Weird things about merchants -no convoys, and too tough

[Nobon]

Greetings. Maybe a non-existent problem,
but this is my second patrol in 1940 (VIIb) First started in January 2. now we are in february.

First patrol last for 27 days, this second goes on for like two weeks.
Playing in 87% realism, only camera options, and visibility turned on.

(so no enhanced map help)

I usually patrol the given target area, and respond to any signaled contact in the map. Usually, there are quite a some, (sank 12 ship at the last patrol) But they are mostly lonely merchants.

Many coastal merchant, and small merchants, and sometimes a loner c2, or c3.

Only -once- I ran into two ships at once: a small merchant, and a c3.

So, in 1940, I never saw a convoy nor in the La Manche, nor under the Brit Isles, nor up north, near scapa flow
Only once observed two ships together, and the La Manche is swarmed by uniform small destroyers.

But no convoys, and ship/convoy escort at all, so basically I can take out any and all targets with a deck gun. As 99% of them lonely. Only planes bother me sometimes.


The other thing is, that the map only shows 'ship', and the course, and speed, never display convoy contacts. (maybe thats beacouse of the realism)

Also observed, that merchants somehow really tough:

For example: (and its only one) a c2 get a good magnetic pistol G7a (T1) torpedo hit just one meter under the keel, leaves a nice BIG hole in the middle of the keel, then it continues its way,
only a tad slower, and bowes forward a bit.

I wait for like 60 minutes ingame time, nothing happens.

Ok, it needs two. The c2 isnt a small ship. (ok, its barely medium, compared to others, but details-details...) I shoot my second, in 5m depth, running for impact. Niice shot, it hits right half way from the middle to the aft.
Leaves a big hole also.

Ok, the c2 now bows back to normal O_o only runs a bit lower. (its part logical, as I let some water in to the aft...)

The funny part is, that it continues its way around 3knots, and start zigzagging me... With two -very- nice hits...

And its survives. Also remains mobile. 3 hours wait ingame, nothing happens.


O_o Ok, some ships really needed more than one torpedo, but for reality's sake, thats a TORPEDO hit,right under the keel, AND into his side, under the waterline! Thats 2x 280kg Hexite :D blown right into its vulnerable parts.


Reloaded the game, enraged, and sent a salvo of I. and III., with almost zero spread, magnetic, one meter depth.

Ok, nice hits, both one hit almost the same place under the keel.

It slowly sank. Thank god, two hit under the keel, almost a same place could tear apart an aircraft carrier....

But thats a double hit under the keel, why it isnt break into half? XD
just one meter under the draft.

And anyway, some heavily loaded c2, and c3 need even three torpedo.

And usually I aim for the hotspots.
So: is this, the lack of variety, and convoys in early 1940, and battleship-tough merchants are normal 1.4b stock behavior? I only have Harbour Traffic 1.47 installed.
is GWX 3, or other mods adress this?

Thank you for your patience


Edit:

Ok, its getting ridiculous, I have met a single, lonely english port thrawler ON THE OPEN OCEAN...
:D What, some guy just stolen it, and plan to survive a deep sea trip to Iceland?
What should I do with it? Im itching for targets, but the poor guy sinks if I just run over it...
Looks like the shark fishing boat from Shark I.

Edit2:

Er... It was one shot.
What can I say, Ive born without a heart.

At least it wasnt 50 men, only 2-6...
And it was propably stolen anyway

Edit3:
Lonely tugboat on deep sea... Same fate.

[TwoGamers]

Yeah the damage graphics are badly overdone all my fore tubes hit a T3 thousands of secondry explosions entire deck burning but it continues on like nothing happened

[Pisces]

GWX 3 definitely changes the damage mechanics into flooding mechanics. Frequently you do need to wait in the order of hours for sinking succeed. I usually hit the forward mast section. On the basis that flooding makes the bow dig deeper into the waves, increasing the flooding speed. But there are also vulnerability locations like fuel bunkers, keel, ammo bunkers, engine compartments and screw/rudder to further it's demise.

The amount of opportunity contact reports placed on the maps is based on a vicinity radius around your Uboat. ("Display Range To Opportunity Radio Contacts" in SH3_rootfolder\data\cfg\contacts.cfg) If you are not in the possible vicinity of convoy-tracks then the icons are not going to appear near you. Iirc the stock value is 250 km. But even then you should receive plenty of contacts if you are in the right areas. Can you be more specific with Kriegsmarine grid locations? Also, going overboard with timecompression might reduce your chances with finding something.

GWX also drastically changes the traffic routes. I'm not saying you won't find a tug in the open ocean. But more likely the appropriate vessels.

[TheDude107]

GWX 3 definitely changes the damage mechanics into flooding mechanics. Frequently you do need to wait in the order of hours for sinking succeed. I usually hit the forward mast section. On the basis that flooding makes the bow dig deeper into the waves, increasing the flooding speed. But there are also vulnerability locations like fuel bunkers, keel, ammo bunkers, engine compartments and screw/rudder to further it's demise.

GWX also drastically changes the traffic routes.

Yeah since Op was interested in GWX to solve the problems I would recomend it for that and to generally enhance the game. Like you said the damage model is geared towards flooding. It seems pretty spot on. Great magnetic shots ~.75m under keel will bring something down in 2-5 mins with realistic sink time on. Yesterday I used impact for the rare occasion on a wounded ship, hit below a mast and managed to catch something on fire. Seconds after the impact a fire spreaded towards the bow then must have hit an ammo container. The whole ship went up in flames. Felt bad because it was a transport ship. :timeout:

The convoy routes have gotten changed from those on the map. It seems for the better though. Hard to explain.... but it makes more sense that these ships in GWX are mostly taking the safest atlantic routes then splitting from that at the last second. Instead of stock silent hunter where you find single merchants way too close to your side of the channel.

With GWX on you can pretty much guess anything headed to Southern England is going to end up around the Celtish Sea. It made the shipping lanes a bit more narrow from my guess. But basicly common sense helps in finding the GWX shipping lanes. Whereas in vanilla you had the best chances finding a convoy while doing circles in back emergency.

Not to make this too long, but GWX does beef up the destroyers aswell. Convoy sightings are something that I see commonly, but actually getting within 4km is tougher on GWX. I was all silent at ~2knts, 2km away from a destroyer and someone must have farted. Destroyer was alongside my ship and cut his engine for a minute, then went home. But after I attacked every destroyer came to the general location of his "un-likley sub contact" from before.

[Jimbuna]

There were improvements to the random vessels and waypoints introduced in GWX3.0 to make it harder for boats to pick an 'exact' spot where traffic would be passing through.

[Nobon]

O.K., Ive fed up with stock 1.4b

Second patrol, sank 13 ships, most of them with gun...

Only those three C2's, and once a small merchant deserved some eel.
All... of.. them... was a loner.


I were at Scapa Flow port, (was hard to slip through 15 destroyers) and the port was empty, despite Harbor Traffic 1.47. Kiel had some ships, I thought maybe Scapa FLow also... Well it aint.

In the second patrol, apart from the canal/entrance guarding destroyers, and some lame lonely patrol crafts, still only saw lonely merchants.

Never found any convoy.

And if merchants sunk in shallow water, as soon as they reach the ground, they stuck there, with nose out from the water, and they stay like that forever.

Also had a c2 who survived 4 torpedo...

First was magnetic, 1m under the aft. Second one was almost at the middle, magnetic. That made him stop... Third one was impact, right in the middle.

And I forgot the fourth one... But he stayed afloat.
Yes, I waited for like a hour ingame XD


Also somehow my torpedoes stuck, and aft, and bow also wait for queue in reload, but both rooms have full crew...
Savegame reload wont help, nor any type of action.


-sigh- ... Does GWX3 compatible with these masterpieces of mods? :

-Tons of only graphical mods, just some tga's (I know they arent a problem, but maybe)
-FM_NewInterior1.0
-Harbour-Traffic1.47
-NeuUzo&PeriV.2
-M.E.P.V3
-MERCHANT VARIETY PACK, Early War Edition, V1.0 (from the legacy downloads)

And: the last question I really fear to ask, as a potc/aop2 mod programmer:

Can I continue my saved career, if I install GWX, and import it? ^^

Edit:
And I see some nice new submarine skins included- too nice to say...
If I want to stick to the 1.4b old, realisticly rusty as hell VIIb skin, what files I need to change after the GWX install?




Edit:
Oh, what GWX made me do... I deleted W40K Space Marine for room O_o

[flag4]

Yeah the damage graphics are badly overdone all my fore tubes hit a T3 thousands of secondry explosions entire deck burning but it continues on like nothing happened

some ships did. some went down with one torp. some went on after many attempts with torps. alot depended on the cargo they carried. if wood, they may not sink at all, stopping at decks awash. others go down in minutes without crews ever having time to get on deck and jump, let alone let down liferafts.
i beleive the damage modelling is fairly accurate. im using GWX GOLD. so i know im in safe/unsafe hands!!:)

[TheDude107]

O.K., Ive fed up with stock 1.4b



Some of what you were describing started sounding like mod issues. Esspecially with a harbour mod not spawning any ships. I can't speak towards compatability with GWX, other then it works with sub commander. Also I believe you cannot use your existing save with newly installed GWX. Just clean it all out, install patch 1.4 and then GWX/mods in the order GWX says. There was a list on their site of some compatible mods.


some ships did. some went down with one torp. some went on after many attempts with torps. alot depended on the cargo they carried. if wood, they may not sink at all, stopping at decks awash. others go down in minutes without crews ever having time to get on deck and jump, let alone let down liferafts.
i beleive the damage modelling is fairly accurate. im using GWX GOLD. so i know im in safe/unsafe hands!!:)


I had an ore carrier lined up yesterday, clicked on the attack watch after the torpedo impact. It didn't get past 20 seconds until the bow was sticking out of the water. Instead of sitting there for a second then blowing some gaskets/portholes from the air pressure trying to escape.... It just paused then dropped like a rock. :cool: GWX has it right.

[Jimbuna]

I had an ore carrier lined up yesterday, clicked on the attack watch after the torpedo impact. It didn't get past 20 seconds until the bow was sticking out of the water. Instead of sitting there for a second then blowing some gaskets/portholes from the air pressure trying to escape.... It just paused then dropped like a rock. :cool: GWX has it right.

SINK EM ALL!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[HW3]

It has been a long time since I last used Harbor Traffic 1.47 but, I believe it only adds traffic to friendly harbors. I have gone into Scapa Flow before and found no ships to attack, it all depends on what is happening in the war at that time. The fleet could have been out at the time you visited.

:salute:

[Nobon]

Well, Its all settled:

Deinstalled all mods in SH3 JSGME and SHCom3, and deleted the My documents sh3 folder, so basically went back to 1.4b. (all changes were backed up, so yes)

Then I installed the GWX3, and the cfg files for the SHCom3.
Fresh new career... Everything looks like to be in order.
Only I doesnt had the patience to re-do the naval academy, so imported my old results.

GWX3 has most of my old mods integrated XD so I only keep FM_NewInterior, the fain hi-res uniforms mod, the "everything is black around períscope view" and finally I can use DFant_SubFlag_2010.

All works fine so far, did a test-drive in the academy.

Only I cant decide to install back M.E.P.v3, or not... Fine graphics, but the fact that I see a ship BEFORE I hear it in hydrophones makes me crazy.

Resurrected the U-50 again, again with new crew ^^
Can't wait to run out from the dock...

Ok, only one question remains: Nice and fine fresh grey textures for the subs, luckily, my VIIb somehow managed to keep the old, very rusty outer texture, (maybe because of the FM_interior mod, it changes some things in the outside also) but the inner wall of the bridge, and the periscope casings, compass, etc. are went to this new, grey skin.

So my question is: How to get back -all- the old, rusty textures for the outer view of my VIIb? Where are they located? I backed up submarines, and textures folder, just pleeease tell me all the textures the VIIb need :D

I will be very happy to get this :D

:Kaleun_Periskop:

[Jimbuna]

In GWX they are contained within the DAT file and not viewable unless you have a programme that can open said file.

Here is a link to some VIIB skins:

http://www.mediafire.com/?uda5um8carprfdu

[Nobon]

Thanks, in the meantime I automatically realised that those tga are only contained in the objects/ folder in the VIIb tower dat files... And therefore lost forever :/ without backup. So installed a fresh SH3 to get those dat files, and extracted the stock VIIIb tga's from the dat file and made a JSGME mod.

Maybe I upload it, if someone wants an -all-mod-compatible- backup of stock's rusty old subskins. (I did needed XD so maybe others also)


My new problem is the same savegame (fresh GWXv3 career) sometimes loads right, sometimes CTD. And: when I play my gramophone, and switch tracks, it usually finds some hell, after a few clicks, and CTD's...

All my gramophone files are converted to ogg, via FF, as suggested. These problems were absent before GWX :D but Im ready to battle them, as I like this megamod.

So: the 4gb patch:

I have WIndows 7 64bit, and 3g system ram.
Can I profit from installing it? Does it help reduce CTD's?

[VONHARRIS]

So: the 4gb patch:

I have WIndows 7 64bit, and 3g system ram.
Can I profit from installing it? Does it help reduce CTD's?

IMO , No. Since you have only 3 GB RAM there is no point of installing a patch saying SH3 to use 4 GBs.

Good luck with battling your troubles!

Gute Jagd Herr Kaleun.

[Nobon]

Installed 4g patch in the meantime XD
Maybe if it works like widening the maximum allocatable ram for SH3 it helps to reduce ram overflow CTD's, only going to be slower, as the remaining one gig of ram is virtual.


Ok, found out the Gramophone faults:
-all- of my Format Factory made oggs, no matter, that they came from wma, or large mp3, or small mp3 are -unplayable- by Bsplayer.. Causing crash in vp6 decoder. (game files, and GWX radio stations play well)

SO thats why they kill the game also.

Anyway, someone suggested FF here.. Do anyone have some experience with it, how to create ogg's, that are usable somehow?? XDD

Edit:
Heh, every problem solves itself. "FF 2.2something" made the bad oggs. FF itself suggested and upgrade. Did it. now 2.96 makes playable ogg's.
Only prob, that even on high quality settings, the final ogg makes the bass in Rammstein into white noise. This format doesnt likes bass.
(yes, I have 3 Rammstein songs mixed into 2 or more hours of GWX-and-self collected 1940 radio news, Edit Piaf, many forms of tipperary song, at least 7 famous "Lord Haw Haw" english language news commentaries, aired from the Third Reich, with demotivational purposes, dripping with cynism XD, Marlene Dietrich, and Kriegsmarine leads, and Wagner operas. Mixing with Rammstein. Sounds natural to me.)


Edit2:

Vonharris: Danke, kamerade.

[Pisces]

I have good experience with Goldwave to change mp3 into ogg. It even does batch processing of all files. And it is free.

http://www.goldwave.com/index.php