A Q or 2....

[Karl-Heinz Jaeger]

I remember a while ago during an interview with one or two of the Dev's woking on SHIV, it was asked were there any plans to release an SDK for SHIII at all. The answer came that, no there were no plans to do so, but they would make SHIV much easier to mod and tweak. How true is this with regard to how SHIII was and now how SHIV is?


Also on the same topic, if a SDK was released for SHIII, are there any limits to what could be added/changed? I am envisioning a fully 3D sub with all compartments added, interactive crew, dynamic weather, realistic AI, bigger and better graphics, a complete sound reworking etc. A true Rivetcounter's wet dream, if you will! How accurate would this vision be with our wonderful modders armed with an SDK?

(Might be the wrong forum for this, Mod's feel free to move this thread if so)

[DragonRR1]

I'm no expert but from what I've seen there's not much difference between SH3 moddability and SH4. I have seen a few members saying that SH4 devs had hardcoded a couple of things that were moddable with SH3.

An SDK would allow almost anything to be done.. AFAIK

[Karl-Heinz Jaeger]

Thanks for the info DragonRR1, I had wondered quite a bit about this. If this is the case then it seems there won't be an awful lot for our Modders to work with without an SDK for SHIV. Just another of Ubisoft's broken promises then. :x

[Chock]

With enough blood sweat and tears, you could pretty much mod anything, but then again, if you replaced enough parts on a Ford, you could turn it into a Ferrari.

With quite a bit of experience of the FS SDK, I can tell you that you are still very often stuck within that program's parameters for many things, although one thing an SDK does do, is standardise how stuff gets modded, and that allows a lot of mods to be made without conflicting against other ones.

An SH4 SDK would be great, as it would remove the need to second-guess how things have been done whilst having a Romanian phrase-book balanced on your knees. However, to relate it to FS' SDK again, sometimes the SDK gives you the tools, but fails in the documentation. And since SH4 doesn't even come with a comprehensive manual for even playing it, it's hard to imagine UBISOFT devoting time to writing a set of manuals for an SDK - something that maybe 1 in 20 buyers of SH4 would ever use.

There is also the possibility that the SH development tools that would be required for an SDK might not be something UBISOFT want to become available to the general public. As it might lead to people 'biting the hand that feeds it'.

Another issue is of course other software that you might need to do stuff. Working as I do within the software industry, I have to have a lot of those programs, and they are bloody expensive! 3DS Max cost me about 1,600 quid (upwards of 3,000 dollars) and Adobe Creative Suite (i.e. the suite of programs that includes Photoshop) cost me 800 quid (approx 1,600 dollars). It is likely that these were the tools used to create SH4, and they might have used custom-designed plug-ins too, which may not be UBISOFT's to release. That's just a guess, but it's a fair bet.

Shame really, but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an SH SDK!

[SteamWake]

Well if they aint going to make another patch they shure as hell should give us a SDK.