ImprovedConvoys Beta and UnRealUBoat - Udated: 03-25

[CCIP]

Ah, and the other day I had this fascinating encounter with TWO convoys at the same time running parrallel courses, when one suddenly turned right towards the other one, passing maybe 1-2km astern... and I was there to watch it. And sink a Fiji while I was at it.

Neat stuff.

***

One note from WaW play - since most use RUb 1.43, it applies:

It looks like kills on cruisers in convoys are skyrocketing. I think in half a year of 'campaigning' there, at least a half dozen cruisers were taken down that way.

I suspect these are the ones going with the South Atlantic convoys.... perhaps dropping their spawn chances a little might help?

****

Oh...

And I'm just about to install BF2 for the first time on my brother's insistance :rotfl:

[Syxx_Killer]

When?

I never really used the mod in the early parts of the war. I love the new convoys and such, especially since you brought the Black Swan out of hiding. :lol: I just got too bored when I tried starting a new career in 1943 with a Type IX. I was sent to head down towards Capetown. On my whole way there I think I only saw one merchant and that was a coastal merchant. Actually, that was pretty much it for the whole patrol. I know that is probably more realistic, but I just find it hard for me to concentrate on the game when nothing is happening. :88) :oops: :oops:

[jasonb885]

When?

I never really used the mod in the early parts of the war. I love the new convoys and such, especially since you brought the Black Swan out of hiding. :lol: I just got too bored when I tried starting a new career in 1943 with a Type IX. I was sent to head down towards Capetown. On my whole way there I think I only saw one merchant and that was a coastal merchant. Actually, that was pretty much it for the whole patrol. I know that is probably more realistic, but I just find it hard for me to concentrate on the game when nothing is happening. :88) :oops: :oops:

Ah, I'm sorry.

Going to patrol anywhere other than the US until late '42 is going to be a loser after 1940. There is one convoy route, AS, that goes from the coast of South America to Freeport, which I think runs in '43. No one ever patrols down there, and there's no information on AS, so I didn't bother with it.

I think getting patrols anywhere outside the NA is going to be a loser with IC, except for Drumbeat. The Car should be okay, too, until late '42 I think.

[jasonb885]

...

***

One note from WaW play - since most use RUb 1.43, it applies:

It looks like kills on cruisers in convoys are skyrocketing. I think in half a year of 'campaigning' there, at least a half dozen cruisers were taken down that way.

I suspect these are the ones going with the South Atlantic convoys.... perhaps dropping their spawn chances a little might help?

****



Interesting. I just reduced the frequency of AUX and CL by 10-20% for early war convoys. I was afraid the escort would be too lame to protect them. That's why I never included any BBs or CVs and only a few instances of CVEs, with all save the one in HG -- which histically happened -- in late war.

[Gizzmoe]

Jason, I went through the Improved Convoys layer file and found a huge amount of entries (more than 300) where the RndUnit has a spawn probability of 0%, the corresponding RndGroup probability is >0%... Is that a bug or a feature?

[rulle34]

I have two questions:

1. What is the difference between the IC in Rub 1.43 and the newest one?

2. Have there been some evaluating on the singleship encountering?
I think the reduction now is little bit to extreem. You almost never encounter a single merchant, and I know from books I read that in the areas where normally IX submarines operated, Thay amlost always encountered single merchants, and facts says that they count in for about 30% of the merchantlosses during the war. So this gives me the picture of just a slight increase of merchant ships in to these areas!
(Im using IC in Rub 1.43 now.)

Other feedback is that it's a great mod! :up:
Big thanks for that!

[jasonb885]

Jason, I went through the Improved Convoys layer file and found a huge amount of entries (more than 300) where the RndUnit has a spawn probability of 0%, the corresponding RndGroup probability is >0%... Is that a bug or a feature?

Yes. I am bored with the Small Coastals, Tugs, and Unarmed Trawlers. I wanted them to go away as I mentioned in the README. It's a feature.

(I am not sure it works, though, as I keep running into tugs! They might be in the SCR layer, though.)

[jasonb885]

I have two questions:

1. What is the difference between the IC in Rub 1.43 and the newest one?


As mentioned in the OP, this is newer than the release in RuB 1.43.


2. Have there been some evaluating on the singleship encountering?
I think the reduction now is little bit to extreem. You almost never encounter a single merchant, and I know from books I read that in the areas where normally IX submarines operated, Thay amlost always encountered single merchants, and facts says that they count in for about 30% of the merchantlosses during the war. So this gives me the picture of just a slight increase of merchant ships in to these areas!
(Im using IC in Rub 1.43 now.)

Other feedback is that it's a great mod! :up:
Big thanks for that!

You'd have to define evaluation. I evaluated the situation before using the current reductions and when testing I found the values to be reasonable for me, as far as I could tell. There hasn't been any tuning on the matter since then except for fixing the Dreambeat spawn probabilities and dates.

In which areas did the IX operate and when?

Right now being sent anywhere other than US coast and Car in an IX will be very, very boring with IC. I've never been in an IX, so I don't know all the places it ends up being assigned.

I can always revisit the spawn probabilities.

[joea]

The IX boats did operate in the South Atlantic, off West Africa around South Africa and even into the Indian ocean.

[rulle34]

The IX boats did operate in the South Atlantic, off West Africa around South Africa and even into the Indian ocean.

That's correct and in those areas the single merchant traffic could be increased so IX carreers can have targets in their designated grids. As to historic, the IX as I mentioned above mostly encounter single merchants as "lone wolfs" operating, and escorts was very rare in these areas.

So my proposal is to increase single merchants in these areas mentioned above, but to my opinion it's not necessary to have them "reported" as map contacts. They could just be there and you spot visually or catch them in sonar! (take away coastal merchant if possible)

I think the game will be more "alive" and in the same time more realistic in this way. Will also open up for IX vs VII carreers with different tasks (VII was more suitable for convoy encounters) and perhaps the historical outcome of patrols.

[baxter]

[rulle34 wrote]
"So my proposal is to increase single merchants in these areas mentioned above, but to my opinion it's not necessary to have them "reported" as map contacts. They could just be there and you spot visually or catch them in sonar! (take away coastal merchant if possible)
I think the game will be more "alive"# and thae same time more realistic in this way"


I agree 100%. One of the changes that was made was the increase in single merchants along the U.S. coast...I had a few patrols during the first 6 months of 1942 that resulted in historically accurate tonnage totals. Something similar in a few of the other spots IX boats patrolled would add a lot to the game.

[jasonb885]

"So my proposal is to increase single merchants in these areas mentioned above, but to my opinion it's not necessary to have them "reported" as map contacts. They could just be there and you spot visually or catch them in sonar! (take away coastal merchant if possible)
I think the game will be more "alive"# and thae same time more realistic in this way"


I agree 100%. One of the changes that was made was the increase in single merchants along the U.S. coast...I had a few patrols during the first 6 months of 1942 that resulted in historically accurate tonnage totals. Something similar in a few of the other spots IX boats patrolled would add a lot to the game.

Interesting.

I'll have to look into it to see if it's possible. It depends on where the stock game defined the traffic for those regions to flow to and from. I don't want to increase traffic that will eventually sail all the way to the NA and England, since that'll increase the contact rate there. I could bump things that don't conflict to the same levels as off the US coast.

:up:

[rulle34]

"So my proposal is to increase single merchants in these areas mentioned above, but to my opinion it's not necessary to have them "reported" as map contacts. They could just be there and you spot visually or catch them in sonar! (take away coastal merchant if possible)
I think the game will be more "alive"# and thae same time more realistic in this way"


I agree 100%. One of the changes that was made was the increase in single merchants along the U.S. coast...I had a few patrols during the first 6 months of 1942 that resulted in historically accurate tonnage totals. Something similar in a few of the other spots IX boats patrolled would add a lot to the game.

Interesting.

I'll have to look into it to see if it's possible. It depends on where the stock game defined the traffic for those regions to flow to and from. I don't want to increase traffic that will eventually sail all the way to the NA and England, since that'll increase the contact rate there. I could bump things that don't conflict to the same levels as off the US coast.

:up:

Sounds great Jasonb885 :up:
Looking forward to try out your new mod.
Heck, now it can be fun to try a IX campaign :smug:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

I am also interested in the changes that Baxter and Rulle 34 proposed.

Great work on this mod Jason.

[baxter]

Thanks Jason!

[Happy Times]

Sounds reasonable,looking forward to it :up:

[joea]

What has been done about arctic convoys? If anything? First patrol in the game without even a convoy contact. Current career in 11th from Bergen...my other patrols were in the AK grid and I ran into a few convoys, not always able to catch them. Latest patrol in AF44 in November 1942... and not one convoy contact, kept getting word of a TF around Scapa Flow though. This may be realistic mind...there were fewer convoys through here, plus this was post PQ-17 :huh: . Just wondering if there are convoys here in the game and mod. Using RuB 1.44 and SH3 commander (and HT but no effect here).

[jasonb885]

What has been done about arctic convoys? If anything? First patrol in the game without even a convoy contact. Current career in 11th from Bergen...my other patrols were in the AK grid and I ran into a few convoys, not always able to catch them. Latest patrol in AF44 in November 1942... and not one convoy contact, kept getting word of a TF around Scapa Flow though. This may be realistic mind...there were fewer convoys through here, plus this was post PQ-17 :huh: . Just wondering if there are convoys here in the game and mod. Using RuB 1.44 and SH3 commander (and HT but no effect here).

You should see the Artic convoys. They were the first ones I did, then I asked which ones people actually engaged and found that no one really bothers with them. I still made them as realistic as possible as a first-run of redoing convoys.

I think I went with the default interval for those convoys, but altered the report time. But maybe not. They ought to be reported eventually though. I don't know if CCIP redid the routes for the Artic convoys or not.

[jasonb885]

I am also interested in the changes that Baxter and Rulle 34 proposed.

Great work on this mod Jason.

Yep. Here's the list of possibilities.


120 MedTraffic
115 BritishTraffic
114 AtlanticTraffic
111 EnglandWaters
96 IndianOcean
78 CarribeanSea
54 SouthAtlantic
50 GermanTraffic
49 WesternEurope
48 AmericanTraffic
45 NorthSea
37 NorwegianWaters
30 CanadianTraffic
29 NorwegianTraffic
24 RussiaTraffic
24 WesternAfrica
24 USEastCoast
22 BalticSea
12 ArticOcean
12 RomaniaTraffic
12 ItalianTraffic
12 BrasilTraffic
10 Liner
6 SwedenTraffic
6 RussiTraffic
6 BiritishTraffic
5 GreeceTraffic
4 DutchTraffic
6 EnglangWaters
3 BatlicSea
2 SouthAfrica
2 FrenchTraffic


Few stand out. Perhaps SouthAfrica, Brasil, South Atlantic, India Ocean, West Africa should be adjusted. I could increase traffic to that of what's in the Med throughout the war.

I can't really control whether the ships sizes aren't realistic, since the RND layer has them defined as generic merchants and tankers usually. It'd be a lot of manual work to fix that.

:know:

[baxter]

Jasonb885: "Perhaps SouthAfrica, Brasil, South Atlantic, India Ocean, West Africa should be adjusted. I could increase traffic to that of what's in the Med throughout the war."


I think that would be excellent. This would make those areas a lot more realistic. Did you already increase the traffic in the Carribean? If not, that might be another one to change. Type IX patrols will be much more interesting with these changes.

[jasonb885]

Jasonb885: "Perhaps SouthAfrica, Brasil, South Atlantic, India Ocean, West Africa should be adjusted. I could increase traffic to that of what's in the Med throughout the war."


I think that would be excellent. This would make those areas a lot more realistic. Did you already increase the traffic in the Carribean? If not, that might be another one to change. Type IX patrols will be much more interesting with these changes.

The Carribean is already done for some months now. It should be the same as the values I used for the US and Candian coasts.

[jasonb885]

...
I think that would be excellent. This would make those areas a lot more realistic. Did you already increase the traffic in the Carribean? If not, that might be another one to change. Type IX patrols will be much more interesting with these changes.

Okay, I made those changes and the values are now 40% spawn and 40% report.

I also toned down the CLs and AUXs some since they're such easy targets. A few of the early war convoys had errors in escort ratings corrected so the one escort in each that was incorrectly flagged as novice is now set to regular. Might help a little. Some escort spawns increased slightly.

New download available in the OP.

:up:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Thanks Jason. You are the best!

[gdogghenrikson]

New download available in the OP.

What is the OP?

[Kpt. Lehmann]

The "OP" is the Original Post/1st Post. There is a link to download the new IC version there. :sunny:

[vils]

wondering if this mod conflicts with the vis-mod?

[oRGy]

No it should not.

[baxter]

Thanks, Jason, for your effort and for being open to suggestions. This game just keeps getting better...

[Beery]

Is this a 'final' version of this mod? I've been following this thread with interest, but I've held off on asking for permission to adopt it for RUb in case there's more work being done on it. I realise it's an ongoing project, but is it currently in a somewhat fixed state?

[gdogghenrikson]

[quote="Beery"]Is this a 'final' version of this mod?

I hope not

[WolfyBrandon]

Is this a 'final' version of this mod?

The readme says that the modification is a work in progress, but the download on the Origonal Post is the most current version.

Wolfy

[CCIP]

Is this a 'final' version of this mod? I've been following this thread with interest, but I've held off on asking for permission to adopt it for RUb in case there's more work being done on it. I realise it's an ongoing project, but is it currently in a somewhat fixed state?

In some sense, yes, it is kind of stable, since it really seems to have covered all the convoys that Jason and Observer had reliable data for in terms of composition; new task forces added; it's been tested and tweaked for actual game results; and my Zig-Zags are finished and working.

The only thing that I'm not sure is in there or Jason plans to have in there are my new coastal convoys, but they're not THAT crucial :hmm:

[thasaint]

just tried the latest version, i'm in mid 1941, the escorts seem better, i actually have to try to escape them, even if there's only 2 of them. i had to constantly change course to provide smaller target for sonar, it's a lot more fun, and i actually took some damage on my 3rd encounter with the same convoy

there were only 3 escorts, 1 black swan in front, 2 flowers in the rear, 1 of those 2 way behind the convoy. all 3 times i approached the convoy from different angles. the convoy was heading east, my first attack i came in from the south, the 2nd from the SE, the final from the NE. all 3 times they got at least 1 good run at me, the final one i took damage on, banged up my aft batteries decently, but i slipped away

i wouldn't want to take 'em on in shallower waters

all in all took out 4 C3's. i also damaged a t3 with at least 1 torpedo, sometimes 2 on each attack, by the last attack she was running really low in the water, but she just wouldn't go down

thanks a ton man, i can finally play earlier than '43 without getting bored :up:

*edit* this is with RuB installed with your new IC files installed on top, everything set to realistic except i leave on map contacts, per the RuB readme

[jasonb885]

Is this a 'final' version of this mod? I've been following this thread with interest, but I've held off on asking for permission to adopt it for RUb in case there's more work being done on it. I realise it's an ongoing project, but is it currently in a somewhat fixed state?

I wasn't planning on any major revisions, but then sometimes things of great value come up, like the comments on the exaggerated usage of light cruisers early on that I toned down. The lack of single merchants in the South Atlantic turned out to be a large issue as well.

I like to fix those more serious playability issues when they come up.

I would like to eventually clone nations so nations like Sweden aren't always neutral in convoys, but since that's not really a huge playability issue necessarily I don't know if I'll ever have time to get to it.

I'd say things are probably pretty static unless I hear some comments about the improved TFs I added two revisions ago being really poor, or the escorts are still too dumb, or there are other issues with contact reports in later years for some patrol types (South Atlantic, et al.).

It's actually been static -- more or less -- for about a month now anyway.

So, if there were to be a new RuB release, I'd include this latest version if there aren't any reports of huge problems with it like the above for the previous version(s).

:up:

[jasonb885]

...

The only thing that I'm not sure is in there or Jason plans to have in there are my new coastal convoys, but they're not THAT crucial :hmm:

I'd like to, but I need some kind of historical information.

Or they could all just be about 5 to 10 ships with 1 or 2 escorts max.

I just haven't had time.

I might be moving for a job, so I really won't have time for months now I guess. Oh well...

[Charlie901]

This Mod sounds really great :up:

Question though?

Can someone please give me a gameplay indication of: How much do single merchant contacts dissapear, especially in the early part of the war, with this mod?

I like a good amount of single merchants (a little less than stock game) during the, "Happy Times", to really improve my RENOWN for what I know is comming later in the war. :doh:

[jasonb885]

This Mod sounds really great :up:

Question though?

Can someone please give me a gameplay indication of: How much do single merchant contacts dissapear, especially in the early part of the war, with this mod?

I like a good amount of single merchants (a little less than stock game) during the, "Happy Times", to really improve my RENOWN for what I know is comming later in the war. :doh:

I'd say it's significantly less than the stock game.

You'll find single merchants in '39 and '40, but you'll have to patrol some. After '40 you will nearly never find them except in the South Atlantic, the Med, and off the US coast (until '43). You might sink three or four in a patrol in '39 to '40, but not without some waiting and looking.

[Charlie901]

This Mod sounds really great :up:

Question though?

Can someone please give me a gameplay indication of: How much do single merchant contacts dissapear, especially in the early part of the war, with this mod?

I like a good amount of single merchants (a little less than stock game) during the, "Happy Times", to really improve my RENOWN for what I know is comming later in the war. :doh:

I'd say it's significantly less than the stock game.

You'll find single merchants in '39 and '40, but you'll have to patrol some. After '40 you will nearly never find them except in the South Atlantic, the Med, and off the US coast (until '43). You might sink three or four in a patrol in '39 to '40, but not without some waiting and looking.



Thanks for the answer,

Any way to get you to do a versian with a little less than the stock game's amount of single merchants (but more than are currently included in your mod) and/or maybe give them a very fast cruising speed.

I thought I heard somewhere that single merchants still made runs at high speeds throughout the war (at high speeds, possibly at night and along coastal areas).

[thasaint]

This Mod sounds really great :up:

Question though?

Can someone please give me a gameplay indication of: How much do single merchant contacts dissapear, especially in the early part of the war, with this mod?

I like a good amount of single merchants (a little less than stock game) during the, "Happy Times", to really improve my RENOWN for what I know is comming later in the war. :doh:

I'd say it's significantly less than the stock game.

You'll find single merchants in '39 and '40, but you'll have to patrol some. After '40 you will nearly never find them except in the South Atlantic, the Med, and off the US coast (until '43). You might sink three or four in a patrol in '39 to '40, but not without some waiting and looking.


hmmm in '41 and '42 i still run into a lot of single/double merchants around britain, just on my last patrol i ran into 3, actually 4 but the 3rd one was 2 ships, all south of ireland

the first one i ran into was a liberty cargo, moving less than 1 knot, second was a small merchant, again moving less than one knot, then the 3rd encounter was with a small merchant leading a c2 around, they were moving only at 2 knots

perhaps some kind've bug being you said i shouldn't be running into them, and on top of it 2 of them were hardly moving at all

as i said, all 3 encounters were south of ireland, west of england, june 1942 working out of 1st flotilla in a VIIC, brest. i started this campaign in 1942

i have your latest version of IC from the OP installed on top of RuB and SHcommander

[jasonb885]

Thanks for the answer,

Any way to get you to do a versian with a little less than the stock game's amount of single merchants (but more than are currently included in your mod) and/or maybe give them a very fast cruising speed.

I thought I heard somewhere that single merchants still made runs at high speeds throughout the war (at high speeds, possibly at night and along coastal areas).

I don't really want to maintain multiple versions. If you haven't tried it yet, play a mission and see if it works for you or not. You might find it's okay.

I had thought about messing with the single ship and multi-single ship groups, but there are like 1,600 of them in the game. That's a lot to go through. I can't just blanket increase them all, though. I think small and costal merchants top out at 9 kts in the game, and the SH3 developers chose to make all single traffic to be of type GENERIC, so I couldn't set a speed faster than the slowest possible spawnable unit, moving at 9 kts.

The speed can't be varied by time of day. You could vary it by location, but only if you wanted to mess with some 20,000 in game waypoints.

[jasonb885]

hmmm in '41 and '42 i still run into a lot of single/double merchants around britain, just on my last patrol i ran into 3, actually 4 but the 3rd one was 2 ships, all south of ireland

the first one i ran into was a liberty cargo, moving less than 1 knot, second was a small merchant, again moving less than one knot, then the 3rd encounter was with a small merchant leading a c2 around, they were moving only at 2 knots

perhaps some kind've bug being you said i shouldn't be running into them, and on top of it 2 of them were hardly moving at all

as i said, all 3 encounters were south of ireland, west of england, june 1942 working out of 1st flotilla in a VIIC, brest. i started this campaign in 1942

i have your latest version of IC from the OP installed on top of RuB and SHcommander

I had thought CCIP had fixed that in the version of the RND I received from him with the zig zag convoy routes. Perhaps not. But somewhere in the RND there are, apparently, a few groups with strangely slow speeds set I think.

I never did track them down.

[baxter]

Jason,
The increased single merchants in the South Atlantic is a definite improvement. Did you also end up increasing them in the Indian Ocean?

Thanks for this excellent mod!

[jasonb885]

Jason,
The increased single merchants in the South Atlantic is a definite improvement. Did you also end up increasing them in the Indian Ocean?

Thanks for this excellent mod!

Yes.

:up:

[Charlie901]

jasonb885,

What did you do to decrease the single merchants from the stock campaign?

1. Did you lower a global/individual value to give them a lower % spawning rate?

2. Decrease their Hours between spawing?

3. Or delete certain single merchant routs altogether?

Reason I ask is that I'd love to use you mod if I could adjust the .RND file, myself, a little more in favor of the single merchant traffic; especially in the early war.

Thanks

[rulle34]

Jason!
Tried your newest IC for some patrols and seem to work great so far.
One question though, how is the propability of Arctic convoy's? Haven't run into any at all there.

My thought is that when convoy's and single merchant's appear quite historically, (like you have made a great job to accomplish :up: )then it could be possible to over work the assigned patrolgrids (didn't say that YOU have to to that job) so for i.e Bergen and 11.th flottilla was assigned patrol grids north of England and was more hunting the arctic convoy's.

If we reach that level in game it would be just even better.

Thanks for great work :up:

[jasonb885]

jasonb885,

What did you do to decrease the single merchants from the stock campaign?

1. Did you lower a global/individual value to give them a lower % spawning rate?


There is no global value. It's set on a RndGroup by RndGroup entry basis.


2. Decrease their Hours between spawing?


No.


3. Or delete certain single merchant routs altogether?


No.


Reason I ask is that I'd love to use you mod if I could adjust the .RND file, myself, a little more in favor of the single merchant traffic; especially in the early war.

Thanks

You're free to adjust it any way you want, but it's no simple matter. You need to either use the editor to adjust each of the 1,600 groups by hand or use something like WordPad to do search and replace, but only for the correct RndGroup entries (you don't want to screw up convoys, for example). Or, you could program a solution, as I did. I used Perl. Anything that lets you manipulate text easily will work, though.

[jasonb885]

Jason!
Tried your newest IC for some patrols and seem to work great so far.
One question though, how is the propability of Arctic convoy's? Haven't run into any at all there.


It could be I need to greatly increase their value. The way it works, they spawn, then go all the way across the Arctic. However, the distance is greatly skewed from reality, so it's something like 4 times the actual distance in our physical plane.

They spawn every 20 days right now. Later it's 35 days.

The truth is, Artic convoys were somewhat rare, albeit not as rare as in the Med where they didn't even have set routes, but occasional huge resupply operations for Malta.

So, I don't know what I can do realisticly to alleviate the situation, since it's somewhat realistic already.


My thought is that when convoy's and single merchant's appear quite historically, (like you have made a great job to accomplish :up: )then it could be possible to over work the assigned patrolgrids (didn't say that YOU have to to that job) so for i.e Bergen and 11.th flottilla was assigned patrol grids north of England and was more hunting the arctic convoy's.

If we reach that level in game it would be just even better.

Thanks for great work :up:

That would be nice. I forget which config file that is. Beery worked on doing Drumbeat patrols, but few people have noticed and commented on realistic patrol grids, so there isn't much immediate payoff in giving that attention. There is also limited information on which flotilla had grids where and when. Such information would be quite valuable, though.

[thasaint]

thought i was just getting lucky with drumbeat, i noticed it :)

was nice to be assigned to east coast USA instead of down off of africa hehe

[Beery]

Beery worked on doing Drumbeat patrols, but few people have noticed and commented on realistic patrol grids...

I've done special patrol grids for Drumbeat, the Invasion of Norway, the Invasion of France, Dunkirk, plus some 11th Flotilla patrols in the Arctic and some late-1942 Caribbean patrols. So far I've yet to hear a single comment about any of them, even after I'd specifically asked on two separate occasions for feedback.

It seems that people are interested in the 'idea' of 'potentially' having correct patrol grids, but they don't seem to really care about it when they are actually implemented. If they were, I'm sure I would have heard something by now. I don't really mind though - I appreciate being sent to these patrol areas in my own game, so that's enough for me.

[edit] I wrote this before Thasaint posted. I think his is the first feedback I've received. Thanks for noticing, Thasaint! :)

[rulle34]

It seems that people are interested in the 'idea' of 'potentially' having correct patrol grids, but they don't seem to really care about it when they are actually implemented.

Well I noticed the difference but you are right that it has been very quiet about it. I want to take the opportunity to thank you Beery for this work. :up: I also feel much better when the grids are more logical.

Im looking for some information about areas/grids that each flottillas was resonsible for.
What I have seen so far:
1. Norwegian bases was responsible for the area W of Norway and N of England
2. 1., 7. and 9,th flottilla was responsible for the area W of England.
3. 29.flottilla in Med.
4. 2. and 10.flottilla - East coast of USA and N of Southamerica, and also W of African coast.

Seems logical to me but Im not sure about if it's fully accurate.

Another thing is that submarines was tactical commanded by BdU. The flottillas was only responsible for logistics. That means that BdU deployed the subs, (depending of several things) in areas so they covered the expected convoyroutes in Atlantic. This made the wolfpack tactics possible. So the "borders" for the flottillas was most likely not sharp.
This was often not the case for IX boats who often appeared as "lone wolfs"

With some information on where the subs from the different flottillas MAINLY operated, it could be possible to look over the assigned patrolgrids and also in combination with IC make sure there is some ships there too :up: (I of course mean in the area, not necessary in the assigned patrolgrid)

I don't know if you have worked over the patrol grids at this level Beery, but if you have, my excuses for "kicking in open doors". If you don't, do you (and others of course) think it could be a good idea?

[baxter]

Beery,
I noticed and definitely appreciated the patrol grid assignment changes. Before you made the changes I never got assigned to the Drumbeat grids by the flotillas that sent boats there. I'm in the habit of looking up the patrol information on uboat.net...it gives information on every boat's current patrol for any date in the war. So if its not a realistic assignment I'm aware of it. For instance during a couple of late war patrols in a IXC and a IXD the 2nd and 12th flotillas were sending me to the convoy lanes in the North Atlantic. Patrols for these boats were in the South Atlantic, Carribean and the Indian Ocean at that time. So I'm definitely appreciative of any changes to patrol grid assignments.

Thanks for all you've put into this game...your efforts have afforded me many, many hours of enjoyment!

[Beery]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm slowly working on getting more historically accurate patrol destinations. If I could find a source that listed approximate areas for the various flotillas for every period of the war, that would help a lot, but so far I haven't found such a thing.

[OneTinSoldier]

Dear Jason,

I just wanted to say Thank You for your Improved Convoys(IC) and UnrealUBoat(UnRuB). I have been using the IC 200509150059 and a few of the UnRuB's for a little while now and I think they're great! :)

Cheers,

OneTinSoldier

[Gairith]

Just curious if you plan to or have thought about adding the hospital ships to Improved Convoys by Iambecomelife?

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=43398

[baxter]

The zig-zagging convoys in the latest version definitely make things more interesting (and challenging). Great mod.

[jasonb885]

Just curious if you plan to or have thought about adding the hospital ships to Improved Convoys by Iambecomelife?

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=43398

Interesting.

I am not sure which convoys it would likely go in or when, though.

[The Avon Lady]

Just curious if you plan to or have thought about adding the hospital ships to Improved Convoys by Iambecomelife?

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=43398
Interesting.

I am not sure which convoys it would likely go in or when, though.
What were the chances of running across a hospital ship? It might make for a nice prop in port here and there but I don't think it really has a place in the game, historically speaking.

Am I correct? :-?

[rulle34]

What were the chances of running across a hospital ship? It might make for a nice prop in port here and there but I don't think it really has a place in the game, historically speaking.

Am I correct? :-?

I found a link saying that USA had 24 hospitalships in service, some of them was rebuilt Liberty ships.
http://www.usmm.org/hospital.html

After some Google I found hospitalships here and there from different countries, so I guess they where not so extremely rare.

I haven't found any info about how they were used, in convoys, as single ship or so.

But a hospitalship showing up sometimes don't feel so unrealistic to me.

Maybe someone else have some better info?

[oRGy]

It seems that people are interested in the 'idea' of 'potentially' having correct patrol grids, but they don't seem to really care about it when they are actually implemented. If they were, I'm sure I would have heard something by now. I don't really mind though - I appreciate being sent to these patrol areas in my own game, so that's enough for me.


You shouldn't assume this; for most players what is actually the case is that they expect that the game will by default send them to historically correct areas, rather than semi-random ones.

I for one noticed being sent north of norway for the norwegian campaign, so..

[Heffalump]

I've recently started using this mod and am so far enjoying it. I like the fact the convoy routes are less predictable...

[joea]

It seems that people are interested in the 'idea' of 'potentially' having correct patrol grids, but they don't seem to really care about it when they are actually implemented. If they were, I'm sure I would have heard something by now. I don't really mind though - I appreciate being sent to these patrol areas in my own game, so that's enough for me.



Beery one problem could be that some players, at least in my case, really haven't played much with a stock game and again I have not had that much time to play through campaigns in different areas. I never played a stock iith flotila campaign before. I have never played a med campaign, will just start tonight or tomorrow a 2nd flotilla campaign so we might not have anything to compare with. I got sent to some grids near Iceland and NW of Bergen in my 11th campaign (so far at patrol number 9).

[gdogghenrikson]

How about merging Improved convoys and Milk cow together?

[joea]

bump

[jasonb885]

How about merging Improved convoys and Milk cow together?

I wouldn't know how.

In either case, after much discussion about including something like Milk in RuB, it was determined that the likelihood of a U-Boot captain actually having contact with a Milk doing the war was nearly zero. Sure, some captains did, but it was highly unlikely you'd see one, and most did not.

So, no, I don't think I'm going to try to integrate it.

But feel free to use both if you want and it works.

:up:

[Charlie901]

How about merging Improved convoys and Milk cow together?


Actually the newest version of the "Harbor Traffic" Mod is going to include this.

This (Milchcows) needs to be added in the SCR or scripted layer, not the RND or random layer (which is what I.C. mod alters).

[gdogghenrikson]

How about merging Improved convoys and Milk cow together?

I wouldn't know how.

In either case, after much discussion about including something like Milk in RuB, it was determined that the likelihood of a U-Boot captain actually having contact with a Milk doing the war was nearly zero. Sure, some captains did, but it was highly unlikely you'd see one, and most did not.

So, no, I don't think I'm going to try to integrate it.

But feel free to use both if you want and it works.

:up:

oh well it was just a thought I had

[Gizzmoe]

Yes, I don't think WinRAR does 7z. At least not mine version of 3.x.

3.50 does.

[rulle34]

They spawn every 20 days right now. Later it's 35 days.

The truth is, Artic convoys were somewhat rare, albeit not as rare as in the Med where they didn't even have set routes, but occasional huge resupply operations for Malta.

So, I don't know what I can do realisticly to alleviate the situation, since it's somewhat realistic already..

What about increase the probability for arctic convoys a bit? With SH 3 Commander it's possible to change your designated patrol grids. Then you can self create some sort of "arctic campaign" or something like that from Norway bases. Game playtests by Joea shows that they spawn very-very seldom. So is my experience too. Maybe tuning them up gan give a better immersion for that area of sub war? Just to make my point clear, I'm not supposing som arcade style now of ships and convoys!!

[jasonb885]

...
What about increase the probability for arctic convoys a bit? With SH 3 Commander it's possible to change your designated patrol grids. Then you can self create some sort of "arctic campaign" or something like that from Norway bases. Game playtests by Joea shows that they spawn very-very seldom. So is my experience too. Maybe tuning them up gan give a better immersion for that area of sub war? Just to make my point clear, I'm not supposing som arcade style now of ships and convoys!!

I understand.

I'll have to look into it, although a whole release just to tweak this seems a bit misleading. People might think there's something awesome about a new release.

But I might modify that value and release a copy anyway...

:hmm:

[rulle34]

I can volountair for a beta test and give feed-back how it turned out in game if you want. Then you can decide if you will go for a full release or not. Maybe then you'll have more feed-back to add to a new version?

[jasonb885]

I can volountair for a beta test and give feed-back how it turned out in game if you want. Then you can decide if you will go for a full release or not. Maybe then you'll have more feed-back to add to a new version?

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I'll probably just do a regular release with the single change.

[jasonb885]

Bump for Arctic convoys spawning every 15 days instead of 25 to 35 days as it was before. They were all spawning with 90 to 100 probability, so it wasn't that. I think it's really the length between spawns.

:up:

[rulle34]

Sounds very nice :up: :up:
I'll try it out at once and I'll give you feed back after patrol :yep:

Thank's Jason. You should have good credit for listen to feed-back. That's great! :up:

[rulle34]

First playtest result. Center of patrolarea: aprox 1000 km ENE of Island. Date 12 jan to 11 feb 1945. No merchants or convoys sighted or reported!

Am I too late in war for these arctic convoys?

[jasonb885]

First playtest result. Center of patrolarea: aprox 1000 km ENE of Island. Date 12 jan to 11 feb 1945. No merchants or convoys sighted or reported!

Am I too late in war for these arctic convoys?

Shouldn't be, but there might not be any running during that period.

You can check out the Improved Convoys Inventory file and look up the different Arctic convoys for start and stop dates. Look for PQ, JW, RA, and QP. Start and stop dates will be listed for each, along with full compositions and spawn probabilities and such.

:know:

[rulle34]

OK!
Will try more patrols in different times.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Thanks Jasonb885!!!

Things just get better and better here. The Arctic convoy changes you have made for the sake of balance... I feel is a GOOD thing. :smug:

Thanks for being so accessible. :up: :up: :up:

[Wolf52]

One problem ive found in Feb. of 1940. I was patrolling off northern Ireland (actually i was on my way from the west, and then started patrolling off northern Ireland) i got a convoy report which was in the Atlantic a ways out heading towards the gap between England and N. Ireland. The next convoy report i recieved was of a convoy somewhere in the vicinity of AM29 (im not sure, i cant remember exactly) and it was now at a heading of 30 degrees! Then later as im off northern Ireland, i get another report of a convoy on the edge of AM28 and AM02, heading 190 degrees! I assume it was the same convoy because of the time between the reports, so what the heck happened? The convoy leader mustve screwed up some calculations...

[jasonb885]

... Then later as im off northern Ireland, i get another report of a convoy on the edge of AM28 and AM02, heading 190 degrees! I assume it was the same convoy because of the time between the reports, so what the heck happened? The convoy leader mustve screwed up some calculations...

Yes, that's normal. With CCIP's Zig Zags, the convoys now are very erratic to attempt to simulate redirects to evade wolf packs.

;)

[jasonb885]

Thanks Jasonb885!!!

Things just get better and better here. The Arctic convoy changes you have made for the sake of balance... I feel is a GOOD thing. :smug:

Thanks for being so accessible. :up: :up: :up:

I haven't actually tested it. Let me know if they show up or not.

One issue is there's no grid for that area of the map in the game, so you'll get reports in long and lat, which isn't really useful since there's no long and lat on the map. Of course, the convoy location on the map will be correct for the moment it appears. I don't know how the sinkings show up in the log, though. Normally it says something like sunk whatever in AF15. But what if there's no grid?

Anyway...

[Heffalump]

Regarding UnrealUboat... I noticed that the a ship new to the RealUboat mod didn't show up when I had god's eye enabled and the rollback from this mod installed. The 'Grosser Cargo' (large cargo?) I think it was. Anyone know if there's an edit I can make to get this one to show up on the map as well? (actually, it showed up when I was zoomed out, but not when zoomed in...)

[BladeHeart]

Have just come across the new version of IC in the download section of Real U-boat simulation, dated 30th September.
:)
Ok I'm a little slow, but that is the penalty of work a variable 24/7 shift. :roll:

Is this version compatable with RUB?

If so having read the latest readme attached it refers to Jungman's sonar fixes and Sergbutto's Hampton class cruiser.

I currently run RUB1.43, IC for RUB with the latest updated SH3Cmdr, plus a number of graphic mods; should I also have these mods installed or will the above mods have already installed them?
(Have found the sonar fix mod but not the cruiser mod so far)

Thanks, and sorry if this is an obvious question to some. :oops:

[Waldmensch]

... Then later as im off northern Ireland, i get another report of a convoy on the edge of AM28 and AM02, heading 190 degrees! I assume it was the same convoy because of the time between the reports, so what the heck happened? The convoy leader mustve screwed up some calculations...

Yes, that's normal. With CCIP's Zig Zags, the convoys now are very erratic to attempt to simulate redirects to evade wolf packs.

;)

And is that real ? I see it to, very crazy driving. :doh:

[rulle34]

Playtest report.
Convoy 335 degrees and 1300km from Bergen. Heading E, speed 7 kts. Sighted Two cruisera as well. Formation quite tight.
Date:10 th October 1941.

(Convoy was reported as neutral, but I think this is a bug that comes from the nationality from the leadership or something like that I guess)

Another thing. Sent a report and it was in long/lat! :yep:

So the position is Long 1 degree, 00'E, Lat 70 degrees 15'N

So now we know that! :up:

Seem to work fine Jason. Will give more playtests later.
:up:

[BladeHeart]

Just discovered that the "Hampton" class cruiser is in fact the Southampton class :doh:

Cancel that part of the question above, but the rest still stands though; please. :)

[Kpt. Lehmann]

[quote="BladeHeart"]Have just come across the new version of IC in the download section of Real U-boat simulation, dated 30th September.
:)
Ok I'm a little slow, but that is the penalty of work a variable 24/7 shift. :roll:
[quote]

I know the feeling regarding work... however you might want to check Terrapin's site.... lol IC was updated again yesterday! :arrgh!:

[jasonb885]

Regarding UnrealUboat... I noticed that the a ship new to the RealUboat mod didn't show up when I had god's eye enabled and the rollback from this mod installed. The 'Grosser Cargo' (large cargo?) I think it was. Anyone know if there's an edit I can make to get this one to show up on the map as well? (actually, it showed up when I was zoomed out, but not when zoomed in...)

D'oh.

I'm not sure what ship that is. I'd have to look in my sh3 directory and hunt down the originals. It's likely what happened is for the large merchant and large transport, the graphics were replaced in the same fashion as for the other ships.

[jasonb885]

...
(Convoy was reported as neutral, but I think this is a bug that comes from the nationality from the leadership or something like that I guess)

...

Sigh. That's my fault. The leader must have been an American. I had some logic to ensure that any neutral except British or American ships could not be leaders. I didn't include American ships in that check because I had forgotten American ships were included in convoys before Dec 1941. I had removed them from all other convoys before 1941 I believe.

Oops.

[jasonb885]

...
Is this version compatable with RUB?

...
Thanks, and sorry if this is an obvious question to some. :oops:

Yes, it should be.

[BladeHeart]

Thank you.

:lurk:

[Heffalump]

Regarding UnrealUboat... I noticed that the a ship new to the RealUboat mod didn't show up when I had god's eye enabled and the rollback from this mod installed. The 'Grosser Cargo' (large cargo?) I think it was. Anyone know if there's an edit I can make to get this one to show up on the map as well? (actually, it showed up when I was zoomed out, but not when zoomed in...)

D'oh.

I'm not sure what ship that is. I'd have to look in my sh3 directory and hunt down the originals. It's likely what happened is for the large merchant and large transport, the graphics were replaced in the same fashion as for the other ships.

Sorry, I don't know the name of it in the English version. In the German version it's called, literally, 'Grosser Cargo'. I assume it's new to RUB1.43 since I never saw it in the stock game.

It's not a big deal. Just so you know though.

[rulle34]

Jason!
I just discovered one thing.
When checking properties for your "newest" IC file it has the date for "modified" 15 september 2005, 06:58:20. When looking in to the IC mod before it has the same date, 15 september 2005, 06:58:20
And yes, I have checked the date on the folder and the latest one says Improved convoys\IC-200509301806
and the other one is ImprovedConvoys-200509150059, but looking at properties it looks like it's the same file.

Can you verify this Jason? Maybe there has been som mistake when uploading the file or so.

I hope Im wrong in this :roll:

[jasonb885]

Jason!
I just discovered one thing.
When checking properties for your "newest" IC file it has the date for "modified" 15 september 2005, 06:58:20. When looking in to the IC mod before it has the same date, 15 september 2005, 06:58:20
And yes, I have checked the date on the folder and the latest one says Improved convoys\IC-200509301806
and the other one is ImprovedConvoys-200509150059, but looking at properties it looks like it's the same file.

Can you verify this Jason? Maybe there has been som mistake when uploading the file or so.

I hope Im wrong in this :roll:

Yeah, it ought to be 20050930. It's the wrong file.

I'm not surprised, as I wasn't really paying attention that day apparently.

I'll reupload.

:down:

I added the convoy spacing reduction from 900m to 700m as a compensation so there's a point to a new release as opposed to a rerelease.

:up:

[rulle34]

These things happen sometimes :P

Continuing playtests :up: and new spacing sounds nice

[Vermin]

Hi Jason,

Will there be an Unreal UBoat 1.44 - or is 1.43 compatible?

Regards

Vermin

[caspofungin]

playtest report--

bottom edge of cg84 and cg85 in feb 43, found a convoy in disarray -- ships going every which way, as has been commented on before and that i've seen in the stock game much more frequently than in ic. not a problem in and of itself, but after i'd hit it and was waiting to pick off some stragglers, the convoy disappears over the horizon heading W in good formation... only to come back about 4 hours later, heading ENE. same convoy, as it still had a tanker i'd hit but not sunk. error with the basic game code, issue with the zig zags, i'm not sure.

[jasonb885]

Hi Jason,

Will there be an Unreal UBoat 1.44 - or is 1.43 compatible?

Regards

Vermin

I have heard it is, but never tested it myself.

I do not anticipate any future releases of either mod.

[jasonb885]

playtest report--

bottom edge of cg84 and cg85 in feb 43, found a convoy in disarray -- ships going every which way, as has been commented on before and that i've seen in the stock game much more frequently than in ic. not a problem in and of itself, but after i'd hit it and was waiting to pick off some stragglers, the convoy disappears over the horizon heading W in good formation... only to come back about 4 hours later, heading ENE. same convoy, as it still had a tanker i'd hit but not sunk. error with the basic game code, issue with the zig zags, i'm not sure.

Probably has to do with CCIP's Zig Zags. I've never seen it in stock.

[jasonb885]

I'm not big on departures, but I thought I'd mention to those who monitor this thread that I am departing. I haven't played SH3 seriously in around four months. I think that's long enough to declare my interest in this game dead.

While I know many people disliked SH2, I found SH3 to be lacking in many of the key areas that made SH2 such a bit hit for me. For one, the medal system is broken. Two, the missions, while reasonably realistic, aren't particularly interesting. My goal is excitement, not a nautical exercise. Yes, I am a FPS whore. Oh well.

Additionally, SH3 is simply broken in a number of ways that make it unsatisfying, including the busted visual range which Ubi hacked by limiting the visual range to a mere 8km, the lag experienced even on top of the line PCs at high time compression (a holdover from SH2 apparently), the not fixed as of v1.4b crash bug when using the crew management icons (w.t.f?), and so on... It's just not a finished product.

Anyway. I'm done.

I've been playing BF2 and have found that far more rewarding. The medals system is actually somewhat sane. The action is obviously immediate. While it has some serious issues itself I find it far more entertaining to play.

It's been fun, though.

Maybe I'll check back when SH4 is released and stick to playing and not modding. Modding really seems to kill a game, at least for me. I can't mod and still enjoy it. The more you learn about a game, the more you curse its flaws. The broken visual system, for example, pretty much killed it for me. Had I not learned of it, for example...

:hmm:

[Gizzmoe]

I'm not big on departures, but I thought I'd mention to those who monitor this thread that I am departing. I haven't played SH3 seriously in around four months. I think that's long enough to declare my interest in this game dead.

Well, even after reading all the reasons you gave I still hope it´s not a final decision!

[thasaint]

thanks for your hard work jason *salute*

[rulle34]

Jason
I wish you the best and hope to see you back again sometime. :)
When you'll not be around, I want to ask what kind of program you have used for tuning the IC? Is it possible to create easily?

[The Avon Lady]

NO!

Put him in irons! :arrgh!: Toss 'im below! A prisoner in his own mod! :hulk:

Thank you so much for really improving the game for all of us.

Looking forward to you eating your words. :rock:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

A heartfelt SALUTE! to you Jason. Thank you for all the hard work you have done and thank you for making our game so much better.

Blue skies and calm seas friend! :ping:

[gdogghenrikson]

I'm not big on departures, but I thought I'd mention to those who monitor this thread that I am departing. I haven't played SH3 seriously in around four months. I think that's long enough to declare my interest in this game dead.

While I know many people disliked SH2, I found SH3 to be lacking in many of the key areas that made SH2 such a bit hit for me. For one, the medal system is broken. Two, the missions, while reasonably realistic, aren't particularly interesting. My goal is excitement, not a nautical exercise. Yes, I am a FPS whore. Oh well.

Additionally, SH3 is simply broken in a number of ways that make it unsatisfying, including the busted visual range which Ubi hacked by limiting the visual range to a mere 8km, the lag experienced even on top of the line PCs at high time compression (a holdover from SH2 apparently), the not fixed as of v1.4b crash bug when using the crew management icons (w.t.f?), and so on... It's just not a finished product.

Anyway. I'm done.

I've been playing BF2 and have found that far more rewarding. The medals system is actually somewhat sane. The action is obviously immediate. While it has some serious issues itself I find it far more entertaining to play.

It's been fun, though.

Maybe I'll check back when SH4 is released and stick to playing and not modding. Modding really seems to kill a game, at least for me. I can't mod and still enjoy it. The more you learn about a game, the more you curse its flaws. The broken visual system, for example, pretty much killed it for me. Had I not learned of it, for example...

:hmm:

Dear jasonB885,

first thanks for your hard work and Improved convoys mod...but wow not played game in 4 monthes, thats a long time since this game I havent touched any pc game or xbox in like 2-3 monthes. Yes the medal system is dumb but if you use SH3 commander you can give them out your self. And how can you campare sh2-3 they are years apart and one is dynamic campagn and sh2 isnt (still a great game though) And yes I agree the game is broken and still has bugs(what pcgame doesnt). and the visability is fixed with a mod...But oh well to each his own

[baxter]

Thanks, Jason, for doing so much to improve the convoys and the single ship contacts in select areas. You added a lot to the game and it is appreciated.

[joea]

Thanks Jason. :cool:

[Heffalump]

thanks for mods well done. I enjoy IC very much. :up:

I too found that too much modding can kill the imagination. Once you get to know a game TOO well then you just see it as all the things you programmed into it... and the immersion is hard to get back.

[jasonb885]

Okay, I give.

With all the new (to me) mods showing up, I'm starting to become interested again. Things seemed to have slowed down in the Fall, so I sort of figured SH3 was done.

But stuff is swinging again in a big way.

I'd like to finally fix having neutrals in convoys by adding new nations to the nations dat file thing and tweak the task force changes I never verified. Plus I might have a newer RND around here somewhere with changes from CCIP I never did anything with... (Doesn't look like it as my last mod was Aug 4th.)

:up:

So, if anyone had anything they were interested in...

[Kpt. Lehmann]

errrmmm excuse my lack of composure for a minute but.....

YAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :up: :up: :up:

[LA_Dodger]

Does this mean the possibility of an updated UnrealUboat to go with NYGM tonnage mod? I have some CTDs when missions start using the current version.

[jasonb885]

Does this mean the possibility of an updated UnrealUboat to go with NYGM tonnage mod? I have some CTDs when missions start using the current version.

It's possible. I have not yet had a chance to install NYGM. It's a bear to download, but I have it now. Just need time to install it.

What kinds of UnNYGM unmods would you need? Enough stuff has been tweaked that I'm not sure what exactly you'd want to unmod? I mean, I could try to unmod stuff like the new renown system or the damage model, but at that point why use NYGM? :) The former relies on the latter for more reasonable tonnages, so removing one and not the other might be messy, for example.

But, if anyone has anything specific in mind about what to UnMod...

:up:

[jasonb885]

errrmmm excuse my lack of composure for a minute but.....

YAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :up: :up: :up:

NYGM includes some, I think, substantial improvements to my original IC which was included in RuB which was absorbed by NYGM. So, I am as yet uncertain what additional improvements I can bring to the table. I'll have to look and see.

:up:

[LA_Dodger]

Does this mean the possibility of an updated UnrealUboat to go with NYGM tonnage mod? I have some CTDs when missions start using the current version.

It's possible. I have not yet had a chance to install NYGM. It's a bear to download, but I have it now. Just need time to install it.

What kinds of UnNYGM unmods would you need? Enough stuff has been tweaked that I'm not sure what exactly you'd want to unmod? I mean, I could try to unmod stuff like the new renown system or the damage model, but at that point why use NYGM? :) The former relies on the latter for more reasonable tonnages, so removing one and not the other might be messy, for example.

But, if anyone has anything specific in mind about what to UnMod...

:up:

Same stuff you did for RUB, map, deck gun, etc. Not a pressing issue, Im having fun with the NYGM as is, and I guess I can get used to the map thing(though I did downloaded the single merchant contact mod for it, which is close enough to the normal map :oops: )

[Salvadoreno]

im sorry is the link at the first page? IUB and IC comes seperate right? I want to install improved convoys to my NYGM Tonnage mod. Plus i know IUB isnt compatible with TW, is it? Dont want to make any crazy conflicts! :|\

[JonZ]

IC and IuB are merged.

JonZ

[jasonb885]

IC and IuB are merged.

JonZ

And as of this posting, IuB, RuB, and NYGM all have the latest version of IC or a version that's modified and newer than what I released. (Or at least I'm assuming by now, six months later, everyone is finally using my release from 200510*...)

I'll update this thread when IC is officially updated.

:up:

[JonZ]

IC and IuB are merged.

JonZ

And as of this posting, IuB, RuB, and NYGM all have the latest version of IC or a version that's modified and newer than what I released. (Or at least I'm assuming by now, six months later, everyone is finally using my release from 200510*...)

I'll update this thread when IC is officially updated.

:up:

I like better when a new thread is made, making the announcements more official :ping:

Easier to attract peoples attentions imo

[jasonb885]

...

I like better when a new thread is made, making the announcements more official :ping:

Easier to attract peoples attentions imo

Yeah, but I like 'upping' my thread views. ;)

Besides, anyone doing a search won't have to wade through a ton of IC threads. Especially so if I had done a new thread for each beta snapshot... actually I don't know if I ever had an official release. IC has always been in development.

:lol:

[jasonb885]

Anyway, this is what I'm planning to do at this point...


I think Sweden was the largest offender. My original solution was to ensure that no neutral nation could be the leader of a convoy. That fixed the "large neutral convoy" being reported which annoyed me to no end. It did not, sadly, resolve the issue of some nations that were legitimately in convoys being neutral for some of, or all of, the war.

Actually, there were two issues I failed to address due to eventual lack of interest and time constraints,

a) Add Panama as a nation and properly represent it in convoys

b) Add cloned nations for neutrals so convoy ships fly under those flags instead -- the flags would be identical, but the nation itself would only be used in convoys (i.e. I'd use the AmericaWar nation in convoys and leave the stock America alone for all single merchant traffic.)

[Also having a single machine and having to dual boot between Linux and Windows for testing made this somewhat impractical and annoying -- I now have a dedicated gaming system and that aleviates that issue entirely.]

It sounds like a) is already alive and well and you're currently going to deploy ships from Panama. I find that very exciting. I have some existing tables from Observer, who I see is also involved in this mod, which list the nationality percentage, where determinable, based on ship sinkings. (It's what I used for all my IC mods for nationality composition and I am quite grateful to Observer for taking the time to create those Excel sheets.)

It sounds like b) hasn't been done, yet, but could be done the same way a) was done by whoever actually did it, or I can probably download a tool to do it graphically as things have progressed quite far since I was last doing mods. If not, I can always bust out a hex editor.

So, I think what I'm going to do, then, is modify my internalized nations structure to include Panama as a nation, reapportion the convoy compositions to include Panama based on Observer's Excel sheets, then test that and verify it works correctly.

Then, I can look into b) more closely.

If your tool primarily alters WP information and you've been modifying other portions of the RND by hand, then there won't be a tool collision.

Anyway, I hate duplicate work, especially when mine isn't as good as someone else's, so I wanted to let you know what I wanted to do, in case you're doing / already did it.

[JonZ]

...

I like better when a new thread is made, making the announcements more official :ping:

Easier to attract peoples attentions imo

Yeah, but I like 'upping' my thread views. ;)

Besides, anyone doing a search won't have to wade through a ton of IC threads. Especially so if I had done a new thread for each beta snapshot... actually I don't know if I ever had an official release. IC has always been in development.

:lol:

I think it the contrary, old threads always = OFN, and less people tends to come. But I will not tell you what to do here :|\

[zzsteven]

...

I like better when a new thread is made, making the announcements more official :ping:

Easier to attract peoples attentions imo

Yeah, but I like 'upping' my thread views. ;)

Besides, anyone doing a search won't have to wade through a ton of IC threads. Especially so if I had done a new thread for each beta snapshot... actually I don't know if I ever had an official release. IC has always been in development.

:lol:

I think it the contrary, old threads always = OFN, and less people tends to come. But I will not tell you what to do here :|\

I must disagree. Having all this in one thread allows me to read the history of how it evolved, the problems that were encountered, the resolutions. It also makes it easier to find the D/L link several weeks or months down the road.

zz

[JonZ]

That's what I dislike. Having 15 pages of debating oldand same issues and a page about a new release just don't appeals me anymore. Bringing a fresh link with a brief explanatory of the events that bring the mod is always a good refreshner for me. Plus the download links on old threads are always dead, which is very frustrating (and went uphill lately).

[zzsteven]

That's what I dislike. Having 15 pages of debating oldand same issues and a page about a new release just don't appeals me anymore. Bringing a fresh link with a brief explanatory of the events that bring the mod is always a good refreshner for me. Plus the download links on old threads are always dead, which is very frustrating (and went uphill lately).

I just click on the last page link and get the latest news. If I had been away for awhile, it's good to be able to read the history of the mod. The D/L are usually mirrored by others and posted in that same thread. I've found several older mods this way.

zz

[jasonb885]

That's what I dislike. Having 15 pages of debating oldand same issues and a page about a new release just don't appeals me anymore. Bringing a fresh link with a brief explanatory of the events that bring the mod is always a good refreshner for me. Plus the download links on old threads are always dead, which is very frustrating (and went uphill lately).

I just click on the last page link and get the latest news. If I had been away for awhile, it's good to be able to read the history of the mod. The D/L are usually mirrored by others and posted in that same thread. I've found several older mods this way.

zz

What's more, I _always_ update the OP with the _latest_ information. No reason to recycle a thread if it's not even updated properly.

At the moment I've only bumped to see if there's any interest, and thus the OP has not yet been updated with any new stuff, as there isn't any new stuff yet.

:up:

[jasonb885]

I just made an experimental release with support for the removal of neutrals from convoys. (The release link is in the OP of this thread, as always, to avoid any dead links and confusion.)

You'll find six new countries, well, seven, actively displayed in the museum. These are the convoy countries. I haven't had time to add Panama to the convoys but its in there along with all the Nationality Mod v3.0 nations I didn't overwrite with cloned copies of other nations.

I thought I had tested it more fully, but I actually was testing a copy of IC without the new nations included in the actual campaign. I copied the wrong file initially.

It's too late to retest it, but it ought to play fine.

If not, wait a few days and I'll test it and fix whatever I broke.

It includes Sergbuto's Nationality Mod v3.0, but slightly hacked. Also has a hopefully correctly modified DefSides.cfg.

Enjoy!

:up:

[JonZ]

That's very cool.

A question,

since editing campaign files are a pain in the arse, can you provide some info about to merge your new codes into the, ie, GW or IuB files?

JonZ

[jasonb885]

That's very cool.

A question,

since editing campaign files are a pain in the arse, can you provide some info about to merge your new codes into the, ie, GW or IuB files?

JonZ

Good question.

I use the stock SH3 Campaign_RND.mis as a base. It's been modified by CCIP to include extremely random convoy paths. I added Walker's Second Support Group to the Bay of Biscay.

I take that and post process it with my script.

As far as I know, the result has been the base on which any additional improvements have been made. Many projects just use IC unmodified, so no changes need to be made.

Any project that's made changes on top will need to determine some way to merge the changes. I completely rewrite the RND layer every time, so trying to do a merge or diff will likely fail as the file will look completely different.

The best I can suggest is that if a post processing tool is involved, simply apply it to my RND layer if you agree with the changes instead of to the original Campaign_RND.mis file.

Of course, if a project has a heavily (or even slightly) modified copy of Campaign_RND.mis that is not based on IC, well, I guess you have to pick your modifications or mine. *shrug* In that respect it's like the SCR layer with stuff like the HT mod. Fortunately, few people took any interest in the Campaign_RND.mis file, so generally speaking I think IC is the only mod for convoys and single traffic.

If you can tell me specifically what you've done or what has been done to a project's campaign, I can tell you if it's easily possible to merge the changes or not.

[Happy Times]

Have to say yet again Jason, that your hard work is truly appreciated. The effort you have put in IC is such a big improvement to the game. And that you still have the will to continue to improve and develop it further is great news to the community. :up: Cant wait to see the Panamanians and neutrals in convoys. :D

[jasonb885]

Have to say yet again Jason, that your hard work is truly appreciated. The effort you have put in IC is such a big improvement to the game. And that you still have the will to continue to improve and develop it further is great news to the community. :up: Cant wait to see the Panamanians and neutrals in convoys. :D

Thanks!

Actually, I was removing neutrals from convoys. ;)

I have to test it again tonight.

Adding Panama will be more work, as I no longer have access to Observer's Excel generated graphics that I failed to save, so I have no clue which convoys should have Panama. I'm guessing NA convoys and CAR convoys, but what %? I don't know. My thread on the main forum went unanswered, so I'm at a loss.

:hmm:

[VonHelsching]

Hello Jason (BTW, we have the same name)

One question:

From the IC readme:

* Reduces single merchant reports and traffic to 8% in 1939
* Reduces single merchant reports and traffic to 2% in 1940
* Reduces single merchant reports and traffic to 0.8% in 1941-1945

Probably this has been discussed to death, but I'm too lazy to read 19 pages; the question is what are the settings of the stock game? 8% means "8% in IC, 100% in stock game"?

From mods that affect .mis files, I use only HT 1.47.

Thanks,

VonHelsching

[jasonb885]

Hello Jason (BTW, we have the same name)

One question:

From the IC readme:

* Reduces single merchant reports and traffic to 8% in 1939
* Reduces single merchant reports and traffic to 2% in 1940
* Reduces single merchant reports and traffic to 0.8% in 1941-1945

Probably this has been discussed to death, but I'm too lazy to read 19 pages; the question is what are the settings of the stock game? 8% means "8% in IC, 100% in stock game"?

From mods that affect .mis files, I use only HT 1.47.

Thanks,

VonHelsching

Well, essentially, there are two values that effect the number of ships you find in the world. One is the contact probability and the other is the spawn probability. The former effects the likelihood you'll _hear about_ a ship. The latter effects whether the ship _actually spawns_ or not.

The percentages I use mostly stem from the original 20/20 Mod, where you set each of the aforementioned values to something that seems more reasonable after playtesting, like 20 and 20, and then when you multiply those together, you come up with 20% * 20% = 4%.

So, that's where those values come from. If you're only spawning 20% of the time and you only report contacts 20% of the time, the assumption is the probability of hearing about a ship is only a fraction of that.

So, actually, it's not really a reduction to say, 0.8%, but a reduction in _contact_ to 0.8% since there may be, say, a 10% spawn rate, but only a 8% contact report rate. (Which would be 0.8%, but a 90% reduction in spawn rates, so a 10% of the original spawn numbers.)

It's somewhat misleading, but it greatly reduces the quantity of single ship contacts you receive via radio, even if you set radio contacts manually to a huge value, like 10,000 KM. When I tested IC originally I had a huge value set for contact reports and I rarely saw any single merchants at all in the later years, that is, after 1940.

To actually answer your question, the original stock values were distributed like so (first # count, second # probability out of 100):


5 60
13 30
16 5
16 7
16 80
18 85
26 70
29 75
57 45
63 35
72 9
92 10
94 90
232 25
276 20
391 40
741 8
1276 50
2625 100


Here's the same for contact reports:


1 65
1 70
1 85
2 75
4 30
4 90
7 25
7 60
120 40
143 50
178 20
544 100
705 10


Single ship traffic was originally heavily 100/100, so the world had way more ships than historically accurate. You could walk "from Iceland to Greenland to Scotland without getting your feet wet" to quote The Hunt for Red October, a favorite of mine.

:up:

[jasonb885]

So far I'm not having much success finding convoys to test as that was one of the points of this mod...

So, if anyone happens to come across a convoy with confirmed ships from Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, or America, let me know if you take a renown hit for sinking any of those. You shouldn't, ever, if they're in a convoy.

Thanks.

:up:

Oh yeah! I know I'm using the right copy of IC. I just encountered HG41, which historically had a CVE. It was sunk on the return trip to Great Britain. It was the Audacity. One Norwegian ship spawned, so stuff is definitely working. I'm a little disappointed only three ships were Norwegian and two had 50% spawn probability with one at 100%, but that's how the dice rolled. Most convoys had 70-80% British until American merchants started to show up on the scene anyway...

:ping:

And there my ships are.


[RndGroup 115.RndUnit 23]
Class=KLS
Type=102
Origin=NOConvy
Side=0
CargoExt=1
CargoInt=0
CfgDate=19390801
No=1
Escort=false
SpawnProbability=100
CrewRating=3


Yep, no crashy.

I did notice some British Ocean (Liberty) ships in that group, although I don't believe they should exist yet. That's obviously a bug from last year no one noticed. (Probably because they don't spawn!)

Actually, no, it isn't. I changed the availability of the British Ocean from August 1st, 1941. So, it was valid. For some reason I either didn't notice it -- I've never played a game later than 1941 and never actually encountered a Liberty -- or for some strange reason it didn't spawn. It's probably the former.

*shrug* Have to load my save and see if I'm on crack or not.

[Happy Times]

So far I'm not having much success finding convoys to test as that was one of the points of this mod...

So, if anyone happens to come across a convoy with confirmed ships from Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, or America, let me know if you take a renown hit for sinking any of those. You shouldn't, ever, if they're in a convoy.

Thanks.

:up:

Oh yeah! I know I'm using the right copy of IC. I just encountered HG41, which historically had a CVE. It was sunk on the return trip to Great Britain. It was the Audacity. One Norwegian ship spawned, so stuff is definitely working. I'm a little disappointed only three ships were Norwegian and two had 50% spawn probability with one at 100%, but that's how the dice rolled. Most convoys had 70-80% British until American merchants started to show up on the scene anyway...

:ping:

And there my ships are.


[RndGroup 115.RndUnit 23]
Class=KLS
Type=102
Origin=NOConvy
Side=0
CargoExt=1
CargoInt=0
CfgDate=19390801
No=1
Escort=false
SpawnProbability=100
CrewRating=3


Yep, no crashy.

I did notice some British Ocean (Liberty) ships in that group, although I don't believe they should exist yet. That's obviously a bug from last year no one noticed. (Probably because they don't spawn!)

Actually, no, it isn't. I changed the availability of the British Ocean from August 1st, 1941. So, it was valid. For some reason I either didn't notice it -- I've never played a game later than 1941 and never actually encountered a Liberty -- or for some strange reason it didn't spawn. It's probably the former.

*shrug* Have to load my save and see if I'm on crack or not.Question, doesnt the US need a "convoy nationality" also for the early part of war? :hmm:

[jasonb885]

Question, doesnt the US need a "convoy nationality" also for the early part of war? :hmm:

Sure, why not?

It certainly makes it easier if there's no distinction made. Nothing should break and you never need to ask what year it is. If it goes in a convoy, it flies under a clone flag. Done.

:up:

[Happy Times]

:up:

[jasonb885]

Added some Panama.

Reduced some CL, CVE, and AUX spawns for convoys in which they appeared.

Fixed(?) HX42 so it actually spawns in January '42 instead of August '42. No idea why the stock RND was that way, but I think it's fixed(?) now. Might've been a reason for it, but I can't think of any.

:up:

[sykor]

Maybe it's the long hours searching for other stuff, but after trying to find an answer through the forum search I've yet to find it:

Is the new version of IC compatible with the NYGM+GW+EUC combo? or will a "patch" with the newest IC "break" some of the settings/paths created for those mods?

[jasonb885]

Maybe it's the long hours searching for other stuff, but after trying to find an answer through the forum search I've yet to find it:

Is the new version of IC compatible with the NYGM+GW+EUC combo? or will a "patch" with the newest IC "break" some of the settings/paths created for those mods?

My understanding is GW uses the traffic mod, which uses all kinds of nations from Nationality Mod.

My guess is, you'll find some of the nations I used as proxies to fix the neutrality issue will not have flags.

Now, you won't see those nations in any convoy, ever, so unless you visit some obscure harbor, you won't even know there's a 'problem'. Also, these nations will still show up in the Museum, but also with missing flags.

I consider it a minor issue, but then I never cared much about traffic mods.

Any combined campaign would have the same 'issue' with missing flags on minor nations that weren't even in the stock game.

[jasonb885]

I have discovered one issue which could be considered a bug.

In the recognition manual, any nation which I used to resolve the neutrality problem will show up with a missing flag and you won't be able to open the manual for that nation.

Technically it's a bug, but not one that bothers me. Deleting recognition manual entries for nations that no longer exist, however that's done, would probably resolve the issue. But, deleting files isn't something you can easily do with Mod Enabler -- at all, actually -- so each major meta mod would need to resolve it internally by changing recognition entries shipped. I think.

Actually I'd have to look into it in detail to see what recognition manual entries are really pulled from, but I only just noticed this and haven't had time to actually look into it.

[VonHelsching]

Maybe it's the long hours searching for other stuff, but after trying to find an answer through the forum search I've yet to find it:

Is the new version of IC compatible with the NYGM+GW+EUC combo? or will a "patch" with the newest IC "break" some of the settings/paths created for those mods?

My understanding is GW uses the traffic mod, which uses all kinds of nations from Nationality Mod.

My guess is, you'll find some of the nations I used as proxies to fix the neutrality issue will not have flags.

Now, you won't see those nations in any convoy, ever, so unless you visit some obscure harbor, you won't even know there's a 'problem'. Also, these nations will still show up in the Museum, but also with missing flags.

I consider it a minor issue, but then I never cared much about traffic mods.

Any combined campaign would have the same 'issue' with missing flags on minor nations that weren't even in the stock game.


My understanding at least for the Unified Campaign of NYGM and GW is that they use a version of IC, which has now been subject to some changes, like speed changes between waypoints for all convoys, new Med traffic plus other .rnd layer changes.

The spawning and reporting rates follow the ones of IC.

Not too much single merchant traffic for my taste...(realistic nevertheless)

[jasonb885]

Hmm.

I'm considering dumping stock SH3 support entirely and pre-depending on the installation of either GW or NYGM for the inclusion of new ships.

I can't simply include any new ships, as NYGM has improved damage zones. Including ships which are duplicated elsewhere is messy. I prefer my footprint to be as small as possible and thus duplication should be avoided where possible.

While I could allow for the Large Cargo and Heavy Cruiser, neither will realistically appear often enough to warrant their inclusion just yet.