I thought... I missed "docking" a couple of the tin cans, and they came after me with a vengeance (that's fixed now, so I can concentrate on testing sinking), so I shot from about 900 yards at 'em both, and the one ran into one of the torps intended for the 2nd... The split hull was not very impressive though, just being a black blob inside the ships hull. The Yamato took 12 torps to go down, with one detonating too early (no cheers from the crew), several hundred feet from the hull. When she took the eleventh good hit (all magnetic underneath), she finally started fully burning, then the magazine blew, and she then went down fast. Very fast. All within a minute. Was barely listing prior to the eighth hit, no fire until then either. In fact, after six hits, I still couldn't "see" any damage. I've brought my second computer upstairs into the family room, so that the family can enjoy my company while I play... They've been wondering what sort of weirdness I'm up to with this...

I can't wait to try your new way Billy.

[XTBilly]

Hi team!

There's a new file named "Ship Movement" in the "Plugin Mods" folder in our shared Google Drive. JSGME ready, doesn't hurt to give it a try!! There's a readme file in it, of the ones that nobody reads!

Edit:
Since it is WIP and not actually a fully tested and working Plugin mod, I took the liberty and added a folder named "WIP" in our drive.
You can find the file in there.

Regards,
Billy.

[CapnScurvy]

There isn't any sound of the periscope motor going up or down.

I'll put a .wav file onto the Google site today to give you a fairly good Periscope motor sound.

Regarding "THE SOUND", I can tell you if a sound is too long in duration, it will have consequences. Is this what's making the issue? Whoever is looking into this, try substituting the stock sounds and see what you get.

The Furutaka heavy cruiser is definitely sitting "shallow", at about 10 foot, and not 17 foot of draft, though it looks fine in the periscope, other than the targeting arrow being "high".

I've not looked at any of the ships for displacement, but its usually there where a ship can be misaligned to the point of sinking in a future heavy sea, or capsizing due to the center of gravity being off. I've seen ships just start to rock, begining slowly then to the point of sinking in 5 mph winds.

Here's a Javelin Class that's in a mod I ran across:



The ship will get swamped with any wind at all. I doubt this ship will last 10 minutes after its spawned.

Here's how it should look:



This is one way modders have attempted to adjust the "jack rabbit" starts/stops of the ships......with mixed results. In my opinion its better to look at engine characteristics than messing around with how heavy the ship is.

=============

I want to give a "Shout Out" to an 'ole buddy.........Wilcke!!

Good to hear from you!!