[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[max-peck]

Right - I have done 149 put of 242 items
They are all the non patrol orders (ie: lifeguard, insertion, photo recon, or sink)

(I deleted a few that were just not relevant to the Pacific Theatre. I mean - how many times are we going to be asked to insert an SAS team to the Norwegian Coast to sabotage a German Heavy Water Plant??)

That leave me 93 to process
They are all the Patrol ones
But they are all ones that do not require JUST an objective change, they also require me to amend the MIS file as well, to add the Circle on the nav map

I am on it - may take me a few days though

At Props - rest assured, if I need help I will hit you up first

[cdrsubron7]

Once you've got them circled, the end is near. Old Indian saying.

[max-peck]

Rather interestingly - now I am getting into the patrol files- I am seeing some slight differences

Pour example -

This is the location of your patrol centre in the patrol CFG



However - this is the location of the Patrol Circle the same CFG on the nav map



Notice how they are so slightly out?

Probably by only a few seconds of Arc.
But different nethertheless.

I have checked about 10 files, and they are all the same so far

No Idea why Ducimus wanted to do this

But Ducimus never did anything without a reason

He probably found an anomaly or something, whereby if the co-ordinates of these two things were the same the Universe would end --- or something.

Long story short - I am still getting on with this, will just be looking out for Universe Ending Code Errors.

I put it here in case it helps future intrepid explorers.

Home in time for tea and medals

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

In case you've forgotten the object of this game, sir. The object you have to put the holes there yourself. You get nice shiny torpedoes with which to do this. Let me know how that works out for you?

As for giving away the objects of a top-secret mission you will be reduced in rank to bilge-scrubber. When you report for your duty shift, you will be given a brand new toothbrush, and a bucket of water.

Master has given Dobbie toiletries! I've graduated from Crash Test Dummy!!!
'

Originally Posted by max-peck

Rather interestingly - ...

Notice how they are so slightly out?

Probably by only a few seconds of Arc...

I wonder if it has anything to do with computer graphics and "square" pixels?? Perhaps CapnScurvy would know.

[propbeanie]

I'm turning in, but I've started four careers this evening, all in different boats, various dates, all from Pearl, and while the saves are relatively large in size (about 1 meg, more or less), all are the same, no matter the settings thus far. All play fine, all re-load fine. Took a new Balao out on Jan1, 1945... talk about radar contacts, oh my gosh! it's bad... You can't hardly get in or OUT of Pearl, Midway, and even Saipan, without getting 2500 "radar contact" reports... wow! I thought I had an irritating video, but alas, this thing will not record... I'll go for another re-install and try again. I found me two, count 'em, two sub chaser groups already... I didn't think too much of the first group I encountered in the South China sea, sinking two of the four, leaving the DE & Patrol boat, but then I ran into their buddies a couple hundreds miles up the road. I'm not sure how many of them there are... I saved and left 'em up top, still buzzin' around...

[propbeanie]

Couple of notes over the last couple of days:

1. I have encountered perhaps a few too many sub hunter groups, but I have no historical data from which to determine this. Just that I've now had three contacts in a row with ships that are hunter groups near the South China Sea, early 1945, so I would have thought that the USN surface fleet and air cover would have gotten some of that tamped down. I can't even get all the way into the South China Sea yet, still up near Taiwan, just off the Luzon strait a bit to the West. No merchant traffic yet, which is what I'm supposed to be after. I do have 3 DD to my name though...

2. Of these groups I've encountered, none of them have pinged me. They all seem to be "passive". However, the 2nd group was right on top of me for almost an hour, seemingly having me tagged. I was a bit below the thermal, and they were dropping depth charges, *WAY* deep below me though. I should have thought to time them... oh well... next time. Maybe - if I can remember. You'd hear a splash, then another, and another. Wait a while, even forget that you'd heard the splashes, and then "BOOM!" they'd go, one at a time. Only once did I get a report of "We're taking damage, sir!", and that was early in the process. I never did see anything on the damage control screen.

3. The "magic disappearing command bar" re-appeared last night - or would that be "disappeared"?... anyway, I'll have to edit me some pictures for CapnScurvy. That's what I was trying to record a movie for last night, but failed. When I re-loaded this morning, it was all normal. Perhaps it was hiding from the constant DD tag-a-longs dropping their cans. This is a "fresh" install, where I actually used the DVD disk and "re-installed" the whole app by deleting most of the original install, and then choosing "repair" in the Ubisoft utility, else it would do nothing to overwrite what I had...

4. I can't remember from my TMO days, nor from CapnScurvy's early SCAF / OTC days (and other mods), but didn't the Balao class boats have a gauge that went below 450 on the HUD? It shows 600 in the Control Room on the wall gauge, and it can be set there.

5. Along those lines, the boats no longer level off reliably near the "test" depth when you use "D" for dive. The depth actually varies. Is that somewhat dependent upon your crew's ability, or is it even there anymore in this v.1beta?

6. The last save I did, which is a "New Construction Balao" from San Francisco Bay Mare Island facility, was 342kb. This is by far, the smallest save in a Fleet Boat Career in FotRS Ultimate. Of course, there's only like 7 or 8 ships, and maybe a half dozen radar contacts encountered the whole first patrol out of Mare, but it's only one third as big as all the other saves I've done lately, and none of those are complete missions yet. Just more to track in the war zone ones than with the Mare Island one?

7. I've probably forgotten something, but oh well...

[max-peck]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

4. I can't remember from my TMO days, nor from CapnScurvy's early SCAF / OTC days (and other mods), but didn't the Balao class boats have a gauge that went below 450 on the HUD? It shows 600 in the Control Room on the wall gauge, and it can be set there.

I can answer this one by checking my TMO 2.5 Install

As far as I remember the HUD dial never changed to 600
The only way to set a depth deeper than that was to use the deep depth dial on the wall of the sub interior

EDIT have just loaded up TMO 2.5 and confirmed this

[cdrsubron7]

4. I can't remember from my TMO days, nor from CapnScurvy's early SCAF / OTC days (and other mods), but didn't the Balao class boats have a gauge that went below 450 on the HUD? It shows 600 in the Control Room on the wall gauge, and it can be set there.

Like max said, I can never remember the HUD dial going deeper than 450 ft.

[max-peck]

And checking the first of my patrol re-writes in the Mission Editor, I have just noticed something very interesting

I was double checking the objective list for the patrol in question, when I noticed an option to change 'Area Presence'

It has two choices - either Continuous, or Non Continuous

See screenies





Now - I have checked a selection of stock and TMO 2.5 patrol files, and they have all been set to continuous

Why does this matter you may ask?

Well - there is a certain behaviour in the stock game that aggravates the hell out of me

Say for example you are ordered to patrol a given area for five days. You spend 4 days dutifully patrolling but end up with Bupkis.
But on the fifth day you get a radio report of a sweet convoy or even just a single ship just outside your patrol area, so you go and investigate.
After the action you head back inside your patrol area.

Think you only have one more day to patrol this area before you can radio in to request a new patrol order?

Think again skipper. You left the area before we were done, so now the timer resets to zero, and you have to do 5 more days.
Unlucky Captain, maybe you should have ignored the contact if you wanted to be relocated.

This is especially aggravating as the stock game does not tell you the patrol area radius to start with. It could be as small as 50nm, as large as 200nm, or something in between

It has been this way since I started playing this game some 7 or 8 years ago - and I bloody hate it

Anyway I am willing to bet that there is a chance if I set the Area Presence parameter to non continuous it would count the total time spent in the area, thereby negating the problem.

One thing gives me pause before I do this

Both Ducimus and Lurker spent years editing campaign files
I absolutely cannot believe that neither of them saw this, nor decided to change it to see what would happen

So maybe the damn thing just does not work as advertised?

As we know the code we have been given from UBI is a bit of a mess, and there are things in there that do not seem to work as they logically should.

Personally I think the best course of action for me is as follows

I will continue to edit the mission briefings, and add in the nav map patrol circle where necessary

At this point I will leave the area presence as continuous, I will leave it as we have been given it. I am certain that this will not break stuff.

However after I finish the patrol objective editing, I think I will make an additional test addon (to overwrite what I am doing) with the area presence changed to non continuous, then maybe a few of us could test it to see if it works

But man - wouldn't it be cool if it did work?

Would fix something about the game that has been bugging the hell out of me for years

[max-peck]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

1. I have encountered perhaps a few too many sub hunter groups, but I have no historical data from which to determine this

Oh - and one more thing Props

I think this is a side effect of FOTRS being built upon TMO 1.7

I have already bored everyone to tears with my story of how I have been playing Trigger Maru since before it was overhauled (6 or 7 years ago)

But I do seem to remember the versions of TMO before 2.0, Ducimus seemed to have sub hunter groups absolutely every damn where, at every stage of the war.

I think even he decided it was a bit too much, so he then toned them down for later releases

Either we suck it up and put up with it, or we alter the campaign layers to change it.

Either way I think we would need some input from the other members of the team and RR before we did anything

PS - I can happily change the patrol orders, but know absolutely Bupkis about editing the campaign files. I would probably FUBAR something.

[max-peck]

Hey Props

I know you have been aching to help me out over the past few days

Can I just say I really appreciate that

I reckon I can get the patrol orders re-write done just fine. To be honest with you it I know in my head exactly what I need to do, and all the things I need to check whilst I am doing each one.
But when it comes to writing a procedure to follow exactly for every case, my mind just draws a blank.

To be honest I think it would just be easier for me to do it myself

No offence intended - and I really appreciate the offer of help

However - since you offered - I may have something I would like you to help me test.

Read my post just above about changing the Area Presence from Continuous to NonContinuous to understand what I am trying to do
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...postcount=1374


For this in order to test we would need to do the following

1 - Load up a new campaign
2 - Has it given you a patrol area order?
3 - If not - go to 1, back out to the main menu and start again
4 - You got given a patrol area order? Great. Please proceed to 6
5 - What happened to 5?
6 - Oh yeah - there it is
7 - Sail to the patrol zone
8 - Make a note of the date and time that you enter the patrol circle. We will need this later to check to see if my hunch is correct or incorrect
9 - Spend just enough time in the patrol circle to NOT complete the objective eg. If the order says spend 5 days there, spend 4-1/2 days there
10 - Move outside the patrol circle for a bit. It really doesn't matter how long for. It could be a few minutes, or a few days
11 - Spend some more time within the patrol circle.
12 - Does the patrol complete in the next 1/2 day or so?
13 - Congratulations. You have evidence to back up my hunch. Go straight to 16
14 - Or does the timer reset, and you have to do another 5 days to complete the patrol, as punishment for leaving the patrol area?
15 - Congratulations. You now have evidence that my hunch is incorrect. Please go to 16.
16 - Repeat several times to make sure this is not a fluke

Well - I guess I am not too bad at writing procedures after all

If you are still masochistic enough to want to help out on this please reply

I will be doing tests myself, but another set of eyes looking for errors is always appreciated

If you do not want to do this, and do not reply - I will at least have evidence that you are a sane individual

The regular patrol order re-write should be ready this weekend sometime

This optional extra that we are going to test? Early next week

[propbeanie]

Thanks for looking into #4 for me guys. I've probably got something else in my brain with that 600 foot figure... either that, or I am displacing it to the control room gauge... Maybe I did all my depth changes at that... Anyway, no matter. So long as it's somewhat consistent...

Someone somewhere a long long time ago... I think it was here... once mentioned that they had set their campaign layers to where if a patrol zone was for 48 hours or less, they had them set to continuous, and it stated so in the briefing, and if it was for a longer period of time, they used the NotContinuous, and it did work. I do not remember who did that... and I might be getting SHIII mixed-up into this. Anyway, they usually told in the briefing how big of an area to patrol, as opposed to the "stock" way of making you guess about just about everything. I didn't hardly mod at all after v1.5 came out, and you had to pay for it. I remember getting bothered by that, and then watching as the mods all updated to run in v1.5... so sad... I even went back to SHIII for a while.

The Hunter groups are fine, just that getting 3 in a row makes it grow old fast, especially when the Allies were landing on Mindora by the time my sub has reached the Strait. That version of TM would have been v1.7 right? I used it for a good while... 1.7 was for SH4 v1.4 correct, and 1.9 was for 1.5... ?? my SH history is getting weak and forgetful... :wink: I are old

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by max-peck

Oh - and one more thing Props

I think this is a side effect of FOTRS being built upon TMO 1.7

I have already bored everyone to tears with my story of how I have been playing Trigger Maru since before it was overhauled (6 or 7 years ago)

But I do seem to remember the versions of TMO before 2.0, Ducimus seemed to have sub hunter groups absolutely every damn where, at every stage of the war.

I think even he decided it was a bit too much, so he then toned them down for later releases

Either we suck it up and put up with it, or we alter the campaign layers to change it.

Either way I think we would need some input from the other members of the team and RR before we did anything

PS - I can happily change the patrol orders, but know absolutely Bupkis about editing the campaign files. I would probably FUBAR something.

The hunter killer groups seem very easy to avoid. sometimes when I'm looking for trouble I'll even say high to one of them. The DDs are pretty easy to sink when you get right down to it.

The thing I'd like to see either removed or toned way down is the aircraft over the US Sub Bases. They get down right annoying when leaving on a patrol. Ducimus took them out the game entirely. All they are is eye candy and nothing more.

[propbeanie]

No problemo max-peck, can-do. Are you wanting testing to commence immediately if not sooner, in what I have now? - Evidence of sanity? I'll have you know sir, there is none...

If there is a way to turn off the radar - completely - while in base, under the assumption that the CAP is your cover, that'd work - but I doubt that happens. I think we'll have to turn 'em off. Either that, or come up with a "stealth" plane... The eye candy you speak of cdrsubron7, most times isn't available to be "seen" anyway, even if you use the external camera and fly towards them... They're gone before you get there.

I'm wondering if those DD Hunter groups had active sonar, 'cause I didn't come across any between those 3 groups...
.

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

If there is a way to turn off the radar - completely - while in base, under the assumption that the CAP is your cover, that'd work - but I doubt that happens. I think we'll have to turn 'em off. Either that, or come up with a "stealth" plane... The eye candy you speak of cdrsubron7, most times isn't available to be "seen" anyway, even if you use the external camera and fly towards them... They're gone before you get there.

You can turn of the SJ Radar by using the R key, if you're using the TMO Key mod. I can see the planes very well thank you on the nav map when I'm leaving on patrol using TC and the planes are buzzing around like hornets.