What keeps modders clear of UBM?

[Rosencrantz]

Hi!


I'm just curious what keeps our great modders well clear of U-boat missions? I think lurker is making real progress with his OM705 - I was quite impressed about what he has done sofar - but where are the rest? Is it a "rewriten history" as a start point or just fleet boat operations why the u-boats seems to lack attention? As I said, I think lurker has already done a man's job with OM, but there is still something to do. A small list after couple fast trials:

1. Orange circle showing the position of the sub is back in the water
2. Torpedo Data Panel is again auto identifying the targets, not releated with realism settings
3. Ship sighted messages displayed also when only periscope is used
4. Can't go back from periscopes to conning tower/control room
5. Red/Yellow crosshair is back in the binoculars
6. Missing complete german language package
7. If there is no radar on the boat, using the F9 gives strange results; if you are on the bridge the view will open, or if you are at attack scope, you'll find yourself "sitting on top of the scope" (at surface just behind the forward lookouts). A camera issue releated with radar?!?

I'm sure all these things would be just basics to our modders, as they have solved them many times before, so that's why I'm thinking why nobody seems to be too much interested? These problems solved + lurkers OM would already give a new life to the U-boats in Silent Hunter, I think.

Greetings,
-RC-

[rubenandthejets]

I'd love to see the S Boot playable in SH4 v1.5....

[Hitman]

I think that so far there are still way many more people playing SH3 rather than UBM. Yes, Lurker has done a fantastic job with OM, but still UBM is a long way from reaching the level of a modded SH3, and modding it in some aspects is not as easy as with SH3.

For example, if I would have been able to port over my optics mod and the slide-out compass from SH3 to UBM, I would have already forgotten SH3.

But I can't, and I don't like playing UBM without that mod, so I'm more or less stuck with SH3. However, I like the US interface in SH4, so I play US submarines gladly with it.

I bet that many more people share similar views, plus there is always the hardware matter: People with older computers can't shift to SH4 easily.

All that reduced number of players means of course, statistically, also a reduced number of modders.

My 2 cents

[dcb]

Well, RC, at least some of your complaints have been addressed, or you can do it yourself.

1. Orange circle showing the position of the sub is back in the water
- You can get rid of it by creating an empty or completely transparent umark.dds

2. Torpedo Data Panel is again auto identifying the targets, not releated with realism settings
- Get rid of it by replacing ships' names with - (minuses) in the file Names.cfg, of the Roster folder

4. Can't go back from periscopes to conning tower/control room
- Yes you can, by making a few changes in Commands.cfg.
This is a hint about what I mean. To learn more, analyze the similar file of SH3. They work in the same way.

[Cmd16]
Name=Periscope_camera
Ctxt=1
MnID=0x3F020003
;Key0=0x73,,"F4"
Key0=0x72,,"F3"
Page=0x26000000,3702
GoBack=Conning_tower_camera

6. Missing complete german language package
What do you mean by complete? Everything that is used by the game has been changed to German by Spax and other modders. Yes, there are a few audio effects missing, if compared to SH3, but this is hardcoded and no modder could bring them back AFAIK.


Coming to your other issues, I never experienced no. 3, I don't have the crosshair in the binoculars (no. 5) - but I don't know what in the wide mix of mods I use did remove it, and I cannot check no. 7, because I completely adapted the keyboard to the style of SH3.

Coming to Hitman's problems, I must once again praise the modders of SH4, as FLBSale brought the sliding dials in the game and they are fully functional. Yes, the menu1024 thing is a real PITA compared to SH3 (for instance, I know how to change it myself in SH3, but was unable to do the same in SH4), but what FLB accomplished is living proof that it can be understood and changed to one's liking.

What I feel still needs much attention is the submarines' hydro behavior (mostly in foul weather) and damage model. Campaign too might benefit from more work and the interactivity brought by the game (far superior to SH3) with the use of radio messages still is far from reaching its full potential.

[AVGWarhawk]

In all reality, if you search the Uboat forum and us OM as you base mod, add the other mods created(like German voice mods) using JSGME. The player can have a great mod package! I did it. I used OM, dropped in Real Enviro 5.0 found in the Fleetboat mod forum. I dropped in the voice mod for German voices and ta-da nice German Uboat campaign with some trimmings:03:

Only problem, I went to shoot a torpedo and completely forgot how the Germans did it. :oops: :har:

[lurker_hlb3]

submarines' damage model. Campaign too might benefit from more work



What wrong with the Sub Damage model in OM ?

Also the same question about the Campaign ?

[cgjimeneza]

I might not agree on the ship damage model ala RFB, but comparing the "op monsun" to stock 1.5 UBM bears no tought

and Spaxs German language pack has been installed in my HD since operation drumbeat (sorry, too lazy to look hows its spelled in German)

try Op for a couple weeks and see for yourself... the campaign is great and as I had said earlier in the Op thread, watch out for the RAF...

have you gotten orders yet to sail from France to the lesser antilles and crossing your fingers for a milchcow.... even if you top your fuel at the neutral Spain

that´s sea life!!!

AVG: will try your enviroment 5.0 on my install, thnx for the suggestion!!!

[AVGWarhawk]

AVG: will try your enviroment 5.0 on my install, thnx for the suggestion!!!


:03:

Worked great for me!

[AVGWarhawk]

Come to think of it, why is this thread posted anyway? I see three ready made mod packs. :06: I see a handful of smaller sound, music and graphics mods.

[lurker_hlb3]

----------

[Highbury]

I might not agree on the ship damage model ala RFB, but comparing the "op monsun" to stock 1.5 UBM bears no tought

and Spaxs German language pack has been installed in my HD since operation drumbeat (sorry, too lazy to look hows its spelled in German)

try Op for a couple weeks and see for yourself... the campaign is great and as I had said earlier in the Op thread, watch out for the RAF...

have you gotten orders yet to sail from France to the lesser antilles and crossing your fingers for a milchcow.... even if you top your fuel at the neutral Spain

that´s sea life!!!

AVG: will try your enviroment 5.0 on my install, thnx for the suggestion!!!

I agree totally. OpMonsun gives a very good U-Boat experience in SH4, as well as the long list of other mods. There are certainly more US/Pacific based ones, but it is a US/Pacific based game, that is too be expected.

I share your opinion of the damage model, and it is keeping me from spending much time with OM until I can sit down for the hours needed to tweak it to what I feel is more realistic.. but that is an issue of difference of preference and has nothing to do with modders avoiding the U-Boat side of things.

[cgjimeneza]

I agree totally. OpMonsun gives a very good U-Boat experience in SH4, as well as the long list of other mods. There are certainly more US/Pacific based ones, but it is a US/Pacific based game, that is too be expected.

I share your opinion of the damage model, and it is keeping me from spending much time with OM until I can sit down for the hours needed to tweak it to what I feel is more realistic.. but that is an issue of difference of preference and has nothing to do with modders avoiding the U-Boat side of things.

Lurker, its your mod, but can you point us on how to revert the new damage model to a "faster" sinking one....

thanks!

[lurker_hlb3]

Lurker, its your mod, but can you point us on how to revert the new damage model to a "faster" sinking one....

thanks!

I would not be a "simple" task to undo the damage model as it is integrated into all the units in OM.

A lot of work / testing went into it by Observer and I'm more than satisfied with it.

One things for sure, "everybody" as there own opinion on how the ships / subs should "realistic act" within SH4 and no matter what I do, it will never make everone "happy".

[Highbury]

I don't think anyone expects it would be quick or easy, nor does anyone expect you to change it an any sort of a patch. He was just wondering what values would have to be changed in a 1 ship example. Figuring out the rest of the ships should be intuitive after that.

Surely people editing it to their own tastes on their own PCs is acceptable.

[lurker_hlb3]

He was just wondering what values would have to be changed in a 1 ship example.

Go to it

http://forum.kickinbak.com/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=1378


Surely people editing it to their own tastes on their own PCs is acceptable

I don't have any problem with that

[Rosencrantz]

Hitman wrote:
I think that so far there are still way many more people playing SH3 rather than UBM.


Yep, I forgot that but I agree.


To dcb: Big thanks for your advise. To me editing roster or command file won't be a problem but umark.dss -thing I have to study. I think I don't have a proper program to handle dss files. Maybe I could also give a try for spax language mod. I already tried Sh3toSh4 V.3, which includes the language package and it worked fine. Only thing was that radio messages seemed to be somewhat wrong as COMSUBPAC was acting as a sender. But yet I'm not sure it was Sh3to4 which caused this. And by ship sighted messages I meant the writen ones, not sounded.


Greetings,
-RC-

[Highbury]

A decent free program that edits .dds files is Paint.net (http://getpaint.net/). It is no Photoshop but it is a pretty good program for free.

Lurker has put up a file to remove the arrow towards the end of the OpMonsun thread however, so there is no need to edit this if you don't want to.

[ichso]

It's called dds not dss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectDraw_Surface

Edit it with www.gimp.org (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/www.gimp.org) (it's free - even open source) with the dds-plugin installed http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/dds/ (http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/%7Ecocidius/dds/)

This paint thingy might be alright to edit small, uncomplicated stuff like the umark.dds but for real texture work use a real graphics program like the above ;)

[Highbury]

Err yeah.. I know very little about that stuff which is why I only know of a free program to edit them ;) I leave that stuff to you guys that know what you are doing :up:

I was actually thinking how good a Type II or VII would look with that "oil canning" effect of yours ichso :D

[ichso]

Ah ok,
an easy way (the best I can think of right now) is to use the Filling tool in pattern mode. Such tools are available in programs like gimp or photoshop.

You can create a small image that is supposed to show a single oil canning rectangle and use it as a pattern to fill a whole area with it. This image should feature a transparent background (because you want the underlying texture to shine through) and should otherwise just create this shadowy effect.

The way I did it was to use the pattern fill to just fill a large (enough) area with those rectangles and then cut and move this area over the texture to make them fit well together.

Erm, I send you a pm :DL

[lurker_hlb3]

but umark.dss -thing I have to study.

You don't need any kind of "paint" program to fix the issue of removing the UMark. Here what you do:

1. Open wordpad / notepad
2. Using the "save as" option, create a 0 length file called UMark.dds
3. Place new UMark.dds in data/misc directory

[ichso]

If you want to put it that way, you can also just delete the file instead of replacing it ;)

[cgjimeneza]

no, the file must still exist, else the game might crash or search for a reinstall of the file,

as I see it, the game seeks a file, if it doesnt find it, then its an OOPS for the game logic

[ichso]

I never had any problems, though. I wondered how the game would react internally when you just delete one of the files. But replacing it with an empty file should not be much better because the attempt to read data from it would not even find the expected image file header, or the header of the image compression format so other internal routines should fail either way.

The safest way to prevent this would be to replace the file with an empty image that just contains a transparent background at the size of the original umark.dds.

[Rosencrantz]

It has been a busy weekend here in Finland, but have to say it's great to have your support, guys. I'm totally noob if talking about modding, as everything I have done so far is some editing with notepad for my own use only. But I'm looking for a day next week I can start learning more. If I could learn how to deal with dds files, maybe the next thing would be a search for a "Complete Idiot's Guide for JSGME."

Edit:

Ok, couldn't keep my fingers out so I tried to go in harms way; just deleted Umark.dds and completed a short 10 minutes test dive at Kiel. No CTD or other problems. (But can I trust the results?) However, weird F9 behavior I mentioned before got my attention again. You can get a nice full screen pic if you hit F9 when at scope (in the boat without radar). And then you can get yourself back to CT just by hitting numpad ins. Also if you are in some other station you can get quite strange camera views through the F9.

To sledgehammer: roger that! ;)


Greetings,
-RC-

[Sledgehammer427]

somwhere in the SH4 mods workshop (its stickied) is a modslist, crack open the modslist and look for a download called "Modding Tools"
in there is a .dds converter.

and,
everything I have done so far is some editing with notepad for my own use only.
thats how I started. I got tired of waiting for everyone else to make the playable ships Campaign-ready, so I did it myself, and then everybody found out, and i released them (if you read my disclaimers. you see I have a lot of fun doing them)

[DarkFish]

Personally I use Paint.net to edit dds files. Paint.net is a really good free image editor, and I hugely prefer it to gimp. As ichso says gimp has got a lot more functions, but its GUI is much less user-friendly. Even for 'real texture work' I only use gimp once in a blue moon, I can do almost everything I need to with Paint.net.
I'd say just use the program you like best. If you use a dds converter you can even edit it with MS paint;)

Hmm, don't think MS Paint supports alpha:hmmm:

[cgjimeneza]

Go to it

http://forum.kickinbak.com/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=1378




I don't have any problem with that


ok, its printed, will read the 24 pages to begin learning how the damage works, thanks

[polyfiller]

There are a few who are competent with damage modelling - Observer seems to be the real guru over at the subsim forums. I have used a lot of his knowledge and reckon I've cracked most aspects of the modelling ... although getting ships to sink realistically (AI ships) is tricky, and a matter of trial and error. Post here if you have question about the damage modelling side of things.

You may struggle to make progress without the yet to be released version of S3D however.

[Rosencrantz]

Ok, here is the list about what I have been building up and testing today. Maybe someone finds it interesting. Comments and feedback are welcome.

After I made a fresh and clean install of SH4/1.5 and enabled OM705 + Patch1, and DBSM:

1. Replaced UMark.dds with one borrowed from TMO170.
2. Replaced text "COMSUBPAC" at Data/Menu/Menu/4193 with "BdU". No more radio messages or contact reports signed by COMSUBPAC.
3. Replaced ship's names at Data/Roster/Names with minuses ( - ) as directed by dcb. No more autoidentified targets in torpedo data panel.
4. Replaced Commands-file in Cfg-folder with one borrowed again from TMO170. Is working quite nice with type IX. F9 is no more serving radar but gives access to CT. I think there's no more hotkey for sonar either but at least I don't mind it. You can always use the command bar. Go back (num pad ins) works great for TDC and obs. scope. From the attack scope go back takes you now back to the CT, not to the front of the scope. Needs more studies.
5. After several short test drives no CTDs or other problems.

If someone can see possible future or present problems in my "build up", please, leave a message. Only thing I can do is more testing.

Greetings,
-RC-

[Highbury]

Answered my own question :)

Move along, nothing to see here :P

[jmr]

For example, if I would have been able to port over my optics mod and the slide-out compass from SH3 to UBM, I would have already forgotten SH3.

But I can't, and I don't like playing UBM without that mod, so I'm more or less stuck with SH3. However, I like the US interface in SH4, so I play US submarines gladly with it.

Why is that? It can't simply be ported over with a few modifications to make it compatible with SH4? Would you have to make a new mod from the ground up instead?

[Rockin Robbins]

Sonar is ctrl-H in TMO. Radar takes a button bar command.

Frankly, to quote another well known modder, SH4 modders mod the Pacific because it needs a lot of work. The U-Boat angle benefits from all the work already done in SH3 and most of it can be adapted quite easily. However the Pacific side has no such already built base. Because of that you'll see the Atlantic mods shoot by the Pacific mods so fast that you'll no longer wonder about it.

For better or worse, there is also the popular opinion that the Grey Wolves are just going to swoop down and save the world. This is an irritant to SH4 modders who are not inclined to become involved in the Atlantic because the GW have just sucked all the oxygen out of the air. (why don't the Pacific modders just wear scuba tanks and go for it?:haha:)

Another anonymous modder said, "There's two groups of modders: Modders affiliated GWX, and modders not affiliated with GWX. There's absolutely no point in doing anything for the Atlantic because GWX will have that covered, it's all they want or care for, it's their specialty, so you can expect a high level motivation where the Atlantic is concerned. So why should anyone else bother?"

Have YOU looked at Tomi's torpedo room and engine room? You wanna compete with that? Although I don't share the cynacism of some Pacific modders, I don't think we have to worry about the Atlantic.

I am a little discouraged that the Atlantic side will never be the healthy, vibrant modding scene the Pacific side is, with TMO, RFB, GFO, FOTRS and other supermods all in continuous development without conflict between the modders. I believe that the more mods there are, the better they all are. But it's not the Wolves' fault nobody wants to share the water with them except Lurker, who's been swimmming laps waiting for them for months. We'll take what they come out with and be glad of it.

Then there's SH5 on the way. This also makes modders change their plans and inhibits people from going through the effort to produce new stuff for a soon to be obsolete game. If SH5 is a bust, you'll see a revival here.