Popped my GWX/Supermod cherry

[Panser]

Last night I took the plunge and installed GWX3.0 after completing my third patrol of my current career. It had been sat on my hard drive a while just waiting for me to get the confidence to give it a go, being the first time I have tried any mod for SH3. I'm very impressed so far and loving the extra detail and content that has been added - I can see why so many people recommend it.

However i'm also finding it very different to the point of it feeling like a new game after 4 years of intermittent play of vanilla SH3. One change in particular which i'm not sure about (but feel that maybe I should just "give it a go") is no longer having coloured contact markers to indicate whether friendly/hostile/neutral. If I do decide I want the colours back, is there a way of changing this, or even reverting map contacts completely to the old style?

Also, is there any way of increasing the resolution of the game? I've already discovered modifying the config file doesn't work, and the resolution fix (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=1092) utility appears to only support XP, unless i'm mistaken? (I'm running Win7x64).

Apologies if the answers to my questions are already elsewhere on here, but I have looked, used the search function, google, RTFM and pretty much drawn a blank.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can point me in the right direction, and also many thanks to the GWX team for giving me a "new" silent hunter game 3 months before I expected one! :cool:

[Jimbuna]

Contact colours mod is available from my GWX FF page (below my sig).

Welcome to GWX http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/welcome.gif

[Sailor Steve]

Apologies if the answers to my questions are already elsewhere on here, but I have looked, used the search function, google, RTFM and pretty much drawn a blank.
You're not alone in that one. The answers are all there, but not always obviously so. I used to be the first one to yell at someone for not doing all those things, but the truth is that I sometimes have a hard time finding things that I know are there!

The only thing I can suggest besides asking more questions is to get SH3 Commander as well. It dovetails perfectly with supermods like GWX, and it doesn't make the game any harder; it just adds so much more.:up:

[IanC]

One change in particular which i'm not sure about (but feel that maybe I should just "give it a go") is no longer having coloured contact markers to indicate whether friendly/hostile/neutral.


Don't forget, in real life, spotting a contact in the distance and not knowing if it was friendly, hostile or neutral was a big part of the 'hunting suspense'. It gets very realistic and intense when you must place your boat close enough to visually ID the target flag before shooting.
That's one of the first things I wanted to mod when I bought SH3. :yep:

[Panser]

Don't forget, in real life, spotting a contact in the distance and not knowing if it was friendly, hostile or neutral was a big part of the 'hunting suspense'. It gets very realistic and intense when you must place your boat close enough to visually ID the target flag before shooting.
That's one of the first things I wanted to mod when I bought SH3. :yep:

Well I do keep telling myself I should stick with it - after all, I wouldn't have thought twice about it if it was never previously an option in the vanilla game.
As it is, I will be trying a couple of patrols with the grey markers to see how I get on. Still, it's nice to know that I have the option to revert it if I really don't like it.

[mookiemookie]

I remember it being quite a shock to me also when I first loaded the Grey Wolves mod.

But what helps is to remember:

1. If the ship is sailing by itself and its blacked out - shoot it
2. If the ship is sailing by itself and it's not blacked out - don't shoot it.
3. If the ship is in convoy, it's probably fair game - check to be sure

[Rangoon]

1. If the ship is sailing by itself and its blacked out - shoot it
2. If the ship is sailing by itself and it's not blacked out - don't shoot it.

Yes, I really like this aspect of GWX.

However I'm not sure what you mean mookiemookie about being 'blacked out' or not. Can you/someone please clarify? I'm still getting my feet wet, so to speak.

EDIT: Ah, it just occurred to me. Does this mean having spotlights on its flag or not? I assume this would imply that Allied ships will not put a spotlight on their flag at night?

[Jimbuna]

Yes, I really like this aspect of GWX.

However I'm not sure what you mean mookiemookie about being 'blacked out' or not. Can you/someone please clarify? I'm still getting my feet wet, so to speak.

EDIT: Ah, it just occurred to me. Does this mean having spotlights on its flag or not? I assume this would imply that Allied ships will not put a spotlight on their flag at night?

Yes, spotlights on and windows lit up.

[Panser]

That's some useful advice about being blacked out, thanks for that! I had visions of chasing ships around, squinting at their flags in the darkness.

This also suggests that I need to do some more reading around on what exactly the mod changes, particularly regards the behaviour of hostile shipping and warships.

I guess gone are the days of the great cookie-cutter ship turkey shoot...

[Dissaray]

One thing you can count on for finding enemys is the radio contact reports of convoys. They show up as big squares on your map and have all the standard contact info projected on them, course speed ect. and I have yet to find a freindly target in one; though one time I did find a neutral mixed in there and ended up shooting and killing him but I guess that is what he gets for hanging out with people I don't like.

Beond that the lone contacts are always fun to roll up on check out if they are a target or not. Even if they aren't a valid target you can get some good practice at gathering data for fireing solutions if you are useing manual targeting.

[Damo]

I run GWX3 and I'll admit that the loss of contact colors was a drag at first so I tried the mod to bring them back. It actually felt like a cheat then so I removed it. What I'd really like is the radio reports of single merchants to be colored to signify that the contact has been identified before the report whereas ones I stumble across would require me to identify them, but I'm guessing that they cannot be seperated like that and it's all or nothing.

It's a PITA to go chasing after a distant contact only to raise the periscope and see it lit up like a xmas tree. Not so much of an issue in type VII's and up but a waste of fuel in a type II. I also use Community Units and some of the neutral models won't be lit, making assumptions based on lighting state risky.

There's also the fact that if an American ship leaves port bound for England and then America enters the war while it's mid-Atlantic, as I understand it, the ship will remain lit as it can't change it's 3D model. Of course, this only happens within a very brief timeframe.

[TarJak]

Even more of a PITA when you go chasing and see it is not lit and then get close enough to see the Stars and Strips hanging from the mainmast in April 1941.:wah:

[Sailor Steve]

Yep, that's the real pain of it. In the stock game there were no lighted ships. GWX adds lights to some neutrals, but not all.

Always check that flag before you shoot.

Oh, and that's one of the things I love about driving in and out of my home base - all those pretty lights on the visiting ships.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Even more of a PITA when you go chasing and see it is not lit and then get close enough to see the Stars and Strips hanging from the mainmast in April 1941.:wah:

Stars and 'Strips'??? I'll buy that for a dollar.:D

[Panser]

Has the number of random (well, there's probably nothing random about it) or lone merchant contacts been decreased in GWX compared to stock SH3?

On my present patrol departing from Kiel, I have only encountered one ship that wasn't scripted port traffic since reaching the open sea past Brunsbüttel - and that was about halfway up the coast of Norway. Since then, I've been around the Shetlands and the Orkneys, patrolled grid AN11, twice tried intercepting reported task forces in the AE and AF grids to no avail, returning to my patrol area in between.

I realise that this was often "the lot" of the Kriegsmarine, but i'm surprised to have seen or heard no contacts at all in the game, especially given that they have been so fruitful on previous patrols. I've typically been steaming at 10kt (unless intercepting phantom task forces) and regularly diving to 20m for hydrophone checks.

[Jimbuna]

Check you don't have the Indian or Black Sea campaign files enabled in JSGME.

[Panser]

Check you don't have the Indian or Black Sea campaign files enabled in JSGME.

I've only got the following enabled:
-Open Hatch mod
-16km atmosphere
-Enhanced damage effects
-No medals on crew
-Integrated orders

Edit: and running SH3 commander

[Jimbuna]

Put the SpySat mod in (click on my GWX FF link) and that will show you if most of the traffic that is scripted in is working.

[Panser]

I tried the spysat mod, but it seems to consistently give me a CTD after the black "Not so long ago..." screen. However I did open my save without it and try a brief a kamikaze run on Scapa Flow (which amazingly I survived!) by dashing in the west entrance, decks awash at flank speed. I did a rough lap of the harbour and all the scripted traffic in there certainly seemed to be working alright. When I'd dodged all the destroyers and torpedo boats to leave again, I encountered a lone large merchant heading NE around the Orkneys.

Neither a comprehensive or scientific test, but I can presume from that I had just been unlucky rather than having issues with my game. That said, if I could get the spysat mod to work it would be good to verify my findings.

Edit: I just double-checked the readme for the spysat mod and I've been trying to apply it mid-patrol, not back in port.

Double edit: I don't think i need worry about testing with the spysat at all; continuing my original save prior to my testing, I just blundered into and sunk a very auspicious target :salute:

[Jimbuna]

Good Luck http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif