I've found an easter egg!

[silent5hunter]

Off Jayapura on the 2 degree South line there is a string of morse code. Somebody need to figure out what it says!

[propbeanie]

What mod(s)? ... and do you mean to tell me, you're skippering a submarine, and ~you~ don't know Morse code?... There will be no investigation. This will go directly to trial. You better line yourself up a good JAG mister! That is all! :salute:

:har:

I couldn't even pass the Boy Sprouts requirements for a Morse Code Merit Badge 45+ years ago... :timeout: - we need an interpreter! :salute:

btw, "Welcome to SubSim!" :subsim: :salute:

[Aktungbby]

silent5hunter!:Kaleun_Salute:

[aanker]

Off Jayapura on the 2 degree South line there is a string of morse code. Somebody need to figure out what it says!
I knew Morse Code, got the badge, and did code on the old Ham radio. Could do Signal Flags too, but I'm a little (lot : ) rusty on all of the above because hardly anyone uses it any more.

Try this:
Morse Code Translator
https://morsecode.scphillips.com/translator.html

Welcome aboard & Happy Hunting!

[silent5hunter]

well if you are such an expert it should be no problem to go figure it out haha. The dashes and dots are different lengths making it tricky to decipher. Probably something like, "Why did you bother to decode this?". It's standard Sh4 during the american campaign 1943. It extends across 2 degrees of latitude, but it would be awesome if somebody could find out what it says!

[Sean C]

If you could post what it looks like here, I might be able to decipher it. I used to use a program called "CWCom (https://morsepower.blogspot.com/2016/08/cwcom-program-to-communicate-using.html)" to chat with people online in Morse. (I know, I'm super-geeky.)

As an example:

∙∙∙ ∙∙- -∙∙∙ ∙∙∙ ∙∙ --

is: S U B S I M

[silent5hunter]

file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Silent%20Hunters%20Wolves%20of%20the%20Pacific/SH4Img@2017-11-24_00.49.18_749.bmp

type it into the url, that's just the first part

I've already tried to use morse code decoders where you type it in but it doesn't seem to recognize anything after the first letter of C.

If anybody manages to get past that, i'll post the rest.

file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Silent%20Hunters%20Wolves%20of%20the%20Pacific/SH4Img@2017-11-24_01.01.13_486.bmp

this is the location, no mods installed btw.

[razark]

Umm...

We can't get to your computer.

(And if we can, you're doing something very very wrong.)




You need to upload the pictures somewhere and then link to them.

[propbeanie]

Well, I found something rather interesting in Stock, and if it hadn't been for silent5hunter journeying to Jayapura, New Guinea, I would never have noticed this. This is the "lock box" copy of my game, used for re-installs, and everything is locked "Read Only" and un-modded. I thought I'd make me a SingleMission file with it, do a quick experiment and see if I couldn't record the audio and post it here for someone to interpret. As part of the fun, I thought I'd do me some screen captures and "document" it for posteriority (:roll:)... So I did me a Google Maps picture of the area, and then went to match that in the Mission Editor:

https://i.imgur.com/2okQJrw.jpg


Looks normal. So I zoom in to place my sub:

https://i.imgur.com/wyo8T08.jpg

Now, you have to be fully zoomed in, since this is the lowest res that the line shows, but notice what is in the info bar at the bottom of the ME window, and the Latitude displayed (the mouse cursor doesn't show on a screen capture). It's as close to 2 degrees as I could get it, and is on top of that line... interesting, eh?

So when I zoom in on the line further, check this out:

https://i.imgur.com/5cuX9SS.jpg


Does anyone else have a "clean" Stock they can look at and confirm? I haven't started to really build the mission yet, but I'm wondering if that's the dot-dash source? Is this why it doesn't "translate" for silent5hunter? If you've ever encountered the "pillar", as aanker calls it, in some of the mods that have terrain edits, you can encounter noises. My guess is that 2 degrees is on the border of a map zone, and there was an edit in that area of some sort... More later. :salute:

[Eichhörnchen]

It might represent the prolonged, uneven attempts by a squirrel to get into a nut; it has a beginning, a pause, then a bit more, then finishes suddenly. Presumably he gives up and moves on. But what it's doing here in the Western Pacific may have to remain another of the many mysteries of the sea... or maybe it was just me at The Bilge's Christmas party

[silent5hunter]

The poster above has the right image. That’s what I saw on my game. It’s in stock sh4, it’s got the Morse code dots and dashes but it doesn’t seem to actually be anything. After being chased by destroyers for over 3 days lol (I watched them on the radar at a constant distance) I sailed up north to head for another friendly port. I discovered the weird pattern, I searched all over the place for it. Turns out I’m the first person to even notice it.

[silent5hunter]

I wonder if you follow the 2 degree line you could encounter more patterns? Also I’m going to go free cam and see whats going on down there, if it’s not too deep that is.

[propbeanie]

Why, Eichhörnchen sir, are you insinuating that silent5hunter is a nut, aka: "squirrel"? I do wholeheartedly agree. :salute: ... :har: - We already know that you and I are both nutz... certifiably so - along with a bunch of other old fahrtz around here... :D

In the meantime, I did make me a SingleMission file for the area, and drove around back and forth across the line, kind of like a squirrel running about the yard, and I even drove on top of "the line" - like a squirrel on the phone line - and never did hear any strange sounds, other than what is already in my head ("be quiet back there!"). I did open the map sectors in the GWX Terrain Extractor (excellent stuff, btw), and sure enough, there's the lines at the bottom of a couple of segments. I'll have to get their designations later. Where the lighter color is, signifying shallow water isn't exactly where the "shallows" are though. The line shows, as suspected, just above the -2 Latitude line, and using a ping, we get "over 1000 feet, sir!" in the message box. However, if I drive the boat directly on top of the -2 Latitude, I'll get "We're in shallow waters, sir!" and after a ping "184 feet, sir!".

I do wonder though, since silent5hunter has the Steam SH4, if you (silent5hunter) are playing in the Steam "Stock" trim, which would be Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific v1.3, or do you have what Steam calls the "UBoats Missions Add-on" with it, which is actually v1.5? I looked in my v1.3 install, and that line is in that version also (don't ask me why I still have that on the computer :roll: ). Version 1.3 had some egregious issues - better than v1.2, but it seemed to break more than it fixed... If you use the Steam app on your computer, and go into the Local Files, you can right-click on the "SH4.exe" file, choose "Properties" and then left-click on the "Details" tab, that will show the "Product Version" about the middle of the little window. Or, next time you start Silent Hunter 4, on the Main Menu, it'll have the version in the lower right of the screen. One last question silent5hunter: had you by chance, attempted to install a mod, that failed so you backed it off, and then are playing what you're presuming to be "Stock" again? We'll get into the reasons for that question later. :salute:

[silent5hunter]

My game is totally stock, I have the u-boat missions installed also. I have never attempted to download a mod other than a skin for a gato class sub. Sorry for the screenshot fail btw, I just found whatever link I could haha. If we can’t find an answer we could always blame it on aliens, or the strange dev team. I saw you mention sounds earlier, I never heard any sounds I just came across the pattern. If you used time acceleration you would have missed it.

[propbeanie]

OK, gotcha. No sound, just the color changes that look like dots and dashes. That's the "squirrel" coming out in me, hearing things. I blame it all on Eichhörnchen (which means "little squirrel" in German, btw)... :har: - apparently, this graphics anomaly has been with us since at least 2007, and I'm surprised if no one in 10 years of game play hadn't noticed that before, but you may well be the Commander Perry of SH4... :up:

In the meantime, back to the reason for the last question in my previous post... If you are on a version of Windows newer than Windows XP, especially if it's a 64-bit version, where the Steam app installs the Silent Hunter games in "Program Files (x86)", that presents problems if you attemtp to do certain mods with certain types of files - especially CFG files, which most mods have. The reason being, is that Windows "protects" that "Program Files" folder from "unauthorized" changes, not that you, the user, aren't "authorized", but as far as Windows is concerned, you're not, and in fact, you may well be dangerous to the very existence of Windows if you're allowed to "edit" certain parameters... ahem :roll:

If you have a 2nd hard drive in your computer, you can use your Steam app on your computer, and create another Steam Library folder and move SH4 to there, thereby bypassing the Windows "protection" racket. If all you have is one hard drive, then you might be better off to re-install Steam, but do NOT put it in the "C:\Program Files (x86)" folder, but rather in a folder that you make yourself. If you try to install a mod in what you have now, Windows will "see" the changes, and "restore" the original files it "thinks" are necessary to restore "order", thereby trashing your mod install...

See: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2496891&postcount=4850, which discusses this picture on doing the new Library folder:

http://i.imgur.com/egbWBZ4.jpg


Steam itself can "trash" your game on you, if you use their "Verify" after doing a mod. :salute:

[aanker]

This dotted line ain't Morse code.... ; )

I've never encountered noises, just visual objects like the 'pillar' north of the modded Truk. (I already forgot what we were going to call that - heh)

The result of this dotted line for the player is a shallow 60'+ reef where the line is. We know what the cause of these anomalies is, now I guess even the Devs could do it -ha!, but trying to correct them may make it worse or even create another pillar or two.

As propbeanie explained, the terrain editor can cause these things whenever a square is opened and saved multiple times. To re-do Truk to get rid of the pillar could take days unless a huge block of time could be devoted to doing it in one sitting - although even editing once could do it.

I still haven't found the pillar or pillars in the area of the CZ and am guessing they are way inland.

Happy Hunting!

[silent5hunter]

ahhh ok, that explains a lot, thanks.

[don1reed]

It's tropospheric scatter of Wiley Post and Amelia Earheart's last msg before hitting the drink. :haha:

[Sean C]

This dotted line ain't Morse code.... ; )

I concur. In the screenshot posted by propbeanie, one can see dashes of varying, seemingly random length. In actual Morse, a dash is always three times the duration of a dot. (Or as close as the operator can get to that.) The dashes in the screenshot seem to vary between two and ten times the duration of a dot.

There's also the issue of spaces between letters and words. Letters are supposed to be separated by silence for the duration of one dash and words are to be separated by silence for the duration of seven dots. Not having the proper spaces between words is not that much of a hindrance, but not having them between letters can be.

For instance, if I hear: ∙∙-∙∙∙-∙, that could be "i n f" or "f i n" or even "f f" or many other combinations. Of course, one could try and see which combinations form words which make sense, but that would be a tedious process - and not necessarily correct. If you add not having spaces between words and dashes of varying length, well...what a Morse operator would hear is nonsense.

That's why the decoders you used, silent5hunter, didn't work.

Here is a sample (https://www.dropbox.com/s/jh4ebetmpyq1tzd/Morse.mp3?dl=0) of what Morse code should sound like. I recorded it from an actual shortwave radio transmission. (Sorry for the background noise and my wife and I talking over it towards the end.) I started to decipher it once, but I've forgotten now what it was saying.

[KaleunMarco]

It's tropospheric scatter of Wiley Post and Amelia Earheart's last msg before hitting the drink. :haha:

don1reed, you are TOO funny. on my third read of your post, i got it. LMFAO.:Kaleun_Applaud::Kaleun_Cheers:

[propbeanie]

I was 'bouncing around', laughing about it too... however, he is propagating one side of the story... :roll: - It's actually from an alien, before they realized that corn fields were better methods of communication...

[don1reed]

:Kaleun_Salute:

Cheers

[Red Devil]

Umm...

We can't get to your computer.

(And if we can, you're doing something very very wrong.)




You need to upload the pictures somewhere and then link to them.


Use Team Viewer, I am frequently called upon to access two pc's in Cornwall to fix something. Computers are a rare item in the dark depths of Cornwall!!!

[chazsi]

Silent5Hunter

Don't you just hate it when you find and Easter egg and then the bigger kids come and slap the basket out of your hand? There goes all your joys... down in the grass.

Brought back memories for me.

[Red Devil]

yeah, bullies aren't we? :arrgh!:

[chazsi]

LOL

I appreciate all the help from the bigger kids. LOL

:Kaleun_Cheers:

[aanker]

I learned something too: Nathanial B. gave a detailed, but simplified lesson on the time length of dashes & spaces between letters and words in relation to dots, which is very important in sending and reading a coherent message.

I probably could have worded this better using Morse Code.... lol

Happy Hunting!