[REL] Real Deck Gun

[kv29]

REAL DECK GUN
ver 1.0
Mod by KV29

http://www.rddesigns.com/subs/1tsingt.jpg




I thought it was time to move on and post the destabilized deck gun mod, now Real Deck Gun, in a proper REL thread as the other was a WIP a little cluttered with non relevant info.

For newcomers on this subject, the purpose of this mod is to bypass the gyro stabilized system imposed by the developers for the deck guns. For now, the mod is fully working for the 4"/50 deck gun only, as the other guns present some interesting problems related with the cameras. Yes, Im working on it, but noting that the 4" gun is available to all subs and all years I hope it should not present a big problem to select that gun as the main one.

Big thanks goes to Tater for providing some info and correcting some wrong ideas I had about the aiming issue.

This mod is by no means complete, hopefully with some colaboration it will be deployed for all guns. Please feel free to contribute with this thread.

The file:
http://files.filefront.com/Real+Deck+Gun+10+zip/;7945606;;/fileinfo.html

[ReallyDedPoet]

Very nice work kv29:up: :up: Your efforts ( others as well ) are appreciated.

RDP

[Mast]

Great! Will download and check this out. :up:

Mast

[panthercules]

This is a really great addition - been having a great time testing it out so far in the WIP thread. Just one question - is this version any different from the previous latest version posted under the other thread? I just finished tweaking up my files to include that version with all my other changes and have just headed out to test it on a patrol, so if there aren't any additional changes in this version I won't have to suffer through making all those extra tweaks again till the other guns are fixed down the road at some point.

For anybody that wasn't following the WIP thread on this - you gotta get this and try it out with a 4"-gunned sub. It adds so much to the experience of using the deck gun that you won't believe it. Amazing :rock:

[tater]

^^^ yes, get a 4" and try and gun. Feels so much better.

[LukeFF]

I just tried this out for the first time. Wow! It is finally so nice to have a deck gun that acts like it should. 4-second reload times no longer seem unrealistic when the player has to wait for the crosshairs to be level with the horizon in order to hit the target.

[EAGLE_01]

Excellent Mod!:yep:

Thank You.

[Uber Gruber]

I've been watching the dev thread of this, interesting stuff. Can't wait to try it out this eve.....Thanks Santa!:rock:

[kv29]

I really need some help, guys.
Im trying to remove the red crosshair in the unzoomed view, no luck yet. Its very time consuming to edit menu_1024_768.ini and test it again and again, Im sure its buried there somewhere. I couldn´t find any "crosshair" dds, so I presume is coded as it was the binocular crosshair.

I would really appreciate if any of you could do it for me, so I can continue searching for a way to fix the other guns :up:

[CaptainCox]

Will have a look for that Xhair...
Again a question...I this the same as in the other thread or have you tweaked some more stuff?

Cheers!

[kv29]

Almost the same, the only thing I´ve tweaked is the tranverse speed (from 35 to 25), I think it was a little too fast. Now Im fiddling with the min and max angles to see if I can reproduce the same static camera as the 4" but for all guns.

[CaptainCox]

Cheers!. Just if you know, what group do you think the cross-hair is at in the .ini?
[G38 I1] or?

Also do you know what the code looked like for the Bino Xhair?...maybe could be hint.

[CaptainCox]

Well its not as the Bino, at least not exactly
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=112404&highlight=binoculars
Can't find any code similar to this in the Deck Gun code block in the .ini

[kv29]

But it must be there, sadly we don´t have even a small clue what it looks like...

[kv29]

hmmmm, been checking both 4" and 5" cam files, they are virtually the same with only minor changes here and there. But the 3" cam file is a real black sheep, is very different in many aspects. I´ve tried switching the files but I can´t use the deckgun after that.... :hmm:

Im not far enough in my campaign, so the 5" is not available yet. Can anyone try the mod with the 5"/25 gun to check how it performs?

[CaptainCox]

I am calling it a day here. If needed I am happy to continue digging in the morn. keep it up kv29 ;)

[kv29]

we need more hands

[Julius Caesar]

I still haven't used 5.25" gun so I can't help you on that.
I'm still trying to find crosshair in 1024_768.ini file...

[kv29]

thanks julius. Look at Cox post, the binocular mod is a good way to start.

[panthercules]

hmmmm, been checking both 4" and 5" cam files, they are virtually the same with only minor changes here and there. But the 3" cam file is a real black sheep, is very different in many aspects. I´ve tried switching the files but I can´t use the deckgun after that.... :hmm:

Im not far enough in my campaign, so the 5" is not available yet. Can anyone try the mod with the 5"/25 gun to check how it performs?

I'll be happy to try it out in my gun-test mission, if someone can tell me how to get a sub with a 5" gun in a home-made single mission. In the other thread, someone finally clued me in that the S-boats come with a 4" gun - everything else I tried kept coming with 3" guns (even Gato and Balao, which I thought sure would come with bigger guns), but I haven't tried every type yet.

[panthercules]

Tried a few more types in my mission, and couldn't find a 5" gun, so i just started a new career with a Balao class in Feb. 1945 and got one that way.

Unfortunately, I didn't see nearly the great results with the 5" as with the 4" gun :cry:

I had no actual targets, and the winds were only 5m/s, so it's not a perfect comparison, but:

- there was very little up/down motion, and the crosshairs never got above the horizon - at the first zoom level, the view went from this (max high):

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96/Cladean/SH45-inchgunhigh.jpg

to this (max low):

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96/Cladean/SH45-inchgunlow.jpg

Also, although without targets it was hard to tell, the results as far as shell splashes didn't seem very different at all between the high and the low.

Will keep checking, though it sure would be easier if I could get a 5" gun in my test mission - surely there's got to be a way to choose your sub's weapon loadout in the mission editor - does anybody know how to do that?

[kv29]

well, after doing a LOT of tests with the gun angles, I still can´t comprehend what the devs tried to do with the guns.The whole thing is SO screwed around the stabilization issue, I still can´t believe it. Everything seems to be upside down :doh: , whose idea was this????

Surely they wasted a lot of time trying to make this abortion to work, why didn´t they go for the real thing in the first place? It would have been so much easier....

but I won´t give up.... not yet

[kv29]

Cox I need your help.
I´ve found new missing values in the 3 50 tweak file:

show restr (01fa)
restr_dist (020a)
train 350 mount (0225)
barrell 350 body (023c)
anm 350 base (0287)
anm human (0295)

The most promising is train350mount, if set to 0 the cam is fixed to the deck but I cannot elevate the cannon. I´ve set the rest to 0, to no avail.

What do you think?

[CaptainCox]

Hm, will have a look. Will post back if I find something.

[Palidian]

Why do you want to take the x hair out of the unzoommed view?

Keep in mind its hard to shoot at the waterline at close targets threw the scope, when the minimum range tick is 500 yards

[CaptainCox]

I guess the "real" guys did not have a sight projected in the air ;) Its for us "reality freaks"...I think :p And you would never fire a gun at point blank anyway...or?

[Julius Caesar]

I guess the "real" guys did not have a sight projected in the air :rotfl:

laser projected! :stare:

[kv29]

Why do you want to take the x hair out of the unzoommed view?

Keep in mind its hard to shoot at the waterline at close targets threw the scope, when the minimum range tick is 500 yards

You´ll still be able to do that looking at the gun barrel elevation. And as other skippers said, have you ever seen a floating crosshair in rl?

[Bando]

KV29, does this mean that if the crosshair is removed you can fix the 3,5 and 5,25 gun as well??

If so, remove the little bugger.....

I love what you did to the 4,5

Reg

Bando

[kv29]

No Bando, they are not related. Im still working on it and Cox is giving me a hand.

[Palidian]

hehe
Guess there is no floating cross hair, however the scope should be able to depress past 500 yards, I suspect that is what the floating cross hair represents.


If you cannot make the scope depress past 500 yards leave the x hair, if you can then make it go away.


JMHO


Why do you want to take the x hair out of the unzoommed view?

Keep in mind its hard to shoot at the waterline at close targets threw the scope, when the minimum range tick is 500 yards
You´ll still be able to do that looking at the gun barrel elevation. And as other skippers said, have you ever seen a floating crosshair in rl?

[tater]

Under 500 yards you'd not likely even need the X to aim at anythign of any size.

[Palidian]

Unless you want to target something specific, as a gun turret or a point in the hull.


Under 500 yards you'd not likely even need the X to aim at anythign of any size.

[tater]

True. Better that the cross hair would be a boresight view for the non-zoomed. Fixed to the barrel, and the barrel still rolls with the boat.

The problem is the X is the aim point, and it gyrostabilizes the gun to hit that point.

[kv29]

well guys, neither I could find the crosshair in the ini (I visually inspected the WHOLE file :x), nor fix the 3" camera. So that will be all for now, I will continue searching once 1.3 is out (yes, I would love to see all this fixed by it!)

In the meantime, take the mod for what is worth.

[tater]

Wasn't there a mod that made the sub roll and pitch more with the sea?

Anyone tested RDG with that set up?

[panthercules]

Wasn't there a mod that made the sub roll and pitch more with the sea?

Anyone tested RDG with that set up?

I haven't seen a specific mod for that, but I know RFB included some tweak to try to address that issue, and I'm currently experimenting with tweaking my sub.cfg and sub.sim files to try to make my sub ride a little lower in the water when surfaced and have a higher center of gravity, in hopes that will provide a bit more pitch/roll motion. Gotta head out to the store but will be running some more tests with that set-up later tonight so might learn something about this later.

[tater]

Yeah, it was mentioned in the big waves thread. I have to admit I'm kind of immersed in the mission editor to the exclusion of other stuff.

I'd love to play with a more rolling pitching deck to establish ROF experimentally...

[panthercules]

Well, LOL, my first experiment was less than successful - my S-18 class sub actually rolled over and capsized :rotfl:

After I fine-tuned my settings a little, I got some really great results with the 4" gun and my boat looked and felt better from the bridge view as well. Using a combination of RFB 1.28, with Real Deck Gun 1.0 and Sober's large wave mod ver. 1.4, plus some minor tweaks increasing surface depth/draught and increasing center of gravity, my sub was giving me some great movement in 8m/s winds:

From this (at first zoom level):

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96/Cladean/SH4-4-inchhigh.jpg

to this:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96/Cladean/SH4-4-inchlow.jpg

At the higher zoom level, the target ship completely disappeared both above and below the sighting scope view at the extremes :o

Won't be getting too many hits this way in seas this high, that's for sure. You can definitely ratchet down the reload time and still get typical/historical ROF with this setup.

Unfortunately, even with these sorts of settings I couldn't get any decent results with the 5" gun in 5m/s winds. Basically, no real change from the 5" results I noted in my previous post above.

[edit] Intriguing - when I set my 4" gun test mission back to 5m/s winds (from the 8m/s I'd been using), so I could get an apples-to-apples comparison with the 5m/s I have in my 5" gun tests, I'm seeing as much motion with the boat with 5m/s as I was with 8m/s :hmm: I would have thought I'd see more at 8m/s - the waves looked a lot bigger at 8m/s, but the boat didn't really move much (if at all) more. I did decide that raising the center of gravity and the surfaced draught was a little overkill, as the boat seemed to wallow a bit too much and was too low in the water, so I backed off the draught changes and just went with the center of gravity tweak for now (and very small change there as well - like 3 to 3.05 on an S-18). So far, so good from both a visual bridge-view effect and a gun pitch/roll effect. Guess I'll try it while on patrol in my career for a while and see how it goes.

[Webster]

we need more hands


DING...DING....DING....DING.....DING.......

NOW HEAR THIS......NOW HEAR THIS......ALL HANDS ON DECK

[CaptainCox]

Just tried this mod with the (beta?) v1.3 patch and no problem. Only question I have is, why is the cross hair not centered in the gun sight ?

[panthercules]

Just tried this mod with the (beta?) v1.3 patch and no problem. Only question I have is, why is the cross hair not centered in the gun sight ?

If you're talking about the horizontal crosshair in the zoomed views being a bit lower than center of the sight/scope view, I believe it's an adjustment kv29 made so that the proper firing point would be when the cross-hairs are equal to the horizon - in one of the posts above someone indicated that this was how they actually decided when to fire (dial in the desired range/elevation, then fire as the boat's movement brings the gun sight/horizontal crosshair even with the horizon). If you leave the crosshair "centered" in the scope view, then the shots fall too short (or you have to fire when the crosshairs are about 1/8th inch above the horizon).

[tater]

Yeah, that's probably it. It was me who posted it, but I won't take credit for it, it was Admiral Calvert (author of Silent Running) who said it, I just repeated him.

:)

tater

[CaptainCox]

Ah, i see guys, cheers for the explanation. I just felt it looks a bit...well like a mistake :p. But if the function requires it, what the H.LL ;)

[kv29]

Sorry cox, I hope the edited sight doesn´t bother you much, Its just I couldnt find another way to decrease sight elevation without screwing the whole system.

[panthercules]

Funny, but I didn't really notice it looking off-center till Capt. Cox pointed it out. Frankly though, even though I can see that it is when I look close, it's nothing that will bother me even now and it's soooo worth the trade-off of having the gun moving and working so much better than the ultra-stabilized stock gun does.

Too bad only the 4" gun seems to work with these tweaks, but that's a lot better than nothing, and I'll just have to make sure all my subs have the 4" gun till kv gets the others working.

[nomad_delta]

(Found it!) Downloading now!

nomad_delta

[panthercules]

Any further progress on this? Is it still needed with 1.3? Does it still work with 1.3?

[kv29]

It still works with 1.3.

And yes, I will continue working on the mod as soon as fresh required info reaches my hands (yes, my prayer has been answered from "high above" :p )

[panthercules]

That's great news - really looking forward to getting all the deck guns to work with this :up:

[panthercules]

@kv29 - any chance you can upload a new copy of or link to the latest version of this that works for the 4" gun? I tried downloading the one using the link in the first post of this thread, but I'm seeing some weird stuff in the readme that I can't make sense of.


For example, the readme says: For those wishing to modify the files by themselves, here is a list of the modified values in each file:
In Deck_Gun_4_50.cam
Modified: Elevation Speed from 5 to 0.1
Modified: Traverse speed from 35 to 25 (the gun was turning a little too fast for me)

However, the D/L file doesn't have a Deck_Gun_4_50.cam in it (not a huge deal, since I can presumably tweak my current one as you suggest, but I would have expected there to be an already-tweaked file in the D/L since the readme talks as if doing it manually was optional for those who just wanted to). But the D/L does contain a Deck_Gun_4_50.sim file, which isn't mentioned in the readme. Is the only reason that file is in there to change the reload speed, or did you also make some other changes in that file?

[edit] even worse problem just surfaced - when I went looking on my PC for the tweak file for the Deck_Gun_4_50.cam file to make those changes manually, I couldn't find them anywhere - all I could find were the .sim tweak files for the deck guns. Was the ".cam" a typo in the readme or am I missing some needed tweak files? If the latter, any idea where I can get them (I thought I had all the tweak files publicly out there, but maybe not).

[kv29]

crap, I typed it wrong! I meant the .sim file :oops:
sorry for the mistake

[Julius Caesar]

I just wish some of devs would help us with this one (elanaiba?). :cool:

[tater]

Maybe they are ;)

tater

[kv29]

Indeed. Have patience, good things are coming our way.....

[Jhereg]

Any updates as to progress? The whole M1A3 uberstabilisation is a wee tad disconcerting LOL;)

[tater]

How goes it. I assume you've taken a break from this project :)

tater

[kv29]

no news yet, Im still waiting for elanaiba, I can´t go any further without his help.