[REL] A new set of campaign layers [Archive] - Page 3

LukeFF

08-21-07, 07:17 PM

But wait, there's more! Download the above file and get my Dynamic Mission mod free of charge. ;)

http://dodownload.filefront.com/8371801//bbe73eab7c2f39eae886b11ebe69ea8034faa04095439ded08 28f33aeef0e935637c506c47d150ce

Just some minor cleanup here of the briefings and mission objectives for sinking tankers and convoy escorts. The tonnage requirement for sinking tankers is now 1000 tons; this now allows the sinking of one small tanker to be sufficient enough to complete the mission. The sinking of convoy escorts has been dropped to 500 tons, since we now have minesweepers and other small vessels acting as convoy escorts.

sneekyzeke

08-21-07, 07:33 PM

Sorry to butt in guys, but is this for us mere mortals to install or is it just meant to be included in tater's mod?

LukeFF

08-21-07, 07:36 PM

Sorry to butt in guys, but is this for us mere mortals to install or is it just meant to be included in tater's mod?

It's for tater's mod, though you're free to add it in on your own.

tater

08-21-07, 09:29 PM

Thanks, LukeFF!

Thanks Digital_Trucker, too, he cloned an invisible sampan for me. Mwhahahaha.

tater

LukeFF

08-22-07, 12:20 AM

Thanks, LukeFF!

Not a problem!

It's my goal to eventually revamp all of the mission briefings, but I just started with the Sink objectives, since they have the most direct effect on the game.

tater

08-22-07, 12:46 AM

The patrol stuff is every bit as complicated as the missions themselves if you start going past vanilla missions.

tater

Digital_Trucker

08-22-07, 09:02 AM

Thanks Digital_Trucker, too, he cloned an invisible sampan for me. Mwhahahaha.
tater

Glad to help (now just have to make it work right :damn: )

LukeFF

08-23-07, 10:01 PM

Tater, one thing I've done is change the Akitsu Maru to a Type 100 (Replenishment) merchant ship and adjusted its appearance dates, since that's more in line with what it actually was (escort carrier? riiiiiiight). Now, how will this affect its appearance in your campaign layers? I can send you the relevant files if you want.

Secondly, is there a better class we can find for the Chitose? It really looks ridiculous seeing it listed as an escort carrier, when the model we have of it shows it as a seaplane tender. How likely is it to show up as it currently is now depicted?

tater

08-23-07, 10:09 PM

Not very likely. I used virtually no generic CV calls of any type. They are all named. The only CVE I ever use is Taiyo.

So it's not much of an issue.

If I was gonna change something now, I'd more likely "bungo pete-clone" it to type 100. That way the original would still exist just in case something got missed. Also, since I explicitly named all the Akitsus, I'd need to fine each one in the text file and change the type, otherwise the editor would CTD.

LukeFF

08-23-07, 11:53 PM

Alright, then, sounds like you have it under control. Back to putting it to Type 8.

tater

08-23-07, 11:55 PM

Well, on the CVs if I didn't I'd see loads of Taihos.

On the CVEs I never wanted to see Akitsu as a real CVE. Making it 100 isn't a bad idea, though...

tater

Laffertytig

08-24-07, 01:35 AM

is this mod compatible with TM or RFB? if not, what other mods are people using with this to enhance the game and increase realism?

sneekyzeke

08-24-07, 05:24 AM

is this mod compatible with TM or RFB? if not, what other mods are people using with this to enhance the game and increase realism?

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=219

1.5 changlog

Quote:

// replaced campaign files with taters latest campaign mod (0.75)

:up:

switch.dota

08-24-07, 09:34 AM

This is compatible with TM - just make sure the layers are isntalled last.

vindex

08-27-07, 01:47 PM

I notice this mod appears to affect some of the files modded by the Natural Sinking Mechanics mod. Is it possible to release a version that is compatible?

tater

08-27-07, 01:58 PM

That's news to me, I use NMS, lol.

NSM affects the 2 torpedo files in the Library, and zon files in Sea. It also changes zones.cfg and cargodef i think. My mod touches none of those.

tater

tater

08-27-07, 02:10 PM

BTW, I'm trying to get 0.77 out the door fairly soon.

Loads of TF changes (contents), and a new patrol objective or 2 to test.

One big change (that doesn't SEEM big, but is) is the parameter start dates for the missions. Each mission has a start date for the mission. It doesn't really matter what it is in some ways as long as the groups spawn after the mission start. Many default to 1940-01-01, for example. Doesn't matter, it might load in 1944, and it works fine. What DOES matter is that the cfg dates for the ships in the group are also defaulted. So it might be 1944, and you see a 1940 version of a DD. This is very frequently true in the stock layers! It's funny, late war the stock game has much of the AI set to "elite" when they might do better if they were driving the 1944 version of their DD instead of the 1940 version, lol.

I need to mess with the subhunters soon, all I really did so far was to dump the chinese river boats and add some corvettes, now I need to entirely redo them in zones based upon important ports.

tater

tater

08-27-07, 03:28 PM

Just added 4 new patrols to the Solomons, too. Time to give the Brisbane boats some lovin'.

tater

Wulfmann

08-27-07, 04:09 PM

Brisbane is certainly boring. heck, compared to the North Atlantic everything in the Pacific is dull.
I have made every escort or AS ship at least 3 crew rated with every 0 or 1 type 4 rated crews without exception. While this makes them deadly gunnery ships they still seem to lack depth charge skills.
The bloody Brits in SH3, now those lads can drop a can on a dime and choose left side or right at that.
Of course my TDC and hydro were more efficient in the Kriegsmarine as with the crappy Yank gear I might as well scuttle the boat on leaving port if I had to use this against the Tommies. Wouldn't matter for the possible harm it would do to the convoys and it would at least spare the crew from certain death.:yep: :yep: :yep:

However, it is beautiful with these new graphics and these lovely Jap ships. I am enjoying SH4, don't get me wrong. But, by comparison to the addictive fanatical can't wait to play sometimes all day into the night SH3 particularly with GWX (My extensive more difficult RND.mis file); SH4 is lucky to get two hours before the yawning overwhelms me and I have to save the game.

Wulfmann

tater

08-27-07, 04:25 PM

I, on the other hand, never even considered buying SH3, I have no desire to p[lay a u-boat. Doesn't matter how good it is, in fact, the more immersive, the less I'd care to play it.

The primary failing of the ubootwaffe was rating themselves too highly, IMO. No one could ever break the codes of supermen! No one could ever DF our uber communications! Our superhuman engineers had little success with radar, no lesser beings could do better! etc, ad nauseum. Those choices/attitudes cost them more boats than anything else I think.

<shrug>

sneekyzeke

08-27-07, 06:13 PM

I've always been a fan of the land campaigns in Europe and Asia, and the naval war in the Pacific. Dunno why. Tanks, probably. Japs didn't really care about 'em that much, but boy everybody else sure did!

Wulfmann

08-27-07, 07:56 PM

Well, history aside, personal opinions on the "real" war aside, the simple fact is SH3 starts easy gets harder then gets impossible. With GWX it was super although not accurate enough for my library toten ars so I added double to triple the escorts to really make it fun and like SH4 none were ever less than 3 crew rated in my Rnd.mis file.

You are comparing the nations,, the navies, perhaps the politics or nationalities and since my old man was at Pearl and my uncle on the USS Missouri it is not favoring the Kriegsmarine that gets me to say that stuff.
It is pure and simple game play, player experience.
I once spent all day into the night on 1x trying to avoid two escorts, a DE and a corvette. I would be at 2knts, listen as they circled, revved up their motors and made their runs, hit flank make my turn and this went on for 12 hours or so in actual time with DC always close and where I would have been not for correct evading action.
I did it right all that time then made one mistake and it was all over. What was annoying was I figured they would run out of DCes and they did as new units relieved them.
It was amazing like something out of a sub hunter book.
Some of my convoy attacks sounded like something out of one of the U-Boat Kaleun accounts.
It became so difficult after May of 43 I started my new careers in 43 because I was hooked on the high tension Uber action. In two years of almost daily play I completed one 1943 to end of war career.
If UBI made a SH4 NA add on that GreyWolves modded I am sure I would be "Sailing Against England" as fast as I could get it.
It is the quality of the play that I like, the flag means nothing in a game. Least not to me!

Wulfmann

SlimDuce

08-27-07, 08:21 PM

SH5 should let us fight for the IJN.:rock:

tater

08-27-07, 09:06 PM

No question the uphill (impossible) battle makes for better gameplay. To some extent this is true in the PTO, but not nearly to the etreme of the Atlantic (japs DO get radar, even on planes, and they get DC throwers (even if not in the stock game). They also start actually having convoys. Man, we need Matsu DEs and Kaiboukans...

On topic, I have tweaked layer contents (TFs) quite a bit.

I left a few groups with slightly more variability possible than was likely in RL, but there are less "Task Forces" and more "warships that started in the same place, that are going to the same place."

So I might have a group lead by a DD, with 3 more of that same DD type as likely escorts (say 80%x3), then the larger ships (all as 1 type pick) might be CL 50%, 2xCA@15%, 1xTaiyo@5%, 1xIse@5% and so on. I think I stuck to monotypes on the larger ships, but frankly I might have 2 types here and there later at such low %s becase actually seeing 2 at once would be quite unlikely, and in return we'd get variability.

It's a tough call.

I do plan more TROM based additions though, and as I add them for the BBs, for example, I can then delete that same BB anyplace else in the layer since we know where it is, lol. That's the ultimate goal. The wierd Ise group in 1943 I have is a real group (with a Fuso) straight from Ise's TROM. If I did for Hyuga during the same time interval, I could then use no other generic or Ise selections.

I think I will do that for Yamato and Musashi next. Totally TROM based.

tater

LukeFF

08-27-07, 09:56 PM

I do plan more TROM based additions though, and as I add them for the BBs, for example, I can then delete that same BB anyplace else in the layer since we know where it is, lol. That's the ultimate goal. The wierd Ise group in 1943 I have is a real group (with a Fuso) straight from Ise's TROM. If I did for Hyuga during the same time interval, I could then use no other generic or Ise selections.

I think I will do that for Yamato and Musashi next. Totally TROM based.

What? I thought the Japanese built an entire fleet of Yamatos! They should be everywhere!!!!!11111eleven ZOMG I want my t0nn@ge!

;)

Good to hear about the emphasis being placed on TROMs.

tater

08-27-07, 11:24 PM

This campaign started as a tweak to the stock campaign to reduce the tonnage, and make it a little more realistic.

My goal was always to replicate the TROMs, it's just not possible given limitations (ships splitting off TFs, etc).

I think a current work around will be to follow a few large warships TROM style, and leave the others to a vaguely historical format in the name of replay value.

Unless anyone has a better idea.

tater

LukeFF

08-28-07, 12:40 AM

I think a current work around will be to follow a few large warships TROM style, and leave the others to a vaguely historical format in the name of replay value.

Unless anyone has a better idea.

Nah, I think that's a pretty good approach. The BBs and CVs are the most "up front and visible" ones, so putting them in their respective TROM slots is a good approach. It's kind of like in the Atlantic - seeing a Bismarck Class BB roaming the North Atlantic after 1941 would be just wrong. ;)

Having cruisers fit in would be great as well, but if it means sacrificing the exact ships in order to maintain a proper task force size, then I say leave the CAs and CLs as generic entries with a high percentage of spawning, depending on class.

THE_MASK

08-28-07, 01:22 AM

Would it be possible to merge SH3 NYGM random and scripted campaign files to say one of the campaign layers in SH4 once all of the SH3 boats NYGM uses are converted by JMJOHNSON36 . This would add the atlantic and you could have the subs as british operating in this area . Just an idea .

LukeFF

08-28-07, 02:30 AM

switch.dota

08-28-07, 02:43 AM

Aight, bug report comign up: there's something in the feb 42 layer that spawns aircraft in the middle of the pacific, about halfway from Tokyo to Midway. Whatever it is, it's not moving very fast, if at all.

Tater, could I ask you to check it out? I've got all the details if you need anything else to norrow the search down.

EDIT: This was encoutnered in both TM 1.5 and TM 1.6.

sneekyzeke

08-28-07, 05:34 AM

tater

08-28-07, 08:01 AM

Well, I had nothing to do with the airfields in TM, that is leo's mod. I will look though. Sure it's not Wake?

tater

08-28-07, 08:20 AM

As for the Atlantic traffic, I don't have SH3, and I don't know how the map looks. I'm assuming it's identical by your post.

The reason the devs broke the game into time period chunks was presumably to ease campaign construction, and reduce load on player computer systems. I can;t speak to the latter, but it's certainly a good paradigm for writing a campaign.

Combining the traffic would actually be quite easy assuming that the sh3 mission files are compatible---and you had every single ship, plane, whatever explicitly mentioned in their campaign. A single rowboat called to appear once that was not in SH4 would CTD the game. All you'd need do is add the mission files to Campaign.cfg.

I'll leave that as an excercise for the Atlantic enthusiast. ;)

tater

ReallyDedPoet

08-28-07, 08:25 AM

tater

08-28-07, 08:39 AM

Not a lot of German traffic to sink, however.

BTW, did anyone see my post about possibly using Evarts (the US DE) as a stand-in for the kaibokan?

Similar size (evarts is too big), somewhat similar look, and Evarts has loads of W nodes for DC throwers. Evarts is slightly slower.

I could "bungo pete clone" her, easily replacing the US weapons with japanese ones---I know this because I already did it :D

I think I'd not have her appear at all until there were a few kaibokans around. While there were a few in August 1943, it wasn't really until the beginning of 1944 that there might have been enough to see them as often as you would pulled randomly. Course the same could be said of minsweepers or the ships she stands in for, lol. I could make her a "corvette" in which case she's simply randomly appear in current layers with MS and SC escorts. Alternately I could make her a frigate (none used in the IJN so far) and have more contol of kaibokans vs the other minor escorts.

I'm interested in feedback on this Evarts idea. I've never actually seen one in game, so it makes sense to me, course I'm also not used to being attacked by them in SH3 since I don't own SH3 ;)

switch.dota

08-28-07, 08:58 AM

Well, I had nothing to do with the airfields in TM, that is leo's mod. I will look though. Sure it's not Wake?
Positive, else I wouldn't be wasting your time. I'll provide a screenshot of it once I get home (exact date, coordinates and a 2000km circle) all in one shot.
Besides, Wake is to my SSE when I start gettign reports. Aircraft approact from the opposite direction. I don't think they are long range patrols on return to wake because I NEVER get contacts when I'm closer to Wake Island.

I've mentioned this issue before. Back then it was TM 1.5 and I tried trackign down the aircraft to the point where they would be showing up all over the place. Felt as if a TF was running laps around me - yet no sonar contact in crystal clear weather. Reminded me a lot of the Solmons during august 42 (43!?) and the Guadacanal air battles there (aircraft everywhere, some friendly soem japanese).

tater

08-28-07, 09:00 AM

Rgr, I'll look!

Was it a CV based plane like a val or kate, or something else?

tater

switch.dota

08-28-07, 09:06 AM

Never checked - I will when I get home. By the way:
- reduced range of long range patrol planes to 1000 km
That's from TM 1.6's changelog. I'm pretty sure Wake wasn't within 1000km of my position.

tater

08-28-07, 09:12 AM

I see nothing at all there. There is a 1% chance that a Wake resupply group might have a seaplane tender, lol. That's the only jap shipping there aside from midway. Forgot to check PH though (which is stock).

The only possibility is that the battle of midway stuff is loading early like it did in stock...

If it happens every time I can make 100% contact reports for the midway stuff and we can see if we can ID the group...

tater

switch.dota

08-28-07, 03:36 PM

Let's see what I can whip up...

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/4092/sh4img278200723222406lz1.jpg

Sorry for the low quality but it was fastest to use paint. That's the place of the FIRST contact. The SE on the plane's heading is about 120~140 true. This is only a small example.

Looking for a mod that either buffs AA Guns or makes airplanes useless so I can track them on the surface.

tater

08-28-07, 06:26 PM

I don't think plane headings mean anything, I think it's random. That's certainly within flying boat range of wake.

tater

tater

08-28-07, 06:30 PM

Regarding mixed BB groups. They happened. I'm working on a TROM based series of sorties for Yamato. In 1943 she sailed in a TF with Fuso and Nagato (among other smaller ships). So 1 BB div with 3 different BB classes. I'm sure there are more examples (so few BB sorties any one matters)

tater

switch.dota

08-29-07, 02:08 AM

I don't think plane headings mean anything, I think it's random. That's certainly within flying boat range of wake.

tater
Not when the max range is 1000km. That's about 1300km from Wake.

The plane's heading indicates where it's going. Long range patrols follow a triangle path with one tip on the airbase. About 300km closer to Japan from where that screenshot was taken, aircraft heading was 200~220 true. Tell me how that airplane originated from Wake. I made a small clip of the issue - I'll upload it to youtube when I get home.

tater

08-31-07, 04:41 PM

It's a stock SH4 problem. I can mod it out a couple ways, but it pretty much means nerfing the CV airgroups---which is realistic anyway.

OlegM

09-01-07, 10:58 PM

Love your mod tater, it's among only a handful of mods I use....

Last night I destroyed couple smaller merchants (1500 GRT variety) using my newly installed 40mm gun. Now is the 40mm gun damage bugged (too destructive) or was I just lucky to run into merchies laden with explosive cargo or something?

I know that in stock SH explosive cargo was extremely rare or non existent. I also know that I never even tried older 20mm AA gun on anything bigger than sampan - perhaps the result (spectacular explosion) would be the same if I used 20mm instead of 40mm?

So what in your opinion caused explosions and fast sinkings?

Of other mods, I use Real Fleet Boat 1.31. Other mods I use are sound and JPEG stuff that does not change core game files.

BTW any plans for 1.0 release? :ping:

tater

09-01-07, 11:14 PM

0.77 this weekend with fun stuff. Would've been today, but we got a horrible rain storm, and my downspout got clogged and... well, it backed up and made my %#$@%$#@^$%#^&%$#%^$@%#@%$!#$@ flat roof leak in my son's room. So I spent the afternoon taking the damn thing apart and cleaning it out while hoping it wouldn't rain agin.

1.0 is reserved for the first version I REALLY like ;)

I do add the odd AMMO for cargo. Probably only 10% of the total ships have ammo on the deck, or internally.

tater

tater

09-02-07, 10:05 AM

0.78 up on 1st post.

Check readme 1st post. The IJN radar fix and airbase mods are reccomended. The radar was supposed to be in there, but I forgot. Next version it'll be in.

tater

Seadogs

09-02-07, 10:08 AM

Thanks man, will try it out at next port. oooh Kaibokan, brings back memories of NES silent hunter(Correction: I guess that was Silent Service) goodness:up:

tater

09-02-07, 10:17 AM

The kaibokan is a "bungo pete-cloned" evarts with all the stuff changed to japanese versions. Speed is right, size is a hair big, but it works. Someday we'll have a real one, lol.

BTW, with the CV airgrups gutted (0.76+) and the airbase mod in (CV plane ranges dropped), the middle of the ocean weirdness with scripted groups that contain CVs should be nonexistant, or nearly so.

tater

tater

09-02-07, 11:43 AM

BTW, 0.78 will be out sooner rather than later.

I was testing 43 a little, and I realized I need to gut the US traffic for 43 as well.

The devs have US merchant traffic at WAKE in 1943. It drives through the Marshals to get their. It's absurd. Must remove it.

Ditto with US TFs.

I just fixed it, might update here in a few.

OlegM

09-02-07, 11:53 AM

Honestly I don't like the latest changes. Plus they're badly documented - I cannot understand half of notes for the last version (you mention some other mods I have no idea what they do or whether I want them). Instead of doing *another* supermod I think you'd do better to just stick with improving the campaign layers and nothing else.

Oh well, just my personal opinion, of course. I think I'll stay with 0.76.....

tater

09-02-07, 12:09 PM

They have all been talked about in this thread. The dynamic mission stuff is LukeFFs fix to reduce the tonnages required (plus type fixes) on the missions you get after a "deploy" objective. He talked about rewriting the patrol objective texts as well, if he does that I'll include that as well.

The new Yugumo DD is a radar capable Asashio (no other changes) to go with the IJN radar fix (which I made to remove the broken type13 AIR radar that detects submarines) since a few IJN DDs had surface search sets earlier in the war.

The bulk of the corrected ship eqp stuff was already in 0.76, I just didn't have a stand-alone mod, so I never named it before ;)

Airbase replacement is really a campaign thing, I might just lump it in next time, I like Leo's mod, but It's hard for me to alter, and the bases are in the wrong places at the wrong times.

The kaibokan... fills a desperately needed role that in RL was filled by the kaibokans and Matsu DEs.

The reality is that I really have no changes that don't directly interact with the campaign. AI levels in the campaign reflect the capabilities of the ships. If the ships have magic radar early war, that really alters how I need to think about how many escorts, and what skill levels. Any new stuff gets added to names.cfg, so i either add it or I have to make multiple mod versions.

tater

tater

09-02-07, 12:31 PM

0.78 posted with the US traffic changes.

tater

sneekyzeke

09-02-07, 01:19 PM

I for one appreciate your work and eagerly await new releases; they are a constant improvement to the game. Just my personal opinion, of course...

Digital_Trucker

09-02-07, 01:37 PM

I came back to say thanks after checking for any conflicts and installing the .77 version and there's already a .78. I'm getting slow in my old age:rotfl: Thanks and please don't release a .79 before I get .78 installed:rock:

I for one appreciate your work and eagerly await new releases; they are a constant improvement to the game. Just my personal opinion, of course...

yeah, what he said!

Jhereg

09-02-07, 02:13 PM

Thank you Tater, I appreciate your hard and undoubtedly tedious fixing of the campaign layers, can not wait for TROMs based BB's etc:up:

Edit: PS whats up with Poopyboy1 LOL!

tater

09-02-07, 04:04 PM

The mod suddenly got a hair biigger than 5MB and I had to use filefront. I have no idea why I created a "poopyboy" login, I use that as "blah blah blah" sometimes, heheh.

tater

tater

09-02-07, 04:12 PM

BTW, regarding my "supermod" joke (it was really meant as a joke), there are a few more things that will likely get added at some point, that go past bashing a couple ships. (I'm interested in knowing exactly what went too far for you, oleg)

The missions are an integral part of the campaign---or will be as I have more time to mess with them.

So some stuff strictly outside the campaign layers will have to be modded at some point if I am to add some of the campaign functionality I want. It's the nature of the beast.

For example, if I can figure out how to make a new torpedo, I'll be modding the torpedo files, then the ammo files since the whole idea for making a torpedo tube launched mine is to facilitate mine laying missions. In order to simulate the shortage of torpedos, I'm like to bump up the renown cost of mk10 and mk14 fish, leaving mines free. That's more than I'd like to have to do for a camapign, but thye patrol objectives do need a context.

Another example I can think of is this. If I can figure out how to make the deck crew vulnerable to 20mm fire, I would seriously think of adding it, but I would certainly reccomend it. Without that, adding various craft armed with 25mm is somewhat pointless, with it, I might be inclined to really populate the coastal areas more. That sort of thing. Ditto for getting planes without bombs to strafe.

Jhereg

09-02-07, 04:47 PM

ReallyDedPoet

09-02-07, 05:12 PM

Thanks for the new release tater :yep: :up:

RDP

Gunner

09-02-07, 06:14 PM

I agree it is ridiculous how your totally exposed deck crew can just sit there and never get hurt.

If this could be accomplished it would certainly increase the tension when on a surface engagement and require you to maneuver outside of small cannon fire range.:rock:

Not in my case, today I attacked a lone Medium European Composite Freighter, Was on the surface attacking at a 45 degree angle at 3300 yards he opend fire on me, hit me with first 3 shells putting 2 nice holes in my sugar boat, and killed both my deck gun crew. third shell took out a lot of my instruments. 3 direct hits, He must have had a 5" gun mounted, I want that jap gunner on my boat lol :arrgh!:

GT182

09-02-07, 07:00 PM

I want that jap gunner on my boat lol :arrgh!:

Be careful what you wish for. ;) Last I heard, Bernard is now Bernard-san. And the Japanese have trained him well with all deckgun types.

THE_MASK

09-02-07, 10:28 PM

Speaking of supermods , when are you taking over Trigger Maru Tater . :up:

Seadogs

09-02-07, 10:32 PM

Lol really, I know you or LV or both will eventually. Stop procratinating. ;)

LukeFF

09-03-07, 01:03 AM

Looks good, tater! I see you forgot to add the Type 13 radar fix to this new release, though. ;)

Will look at the Patrol briefings tonight. I need something to keep me up all night, since I need to sleep all day tomorrow in preparation for my work week (I work all nights, lol).

tater

09-03-07, 01:12 AM

Yeah, I did 0.78 super fast. I decided to test a trom time period I knew had traffic to see, and I got a zillion US TF contact reports, and they were in idiotic places. I was trying to avoid messing with the US stuff, but yeesh.

That had major hubs of activity on Wake (still held by the japs), Rabaul, etc. It was really goofy.

The TROM groups result in some substantial TFs driving around in 1943, and that's just for the TFs directly associated with Yamato, lol. I have Musashi in another file (not added yet). Shokaku/zuikaku will likely be next after I finish Musashi. Then back to some BBs.

Note that as i add these I also have to go back through and dump any conflicting occurences in other groups. Ie: if Shokaku and Zuikaku are together near Truk in October 1943, then they cannot be in any random group where they might be someplace else.

It's also interesting to see the arrangement of ships. There are more mixed groups than I would have imagined. Loads of mixed DDs, for example. Yamato sortied from Japan to Truk (or the other way around) with 3 DD escorts, each of a different class.

tater

vindex

09-03-07, 04:13 AM

I would love to see some of the additional ship types being released included in these campaign files (in moderation). Any chance of that? It's a little boring when every ship I encounter is Japanese, it would be good to have the occasional neutral/allied shipping, like Russians and South Americans, thrown at you to keep you on your toes.

I know there was at least one very controversial incident when a U.S. sub sank a marked Japanese hospital ship in heavy fog (although it was later proven that the ship was illegally carrying contraband war supplies, so the sub captain was rehabilitated).

tater

09-03-07, 09:16 AM

There were very few ships that an allied sub would see in the PTO other than japanese shipping. The campaign actually has some russian ships, but you have to be where you'd actually see them in RL ;)

I suppose some could be flagged as (ocupied) Siam, Viet Nam, and so forth.

What new ships are you talking about, BTW?

tater

WilhelmSchulz.

09-03-07, 09:29 AM

Would it be possible to give trafic to the Sea of Okhotsk?

tater

09-03-07, 09:55 AM

There's a little there, actually. Needs more possibly. What would typical routes for russian shipping be?

tater

WilhelmSchulz.

09-03-07, 11:01 AM

There's a little there, actually. Needs more possibly. What would typical routes for russian shipping be?

tater

Not quite shure but I know that they would sail from ports and refinerys in the Kamchatka to ports in the northern end of Sakhalin Island.

OlegM

09-03-07, 11:21 AM

What would US sub do in Sea of Okhotsk anyway?

However, there is little known fact that good part of Allied Lend Lease effort for USSR actually went through Vladivostok. It was transported accross Pacific in US freighters with Soviet flags. Japanese honored their "peace" agreement with Soviets and never interfered with this.

Don't know how could this be used in game, perhaps make some Soviet flagged US transports in northern lattitudes, so that sub skippers must be cautious not to sink a USSR-flagged American ship with American crew??

Quote: "American aid to the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945 amounted to 18 million tons of materiel at an overall cost of $10 billion ($120 billion modern) and 49 percent of it went through Vladivostok, the major Pacific port of Far Eastern Russia, Tuyll reported.

Vladivostok was a valuable port for this program because Russia’s northern ports of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk were attacked by Nazi Germany and many of the lend-lease shipments were lost.

In 1942-1944 the Soviet Union chartered about 120 American ships and 50 U.S. tankers, and to protect these vessels from attack by Japan in the wake of its December 1941 strafing of Pearl Harbor, American crews sailed under the Soviet hammer and sickle flag. When lend-lease shipments arrived at Vladivostok they were stored both in port terminals and in warehouses on Portovaya and Verkhne-Portovaya streets, then they were conveyed by train along the Trans-Siberian Railroad to points west. During the war the port of Vladivostok handled four times more cargo than Murmansk and Far Eastern railroad traffic was four times greater than the rest of nation."

More info:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=104291

tater

09-03-07, 11:33 AM

Cool!

Yeah, the point would be to be cautious. A few US subs sank russian ships by mistake. It's yet another case of where "supermod" and camapign somewhat interact. Desiging for a straight stock game, putting russian ships in is a total waste of time because people will instantly know if they are friend or foe. You really need a mod that forces you to look at the contacts.

I put a few in assuming that such a mod would be used at some point.

I really haven't done much with allied traffic aside from deletin much of it. It's amazing how goofy it is.

Jhereg

09-03-07, 11:36 AM

I was talking about small automatic guns below 30mm, that stuff just rains all over the boat and no one gets hurt.

Guess my deck crews all have Matrix talent :lol:

tater

09-03-07, 11:42 AM

Yeah, that's what I was talking about, too. 20/25mm (since we don't have machine guns). Getting sprayed with such fire should have a decent chance of wounding or killing the deck crew, and would do a great deal to mitigate silly surface actions.

It's not as immediate as having your crew get killed, but every single little hit like that DOES weaken your boat. If you get really lit up by 25mm, the first you may know of a problem is crushing trying to evade the next DD dropping ashcans on you.

tater

WilhelmSchulz.

09-03-07, 02:24 PM

tater

09-03-07, 03:34 PM

Doesn't it still ignore friendlies as contacts by the watch, though? Radar, etc?

I prefer something with a limited map contact reports on mode since 100% realism means having a crew, IMO. The captain shouldn;t have to do every single job (like plotting) for it to be 100% realistic. So I like TM's limited contact reports, for example. What I'd love is for the map to only update positions when I lock a target and take a range.

tedhealy

09-03-07, 06:26 PM

What would US sub do in Sea of Okhotsk anyway?

Fluckey went to Okhotsk on a patrol or two. I thought he sank some small stuff and otherwise ran into a lot of Russian traffic that wasn't easily identifiable as Russian.

LukeFF

09-03-07, 07:15 PM

Don't know how could this be used in game, perhaps make some Soviet flagged US transports in northern lattitudes, so that sub skippers must be cautious not to sink a USSR-flagged American ship with American crew??

It's simple enough to do. Just copy over the pertinent roster files to the Russia folder and you're good to go (some date adjustments might be necessary, though).

There is the issue, though, of the watch crew immediately ignoring friendly visual contacts.

LukeFF

09-03-07, 07:15 PM

BTW, tater, did you get my PM sent earlier today?

vindex

09-03-07, 09:08 PM

What new ships are you talking about, BTW?

The various ship-packs being released in other threads. My understanding is that if you add those mods, they're available but won't show up in the campaign unless you add them to the campaign files. I was hoping the new campaign files in this thread could make use of this resource.

My main thought was hospital ships, because I know the Japanese had a few and ID-ing them was an issue for US subs.

True, I tried to think of what kind of neutral shipping there might be and there wasn't much. Chinese junks? (as opposed to Japanese fishing vessels, which were used as pickets and were attacked). Vichy French? Russians?

During WWII, how prevalent was it for merchants vessels to fly under neutral flags of convenience? If they did, to what extent was it respected? If a South American freighter was heading to somewhere in Japanese-occupied Asia (say Hong Kong), did US subs try to sink it? Or did merchant fleets just stay away from the whole war zone entirely for four years?

tater

09-03-07, 09:34 PM

Good questions regarding neutrality, and I frankly do not know the answer. My gut says that they got little traffic from neutral carriers.

As for the ship packs, the only ships that are almost all specifically named are warships. The merchant traffic is almost all "GENERIC" so any merchant ship added with show up on its own.

The only exceptions are a handful of "fast" convoys I've selected with ships that can all make at least X knots. At some point I might make a few more of those, and some "medium" ones as well. The only possible problem might be a merchant class that cannot make 7-10 knots. While most merchant move slower than 10 in the camapign, I do have some make a "dash" at 10 in some places, and that might be an issue.

tater

Gunner

09-04-07, 12:02 AM

While most merchant move slower than 10 in the camapign, I do have some make a "dash" at 10 in some places, and that might be an issue.
tater

Ran into one of those fast convoys in Java Sea doing 10 knots, had a helluva time sett'n up for a shot cause my Sboat not as fast as the fleet boats :D I needed a kill to complete my objective.:arrgh!:

tater

09-04-07, 12:09 AM

FAST convoys might be doing 17-19 knots. Medium 13-15. The japanese actually subsidized merchant ship building with specific cruising speeds as part of the requirement in anticipation of the war.

The 10 knot dashes are just "fast" for generic convoys that might have some 10 knot max ships :D

BTW, I have some fun new mission types in the works... A couple might be very very rare, too, I will leave them as surprises.

tater

FIREWALL

09-04-07, 12:29 AM

THX TATER for you hard work that has made SH4 so much better. :up:

UBOAT234

09-04-07, 01:12 AM

Hi Tater,

The last is this?
Improved_Campaign_Layers_8.1

Many thanks

tater

09-04-07, 09:17 AM

No, it is 0.78. First post this thread.

leovampire

09-04-07, 04:05 PM

tryed to PM you in reply to the one you sent me but you are full!

Col1409

09-07-07, 05:56 AM

Hey tater love your work. Just got a small question any idea what I'd have to edit to be able to leave base and start from Midway the way you can in Ducimus' excellent work Trigger Maru? I've notied if you install this over the top of TM you start from pearl again.
Thanks in advance :P

OlegM

09-07-07, 07:36 AM

Something is wrong.

I am using RFB 1.31 + Campaign layers 0.76 (OK not the latest version but hear me out). My 40mm gun is T3h D3athZ0r. Any ship I use 40mm on, explodes in most spectacular fashion, breaking in two, even three sections, usually when I shoot crates on deck.

I try NOT to do that and sink ships with torpedos because I dig this realism stuff and all. But it's hard to resist the temptation to shoot 40mm once in a while and whenever I do that - ship explodes.

What gives? Certainly something is wrong. Too many cargos carry ammo?

Most of my partols lately are in Bismarck sea area, operating from Brisbane.

tater

09-07-07, 07:56 AM

OlegM

09-07-07, 08:01 AM

Dunno. Perhaps the reason the devs put no cargos in any ships at all in the stock game was that they didn't want to balance the damage done?

Interesting find, guess I never saw it because I don't enagage on the surface often (other than night torpedo attacks).

Well, why do I shoot ship's decks? In my experimentation with various versions, patches, mods and whatnot, there was one combo when shooting ship's decks made sense, because you could eliminate/destroy/kill deck guns or gun crews. Something would explode and the deck gun would stop shooting at me. That's how I got this habit. I love surface torpedo attacks, but lets be honest they are kinda b0rked in SH4 because destroyers see everything and even merchant crews see everything and shoot their tiny merchant guns at you from miles away. So you gotta eliminate them before doing anything on surface. But seeing whole **** break in three is kinda over the top :D

gg5056

09-07-07, 08:14 AM

With this new campaign, I found a Subnet in Marshall Island group
by an Island that start with a "K", the southern side.

tater

09-07-07, 10:13 AM

Kwajalein.

I used sub nets as reefs, so important Atolls have literally hundreds of miles of subnets.

As for the deck guns, dunno. I added cargos because the stock game has NO cargos at all. None. The % of ships with ammo varies, ships going TO the front are more likely to have ammo as cargo. Overall I bet it's maybe 10-15% of ships.

tater

tater

09-07-07, 10:46 AM

I've been busy this week with family in town, but things should be back to normal soon.

Thought I'd throw a WIP out there.

1. I am working on the end of war layers to get a 1st pass done on them. (right now they are stock, zig-zagged, with few other changes). One area that needs much work is the Sea of Japan. Early in the war, I left it largely "as is" since no one should be going there anyway. At the point the patrols in there start, I really need more accurate traffic. My plan is to make a new layer for it though, so once populated it will be there the whole war---stock has traffic head to singapore via the sea of japan from hokaido, I plan more back and forth to manchuria.

2. Once that is done, I'll feel comfortable working on the patrol objectives more. LukeFF is doing a bang up job with missions like the lifeguard missions, and I have discovered how to do some brand new, unseen before mission types (I think ;) ). This work will also include:

a. rewriting the briefing text to include more detail

b. including the patrol area radius (written as much as possible in plain english using landmarks) and time on patrol required.

c. attention to patrol area placement relative to traffic (early war this probably won't help much, they tended to put boats in very much the wrong places ;) )

3. Further TROM additions. As I add TROM-based groups, I change the stock random TFs. When all the BB groups are in, then there will be no BBs in the "stock" TFs any more. Ditto with CVs, etc. When done, the current random TFs will become more smaller ships (CAs or smaller) dashing about to mix things up a little.

4. Farther down will be redoing the scripted crap that is largely stock right now. Be aware that since the AI doesn't fight well, I'm likely to put the right ships in the right places, and blow off any "battles" like the stock game has. Seeing Trafalgar fought with ww2 naval ships isn't "cool" or "immersive" to me. If I have to put ships within 8km to fight them, I'll only have battles where the RL ships got that close.

tater

mrbeast

09-07-07, 11:18 AM

3. Further TROM additions. As I add TROM-based groups, I change the stock random TFs. When all the BB groups are in, then there will be no BBs in the "stock" TFs any more. Ditto with CVs, etc. When done, the current random TFs will become more smaller ships (CAs or smaller) dashing about to mix things up a little.

So does this mean that major IJN units will now only appear in scripted TFs that place them broadly in their historical locations at any one time eg: Hiei and Kirishima in the Solomons in November 42?

tater

09-07-07, 11:31 AM

In short, yes.

Right now I have Yamato and Musashi done. They leave ports when they left ports, they arrive more or less when they actually arrived. If they sortied to try and find US ships they thought were at Wake, they do so, along with the right CAs, DDs, etc that went with them. Later I will add them in at anchor when appropriate (ie: you might sneak into Truk to find Musashi at anchor like she should be).

I will try and do it by Classes. My plan was to do so for the BBs, and CVs. I've started on Zuikaku and Shokaku as well. Any smaller ships with them would obviously be included, and the other ships might remain more ahistorical in the name of variability and replay value. Part of the problem of course is that you can sink Yamato as she puts in to Truk, then sink Musashi as she leaves on the same patrol, then RTB, go on a new patrol, and see both of them again. There is no possible way around this in SH4 since there is no persistance, and no real "dyanamism" to the war.

tater

mrbeast

09-07-07, 12:02 PM

Sounds very intersting think this will give a greater sense of realism to the campaign. Its a real immersion killer when you see TF or a ship that patently shouldn't be there but the campaign layers allow it! The reincarnated ships problem is a shame but I think I'd rather have that than Yamato steaming round the Solomons or something equally silly. Besides I havent got close to seeing a BB let alone sinking one, think I've probably only ever seen a hand full of TFs while on a career patrol. Think in RL it was a one in a million chance to come across a major TF unless specifically ordered to intercept one or be on a patrol line.

I like the idea that they are out there, somewhere in the campaign, just perhaps not where you are!

tater

09-07-07, 12:21 PM

The current version includes the Yamato TROM as far as the end of 1943 or 44 (can't remember). Next version will have the rest of Yamato's TROM, plus Musashi and a few more.

What I had done with the previous versions that were merely "tweaked" was that I dumped the Yamato class from all groups until late 42, then it was only in maybe 1, then a couple in 43 and so forth.

Given the limitations of the game, it's probably best to only bother with TROM based stuff for major combatants.

mrbeast

09-07-07, 12:34 PM

Yeah think you'd probably go mad scripting every destroyer in the IJN! :o

tater

09-07-07, 12:38 PM

The bigger problem with that is that there is no way to attach and unattach units from a group. Doing smaller ships would require either MANY groups despawning at port, then respawning with new members, or making your own groups out of individual ships that happen to go the same way at the same speeds.

Major PITA.

There is one way I can make ships persistant for the duration of a patrol, but it's also quite difficult. Have groups steam into port, then "stop" for X days, then leave again, and so forth. I have many that do this, actually, but for TROM based stuff the timing is a nightmare.

LukeFF

09-07-07, 07:12 PM

I'm posting this here, since your PM box is full: ;)

http://dodownload.filefront.com/8502258//bbe73eab7c2f39eae886b11ebe69ea8034faa04095439ded08 28f33aeef0e935637c506c47d150ce

Shanghai lifeguard mission, B-29 coverage. I created a couple of random groups with different numbers, to spawn and de-spawn at different times. Please check it and see if I missed anything.

Minimum number to be rescued is set to 2, with standard renown bonus of 250.

Luke

Seadogs

09-07-07, 10:16 PM

Got a question on the "Random" ships. The other day I spotted a convoy that had 2 large tankers but was in a hopeless position for silent intercept. Not about to let these great targets go to waste I plotted there course and performed a huge end around. Next time I found them they were two small merchants :doh: . Does the game recalculate the random elements each time the targets are within "render" range?

tater

09-07-07, 10:37 PM

Seadogs

09-07-07, 10:49 PM

Good question. I have no idea, actually, but I would say no.

That said, tankers are not merchants, so a random tanker pull would always draw a small, medium, or large tanker, never a merchant. Also, the group leader is always 100% there, so if the 1st was 2xtanker, the 1 leader tanker would have to be there.

Must have been a different group, were they ever ut of spotting/radar range?

Qute possible it was a different group, I was in the straight between Borneo and Celebs, but it was spot on the track of my first. Yes I went far from the convoy on my end around as I was confident in my track.

Not a major issue but you should have seen the look on my face. At first it was pride and accomplishment as I regained contact on sonar just as I had predicted then :doh: . Drat!:rotfl:

switch.dota

09-08-07, 06:15 AM

Tater, got another airplane question: what's with all the air traffic between Midway and Pearl? I know it's supposed to be there realistically but it keeps dropping me out of TC on my way back... Would it be possible for one to disable it?

tater

09-08-07, 08:08 AM

jap air traffic, or US? I've not touched the US stuff at all.

mrbeast

09-08-07, 08:29 AM

I think some more US air traffic would be good. I've never seen a single US plane in a career patrol at all, ever! I must have logged a fair few hours on the game! Seen plenty of Jap air patrols, in fact every time I detect a plane on radar, and I'm in the right location, I go zooming off on external camera trying to see if it was US or Japanese but its always the latter. I suppose its possible the times I haven't gone looking it could have been a US plane but thats not many.

I don't think a deluge of allied air contacts would be good, but would be cool to see one once in a while.

tater

09-08-07, 08:37 AM

I've not seen air traffic between PH and midway, myself. There could possibly be some jap flying boats, but there shouldn't be many,

tater

razark

09-08-07, 10:20 AM

So does this mean that major IJN units will now only appear in scripted TFs that place them broadly in their historical locations at any one time eg: Hiei and Kirishima in the Solomons in November 42?
While I understand the desire for historical accuracy and admire the dedication to getting it done, I have to wonder at the style of play that could result.

"Let's see, it's <date>. If I go right here, I'll have a shot at <ship>. And then <ship2> will be right here the next day..."

I hope that some element of randomness could be kept.

tater

09-08-07, 11:26 AM

True. Course you'd have to bother to go look up the dates ;)

tater

OlegM

09-08-07, 12:59 PM

tater please keep things in this mod manageable. Call me paranoid but whenever there is a slowdown on the nav map I start thinking "oh that's because tater added tons of stuff, and he insists on 'keeping' the spawned groups for a loooongggg time" (you said that, once spawned, groups remain together for a substantial amout of time).

Please tell me you know what you're doing and that I have no reason being paranoid! :-? :D (OK this post is kinda stupid but I hope you catch the drift - too many modders simply don't know where to stop)

tater

09-08-07, 01:25 PM

Slowdowns on the nav map usually means traffic nearby.

As for knowing what we are doing, there is zero documentation of the way the game works. The game clearly had little testing, and little time applied to the campaign in the first place. The only way to know where the envelope is is to push the limits of what we can do, then back off if we bring it to its knees.

As for groups, it shouldn't matter. There are stock groups that steam all around the map taking many weeks to do so. Also, the amount of traffic generated by those groups is far higher in stock. I have a similar number of groups to the stock game, for example. The difference is that mine typically spawn a new instance every week to 10 days 35-65% of the time (some much less). The stock game spawns new groups 70% every 24 hours (sometimes every 2-3 days, never longer). So I have a tiny fraction of the traffic.

The biggest loading issue is likely the zig-zags since typical groups went from dozens of waypoints to thousands of waypoints. Not much we can do, the traffic is either zig-zagging and realistic, or straight, and unrealistic.

I'm gonna push it til I break something, then decide what to do, that's why this is beta ;)

tater

razark

09-08-07, 02:57 PM

True. Course you'd have to bother to go look up the dates ;)

tater

Or remember where you saw it in your last career. Knowing where a task force is and knowing exactly which capital ships would be in it.

Besides, doesn't everyone read patrol reports? Question: Are the large ships locations based on where the Japanese said they were, or where the sub captains reported them?

tater

09-08-07, 03:38 PM

The locations in game?

If I make a TROM based layer, it's where they were according to the japanese in RL.

Again, my plan is only to include major warships in this. Also, I can have multiple paths for them to take. The TROMs aren't more specific than (made up): Sept 27: Yamato leaves Truk for Yokosuka with Nagato, Takao, Atago, and 6 destoyers. Oct 4, Arrives Yokosuka.

So I can have pretty wide latitude and still be "TROM-based."

tater

switch.dota

09-08-07, 05:53 PM

jap air traffic, or US? I've not touched the US stuff at all.

US Traffic, of course. It kinda bothers me since I can't turn off my SD and I can't run sumberged for 1000 miles, therefore I spend the last 2-3 minutes of any patrol out of Pearl by tapping the numpad + to get TC going after an SD contact.

EDIT: This seems to occur after mid-42 - either that or I didn't notice it before.

EDIT #2: In case it wasn't clear in my previous post (I'm rather notorious for ommitting key details :oops: ), I'm talking about US air traffic directly inbetween Midway and Pearl.

tater

09-08-07, 05:57 PM

Ah, well, there are US airbases, it would be easy enough to mess with them. I could also shorten the range of US CV based planes like I did for the IJN to more properly represent CAP aircraft staying close to their charges. CV air groups could also be reduced.

Regarding TROM groups:

The initial Yamato test is in there now, but I can easily alter them. By adding a couple alternate routes, the chances you would see them anyplace but the endpoints would be reduced. I'll mess with that moving forward to add some variability while staying withn the historical context. I defaulted to my usual way of using random groups as scripted groups, I made them spawn 100% every hour, with only 1 instance allowed. I can also make the 100% every X hours, or even 50% every X hours and create a fairly wide time interval when they might be seen. I think I will tweak those for the next version to make sure they aren't always putting in at the Bungo Suido at dawn every time. I can also mss with the number of skipped zig-zags, add some straight dashes with radiused endpoints, etc.

tater

switch.dota

09-08-07, 05:58 PM

I like firendly planes :P I just don't want to be dropped out of TC when I'm home free with no threats ever from 41 to 45.

mrbeast

09-08-07, 06:02 PM

My current career is USS Triton out of Pearl, mid 42 (well more towards late 42 now) and I havent seen hide nor hair of any allied air traffic between Pearl and Midway. Either on the way out or back. I'm using Taters latest campaign layers version 0.78.

tater

09-08-07, 06:08 PM

You know, it could very well be a CV TF. There are some that putter around out there, and they have large, radiused waypoints, and a random % of spawning. It might be you got a game where they are out there making planes. I have messed with US traffic (hugely reducing it to places like midway, through japanese held islands, etc). It could be that.

It could also be phantom traffic from the Battle of Midway. It was discovered that scripted groups spawn their aircraft even before they appear on the map, and a US CV force spawns in just NW of Hawaii, I think. You'd see that starting patrols after Feb 1st. (odd, since I've NEVER see randomly generated allied aircraft in game, not one).

tater

OmegaMan

09-13-07, 09:42 AM

Hello Tater. Sorry for my bad english.
I have an "issue" with your last work: the campaign layers version 0.78
The problem is the repeat patrol zone. Five patrols and always the patrol zone is Caroline Islands.
I use the TM 1.6, but your work is enabled the last in order to update the apropiate files.
Some idea?
Thanks in advance.

tater

09-13-07, 09:50 AM

Doh!

I think I might know what is going on. I was actually testing those missions and I might have zipped up my test version of the patrol objectives that forces that.

I have been having soem JSGME issues, uninstalled some stuff by accident with the game running (it dropped itself to the task bar when I left it cruising in real time one night, and I simply didn;t notice it was running!). I might need to reinstall SH4 to clean it out :/

I'll see about fixing that ASAP!

tater

OmegaMan

09-13-07, 10:27 AM

No problem.
I will wait your update.
Very, very thanks. :up:
Regards.
Omega out.

dean_acheson

09-13-07, 12:52 PM

tater, thanks for all of your work on this.

FAdmiral

09-13-07, 02:16 PM

I will run no campaign before its time (Revised Campaign Layers, ver. 1.0)

JIM

tater

09-13-07, 03:51 PM

I checked, and the flotillas file looks fine. Perhaps you have the repaeting mission bug---is it always the same patrol, or different patrols in the Carolines?

What port (PH, I assume), what date, what type of boat was it?

tater

OmegaMan

09-13-07, 04:34 PM

Well, this is the problem:
I start a career in Pearl in January 24th 1942. I choose a Gar class.
Patrol #1= Patrol Honshu.
Patrol #2= Patrol Honshu (but different zone)
Patrol #3= Patrol Truk
When I return to Pearl, approximately June 25th 1942, the command offers to me a new Sub: a Gato class. I say yes and choose the new command.
Patrol #4= Deploy to Carolines Is. (All patrol objectives OK)
Patrol #5= Deploy to Carolines Is. (All patrol objectives OK)
Patrol #6= Deploy to Carolines Is. (All patrol objectives OK)
Patrol #7= Deploy to Carolines Is. (Return to base without obtaining patrol objetives. Patrol abort)
Patrol #8= Deploy to Carolines Is. (Same result that Patrol #7)
End of play.
The problem begins in June 1942 until October 1942, when I choose the Gato class.
I do not know that happens.
Help, please. :oops:

tater

09-13-07, 04:36 PM

That helps a lot. I will look some more!

We have:

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 1] ; Gato
ID= PH4Obj1
NameDisplayable= East China Sea
AvailabilityInterval=1942-01-01, NULL
ObjectiveCode= East China Sea

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 2]
ID= PH4Obj2
NameDisplayable= Marshalls patrols
AvailabilityInterval=NULL, 1944-04-01
ObjectiveCode= Marshall Islands

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 3]
ID= PH4Obj3
NameDisplayable= Empire Waters
AvailabilityInterval=NULL, NULL
ObjectiveCode= Honshu

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 4]
ID= PH4Obj4
NameDisplayable= Empire Waters
AvailabilityInterval=NULL, NULL
ObjectiveCode= Hokkaido

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 5]
ID= PH4Obj5
NameDisplayable= Caroline Islands
AvailabilityInterval=1942-01-01, NULL
ObjectiveCode= Caroline Islands

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 6]
ID= PH4Obj6
NameDisplayable= Mariana Islands
AvailabilityInterval=1942-04-01, 1944-04-01
ObjectiveCode= Mariana Islands

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 7]
ID= PH4Obj7
NameDisplayable= Palau Island
AvailabilityInterval=1943-01-01, 1944-04-01
ObjectiveCode= Palau Island

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 8]
ID= PH4Obj8
NameDisplayable= Luzon Strait
AvailabilityInterval=1944-01-01, NULL
ObjectiveCode= Luzon Strait

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 4.Objective 9]
ID= PH4Obj9
NameDisplayable= Patrols in the Sea Of Japan
AvailabilityInterval=1944-11-01, NULL
ObjectiveCode= Sea of Japan

The last 3 are the only ones that won't load in mid 1942. I'm not seeing anything wrong. I guess I should try it, but it might very well be the dreaded repeat mission bug. The Carolines patrol, is it always the same patrol, there are several different patrol locations?

tater

OmegaMan

09-13-07, 04:49 PM

Thanks to help me in my problem.
I am very thanked for you.
Very good work :up:

OmegaMan

09-13-07, 04:53 PM

It is always the same patrol type and the same patrol location. :hmm:

tater

09-13-07, 04:56 PM

Looks like it might be the bloody repeat mission bug that's even in the stock game. The fix that ducimus did for TM avoids it for the most part I believe.

I have a feeling that there is something in the DynamicMiss.cfg stuff that precipitates this, but I just don't understand what's going on. I wish there was a FAQ on how that files works.

tater

OmegaMan

09-13-07, 05:03 PM

Errrrr.... and to combine the Ducimus's PatrolObjectives.cfg and flotillas.UPC files with your files?

tater

09-13-07, 05:25 PM

I need to have a new look at what he did. I looked when it was in progress, but I don;t remember off hand. It's not impossible, but he might have created some new general objectives (the stuff in "AllMatch=").

I had thought abotu adopting a version of his at some point, particularly since in a more realistic campaign, the number of possible general mission areas would be far less than what we see now. More than 50% of US patrols in 1942 were to blocade Truk, for example. I think in 1943 it was still over 1/3.

Hmmm.

OmegaMan

09-13-07, 05:46 PM

I have been watching the Ducimus's Flotillas.UPC file of TM 1.5 and he adds dates (begin- end) to the item "AvailabilityInterval"........

tater

09-13-07, 06:07 PM

Yeah, what he does is to make only a couple choices (each choice contains several possible sub-missions) for any given time interval. The NULL values shown in the above piece of the file I use (which is from Beery's RFB) mean "any time." So NULL, NULL means the mission is always available, and 1943-01-01, NULL means from the start of '43 to infinite time.

This damn issue has been cropping up from the start (stock and mods).

OmegaMan

09-13-07, 06:52 PM

Grrrrrrrrr :down:

I hope you find a fix or a workaround for this bug, when you can.
Very, very thanks for you, for your work and for your help :up:
Regards.

mookiemookie

09-17-07, 05:43 PM

In short, yes.

Right now I have Yamato and Musashi done. They leave ports when they left ports, they arrive more or less when they actually arrived. If they sortied to try and find US ships they thought were at Wake, they do so, along with the right CAs, DDs, etc that went with them. Later I will add them in at anchor when appropriate (ie: you might sneak into Truk to find Musashi at anchor like she should be).

I'm playing TM 1.6 and it's March of '43 and I've run into the Yamato in home waters, very lightly escorted and travelling with a couple of cargo ships. (put 12 torp's into her too, and the damn thing won't go down! :doh:)

I read that she was stationed at Truk until May of '43. Did you miss something here or is what I read incorrect?

tater

09-17-07, 05:56 PM

TM isn't using that version.

Aside from that, there is no group that could possibly generate Yamato and a couple cargo ships lightly escorted in TM.

None that I worked on, anyway.

In the TROM layers for Yamato, you might find her with a single escort at times. Course I figure since she could go FAST much farther than a DD without fuel problems, any time she's alone you'll either spot her in firing position, or no chance for an attack.

tater

mookiemookie

09-17-07, 06:28 PM

Here's the Yamato escorted by a minesweeper and subchaser, and you can see two large cargos in the background. Below is where I found her, heading northeast at about 10 kts

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/2783/sh4img1792007183939875kk2.png (http://imageshack.us)

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/5097/sh4img1792007183955203yu6.png (http://imageshack.us)

LukeFF

09-17-07, 07:15 PM

tater, I'm working on a revised Flotillas.upc file, plus a revision to my Hull Numbers mod, so that the submarine names match up more precisely with their war patrol and squadron dates. For instance, the Asiatic Fleet will properly disband at the end of February 1942, and from what I've read, a couple of fleet boats did patrols from Dutch Harbor. Plus, there'll be other fixes as well. It's what I worked on last night instead of the lifeguard project. :D

tater

09-17-07, 08:52 PM

I gotta check that, that is odd. I'd NEVER escort a BB with either of those 2, they are too slow. All my TF groups (cept 1) have the slowest unit at 20 knots. Most are faster.

The snipe hunt is on!

tater

tater

09-17-07, 08:54 PM

tater

09-17-07, 10:15 PM

I spoke too soon. I have a convoy that has a 1% chance of a generic BB. You hit the jackpot, lol.

I think I was working in the text file and typed Type=11 instead of the Type=101 (generic tanker) I wanted. LOL.

So anyone who happens to hit the 1% chance of that convoy making a BB at the same time it goes by, will see it, lol.

tater

switch.dota

09-18-07, 06:31 AM

On that note... when CAN you find the Yamato? I've been lurking around Empire waters for the better part of 3 years now and have so far sunk ever BB type at least twice. Still no Yamato...

Don't get me wrong I'm not asking for coordinates ("be there at noon!"), but instead of a rough estimation: what are the chances of at least seeing the Yamato in SH4 w/TROM?

tater

09-18-07, 08:21 AM

The TM version doesn't have the TROM based stuff in it, I hadn't merged it in yet.

I have a few chances of generic BB in 1943, I think by 44 tawi tawi might be the bet bet.

tater

mookiemookie

09-18-07, 09:37 AM

Galanti

09-18-07, 12:31 PM

What a nice treat to come back to SH4 after a three month hiatus and see the quality of mods released. This one I was particularly interested in. Great work!

But before I fire everything up, can .78 be installed over TM 1.6.2 without any issues?

tater

09-18-07, 12:36 PM

NefariousKoel

09-18-07, 01:43 PM

switch.dota

09-18-07, 02:51 PM

A lot of people use the repeat mission fix y'know. And liek tater mentioned, elite in TM = *glup* all the way to the bottom of the sea.

Snuffy

09-18-07, 03:15 PM

My photo ops mission to Yokohoma, up Tokoyo Bay was quite interesting. I went in under cover of darkness for as long as I could and at 1/3 ahead. By the time I got done playing cat and mouse with some subchasers and a DD, and got to the position that HQ assigned me to shoot from, it was early morning.

Got my photos and mission complete and headed back down the bay for my escape. All was going well till I got near the last port on the south shore. And there, what to my wandering eyes should be but a single solitary Yamato sitting just off the dock. No escort, and not under way ... was complete powered down.

I only had like two torps left and I knew it wasn't enough to do it any harm so I had to let it go ... but damn, there it sat like no one's business. The only other ships around were a couple merchants at the piers, and a couple small subchasers that I had to out manouver to get out of the bay.

tater

09-18-07, 03:39 PM

Heheh. At some point I'll have to make a pass on the harbor stuff, I bet at any given moment SH4 has 10 Yamatos in port, lol.

OTOH, that port, Yokosuka, actually did see both Yamato and Musahsi as regulars, sometimes alone, or with only a single escort as their consorts.

tater

tater

09-19-07, 01:35 PM

Status:

LOL. I go through phases. I get sidetracked by some cool idea (like messing with DCs), then decide I need to get back to slogging away at the campaign. I'd spent little time on 1944, but the TROMs for the Yamatos get interesting then as the big fish get constrained to a tidal pool...

A-Go, and the work up to it will be rather a stunning array of targets. I keep finding that sometimes the big ship TROMs are good flavor traffic---a lone BB dashing between Kure and Yokosuka---while other times I will literally have to have existing TF groups exit the game months early because a single TROM group (made for just the 1 big ship in question) eats up every available warship in the area. :D

Anyway, I'm now messing with the later war anchorages, in fact adding some that didn't exist before last night in game, lol. It got me thinking about harbor defenses, particularly around Singapore and Lingga, but it relates to other ports/anchorages as well.

I was thinking of starting to mine likely places---pretty heavily, frankly. There would still be somewhat obvious channels into places like Linga, Tawi Tawi, or Singapore, but the limited ASW resources could then heavily patrol those areas instead of being so thinly spread around. The RN got a sub in to Singapore (Lingga?) as I recall, but it should be not the run of the mill type mission we have now. Of course any such changes would also require patrol objective tweaks since the formerly routine harbor missions could become rather suicidal.

I'd likely provide a map of many of the areas mined, or presumed mined by COMSUBPAC. The rule of thumb would pretty much be that if you think you are being sneaky by coming in to a harbor via little gaps between islands unlikely to be patrolled---you are being careless---they are not patrolled because you can walk between islands on mines without getting your feet wet, not because the gaps are forgotten ;)

The rationale is that some of these anchorages become very Truk-like, and given they're open to a million ingress and egress routes, are trivial to infiltrate in SH4 and need to have that issue corrected.

I might add reefs (could also be considered shoals) and legit sub nets as well. I might throw in rather a lot of shore batteries as well.

tater

rcjonessnp175

09-19-07, 01:48 PM

Heck ya do it!! in reality when u or the enemy occupies a pice of land/ harbor port whatever, the first thing u do is set up ur defenses. Throughout ww2 friendly and enemy navies mind the heck out of places. Set up anti aircraft, anti ship batteries near any and all inlets. These ports in stalk game look like some pretty little post card ports. This is war and the biggest one we all have been in, It wasnt pretty, the objective was to kill, and to occupy period! So i definately think thier should be alot more combat resources throughout this game. Right now its a picknic to sneek into harbor and do what we do. Ha Mines, Artillery, anti air anti sub anti ship, these places need to be hardened. Tater your work has rocked, and i think ur kind of thinking what im thinking Lets make this war.:rock:

switch.dota

09-19-07, 01:52 PM

Reminds me of the time I recon'ed Osaka harbour: it was a tedious run 'till batteries were I dry then a long wait for enough surface nighttime to recharge them. Took me a whole game week to pull through and it might've been siucidal had it not been for a tiny gap just East of Sumoto harbour (which quite franklyexpected to be mined or netted... if it was ever deep enough to allow a Gar through) -- it allowed me safe passage with one escort occasionally getting through.

EDIT: TM 1.6.2 + repeat patrol fix compatible version coming soon?

NefariousKoel

09-19-07, 05:16 PM

Tater:

I pretty sure you were the one who did some work on the airfields and crazy amounts of aircraft on them available by cutting them down.

I've noticed that When I'm near Ceramin in the North Banda Sea (~128e, 4S) in '42 that there's a massive amount of patrols coming from the direction of Tateri. In fact, I got reported by some junks when they spotted me and the enemy air patrol showed up heading from there in no time - repeatedly.

Is there an undocumented airstrip at Amboina on Ceramin and was it "fixed"?

tater

09-19-07, 05:37 PM

You using my latest? With or without the airfield mod added?

Or is it TM?

Leo did the TM airfields, and some are in odd spots (they seem designed to provide a rough coverage with few based instead of trying to place a million small airfields).

Alternately, it might be the game bug that scripted units load at the proper time and place, but their air groups load the moment you start a patrol that includes the scripted mission.

If it's that last one (are the planes kates, vals, and zekes?) then I have a CV airgroup fix.

tater

NefariousKoel

09-20-07, 12:45 AM

Ah! Maybe it's LV's setup.

I was just getting far more incoming A/C in that area - in two different careers even. I don't think it was an enemy CV since they practically all game straight from Amboina (the way it looks) when I was anywhere near it.

I'm using a cut up version of TM 1.62. The airbase stuff is all still in though.

leovampire

09-20-07, 12:48 AM

All the airbase work I did for the game shows up on the NAV map's so you alway's knew where they were and even got a radio message when a new base came into play.

mrbeast

09-20-07, 08:44 AM

Leo, is there any chance of you and Tater combining your airbase mods together in the future? I like the idea of Taters spread of small airbases, more realistic I think, but I loved the map that came with yours. Is there a possiblity of doing a similar map that shows most of the major airbases in Tater's mod? I'm guessing that in RL USN intel would have given sub skippers details of where they believed enemy air bases to be so they could be marked on charts?

tater

09-20-07, 08:47 AM

I've looked at leos map, and I think I can use his map icons and make it work, but as leo could tell you, it's a ton of work. Lot's of niggling little detail work shifing icons around so they look good at different zoom levels.

Then I saw that post suggesting (by a dev) that we'd be able to see the front move in the map soon, and decided to wait, lol.

tater

leovampire

09-20-07, 12:21 PM

I could do it up for him yes to go along with his mod work.

tater

09-20-07, 12:54 PM

I'd not want to make you do that, leo, I'd fighure it out and do it myself first. No reason for you to have to pay for me making a zillion short ranged air bases :D

Besides, I'd need to get it finalized.

I actually now have cloned (BP cloned) the CV planes, and I gave them a range of ~40km. I added them to the CV airgroups so that if you see CV planes in the open ocean, they are doing what CV planes should be doing in the open ocean. Combat Air Patrol (and ASW patrol). CAP would stay close to the fleet, within visual range---partly because their fighters had poor (or nonexistant) radios and relied on watching for their own AAA fire for directions.

tater

leovampire

09-20-07, 01:01 PM

if you want it done just let me know all I need is the 2 Airbase files unless you just want the one for the JAP's done.

leovampire

09-20-07, 03:38 PM

I just noticed that one of the new ships far rear main gun just in front of the deapth charge racks stay's pointed in a maximum forward port side rotation while crusing along it's mary way.

tater

09-20-07, 03:53 PM

The Minelayer?

Yeah, the stock minelayer has no guns at all on it, lol.

Looks like the node is rotated. I just did an EQP fix, but it's easy enough to change the dat with s3d now, guess I should. I was trying to be minimally invasive, lol. I saw it but figured it didn't matter.

tater

leovampire

09-20-07, 03:59 PM

not intended to be a bust your but thing LOL!! It is easy to miss a lot when your doing a lot of work in differn't area's.

At first I though he had radar and picked me up because the angle was perfect between his possition and mine to get that impression.

Don't mind me it is the first time in I don't know how long I am actualy playing more than testing and working so now I can something other than what I have to see and work with.

tater

09-20-07, 04:05 PM

No worries. You are talking about the large minelayer, right?

It has 4 A nodes, and should have larger guns, but the one rear node is pointed kind of ahead and to 1 side.

switch.dota

09-20-07, 04:15 PM

Tater, could you do soemthing about allied air patrols in the pearl-midway area? There seem to be scripted patrols occurring every now and then - it's annoying because SD contacts drop you out of TC. Starting mid-42 you literally have to take alternate routes from midway to pearl to avoid wasting 10 minutes pressing '+' just to get TC back up to speed.

I don't know what kind of aircraft they are but they're allied since TC doesn't drop to 1 on visual contact. This - sadly - is not the case with radar contacts. Mind you these are not random allied ASW patrols or whatnot since they occur at night and follow a rather scripted patern (this I noticed with one plane flying aorund Pearl for months on end in the same pattern).

tater

09-20-07, 04:19 PM

Hmm, I thought I axed those since they were Lancs. If it's TM, it's DeepBlueWolf.

There is nothing.

No scripted planes in mine. If I ever add any, I'll have to include the mod that adds US planes in, cause seeing the wrong planes bugs me.

tater

leovampire

09-20-07, 04:21 PM

But turn your radar off that close to home base and you will be fine switch.dota unles they set up a Jap invasion for that area. They have been in the game since patch 1.2 when we all asked for more Allied traffic to be added to the game from the Dev's.

tater

09-20-07, 04:24 PM

Mid 1942.

It's the CV airgroups for the Battle of Midway.

Same bug. I didn;t axe the US CV airgroups.

This is a stock game failing regarding the way it deals with CV airgroups in scripted missions.

AVGWarhawk

09-22-07, 07:31 AM

All right Tater...I have never used this mod and now ready to plug it in. I was waiting a bit until you had it all sorted. I'm ready to rock with this one:rock: Thanks for the hard efforts you put into it:up:

AVGWarhawk

09-22-07, 09:42 AM

Tater,

One question: Did you remove the red squares indicating enemy ships? I play at 92% (outside view uncheck only) and before this mod I could get the red squares on the map indicating enemy vessels. The vessels were close for this to happen. Anyway, it never made sense to me as I check no map update (red squares) yet the game still showed them on a limited basis. Now with this mod I see none, then again, it might be the area I'm in...Celebes Sea were traffic was not that great at the beginning of the war.

BTW, I like the fact you started the patrol before Dec 7 1941! I received PAC message on Dec 7 1941 of the attack. However, the clipboard just shows "message content". Nothing written about the attack. I do not know if this was something you are still working on.

It looks to me like you have studied this quite a bit to make it that just more realistic:rock: ....beautiful:up:

tater

09-22-07, 09:47 AM

The patrol stuff is slightly modded from Beery (thanks!).

I haven't touched the IFF squares. There is just a lot less traffic.

tater

AVGWarhawk

09-22-07, 11:00 AM

The patrol stuff is slightly modded from Beery (thanks!).

I haven't touched the IFF squares. There is just a lot less traffic.

tater

Gotcha! I suspected that but was not sure. The vanilla version is quite busy with ship....a little to busy:roll:

AVGWarhawk

09-22-07, 07:53 PM

Loving this mod Tater! Nice work man:rock:

leovampire

09-22-07, 08:12 PM

Reflect_???_??? for what ever ship name it is open that node up with S3d then open up water reflection node and set it to what is listed below

Clip hight=0
Reflection=1
Refraction=1
Frustum test=0
MinVisDim=0.01
MaxVisDim=0.1

Then you are good to go hope that gives you the information you wanted.

tater

09-22-07, 08:12 PM

Cool, that means a lot.

<S>

I'm hoping to get some feedback on a few patrol objectives (not just from you):

1. The Slot. (Brisbane boats)

2. Truk (just because :D ) (PH boats)

3. Tarawa (PH boats)

tater

AVGWarhawk

09-23-07, 06:31 AM

Short story and I do not know if was set up this way:

Last night, started a regular old partrol (Dec 4 1941). I figured nothing will be happening for three days (Pearl). I turned on Capt Midnights radio mod and it played the radio show with commercial breaks (awesome mod this one) as I trucked along. I was very interested to see if I encounted Japanese before Pearl. None found:up: . On Dec 7 I got the message about Pearl and the radio switched to news broadcasters talking about Pearl. Simply amazing it worked this way. :o I said there is no way your mod and the radio mod take into account the days things happened, working together. Probably just a coincidence but a damn immersive one for me. Anyway, I did my originally required patrol just in the Luzon area and found nothing. I was then sent to the Sea of Japan. I stumbled upon a small convoy. I was surfaced making the fastest endround in the late afternoon as one can in the pig boat. I was spotted by the DD that made a bee-line for me. Submerged and did the down the bow shot. One torp blew off a prop and jammed his rudder. He just kept on chugging away from the convoy. I sunk a tanker and a cargo before exiting the scene. Great enjoyment as one would figure ships at that time would be heading to Manila as Manila was hit around the same time as Pearl. Very immersive here man!!!!! Some logic on where and when I should find targets went into this and that is a good thing. The convoy size is just right. The Japanese did not create huge convoys very often from what I have read. I'm going to enjoy this mod very much...I can see that already:rock: BTW, it would seem the red boxes indicating enemy ships on the map are gone. This is a good thing for me as it now makes it a hunt for targets as it should be:yep:

Hawk_345

09-23-07, 07:50 AM

What exactly will this mod do, will it take away FPS, or will i gain FPS with it, does it afect GFX mods, like cpt cox mods, ROW?

AVGWarhawk

09-23-07, 09:29 AM

What exactly will this mod do, will it take away FPS, or will i gain FPS with it, does it afect GFX mods, like cpt cox mods, ROW?

Does not affect ROW. It reduces traffic to more realistic WW2 as it happened. Convoys are more realistic. DD and variety of cargos have been worked on. Different patrols assigned. In a way it helps game play as you are not stopped evey two seconds with a convoy message on some convoy 1500 nm off. Tater found that just about every ship has radar or some detection device. He corrected this. My over all score for this mod, if I'm allowed to be so bold, is A+. I use it with ROW, Oakgroove gauge/interior texture mod, Capt Cox hat/insignia mod.

AVGWarhawk

09-23-07, 09:38 AM

TATER!!!!!!!!! Look what you did to my boat.....

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/avgwarhawk/SH4Img23-9-2007_934.17_718.jpg

It was not hopeless! My crew persevered! All repaired but the scope.....patrol over as they say.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/avgwarhawk/SH4Img23-9-2007_935.24_265.jpg

The boys were sweating it out. 118 degrees and a DD bearing down on our arse:o This is the first time I got a crew screenshot like this.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/avgwarhawk/SH4Img23-9-2007_1011.46_15.jpg

My crew was shaken, tired and hurt. We sent this watchmen to the doc for some treatment. Mostly medicinal scotch. Although battered and bruised, we managed 3 sinkings at around 15000 tons. Periscope damaged beyond repair...headed back to port.

Having a blast with this mod.:D

Seadogs

09-23-07, 09:49 AM

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/avgwarhawk/SH4Img23-9-2007_935.24_265.jpg

The boys were sweating it out. 118 degrees and a DD bearing down on our arse:o This is the first time I got a crew screenshot like this.

That pic is so not cool. "Shower time boys!"

Hawk_345

09-23-07, 10:20 AM

alright, thanks for the info, i willt ry it now then.

If i install this mod with the Airbase NAV MAP MOD , will it have any bad efects?

tater

09-23-07, 11:07 AM

I left ICL compatible with leo's airbase mod.

Be aware that there will be some problems since my islands change control on the right dates, and the airbase mod has some airbases in spots where they shouldn't be (either at all, or on certain dates).

It's been a while, but as I recall, at least one version of the airbase mod altered campaign_loc. In that case, to be safe, install the campaign on top of the airbases (there was only one place I had missed on my map that leo also added, and I fixed it a while ago (I had spaced adding Iwo Jima's name as I recall :) ).

tater

Hawk_345

09-23-07, 11:19 AM

Ok thanks, but for some reason im getting CTDS, i guess i beter resintall or at least take the mods off and out them in a diferent order.

EDIT: also the ROW mod also conflicts with it, the high end ships file conflicts with something in your mod.

Hawk_345

09-23-07, 11:28 AM

sory for the double post, but here is whats going on i have all the ROW files, capt cox, all medal+clasic crew, real navy hat, airbase nav map, and after all that i want to place your mod but this is what is wrong

"Campaign_LOC.mis" has already been altered by the "DRB JAP US GB Airbases VS4 desaturated" mod.
"NDD_Shiratsuyu.dat" has already been altered by the "ROW Highend ship reflections 0.1" mod.

tater

09-23-07, 11:33 AM

I would install the campaign after ROW. There is one ship where I messed with a dat, NDD_Shiratsuyu. I rotated a couple sailor nodes so that I could have the late war version get the DC throwers they had installed in RL.

So the conflict will result in some reflection problems, presumably.

If you do ROW after, then the late war version will have throwers, but they might throw the wrong way and damage the DD.

I need to make a ROW compatible version at some point.

tater

tater

09-23-07, 11:34 AM

You want ICL on after the airbase mod, too.

That would CTD, BTW. Leo put some ships in Campaign_LOC.mis, and 1 is a subchaser. I changed the subchasers from type 0 to type 1, and that would be a 100% CTD.

Hawk_345

09-23-07, 11:37 AM

ok so i will put your mod after the rest of them, i hope this works. thanks for the help.

Seadogs

09-23-07, 11:39 AM

Yep, it's getting complicated to say the least.

In my perfect world. This, ROW, NSM and TM would be merged for up to date goodness. :hmm:

Poke, Poke.

;)

tater

09-23-07, 11:53 AM

As you can all see, the notion of the "supermod" becomes less and less optional as time goes by because EVERYTHING is connected when things start getting messed with at certain levels.

DeepIron

09-23-07, 11:58 AM

Yep, it's getting complicated to say the least.

Has anyone thought about trying to keep a compatibility matrix? I know, considering all the modding that goes on, that it would be a difficult proposition but I thought I'd toss is out anyway...

Hawk_345

09-23-07, 03:31 PM

that would be a great asset to alot of us here, but it would msot likely be impossible to keep it up to date with so man mods geting "fixed" realeased or being outclassed.

leovampire

09-23-07, 07:58 PM

there seems to be some corilation between the colisionable object nodes in the files and getting a lock on target's. I am investigating further but might have found away for you to use the gun bunkers on land as a lock for taking pictures. I will keep you informed on if my idea works. So far every object missing that node is an object you can not get a lock on so maybe adding that node in the file structure will make the difference.

tater

09-23-07, 09:22 PM

Yes!

That is certainly a possibility!

As soon as the munchkins are down I might have to look myself. Wonder if you can export the chunks and import them. (I actually tried importing the AI chunk from a torpedo bomber into a boat to see if it would drop a fish, ship ran fine, but no droppy fishy)

:)

lockable coastal defenses... wow.

tater

Uber Gruber

09-24-07, 07:22 AM

As you can all see, the notion of the "supermod" becomes less and less optional as time goes by because EVERYTHING is connected when things start getting messed with at certain levels.

Very wise words. This is the way SH3 went and it will be the way SH4 goes, there's just no avoiding it unless someone develops a mod enabling tool similar to JSGME but with file merging capabilities instead of file replacing. I imagine such a tool would require a lot more user intervention and a more disciplined approach to modding would also be required, i.e. identical code base for all modders, file level documented changes, standard commenting mechanism recognisable by the tool itself etc etc.

I doubt this would happen, so Super Mod it is then.:up:

Hawk_345

09-24-07, 05:47 PM

does this mod afect anything to do with ship hitpoints or torpedo efectiveness, because since i put this mod in, i cant seem to sink anything, ive hit a DD with 4 torps and she still did not go down, maybe im hititng it in a bad spot, but it still should go down with repeated hits,right? and yes they do explode, not duds. i dont get any fire or damage apearing on the ship. very frustrating.

tater

09-24-07, 08:46 PM

I've done nothing at all to the Zones.cfg or ship zones files (the stuff responsible for damage). If anything, ships should be easier to sink since I gave many of them cargoes that blow up (unlike the stock game where every single ship has "freight" for cargo)

Have you ever run a mod that does? Maybe something got left behind.

tater

Hawk_345

09-25-07, 03:36 PM

yeah i did, but i did a fullr einstall of the game, now i have ROW, and your mod, along a few other gfx mods, thats it though.

Maybe im just hiting them wrong. or in the wrong spot, or maybe ive got the wrong understanding of which is which, contact or contact influence on the torp settings and im doing them backwards or thinking one is the other.

aanker

09-25-07, 06:56 PM

and yes they do explode, not duds. i dont get any fire or damage apearing on the ship. very frustrating. I had that in the stock SH4 before I added Tater's layers and continue to have what you describe. I'm thinking they may be pre Jun 43 premature detonations... or at least that's what I have been calling them... lol. However I have no clue if prematures are modeled in the SH4 code.

Art

Hawk_345

09-26-07, 02:36 PM

its weird, but i guess its too random to pinpoint a problem, its hit or mis i guess.

Galanti

09-27-07, 02:07 PM

Tater, I'm a bit of a nut for sinkng oddball targets. Are there any of the Chitose seaplane tender jobbies or large minelayers or subtenders kicking around in your layers?

tater

09-27-07, 02:27 PM

There are no IJN sub tenders in game. So none of those.

As for the others, yeah, they are there.

Galanti

09-27-07, 02:47 PM

The short answer is no.

I will try and have a newer version out in the not too distant future that I can make TM compatible. Part of the issue is TM naming conventions for patrol objectives given the repeat mission fix I need to check. Also, the AI needs the elites removed because TM has tweaked sensors to the point that elite AI us really scary.

The current TM is running only a couple versions behind.

Yes, but you've added Kaibokens now, my old nemesis from Silent Service days! Also, LukeFF's changed mission requirements seem much batter than stock.

Don't want to bug you too much about it, but rather thought I'd hack away at it myself and see if I can get your newest to work. Will I be okay if I don't use his repeat mission fix, and tone down the elite AI? (I'm using the TM Lite sim.cfg and sensors - TM's default seem too uber anyhow).

BTW, the mission work you've done so far rocks. I had a hoot last night with a mission to specifically recon Jap carriers in Rabaul.

tater

09-27-07, 03:02 PM

Actually, there is a kaibokan patch I made for TM in the TM thread.

:)

Was planning on getting more done this week, but the kids are sick. Little sleep here for anyone.

tater

Hawk_345

09-27-07, 04:13 PM

well, we all hope you get some sleep soon then tater.

You know my problem with not being able to sink ships, it must have been bad luck, i have now sunk, 3 DDs, and 5 merchants, im happy again. very good mod.

Galanti

09-27-07, 06:28 PM

Say no more, we've just ended a three week strech of the same with our one-year old. Grab some sack time when you can, is the moral of the story.

Hope your little ones feel better soon ;)

Ftmch

09-30-07, 01:36 PM

I've been playing with this mod for a while now, and I love it :)

However, I got a large variety of missions in the beginning (I started off in the Phillipines), then I accepted a new sub and was transfered to Pearl Harbour, since then, I've only gotten the same mission (3 times now), which is a shame :/ does anyone know if you get other missions later? or didn't this mod succed in eliminating the repeating-missions bug? :(

tater

09-30-07, 02:40 PM

What's the mission, what's the date?

tater

Ftmch

09-30-07, 03:07 PM

What's the mission, what's the date?

tater
Well, the latest mission I got told me to depart on 1 November, 1942, and Patrol of Honshu and engage merchant shipping, I've gotten the same mission 3 times in a row (I think the first one took place in August).

Also, I've tried the trick of reporting my status and getting additional missions, it worked once where I was told to patrol off Iwo Jima, which I did, but when I got home, the next mission was to patrol of Honshu and engage merchant shipping.. again.

tater

09-30-07, 03:11 PM

Gotta be repeat mission bug. I've forced the same mission in tests, but never to honshu (in case I forgot to revert it).

tater

Ftmch

09-30-07, 03:14 PM

Gotta be repeat mission bug. I've forced the same mission in tests, but never to honshu (in case I forgot to revert it).

tater

Is there a way to fix it? or am I doomed to patrol to Honshu forever?

tater

09-30-07, 03:34 PM

Well, the repeat patrol bug is in the stock game, too. It certainly sucks.

Ftmch

09-30-07, 05:05 PM

Well, the repeat patrol bug is in the stock game, too. It certainly sucks.

There's no way to bypass it etc.? :/ Do you get new missions eventually? or just the same one over and over?

AVGWarhawk

09-30-07, 06:07 PM

Eventually it should kick you to a new mission.

LukeFF

10-01-07, 04:41 PM

That is cool, LukeFF. I used Beery's pretty much stock to avoid having to reinvent the wheel. Better dates would be awesome, I'd throw that in straight with the only changes being if there was some reason I had to for patrol objectives (I don;t think that should be needed, however.

Just so you know, I'm still working on this. I didn't get as much done last night as I wanted to, since the Navy's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships was down last night. Hopefully I'll have it done in about a week or two, though.

AVGWarhawk

10-01-07, 05:15 PM

Good deal Luke! This mod has got some great potentional. I'm glad you recognized it and join in!

tater

10-01-07, 05:39 PM

He's been helping for quite a while, actually. :)

I have to admit I'm hanging back a little given patch rumors, and also because now my wife and I have the same crud my daughter brought home from school. The 1 year old, too.

Typing in a forums takes less... concentration... than staring at wiggley lines of convoy groups.

tater

AVGWarhawk

10-01-07, 06:41 PM

I met one of your zig zagging convoys tonight. Hard to get a bead on the buggers.

LukeFF

10-14-07, 05:34 AM

Just so you know, I'm still working on this. I didn't get as much done last night as I wanted to, since the Navy's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships was down last night. Hopefully I'll have it done in about a week or two, though.
Status update: I'm finished with the fleet boat dates, minus the oddball ones that originated up in Alaska (there were a couple of them, believe it or not). More precisely, here is what I have left to do:
Research the dates for all Alaska-command boats.
Research the dates for all S-42 boats.
Plug in the data to Flotillas.upc and the /Data/Roster/Submarine files (all of my data is in Excel format right now). The former isn't that big of a deal, but the latter will take a bit of time.Furthermore, to keep in line with historical reality, the following rules will be applied when plugging the data into the relevant files:
The date a particular submarine class is available to a particular command will be two days in advance of the class's first historical war patrol start date. I wanted to advance this date even more (to 14 days), but the game gives the player only two days at the start of a career to report to his new command and commence operations. :roll: If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know. I'd love to have a set-up where a player receives their orders, reports to his new command 2-3 days later, and then two weeks later stands out for his first patrol.
The date a particular submarine name becomes available will be 14 days in advance of its first historical war patrol (NOT the date of the boat's commission, as the stock game has it). This means a number of Balaos will be lopped off the list, as many of them did not make a patrol before war's end. This will be merged with my mod that adds the SS code to the submarine names.
The date a boat is last available to a command will be on the date the boat's respective class last cleared that port for a war patrol. No flex on that date.That's where the mod stands right now. Feel free to add any comments or suggestions.

Hitman

10-14-07, 09:29 AM

Sorry to ask, but now that Lurker has launched his RSRD campaign, in which you seem to have helped Tater, what's exactly going to be the difference between RSRD and your new campaign layers in the near future? Are you going to work together, or will there be separate works and if so, what will be different in them? :hmm: I'm just a bit confused on which route to take (I do not use currently any of the "supermods" since I'm compiling my own mod pack strictly for personal use, suited to my preferences).

Thanks

tater

10-14-07, 09:45 AM

Good question. LOL. A lot of the techniques are pretty similar, and I'm certain to adopt elements that lurker used. I've been longing to get to "1.0" and now I'm waiting for the new patch to move it along.

At that point I can make it TM compatible for the TM folks, and stop and think for a while.

Part of the reason I slowed down was when I started doing some large ship TROM groups was I decided that for playability, I needed them to have multiple paths. If I wasn't doing ig-ags I could simply radius the waypoints, but warships ZZed, so that means alternate paths for the groups in question, and they get somewhat complicated.

I'm interested in having time to play lurker's more, too.

The big "black hole" of the campaigns right now is the dynamicmiss.cfg file and what it all means.

tater

Rockin Robbins

10-25-07, 07:10 PM

At that point I can make it TM compatible for the TM folks, and stop and think for a while.
tater

Sitting in port considering loading this on top of TM and then I read this. I guess I can wait until next cruise. Have to look forward to something!:up: Have the DC and Airbases mods ready to go and looks like I'm going out at least one more time before the patch. All ahead two-thirds! Lookouts to the bridge!

tater

10-25-07, 08:25 PM

You could now, the big issue would be AI skill levels.

I'm waiting on 1.4, then I'll make the "big push" to get a pretty complete version out the door.

Ducimus

10-25-07, 08:29 PM

You could now, the big issue would be AI skill levels.

I'm waiting on 1.4, then I'll make the "big push" to get a pretty complete version out the door.

I can handle the AI skill levels, those are adjustments on my part, and are my responsiblity. Im waiting on 1.4, as well as a change of residence. I hope i see the patch before i have to pull the plug on my system and start packing it up. At any rate,tater i appreciate your campaign work, probably more then you'll ever know. :up:

DrBeast

10-30-07, 04:11 AM

I don't remember if this has been mentioned already. I read through all the pages of this thread (I always do that when I first join a forum, to avoid foot-in-mouth disease!), but that was a couple of days ago, and I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning :p
I got the mission to photo recon a harbor in the Palao islands and take a snapshot of any capital ships I find there. When I arrived there however, there were no capital ships in sight, only a few merchants and an aux subchaser on patrol (I used him to estimate depth below keel as soon as I got the chance :D). Needless to say, I couldn't fulfil the mission objectives, so I quit without saving and took a peek at the Campaign file. It's Photo Palao Island 02, and it mentions spawning a Fuso ship at the harbor. Now, I know squat about what each parameter does, but one thing struck me as particularly odd:
DeleteOnLastWaypoint=true Does that mean the ship "disappears" once it's reached its last waypoint? Could that be why I didn't find it?

While I'm here, when you begin work on this project again after the patch release, could you please make it ROW compatible? Or at least give some advice on how to make it compatible. ROW is a must-have, and I begin to feel the same about this mod, so I really wouldn't want to be stuck in an either/or situation (I do use both anyway, and so far nothing sinister has happened). Cheers!

tater

10-30-07, 08:22 AM

While it should never get to its last waypoint (speed=0) that should have been unchecked.

Thanks for thr heads up, I will indeed fix that.

Frankly the photo mission just needs to go, lol.

DrBeast

10-30-07, 08:25 AM

Yeah, it was...intense, to say the least!
So all I need to do is change true to false, yes?

tater

10-30-07, 08:27 AM

Yeah, that should make it appear.

DrBeast

10-30-07, 09:02 AM

Cheers! :up: One last question, will it apply on a mid-mission save or do I have to start the mission anew? Sorry to bug you, but I've only got internet at the torture chamber...eeeh...I mean work, and I'll be headed home in a bit.

tater

10-30-07, 09:05 AM

This would need to be an in port change (like virtually all campaign changes).

The missions load when you go on patrol.

tater

DrBeast

10-30-07, 09:19 AM

Oh...bummer that :down:
Well cheers anyway, if you ever happen to be in Greece I'll buy you some ouzo :D

tater

10-30-07, 10:33 AM

Maybe when the kids get older we can take a long flight. West Coast to Kaua'i was about as far as I could hack it with a 4 YO and a 1.5 YO, lol.

:D

DrBeast

10-31-07, 05:03 AM

Quick update: proposed fix worked as advertized. Now I just have to replay part of the mission, because my old, cranky graphics card threw a hissy fit on me when I tried to lower Particle Density while being zoomed in on a burning battleship (yes, the one I had just photographed...I just couldn't resist!), and I had to hard-reset. :damn: I think my computer has some strange ways of telling me to bugger off and go to bed already...especially after 3am!

DrBeast

11-05-07, 03:56 AM

I thought I had stumbled upon another bug, but it's a vanilla (aka stock) bug. In any case, when you start working on this project again after the patch, check out Sink Gilbert Islands 01, the mission briefing is missing.

ETA: There's something fishy in my campaigns. I started a new one to confirm, and true enough: I keep getting the same starting mission over and over again, deploy to Marshal Islands. 4, no, 5 times in a row now. I get there, sink some merchants until I complete the mission, radio in, get another mission (usually patrol), complete, radio in, etc etc etc until I run out of torpedoes. By that time, when I radio in again I don't get a new mission message back, so I head for home and end my patrol. Now, here's where it gets interesting: 4 times now, upon return, I've been awarded a medal for completing MY FIRST PATROL. I always save when I'm back home, and I checked all my CareerTrack.upc files for the four patrols I've completed. In all of them, my Patrols are listed as 0. Also, I took a peek at the ActivePlayerSomething.upc, and they ALL list the same CurrentPlayerMissionTime, which is the same as the StartPlayerMissionTime! Something gives, but what? Any ideas?

DrBeast

11-06-07, 04:31 AM

A small update: I saved just prior to getting within docking range on my 5th mission, docked, got ONE MORE First Mission medal, and quit. I then checked the ActiveUserPlayerUnits.upc file of the save prior to entering, and once again StartUserPlayerUnitMissionDateTime (SUPUMDT)was the same as
CurrentUserPlayerUnitMissionDateTime (CUPUMDT). Now, I copy/pasted over the correct CUPUMDT (from CareerTrack.upc), loaded the game, docked and hey! presto, an award for my 5th mission! I concluded then and there that something's wrong and reinstalled the game, making sure every trace of the game was gone on uninstall. I just finished my first patrol yesterday night, but I think this is happening again (Patrol count still shows as 0, SUPUMDT same as CUPUMDT...honestly, couldn't they come up with a shorter name? :P). At least now I'll get another mission (first one was Deploy to Honshu, this one will be Deploy to Marshall Islands...oh wait, this rings a foreboding bell! :damn:)

Some additional info: WinXP user, patched to 1.3 (of course), started an early career (December '41), using this mod (duh!), not using my no-cd crack this time (and of course running a perfect chance to ruin this DVD too...you know, Murphy and his bloody laws!).

Any input/comments would be much appreciated.

DrBeast

11-07-07, 06:51 AM

On to my third patrol, and I'm seriously considering ditching this game. It's getting a royal PITA to have to exit the game, manually correct the CUPUMDT values, and then reload EVERY FREAKING TIME I end a patrol, only to get the same mission again! :damn::damn::damn:

Oh, and it's getting better! In the last 2 patrols, I radioed in after completing the first mission (yep...Patrol Marshall Islands...I swear, if I hear Marshall once again I'll go berserk!), and never got a follow-up mission! In the first of the two patrols this happened, I decided to cruise along anyway. After many days I stumbled upon a convoy, radioed in the contact, got a mission to sink the suckers, and when that was done, the mission generator seemed to have kickstarted! The second time it happened I sailed home, did the save/exit/correct/reload routine, docked, and got the same mission again. That's when I quit in disgust and decided to get some much-needed sleep.

Meanwhile, I feel like talking upon deaf ears...3 posts on this subjects, and no comment. Honestly guys, a simple "we don't know, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!" is enough. At least I'll know someone's read this.

AVGWarhawk

11-07-07, 08:41 AM

I recommend you use the Run Silent Run Deep Campaign mod. It incorporates some of Taters work found here and has historical traffic. No repeat missions and you are sent to logical places for the time of year that things were happening. It is quite good. This is just the first installment as Lurker is working on the shipping lanes from year to year. Personally, I love the mod and is a HUGE addition to the game.

tater

11-07-07, 09:22 AM

As I said, I'm waiting on the 1.4 patch to do much work. There seemed to be a rumor they fixed the repeat mission bug.

I'll have a look at the Marshalls again and see if anything leaps out at me.

DrBeast

11-08-07, 05:03 AM

@AVGWarhawk: thanks, I'll keep it in mind. Btw, expect a PM requesting for instructions on how to get halo working on ATi graphics cards. Rumor has it you've accomplished it, and now that I've gotten a new baby I want to enjoy it to the maximum! :D
@tater: I'm well aware of that, I was asking in the hopes you had a clue on what the hell is wrong with my game. Cheers anyway.

nattydread

11-12-07, 05:45 PM

I recieved a message that the Solomen Islands theater of operations was going to to go active in 6 days. So I tokk off for a 6 day trip that too me 2200nm out of my way. I showed up a couple of a hundred miles away on the day of, 15hrs later I was patroling off the west coast of the central islands.

Now there may have been a Fleet conflict out there, but I had no indiations, no reports, no radar contacts...only 2 IJN DDs patroling the NW inlet to the central islands.

So my question...

Does the campaign layers and Fox/Pac reports match up, or does the campaign layers follow their own time line?