[WIP] The Offical Post of The Surface Warfare Super-Mod

[Fearless]

I think it has died.

[polyfiller]

Not wanting to raise false hopes or anything ... but Ivan has reached out to me and progress on this mod might well resume.

However - there will need to be a significant injection of contributors to make it happen ... what is really needed is input from folk who are prepared to model campaign missions.

I'm currently working out where I left off in terms of the mod, what worked, what didn't and what needs doing next ... but what I do know needs doing is Campaign building.

[jacobston]

I'd be willing to lend a hand if you need some help.

My best work is done doing textures, as well as 3d modeling to a lightly lesser extent.

When it comes to the technical stuff, I am less experienced (I am fairly new to modding SH4) but I pick up on that sort of thing relatively quickly.


It's good to hear there might just be a bit of life in the project, after all

[polyfiller]

OK, cool. We have some issues with textures on ships which we pulled in from SH3 originally - and getting the original textures properly converted with Bump maps an AO maps is a bit beyond me. lets wait and see if enough of a team forms to start work on this. If you want to build a test install for this mod, you need SH4 UBM 1.5 installed, plus Ops Monsoon 705, 705 to 720 update and 720 patch fix V5. The TSWSM installs over the top of that lot (and a most excellent starting point it is - OM is very well put together).

[jacobston]

Sounds good. I'll check my installation and mods to make sure everything is in order, though I believe it should be.

[polyfiller]

OK, further update. I've done more work this week;

1) Did some troubleshooting of the AA load-out on all British cruisers.
2) Created Career starting bases for British ships - Portsmouth, Scappa Flow, Londonderry, Loch Ewe, Freetown and Port Stanley.
3) Re-tested and refined patrol objective for 1940 start in Portsmouth - operation Dynamo ... you have to go to Dubnkirk, pick up troops from the sea (Lifeguard mission) and destroy Stukka's. Works nicely.
4) Started creating a career based on 1939 RN South Atlantic operations - enforcing blockade and the hunt for the Graf Spee. I have added Graf spee movements, some of the British Naval Force movements, and the battle of the river plate. I have ship movement sin place for Achilles, Exter, Ajax, Cumberland, Newptune (was on Patrol with Cumberland prior to reassignment), and a couple of DD's, and added merchant routes for all the merchants which met their fate at the hands of Graf Spee.
5) Started to create some patrol objectives for the above ... this is the tricky bit in my opinion.
6) I forgot - also re-tested the AI wolfpacks ... they still work, in an extreme test mission I got sunk in very short order by a pack of 7 submerged type VII's. IN another test I managed to sink two of them with DD's.... damn Fer was good (that's who got the torp launchers for AI and DC launchers working for player control).

Sooooo who is actively up for further Campaign development work ?

[Fearless]

What is needed, mod wise to make the campaign files working in this mega mod?

[merc4ulfate]

I was curious of any of these version were ever completed and if so do you have a download link for them?

[polyfiller]

Nothing available to download. I was playing with the idea some time ago with releasing a pack which basically had career starting points, but no real campaign, in the hope folk would be incentivised to then contribute to campaign building.... but TBH there's never really been enough help offered for that to be an option.

For campaigns I need folk who are prepared to model German merchant traffic, German surface raider traffic, U-Boat traffic (I think WDAD has some) and then put together appropriate missions, which involves both ideas and then putting them together, with objectives, units, messages, events, triggers etc. I can do all this stuff.... but I am only 1 and it will take me years on my own to do all that to even have one full campaign for one career start.

[GaetVa]

If you release it, pretty sure someone will do a campaign with it

[polyfiller]

Might get to that soon. Am currently building RN cruiser campaign based in South Atlantic in 1939 ... building up to the sinking of the Graf Spee.... it's actually quite difficult building anything interesting to do other than the engagement with the Graf Spee ... but I am trying... maybe simulating the mundane patrol, search, escort, find nothing etc... emulates the time spent playing as a sub and not finding anything for days on end.

Thankfully building campaign for North atlantics has many more interesting events to build in. The tricky part is maintaining balance (adding an extra cruiser or BB controlled by the human player to something like, say, the battle of Narvik represents very little challenge... so I'm gonna play around with non historical AI adversary injects to balance ... if I can).

Currently trying to get some middle ground in the outcome of the battle of the river plate ... I either manage to get the Graff Spee to muller all 3 cruisers, or the cruiser cause critical damage to graf spee. This stuff takes ages to test play and debug ... much more soo than just getting a ship to sink when torpedoed.

[FightingSteel1]

I wonder if a campaign really is the best use of this mod? To me, sets of historically based and hypothetical single missions would be a good idea, considering that surface ships typically either sat in port or went on very clearly defined/planned operations. Besides the surface raiders of the Kriegsmarine going out on patrols for weeks searching for convoys like a sub would, most ships had a very different role and career than say a U-Boat. I think single missions would be more than entertaining, and a "random" generator for head to head battles could be cool as well.

Off the top of my head, obviously the Hood/Prince vs Bismarck/Prinz would be a great mission, Scharnhorst/Gneisneau vs Renown, Convoy PQ12 operation, etc.

So, I assume that this mod still works as a singular ship for the player to control then, or is there control over multiple vessels? If it's just singular, is the AI good enough to tag along as other ships with you on a mission?

Another cool hypothetical mission would be a escorted convoy attack. Say you approach a convoy with the Bismarck or Admiral Hipper, etc. and have to fight the defenders before you can wreck the merchants, or you can play as the CA/BB defending the badly needed war material. On that front, has this mod eliminated the destroyers treating the players like a sub (ram time!), even in a surface ship?

Good to see some progress on this again.

[ivank]

lemons are great btw

[tomhugill]

Glad to see there has been some fairly recent life in the beast! Today if you're about I'd love to try a copy. I'm still on the same email.

[ivank]

yea would love to get a copy and see what I can do