ImprovedConvoys Beta and UnRealUBoat - Udated: 03-25

[pampanito]

Which version did you use? The latest one I had tuned some of the contact report probabilities, so that should effect stuff some.

Version 200507052236. Latest one, I hope!

I think later in the war the U.S. should have an increased amount of shipping in the Atlantic convoys, but I don't have any information on that presently. So right now the '42 convoys and the '45 convoys are very similar. From what I have read most ships should be liberty class by '44.

If this is of any help, in 1944/45 just 20 ships were torpedoed from HX / SC / ON / UGS convoys, they were:

7 USA (all Libertys)
8 British (5 freighters, 3 tankers)
4 Norwegian (3 freighters, 1 tanker)
1 Panamanian freighter


And if anyone wants to abuse the Arctic convoys, please do. I spent a lot of time on those to find no one ever abuses them!

If only BdU decided to send me so far North in patrol...!

[jasonb885]

...

If this is of any help, in 1944/45 just 20 ships were torpedoed from HX / SC / ON / UGS convoys, they were:

7 USA (all Libertys)
8 British (5 freighters, 3 tankers)
4 Norwegian (3 freighters, 1 tanker)
1 Panamanian freighter


Maybe that's why I have so little information.

I don't have much on early war OG/KX/HG either though.

I'd like to eventually take a shot at those convoys. The Med and convoys south of the equator get so little abuse tuning the appearance rate of the Atlantic convoys is more of a priority, though.

I still need to add a few TRs and PPLs to fast convoys in '43 and '44 for D-Day. Perhaps even in '42.

[joea]

Does the improved convoy mod increase the spacing between ships?

Well read my post here: http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=39897

Got a liner finally on ship was so close it filled my UZO, a C2 at about 500-600 meters, it was stormy though, 15m/s wind and night. Got the passenger liner, but it was September 1940 and the liner was American. :doh:

Good work Jason, seems to be a good mod.

[jasonb885]

Does the improved convoy mod increase the spacing between ships?

Well read my post here: http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=39897

Got a liner finally on ship was so close it filled my UZO, a C2 at about 500-600 meters, it was stormy though, 15m/s wind and night. Got the passenger liner, but it was September 1940 and the liner was American. :doh:

Good work Jason, seems to be a good mod.

Thanks.

None of my convoys have a PPL in them, though.

I wonder which convoy it was you ran into. It could've been OG/HG/KX one of which I think has a PPL in the default configuration. I haven't looked in a while though.

[rulle34]

Just returned from my first patrol using Jasonb885 Improved Convoys, May 1941, grid AL35.
...
Two escorts sunk, several frustrated approaches against two fast convoys. From my point of view all worked perfectly, no problem with the convoy size. I just look forward to my next Improved Patrol!

Sweet!

Which version did you use? The latest one I had tuned some of the contact report probabilities, so that should effect stuff some. I haven't had a chance to play around in '41 to see contact report frequency. I'm glad the FFs are spawning. I thought the convoys needed a few Black Swans!

I haven't gone through and seriously balanced the escort skill yet. Early in the war most are novice, regular, and veteran. In '44 I have a bias towards mostly veteran escorts. A few convoys that only run in '45 have 25% escorts elite.

Hopefully that'll work out well enough.

(With the sonar fix from SH3 v1.3 the elites will still kill you.)

I think later in the war the U.S. should have an increased amount of shipping in the Atlantic convoys, but I don't have any information on that presently. So right now the '42 convoys and the '45 convoys are very similar. From what I have read most ships should be liberty class by '44.

I just haven't gotten to reasonably playtesting past 1940 yet.

;)

And if anyone wants to abuse the Arctic convoys, please do. I spent a lot of time on those to find no one ever abuses them!

I have done some patrols in 41 with your mod. It works very fine. I was facing a 9 columns convoy but It was only three ships in line in each column though?

I have tried both north Atlantic and south west of Africa coast.

The mod seem to work fine.

Have you changed the performance of the destroyers? I have this sonarmod just NOT to make them so uber! will I face this elite DD's later on??

/Rulle

[pampanito]

Hello again,

My second patrol with Improved Convoys, and it seems to work fine. Assigned area between Canary Islands and the African coast. When in the patrol area, convoy report received. Made contact (as usual, from dead astern! ) :roll:
Convoy located at grid CF86, going NNE, speed 6.
To make it short (I spent five real-time hours struggling with the escorts, two Flowers and one Black Swan) I fired 13 torpedoes, sank the Black Swan and damaged two big C3s which refused to sink... :x

Convoy behaved in a most convincing way, the escorts were truly well-trained, they detected my periscope every time I made an approach and kept pinging me down to 150 metres deep. Many depth charges but no damage suffered.

No single ships found to date, but the area was not the best for that.

[jasonb885]

..
I have done some patrols in 41 with your mod. It works very fine. I was facing a 9 columns convoy but It was only three ships in line in each column though?

I have tried both north Atlantic and south west of Africa coast.

The mod seem to work fine.

Have you changed the performance of the destroyers? I have this sonarmod just NOT to make them so uber! will I face this elite DD's later on??

/Rulle

Neat. I was wondering if the nine columns would cause a crash. I'm pleased to see someone's tested that for me.

:arrgh!:

I didn't mess with the destroyer's sonar. I know that mod is in RuB. It's probably available somewhere separately, too.

[jasonb885]

Hello again,

My second patrol with Improved Convoys, and it seems to work fine. Assigned area between Canary Islands and the African coast. When in the patrol area, convoy report received. Made contact (as usual, from dead astern! ) :roll:
Convoy located at grid CF86, going NNE, speed 6.
To make it short (I spent five real-time hours struggling with the escorts, two Flowers and one Black Swan) I fired 13 torpedoes, sank the Black Swan and damaged two big C3s which refused to sink... :x
...

Excellent. That's probably one of mine as few original convoys had the Black Swan FF included. Many of mine do.

[jasonb885]

Okay, this puppy is ready to rock!

No Victory ships appear yet because of the few convoys defined in 1944, of which there are few, the % of American ships is so small or 0 such that % of Victory is rounded to 0. American Liberty and British Ocean class ships seem to be popping up, though. Additionally, columns are not 4 ships long and the bias is towards cargos, so you'll (strangely enough) a larger variety of tanker nations. (It has the opposite effect since Am and Br get gobbled up for cargos leaving slots more frequently for tankers of other nations.)

:up:

Things still left to do eventually:

a) Tune convoy contact reports appropriately (needs more testing)
b) Tune quantity of Regular/Veteran/Elite escorts
c) Tune quantity of American ships in convoys in 42-43+
d) Complete HG/OG/KX convoys (Only others abused by people)
e) Someday complete AS/MK*/KM*/GU*/UG* convoys

Stand by for upload baby!

:rock:

[CCIP]

HG/OG/KX! :D

God I hate those suckers. I have no idea why, but they probably account for 3/4 of all my convoy encounters to date.

[jasonb885]

HG/OG/KX! :D

God I hate those suckers. I have no idea why, but they probably account for 3/4 of all my convoy encounters to date.

Yeah, I've gotten that impression. Too bad, since that information isn't useful in AARs.

:(

You must spend a _ton_ of time off the coast of Spain dude.

[jasonb885]

w00p da d00p

New version out. Rebalanced nationalities for 1943+ along with composition and escort difficulty.

http://edseek.com/mirror/sh3/ImprovedConvoys-200507120036.7z

Playtest reports always welcome.

:up:

[Ishmael]

Just d'loaded new version. Tried mod 2236 with 2nd patrol,Oct 39. Got convoy report in BE31, was in position to go ahead of convoy track. 9 rows of 3 ships apiece, escorts, 1 Flower, 2 trawlers. Went silent as flower past abeam to port 2km away, no detection. Had no problems coming in range of convoy. Killed 1 t2 with 1 torp, 1 c3 with 2nd torp. 3rd went into 2nd t2 but she remained afloat. 4th missed a 2nd c2. Went 180 and put 5th in aux cruiser sinking her. dove deep(190 meters) while reloading and moved north along convoy axis. Came shallow, put 2 fish into another c2, sinking her, 2nd torp in another C2 making her DIW no sinking, and 4th into C3 sinking her, went 180 & polished off another c2, diving deep heading s then w back to T2 location. Came shallow after reload, finally got 2nd T2 with 3rd torp hit, missed small tanker & getting another C2. Went deep and evaded Flower for 3rd time heading WSW until clear of convoy. went to PD, spotted DIW C2. Surfaced after escorts rejoined convoy while I loaded external storage, then finished off last C2(Rough weather, no deck gun). Total tonnage, 59000 tons, no real problems evading escorts on this run.

[HMCS]

I have been playing with improved convoys for about four patrols now in my Type VIIc (now in June '41), and am LOVING it.


Playtest report: Playing at 60% realism:

I bagged my first capital ship (Fiji Class CA) escorting a convoy outbound from the UK in BF14.

Two patrols later, same grid and I bagged a Dido Class CL. My luck must be running high....

Plenty of radio reports on convoys. Sometimes 4 per patrol, which is plenty. Both inbound and outbound convoys. I am sometimes able to choose to go after either.

Size of convoys is an excellent feature- I have seen as many as 30 ships, of all sizes; escorts are generally comptetent, except for the last group I ran into - I sank a Black Swan Class F that presented her 90 to me at 500 yds (couldn't resist) and the others stood off (scared?), which let me run rampant (sinking 2 T2s, a T3 and a C3) before I had to dive and reload.

This was probably covered earlier, but will improved convoys work with RUB? My JSGME said it would conflict, so I had to bail on RUB, but I would like to use it....

[The Avon Lady]

This was probably covered earlier, but will improved convoys work with RUB? My JSGME said it would conflict, so I had to bail on RUB, but I would like to use it....
Already answered:
I downloaded the Improved Convoys mod. The mod replaces the same file, Campaign_RND.mis, as does the RUb 1.42 Mod.

Is it safe? If so, Is anything non-convoy related affected by replacing the RUb's file version?
Good question. :hmm:
In addition, if it turns out that they're incompatible or RUb implementations are lost, will the Improved Convoys modmaker consider making a new version that merges his changes in a copy of the file taken from RUb 1.42?

There's nothing to merge from RuB. RuB has an implementation of th 20/20 mod. I have a reimplementation based on the same concepts, but with different amounts of traffic. In RuB single merchant traffic is essentially the same very low level the entire campaign. I tried to tune my values to be more realistic as opposed to a simple reduction.

The only side effects I am aware of so far is the C Class destroyer now has depth charge racks in '39, which is good, and you will sometimes find C3 lone merchants in '39 and '40 because I altered the roster date for Britain. I consider them both positive.

The README.txt includes a detailed list of the features and changes.
Therefore, I installed Improved Convoys over RUb with the JSGME.

[sdcruz]

Jason

I have the mod installed previous to the one you just released and man those escorts have become a nightmare - please see my other post titled "Unreal or What??" in the main forums

Did you jack up their skill or something in that mod?

They have become incredible to shake off and their depth charge accuracy is too good.

Regards
Shelton.

[jasonb885]

Jason

I have the mod installed previous to the one you just released and man those escorts have become a nightmare - please see my other post titled "Unreal or What??" in the main forums

Did you jack up their skill or something in that mod?

They have become incredible to shake off and their depth charge accuracy is too good.

Regards
Shelton.

Oops.

I felt it was ridiculously easy. Wulfmann thought it was too easy as well. Judging from the reports, it is a bit too easy.

I went through and readjusted the convoys escorts. Only in '39 are there any novice. In '40 and beyond you'll find competent and veteran. By '42 most are veteran, if not all. In late '44 or '45 you'll find a few Elite.

I haven't had time to playtest it myself of late, so I don't know how they respond. I do know you ought to be kept down long enough that you can't make these glory runs on convoys where you make three or four runs on them. That's just silly. Take your prize, if you manage to get any torpedos off, go under, evade, and count yourself lucky if you survive. Go after the next one, if a contact report happens to come your way.

:up:

[aquasal]

yea no more reloading in convoy to sink them all , add in rub 1.42 damage and ect and it all good. u will die! lol
pretty good so far, also ive seem them go silent and let another pound ya while they track. :up:

[CCIP]

I think the escorts are about right as far as skill goes right now. Haven't had any more trouble with them than usual. So long as you have RUb's DC and Sonar Fix, you've got your fair chance to survive even with elite DD's.

Got the latest version... just when I switched mostly to the North Atlantic convoys, so I can't tell more about the Gibraltar ones.

Looks good. The escorts are generally in the area of 5, the ship numbers about 25. Good deal of variety. With the Merchant Variety Pack, convoys just look damn impressive now. What a big improvement from the bland and predictable ones of the original game :up:

[Wulfmann]

I just installed some of this new DL to my RND. The reason only parts is; I did the rest of the RND groups so instead of 20/20 it is more like 40/30 for the single ships and I believe I found a good balance in that. I don't want to throw all that work away
The escorts in SH3 are 0,1,2,3 and 4 for crew rating. Most are 1 at the beginning and by 1944 all are 4 or elite. I don't believe all allied escorts were elite so have cut that to about 1/3 elite. But, I also do not believe there were any poor crews in the RN at the beginning.
So, nearly all my escorts are 3 (veterans) from day one, very few 2 and none are 0 or 1. The fact as the war progresses there are more escorts per convoy means the windows to sneak in get smaller to none and that is what increases the difficulty for my RND file.
Simply put, I must correctly attack a convoy or become the hunted. No waltzing in and shooting'em up reloading while I go. My attack is with 5 torpedoes only on silent. Remember, a Kaleuns first responsibility is to his men and boat's safety. Attacking the enemy is next. We are not on a Jihad, we are not suicide or Kamakazi seamen. Imagine how you would go about this if you would actually drop dead by dying in the game. Might be a little less gun ho?????

Ok, now for a little trick to help you survive (some likely know this already) Do not ever put your periscope up all the way. Just enough to see even if half the time it is under water. I have attacked convoys and never been deteacted while escorts were searching for me. Once a merchant sees your peri and reports you, all the escorts come a runnin!! No detection is a big key to gettin in and gettin out while the gettin is good!!! LOL
Don't be greedy. Sneak in, take out two fat ones and rejoice to fight another day. get out and circle around for another attack even a day or two later. Fight only when the terms are right for you. In other words, act like a real CO of any warship.
Once you have all 3 and 4 escorts to worry about you will get very keen on avoiding confrontation. We are not warships meant to duel with escorts. We are assasins, snipers,, we slither in, strike and if we do it right, they don't know where we came from or where we went.
Jason is really improving the convoys with this mod and the RND is basiclly the hub that this sim revolves around.

Wulfmann

[jasonb885]

...
Looks good. The escorts are generally in the area of 5, the ship numbers about 25. Good deal of variety. With the Merchant Variety Pack, convoys just look damn impressive now. What a big improvement from the bland and predictable ones of the original game :up:

Which convoys were having 5? I don't think that's likely until around '42 or '41 for some convoys. Should be around 5 with a possibility of six by the end of the war.

It's been suggested that some of the convoys should be even larger in later years than they are now. Convoy size is next up for evaluation.

[jasonb885]

I just installed some of this new DL to my RND. The reason only parts is; I did the rest of the RND groups so instead of 20/20 it is more like 40/30 for the single ships and I believe I found a good balance in that.


I'll probably reevaluate single ship contacts once I actually have time to play in '41+. In my last few '41 patrols it seemed okay for me personally.

[CCIP]

I'm in 1943 now, so I guess that's why...

[jasonb885]

I'm in 1943 now, so I guess that's why...

Keep your head down.

:up:

[sdcruz]

Jason:
do know you ought to be kept down long enough that you can't make these glory runs on convoys where you make three or four runs on them. That's just silly.

Ok thanks - I get the picture!

Regards
Shelton.

[Wulfmann]

Speaking of 1943, can anyone start a career for Bergen in 43 and see if it runs OK?

I started one and it CTD with my RND (with Jason's convoys, reworked) after two days.
I put in Jason's RND file and it CTD as I cleared the channel for sea.
I put in RUBs' 20/20 and it CTD right outside of the harbor.
And, I put a completely stock RND in and it CTD while I was arranging the crew before the mission.

I put my RND back in and stated in France with no problems. All 1943

Wulfmann

[jasonb885]

I don't know. I don't seem to have time to play for the forseeable future. I'll keep working on the RND layer as I find time, though.

I still have a few convoys to finish off.

[Beery]

Jason

I have the mod installed previous to the one you just released and man those escorts have become a nightmare - please see my other post titled "Unreal or What??" in the main forums

Did you jack up their skill or something in that mod?

They have become incredible to shake off and their depth charge accuracy is too good.

Regards
Shelton.

Pentallion's 40/20 mod removed a lot of the elite escorts because they were bugged after SH3 1.3. If IC is using the stock AI crews, then this is probably the biggest reason for AI uber accuracy and tenacity. The elite AI are still bugged in SH3 1.4.

[jasonb885]

...

Pentallion's 40/20 mod removed a lot of the elite escorts because they were bugged after SH3 1.3. If IC is using the stock AI crews, then this is probably the biggest reason for AI uber accuracy and tenacity. The elite AI are still bugged in SH3 1.4.

I guess it's time to add a Recommends: and Strongly Suggests: to the README for the next release of IC for RealDC and AI Sonar, if those are indeed the 'fixes' for the uber sonar.

[CCIP]

Another explaination would certainly be the bug in RealDC sonar which Jungman just posted a fix for!

But you don't have elites all over the place, do you jason?
I was under the impression most were veterans in the late war - which is only fair.

[Observer]

Another explaination would certainly be the bug in RealDC sonar which Jungman just posted a fix for!

But you don't have elites all over the place, do you jason?
I was under the impression most were veterans in the late war - which is only fair.

I'm pretty sure the escorts are mostly veterans late in the war. I know I've seen Jason post it, I just don't remember where at the moment.

[Lanzfeld]

So the IC should not be used because the AI elite is too good? What if I am using RUB? Can I use IC and be asured the AI is real? :doh:

[Lanzfeld]

Dammit....now I am confused!!! :88) :88) :doh: :doh:

Can I use the IC and still have good AI by using the RUB or should I get rid of IC ???

[Beery]

So the IC should not be used because the AI elite is too good? What if I am using RUB? Can I use IC and be asured the AI is real? :doh:

Hehe, who knows? Jungman just notified me that the sonar fix wasn't fully implemented in RUb anyway, LOL.

Get RUb, get IC (if you want it), then get Jungman's fix... I think, LOL.

Now, with the confusion over this (heck, I'm confused, so heaven help anyone who's looking for mods, LOL) and with the Hollywood DM issues causing part of the same problem, I have no idea what should be fixed, what needs to be left the same, or if everything needs overhauling.

Maybe I'll come back in a week.

[Lanzfeld]

Where is the Jungman fix? :doh: :doh: :doh: :rotfl:

[jasonb885]

Another explaination would certainly be the bug in RealDC sonar which Jungman just posted a fix for!

But you don't have elites all over the place, do you jason?
I was under the impression most were veterans in the late war - which is only fair.

Yes, correct.

My convoys don't introduce Elites until '44 for convoys that were created in '44 and run the whole game. Where possible I try to only introduce them in '45.

OG/KX/HG still have the original configuration from the game and I believe some of those have elite escorts even in '41+.

I do have veteran escorts as early as '41 because Wulfmann had commented it was too easy and people were reporting two or three repeat attacks on the same convoy with little intervention from escorts. That just felt wrong.

[jasonb885]

Where is the Jungman fix? :doh: :doh: :doh: :rotfl:

The issue is _very_ clouded at the moment. He posted a _fix_ for v1.0 because one of the sonar types wasn't correct in the original mod. He also posted _v2_ of his mod with modified values. Both threads are correctly on the first page of this forum.

I asked if the new version is harder or easier. I cannot tell from his description. He just replied and said v2.0 is harder to escape from. No idea how much harder than v1.0 though.

I don't follow what Beery just said about the hollywood damage mod. I thought that couldn't effect destroyer AI?

There is definitely a lot of confusion at the moment.

What I can tell you is ImprovedConvoys has fewer Elite destroyers for the convoys I redid. You'd have to check the included Inventory file for details. It will tell you _exactly_ what I changed and how. That's why I included a detailed inventory. Read it. You'll like it.

Any convoy I didn't redo is the same as it was in the original SH3 v1.4b. That means some early way convoys have more elites than you'd expect if you're using to playing with RuB.

[Beery]

I don't follow what Beery just said about the hollywood damage mod. I thought that couldn't effect destroyer AI?

It doesn't, but with RUb before 1.42 we had submarines that had a chance of surviving an 'uber' elite attack. In 1.42 we added the Hollywood DM which makes close explosions very deadly indeed. So the 'uber' elite AI dropping DCs right on top of you with no error at all, combined with weak U-boat hulls (Hollywood), and the fact that the sonar fix wasn't working gives us a sort of snowball effect of little inconsequential errors combining into a big problem.

[jasonb885]

I don't follow what Beery just said about the hollywood damage mod. I thought that couldn't effect destroyer AI?

It doesn't, but with RUb before 1.42 we had submarines that had a chance of surviving an 'uber' elite attack. In 1.42 we added the Hollywood DM which makes close explosions very deadly indeed. So the 'uber' elite AI dropping DCs right on top of you with no error at all, combined with weak U-boat hulls (Hollywood), and the fact that the sonar fix wasn't working gives us a sort of snowball effect of little inconsequential errors combining into a big problem.

As I understand it, the sonar was only broken for a specific type that you might encounter, so it shouldn't be seriously fatal. I get the impression the majority of escort encounters won't result in the inability to shake a lock. Or so I hope.

[HMCS]

I just finished a career patrol using improved convoys mod - June 1941; square AL - encountered a convoy of about 30 ships, 5 escorts and 12 (yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus) of the merchantmen were tankers of all sizes.

I have noticed that an inordinate # of the escort group leaders are Black Swan Class Sloops.

I bagged 2 T2's and 2 T3's in the attack. Real Commander 1.3 was so impressed that it ended my career with a desk transfer....

[sdcruz]

Just attacked an east bound convoy (1941) with the IC (improved Convoy) mod and the destroyers did not even come to investigate after torps hit the merchantmen!!!

They just kept going on their merry way - anyone else experience this?

Regards
Shelton.

[jasonb885]

I just finished a career patrol using improved convoys mod - June 1941; square AL - encountered a convoy of about 30 ships, 5 escorts and 12 (yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus) of the merchantmen were tankers of all sizes.

I have noticed that an inordinate # of the escort group leaders are Black Swan Class Sloops.

I bagged 2 T2's and 2 T3's in the attack. Real Commander 1.3 was so impressed that it ended my career with a desk transfer....

Interesting. Did any of the '41 escorts choose to engage?

Sadly the Black Swan is the only sloop represented in the game. Since many of the earlier escorts were also sloops in addition to the corvettes, I tried to balance both earlier in the war. Later you'll find more COs and DEs with a possible FF or DD.

[jasonb885]

Just attacked an east bound convoy (1941) with the IC (improved Convoy) mod and the destroyers did not even come to investigate after torps hit the merchantmen!!!

They just kept going on their merry way - anyone else experience this?

Regards
Shelton.

It's possible.

Which version are you using? The last two in 2005-07 ought to have bumped up escorts so you'd find maybe 50% veteran in many convoys in '42, and about 25% veteran (the rest competent) in '41. Actually, looking at the files it appears you can find up to 50% veteran in HX and SC in '41, but with lower spawn probabilities.

Convoy attacks early on did not always result in a successful detection, let alone prosecution, so if this happens rarely it ought to be reasonable.

Earlier versions had weak escorts until '43 or '44. Few veterans and some competents.

[Wulfmann]

I modded Jason's mod and have mostly 3, veterans escorts from the beginning. But, if one does sneak past the screen and remains undected, ergo, keep your periscope partially down, even though ships are sinking, you are not reported to the scorts, you have not been detected, so the scorts will or may not interfer. That is what can happen if you penetrate the convoy correctly. because the early convoys were less pretected as the war progresses there will be more escorts and those windows will, trust me, become much smaller. They 100% elite, 4, escorts of 44 and 45 I cut back on. Not real, like saying the whole army is Special Forces rated.
I do have some 4 in 1940 and have them 50% of a like 3 that is 100% so I simply will never know for sure. Predictable becomes boring fast!

As far as Black Swans go, they are sloops and more sloops would have escorted early convoys. The first Flowers did not enter service until about June 1940 and most destroyers were busy with fleet work. Trawlers and sloops is the closest to being accurate for the first year.
The model they used for the Black Swan looks very much like the earlier Egret sloops of which the Black Swan is an improved version. In fact, it looks more like an Egret that a Black Swan!!

While it is true there were a few early unescorted convoys, it must be noted they scattered when attacked and ours will not. We must mod to the areas that allow us reality that is competitive, IMO

With all the mods I am getting some CTD. Is what Berry describing regarding the sonar mod a cause? I can't go back to stock but CTD is also unacceptible to me.
We need some relative testing to be sure we find any such causes.

Wulfmann

[jasonb885]

...
With all the mods I am getting some CTD. Is what Berry describing regarding the sonar mod a cause? I can't go back to stock but CTD is also unacceptible to me.
We need some relative testing to be sure we find any such causes.

Wulfmann

I wasn't encountering any crashes with the 20050705 version of IC. I haven't had a chance to play since.

[sdcruz]

hi Jason

Are you saying that in real life ships went down during a convoy and the destroyers were unaware of this?

Haven't heard that before.

This convoy was attacked at dawn so the visibility was not 100 % good - in BE39 - April 04 1941

Regards

[Wulfmann]

I think I said it, not Jason but we are also trying to find such things and figure out ways to make them act more realistic. Many times U-boats attacked and it was thought to be an aircraft or mine. Also by placing the ships at 900 instead of the 4-600 normal I wonder if that effected the way the game sees things. I have certainly had some that stayed away but also many that don't and anytime I hear a "We have been detected sir" (English transaltion) the escorts are on the way quickly. In the early convoys which may likely have a Frigate (Sloop in real life, Frigate to SH3) and 1-3 trawlers which means if you attack deep in the large convoy it might only be the trawlers that react and they are slow.
If that is not chllending enough start in 1941 or 42. You will not find the escorts so friendly.
Wulfmann

[CCIP]

Heh, right... and then in 1944 you will find them too friendly, as they'll be happiest to relieve you of the misery of not being able to lose them at all :roll:

[jasonb885]

hi Jason

Are you saying that in real life ships went down during a convoy and the destroyers were unaware of this?

Haven't heard that before.

This convoy was attacked at dawn so the visibility was not 100 % good - in BE39 - April 04 1941

Regards

I am saying it's possible they knew an attack happened and couldn't find anything at the most likely vector of attack, so you weren't detected or prosecuted.

Granted in SH3 it's more like they don't even know you're there and just ignore the burning ships. But that's simply the result of a lame AI.

[CCIP]

It's possible enough, if a bit farfetched. There's certainly no guarantee you'll get detected, and a lot of the time they'll simply be looking for you in the wrong place, if they're just 'newbie' escorts.
You just ran into some 'greens'. It certainly can happen.

[jasonb885]

It's possible enough, if a bit farfetched. There's certainly no guarantee you'll get detected, and a lot of the time they'll simply be looking for you in the wrong place, if they're just 'newbie' escorts.
You just ran into some 'greens'. It certainly can happen.

I just did up a quick OG(Early|Late) along with some other corrections. I ought to put up a new version after I test it. Then I can look at HG. It's a shame the routes start and stop such that I can't include any CVEs. HG41 starts at the end of 1940, which is about a year too early for a CVE. I guess I could extend HG to the end of 1941 almost and start HG41 in Dec of 41.

I don't know if CVEs really maintain any kind of CAP, though.

[CCIP]

I don't know if CVEs really maintain any kind of CAP, though.

They do so far as I'm aware! You might want to ask Jace how much though, seeing how AirPower also tweaked this aspect.

[sdcruz]

Jason

It was convoy OA and OB that I encountered in april 1941.

Regards
Shelton.

[Jace11]

They are just floating airbases. However the crew quality has effects on not just the quality of aircraft they spawn, but how frequently and effectively they attack.

Best chances of an effective defence are from an Elite carrier, though veteren and even competent skill levels should produce a response.

Competent Airbase Modifier=1.0 ;[>0] Modifier for competent airbase (carrier) rating
Veteran Airbase Modifier=2.0 ;[>0] Modifier for veteran airbase (carrier) rating
Elite Airbase Modifier=3.4 ;[>0] Modifier for elite airbase (carrier) rating
Night Modifier=0.2 ;[>0] Modifier on strike probability at night
Default Air Strike Probability=40

eg 80% chance a Vet Carrier will spawn aircraft to attack you per air session (2x40).

Carrier airgroups are set at 4 planes. You can increase this if you wish, however, restoring the numbers to 24 Hurricanes on a fleet carrier will make any aircraft encounter seemingly endless.

Consider airgroup size more as "sortie" size, the number of aircraft sent to attack a single target or patrol an area. They seem to be replaced if lost anyway.

If you approach a convoy with a CV, you should encounter no more than 4 aircraft at a time (usually two pairs).

This was in response to some testing I did, and several people complaining that the entire Fleet Air Arm was after them.

[sdcruz]

ok looking at that convoy OB - there were three escorts that were to spawn with probability greater than 75%, and all had a crew rating of 1 - so no wonder I did not get attacked after torping the ships.

Regards
Shelton.

[Beery]

With all the mods I am getting some CTD. Is what Berry describing regarding the sonar mod a cause? I can't go back to stock but CTD is also unacceptible to me.

Because the actual data is misplaced in the file by one byte it is a possibility, but doubtful. If it was the cause I think we would have seen more people experiencing CTDs over the past weeks, as this error has been in the mod for a while now. On the other hand, the sonar bug would be only rarely encountered, so it's possible.

More likely is that some mod conflicts with another, or some other sort of file corruption. How often are you getting crashes? If it's something like once per patrol I'd say it's unlikely that it has to do with the sonar bug, because the sonar bug only affects one particular sonar type, so it would be unlikely to turn up that often. If you're getting crashes every few patrols, then it's a possibility, but I usually find that CTDs are most often caused by some weird file corruption or conflicting mods. Also, when exactly dothe crashes occur? If it's while you're in combat, that points to the sonar bug because it would happen when the ships switched on their sonar. If it's not in combat, that points to something else.

[Beery]

It's possible enough, if a bit farfetched. There's certainly no guarantee you'll get detected, and a lot of the time they'll simply be looking for you in the wrong place, if they're just 'newbie' escorts.
You just ran into some 'greens'. It certainly can happen.

I agree. I just watched The Cruel Sea a few days ago, and the impression I got from it was that many times the escorts had no idea where an attack came from, and unless they were lucky and had good equipment, they would be totally in the dark and the U-boat could simply wander off fairly safely. This was especially the case in 1939-41.

[jasonb885]

ok looking at that convoy OB - there were three escorts that were to spawn with probability greater than 75%, and all had a crew rating of 1 - so no wonder I did not get attacked after torping the ships.

Regards
Shelton.

That's odd. Should not be. I don't have any crews with poor ratings?

[jleslie1004]

Hi All,

I just tried to drop Improved Convoys into my SHIII, and when I tried to go into the game I got the "send/don't send" crash at the point just before you are dumped into your boat at the "Initializing..." screen.

I immediately uninstalled the mod and tried again, and went into my boat normally.

I'm figuring the reason I got the crash is because in my save game file I'm in visual range of a convoy - what appears to be HX39, and the mod is trying to change the parameters of an already spawned convoy. Also, I'm wondering if the mod should be installed from a fresh install of SH3? I hate to have to do that because I've done a lot of my own tweaking of different mods to get the game where I like it, and frankly I don't remember exactly what all I've changed.

I just want to know if anyone agrees that may be the cause of the crash. I hate to have the mod cause me to have to reinstall or something at this point, because I'm having a wonderful streak of good luck with this particular patrol and I hate to lose it. I'll wait until after I've left the convoy area to install it if that's all the problem was.

EDIT: Just noticed the post directly above mine after I posted.....

That's odd. Should not be. I don't have any crews with poor ratings?

Is there anything hardcoded in SHIII that still throws a random variable into these scripts? I've seen that in other games - no matter how heavy you script something, the game still has a random variation thrown in just to insure you don't see the exact same thing twice.

Reason I ask is the HX39 convoy in my above example doesn't quite fit the mold of the script included in the original campaign file. According to the original script, there should be 2 British Clemson DD's (100% probability) with a 70% probability of a Canadian Flower and another 70% chance of a British Flower, with a grand total of 15 ships. I have the 15 ships, but there was only a single Flower as escort. Following the script, there should be a Clemson out there too, but there isn't.

Just a thought.

[jasonb885]

Hi All,

I just tried to drop Improved Convoys into my SHIII, and when I tried to go into the game I got the "send/don't send" crash at the point just before you are dumped into your boat at the "Initializing..." screen.


Yep, it has to be installed once you're back in port. Modification of the RND layer during a mission results in a crash.


...
That's odd. Should not be. I don't have any crews with poor ratings?
...
Reason I ask is the HX39 convoy in my above example doesn't quite fit the mold of the script included in the original campaign file. According to the original script, there should be 2 British Clemson DD's (100% probability) with a 70% probability of a Canadian Flower and another 70% chance of a British Flower, with a grand total of 15 ships. I have the 15 ships, but there was only a single Flower as escort. Following the script, there should be a Clemson out there too, but there isn't.

Just a thought.

Correct. The Clemson cannot spawn yet. It's either a bug or the developers were abusing the roster so the convoy would be less escorted until later in '39. Flip a coin.

[Wulfmann]

The Clemson bug is addressed by Jason's improved convoys.
Rule number one. Do not install a mod when you are at sea. Be in port. Abiding by this will save time aggravation and increase enjoyment.

B, I have gotten CTD at various times, see above regarding trying to run a Bergen career. I believe you are correct regarding conflicting mods but which ???????????

I did a fresh install on my smaller PC. I ran it at stock 1.42 (That was torture!!!) After that ran fine I added the min amount of mods to not have to deal with the worst of stock. From RUB, the DG slow down, sound files but not boat or cfg files or new flotilla any graphic stuff. I put my RND in which is a very a heavily modded Improved convoys . I wanted to see if that could be a problem but not a hint after 3 patrols. All runs great

On the bigger normal game PC I have gotten CTD in front of a convoy between the lead DD and the merchants. I have also gotten it as I get near a convoy. I have gotten it in various places

To be safe on this new fresh install, I modded the RND again removing the extra new ships (Norway and Netherland) and only added the C3 Brit and Black Swan, CClass DC and Trawler DC mods and my Hurricane and Stuka corrections (Ican not believe RUB has not corrected these). So far so good. I will simply run this and continue to add a series of more mods and try and CTD.
It may sound far fetched but is it possible my VC is causing a CTD???? The problem is on my better machine with a X800SE 256MB with2 GB DDR400 RAM. The older PC I am testing fine now on has 1,5GB DDR400 RAM and a 9800SE 128MB. I am not saying it is the VC as no other game has had a CTD problem, but start to become paranoid of any possibility. If it is something in RUB it is likely conflicting with something else I added. That is the big puzzle, IMO. A smooth running mediocre SH3 is more fun than a tweaked out version that has you CTD nervous!!!

As far as lame AI escorts, there were times they were confused in real life so a little would be real. I have upped all my escorts from day one to mostly 3s about 85% with maybe 10% 2 and 5% 4. While the escorts usually will be on me, if I can sneak past I will surely take down a couple fat ones before I must depart. But, I just ripped a convoy a new one with a Hunt class looking for me and a Black Swan remaining outside with a trawler following me later. I got away for the best 100% patrol I have ever had (helped by stumbling on a PPL on the way out) 63K August 1940.
My point is while I have likely the strongest escort setting being used I can still remain undetected by staying far enough away while I am attacking and keeping my peri low so the merchants do not alert the escorts to my position. This is not the norm, however, with these higher escort setting but because they are less likely, Lord knows I am delighted when they occur.

Wulfmann

[jasonb885]

IN THIS RELEASE:

The tuning continues. Changed values:

* Added OG to ImprovedConvoys
* Changed Med single ship values to 20/40 from 40/40
* Changed some convoy SpawnProbability entries
* Changed ON speed to 9 kts, ON is actually ONF
* Changed SL speed to 7 kts from 6 kts
* Changed OS speed to more historic 8 kts
* Fixed Netherland in roster to be non ISO correct NE instead of correct NL
* Fixed lead ship being a neutral which is bad when leader is Swedish
* Fixed OB spawning way too frequently in '39


:up:

[scoozie]

Hi guys. The rub's mod is great but I would like to know how to get back the crosshair in the binoculars. Patrol aircrafts are way too accurate for my dumb AA gunners. They won't fire at the approaching planes until it is too late. Help pls.

[Beery]

Hi guys. The rub's mod is great but I would like to know how to get back the crosshair in the binoculars. Patrol aircrafts are way too accurate for my dumb AA gunners. They won't fire at the approaching planes until it is too late. Help pls.

AA guns had an effective range of 300 yards. The AI gunners are simply waiting until the aircraft get within effective range. Basically, the idea behind RUb is that, as in real life, you're supposed to avoid aircraft unless you haven't any choice. It was much harder to shoot down an aircraft in real life than it is in RUb. RUb encourages players to use realistic tactics when confronting aircraft.

[CCIP]

Plus consider effective gun range, too, which SHIII doesn't model to any real extent. In reality, fire at over RUb's/AirPower's limit would be quite reduced in effectiveness, anyway - enough to make you not want to waste ammo unless you want to spook the enemy (which you can't do to these game planes, anyway...)

If you really want to though, the distances for Short, Medium and Long AA range are in Silent Hunter III/data/cfg/CrewAI.cfg :)

By the way, I suggest manuevering your sub. It's actually quite easy to spoof a plane's aim, provided you take the right action immideately.

[scoozie]

Yes, i'll do that. THanks guys.

[pampanito]

I agree. I just watched The Cruel Sea a few days ago, and the impression I got from it was that many times the escorts had no idea where an attack came from, and unless they were lucky and had good equipment, they would be totally in the dark and the U-boat could simply wander off fairly safely. This was especially the case in 1939-41.

That's absolutely true. The famous 'Johnnie' Walker, who developed most of the British ASW tactics, even devised a maneuvre called 'Buttercup' to be used during night attacks, under which all the escorts simultaneously fired starshells in the hope of catching a U-boat or a periscope near or inside the convoy, for he realised most times the escorts were completely unaware of the quarter from which the attack was coming.

From 1942, Walker changed the way ASW ops were contemplated. After the initial attack, he favoured an aggressive hunt of any positive contact until it was destroyed, even if that means leaving the convoy defenseless or with just a single escort. These risky tactics found strong opposition in his own ranks, but in the end he proved to be right, and the escort groups under his command destroyed a whole lot of U-boats. It was not unusual for his vessels to keep a submarine contact under continuous attack for up to 16 hours, until evidence of destruction was obtained.
So, don't complain if in SH3 you get attacked for just four or five hours! :cool:

[LukeFF]

AA guns had an effective range of 300 yards. The AI gunners are simply waiting until the aircraft get within effective range. Basically, the idea behind RUb is that, as in real life, you're supposed to avoid aircraft unless you haven't any choice. It was much harder to shoot down an aircraft in real life than it is in RUb. RUb encourages players to use realistic tactics when confronting aircraft.

On that note, what's a realistic setting to tell the flak gunners to open fire using RuB? Currently I use the Medium range setting.

[Beery]

AA guns had an effective range of 300 yards. The AI gunners are simply waiting until the aircraft get within effective range. Basically, the idea behind RUb is that, as in real life, you're supposed to avoid aircraft unless you haven't any choice. It was much harder to shoot down an aircraft in real life than it is in RUb. RUb encourages players to use realistic tactics when confronting aircraft.

On that note, what's a realistic setting to tell the flak gunners to open fire using RuB? Currently I use the Medium range setting.

The gunners in RUb will not open fire until they are at effective range. This basically negates the whole 'open fire' instructions because the effective range is well below the standard game's short range setting. RUb has all ranges set to 300 because that's the max effective range. The only way to shoot at longer ranges is to take control of the guns yourself. This is the only way I've found to simulate the possibility of getting hits at longer ranges while also ensuring that the AI aren't the superhuman shots they are in the standard game. It also gets the player involved more in gunnery than he needs to be in the standard game (because in RUb you actually have an advantage over the AI's abilities).

[Pablo]

AA guns had an effective range of 300 yards.
Really??

Most of the references I have seen give an effective (not a maximum) range of 900m to 1000m for 20mm naval anti-aircraft ordnance, such as the FlaK 30 and FlaK 38 (used by the Germans) and the Oerlikon used by the Royal Navy and U.S. Navy. I would be happy to dig up the references if this is in contention.

Out of curiosity, have you set the range to 300m for 37mm FlaK as well?

Pablo

[jasonb885]

...

Out of curiosity, have you set the range to 300m for 37mm FlaK as well?

Pablo

I would say yes. The engagement range of the AI has been forced to 300m for all AI assisted AA shooting.

[Beery]

There are no variables for different flak guns.

As for the range restriction, it conforms to the reading I've done on actual in-combat effective range, which is much different from effective range measurements taken while testing guns. The hard fact is that a human being manning a U-boat anti-aircraft gun could not hit an aircraft further out than 300m.

Anyway, if the range for AI gunnery is set further out, aircraft drop like flies. It's not only a case of realism, it's a case of play balance too. Returning to base with three or more enemy aircraft shot down (which is more than possible in the game) is embarrassing - it never happened in reality, and it shouldn't happen in a game that is supposed to simulate the reality. The fact that it does happen means that the AI gunnery is too effective.

[Wulfmann]

I cannot open this7z like I can the other DLs. Not on either PC.
Wulfmann

[Beery]

I cannot open this7z like I can the other DLs. Not on either PC.
Wulfmann

Get the 7zip download (find the link at my website - http://www.beerymod.com/sh3_012.htm). It's just a different kind of zip program. It gets much better compression than Zip, which is why I had to start using it (or suffer unacceptable website downtimes). The link will take you to the 7zip site. 7zip is just a regular program - it resides in a '7-Zip' folder in your c\Program Files folder and it won't try to overwrite your zip program or take over its access to compressed media (as some programs do), so it's pretty good in that sense. It's also free, which has to be good. Once you've finished using it, you can remove it easily (it comes with an uninstall program) although you may get to like it since it compresses files much better - makes them about half the size of Winzip.

[jasonb885]

I cannot open this7z like I can the other DLs. Not on either PC.
Wulfmann

Get the 7zip download (find the link at my website - http://www.beerymod.com/sh3_012.htm). It's just a different kind of zip program. It gets much better compression than Zip, which is why I had to start using it (or suffer unacceptable website downtimes). The link will take you to the 7zip site. 7zip is just a regular program - it resides in a '7-Zip' folder in your c\Program Files folder and it won't try to overwrite your zip program or take over its access to compressed media (as some programs do), so it's pretty good in that sense. It's also free, which has to be good. Once you've finished using it, you can remove it easily (it comes with an uninstall program) although you may get to like it since it compresses files much better - makes them about half the size of Winzip.

I think he might mean something's wrong with the current download. He's commented on previous versions, so he must have 7Zip already installed I think.

Strangely I just downloaded the latest IC from my URL in the OP last night and uncompressed it and played SH3 with it and had no problems.

I dunno.

[jasonb885]

I cannot open this7z like I can the other DLs. Not on either PC.
Wulfmann

I just downloaded it and uncompressed it myself last night.

It ought to be fine?

[Wulfmann]

I have 7z on both my PCs and it opens anything else but this one. I will reDL it. Maybe something in this one got corrupted????
Wulfmann

[Wulfmann]

Just re-DLed and it seems the first time I did not get all of it (weird) and it is now fine.
Wulfmann

[jasonb885]

Pushed out another release. Link is in the OP.

By popular demand I have added Captain Walker's Second Support Group to the Bay of Biscay.

I fixed the single merchant contacts for '43 off the U.S. coast as it was about 10 times too high.

Added HG with a CVE in '41 and bumped some escorts down from elite to veteran where needed.

:up:

[Lanzfeld]

Keep up the good work! Everytime I return to poort I have a new convoy mod to load! :up:

[jasonb885]

Keep up the good work! Everytime I return to poort I have a new convoy mod to load! :up:

That's the idea. ;)

The tankers are so far inside the convoy I can't hit them anymore.

:nope:

[Oesten]

Is the Improved Convoys mod compatible with RUB 1.42?

Because JSGME is telling me that RUB 1.42 already altered the CAMPAIGN_RND.mis file from the stock SH3 1.4 version.

So I don't dare install it without clarification.

[Beery]

Is the Improved Convoys mod compatible with RUB 1.42?

Because JSGME is telling me that RUB 1.42 already altered the CAMPAIGN_RND.mis file from the stock SH3 1.4 version.

So I don't dare install it without clarification.

It should be compatible. If you want Improved Convoys just make sure to install the Improved Convoys mod after installing RUb.

[Wulfmann]

RUB only reduces single ship traffic and reports. It does not mod the RND file and, IMO, that is the hub of the game What Jason is doing is changing the convoys and their escorts to reflect more accurately what a U-Boat might encounter.
In a word, yes it will work fine with RUB, any version of it and will make your convoy escapades a blast.
Wulfmann

[jasonb885]

RUB only reduces single ship traffic and reports. It does not mod the RND file and, IMO, that is the hub of the game What Jason is doing is changing the convoys and their escorts to reflect more accurately what a U-Boat might encounter.
In a word, yes it will work fine with RUB, any version of it and will make your convoy escapades a blast.
Wulfmann

And I include my own special flavor of single ship contact reduction in the spirit of the original 20/20 mod, so you also will have realisticly reduced single ship contacts.

:up:

[Beery]

...I include my own special flavor of single ship contact reduction in the spirit of the original 20/20 mod, so you also will have realisticly reduced single ship contacts.

What levels of contact reduction do you use? I must admit this is the one thing that I wasn't comfortable about regarding IC, and anyway I figured it was useful to have two separate campaign file versions for people to choose, just for flexibility. But if the two are similar, and if you're willing, I might like to include IC in RUb. I'm just a bit concerned that I'll start getting lots of contacts again.

What do you reckon? How would you feel about having IC be part of RUb?

[jasonb885]

...I include my own special flavor of single ship contact reduction in the spirit of the original 20/20 mod, so you also will have realisticly reduced single ship contacts.

What levels of contact reduction do you use? I must admit this is the one thing that I wasn't comfortable about regarding IC, and anyway I figured it was useful to have two separate campaign file versions for people to choose, just for flexibility. But if the two are similar, and if you're willing, I might like to include IC in RUb. I'm just a bit concerned that I'll start getting lots of contacts again.

What do you reckon? How would you feel about having IC be part of RUb?

Actually, I was somewhat confounded by your silence. I thought realistic convoys ought to be a worthwhile realism mod, but after nearly 60 days this is your first post on the issue.

Anyway, in British waters in '39 I believe I use 20/40. I have 10/20 in '40.

For the US coast and Car it's around 40/40 until Aug 15, 1942. Since you can't even get there until you pick up an IX in, say, mid '40, I thought that was good enough. It could be reduced a bit if people are racking up insane tons off the US, though.

In the Med it's 40/20, I believe. I'll have to check on my home PC once I arrive home from work. I could VNC in, but I'm about to step out the door so I'll just check in a bit.

(Contact%/Spawn%)

The rest of the war, aside from exceptions above, it's the standard 8/10 for single merchants, random patrols, and HKs. I didn't modify the skill levels of anything. I think Pentallion had played with the skill level of American and Candian single random patrols for the early part of the war, but my goal has always been convoys so I did the least necessary to get a 20/20 variant up and running.

I ran my second '43 test campaign a few nights ago and, apart from dying rather quickly, I nearly never, ever received any single merchant contacts, except for in the Med where it's 40/20 the whole war. (Additionally I believe the Med convoys generally spawn only once a month, so it's really a dead theater down there in non-scripted stock SH3.)

In '39 and '40 with my contact range for Important and Opportunity increased to something insane, like 10,000km, I was getting a dozen or two single merchant contacts, but nearly always they were far, far outside my range. Additionally I did pick some up once in a while on the hydrophone, but it reminds me very much of my RuB1.22 experience with 20/20.

I believe CCIP and Observer have used IC a few times, so they can comment as well on the single merchant rates, if they have any thoughts. So far I haven't had any complains.

A few additional notes. I packed in Sergbuto's C Class fix so they can and will depth charge you in '39. That's because I use class GENERIC for escorts, so any destroyer may spawn based on whatever SH3 feels is appropriate based on the roster date of ships and whatever internal ruleset Ubi used.

I pushed back the roster date for Bogue and Black Swan so they can appear in some convoys where appropriate. I use the Black Swan as a generic sloop since no others are available and sloops did participate early on. The Bogue appears earlier so it can possibly appear in HG, as it did in Dec '40. (Of course it wasn't actually a Bogue class, but what can you do?)

I also pushed back the dates for American and British ships, so you will find some random merchants in '39 and '40 when single merchant rates are favorable that are C3s because Ubi choose to use GENERIC class for some single merchant groups. I consider this new behavior a feature. Norway, Netherlands, and Greece have some additional larger ships at their disposal now which appear in convoys.

The Victory won't be available until Jan '44, now, which is mostly in-line with reality. Due to convoy start dates, I couldn't move it any further forward without it not appearing in some convoys that run from Jan '44 to May '45.

You're welcome to include it in RuB, if you'd like. I'd be honored.

:up:

[jasonb885]

(Spawn/Report)

Med 20/40
All '39 40/20
All '40 20/10
All '41+ 8/10
US '39-42 40/50

:up:

[CCIP]

Well I can certainly vouch for the relative sparseness of single contacts - besides that one weird two-ship group I always meet outside Biscay (though that's mostly luck, and not much related to the mod per se as it's likely some sort of oddity on the behalf of the devs).

[Beery]

I was under the mistaken impression that the mod featured a reduction of about 40% across the board. That's why I didn't comment on it. So if that's not the case I'll be glad to include it.

The only other worries from my perspective are the Walker group, which has now been added, and the numbers of elite escorts, which were reduced drastically in Pentallion's final 20/40 mod after the devs made elite escorts inescapable in SH3 1.3. Elites are still worrisome, since they are still generally unbeatable unless you cheat. If they're very rare, they're not a problem, because some situations were inescapable, but if they are fairly common they are a game-breaker. What is the situation with elite escorts in IC at the moment?

[CCIP]

I think Walker's group is set at veteran, actually, as are most of the formerly-elite late-war escorts. I'll leave that for Jason to confirm though :hmm:

[jasonb885]

I think Walker's group is set at veteran, actually, as are most of the formerly-elite late-war escorts. I'll leave that for Jason to confirm though :hmm:

Those are all set to veteran.

I do have some elites in '44-45 in some convoys, but as only 25% of the total number of escorts.

I created the inventory file -- included in each release of IC and updated for the latest build -- for precisely this reason. I will quote from it now. (CVEs/CLs always Elite, skewing the %)

CU33/44/45Convoy has 7 escorts (two CL), 33% elite.
ONLate(12-44 to 45) has 8 escorts, 25% elite.
UC(43-45) has 7 escorts (including CVE), 33% elite.
HX44(44-45) has 8 escorts, 25% elite.
JW44Convoy has 11 escorts (include 1 CVE/2CL), 25% elite.
SC43ConvoyH (43-44) has 8 escorts, 25% elite.
SC44ConvoyH (44-45) has 8 escorts, 25% elite.
SL44Convoy (44) has 6 escorts, 33% elite. (Maybe too many elite)

I just realized in SH3 the default SL route ends in December, '44. Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't. It's odd though.

Where 8 escorts are included and none are CLs or CVEs, there are 2 elite escorts. I randomly roll for which warships get to be elite, so it may end up being ones that have less than 100% chance to spawn, but I'd have to inspect the RND to know. I didn't want to control for that variable manually.

If I reduced the value from 25% to 13%, I believe I'd end up with 1 elite escort in the convoys with 8 escorts.

You'll note they're all late convoys, with the exception of valuable tanker convoys that start in '43. I thought starting in '44 you might see an elite. It was my understanding with the sonar fix, you ought to be able to slip at least a single elite.

In either case, I haven't played in '43-'45 yet and encountered any known elites, so I can't say I have playtested elite escorts. If they're still quite unescapable, I'd be willing to further reduce the number of elites.

[jasonb885]

I was under the mistaken impression that the mod featured a reduction of about 40% across the board. That's why I didn't comment on it. So if that's not the case I'll be glad to include it.


I added the reduction as my last all out effort to complete IC and be able to play the game again seriously -- You can see how well that turned out. I haven't played seriously in about two months, but I suppose IC is pretty good.

In my haste to prep it for a release so I can really play again I may not have been clear about the reductions in single merchant traffic, but they are indeed very deep and clean.

I actually target traffic based on the RndGroup's name, so I can specifically target traffic for particular areas of the global for reduction or increase. (Assuming the developers used sane names, and so far that's turned out to be true. i.e. US Coastal Traffic is actually called USCoastalTraffic_44 or whatever.) So, I am open to suggestions.


The only other worries from my perspective are the Walker group, which has now been added, and the numbers of elite escorts, which were reduced drastically in Pentallion's final 20/40 mod after the devs made elite escorts inescapable in SH3 1.3. Elites are still worrisome, since they are still generally unbeatable unless you cheat. If they're very rare, they're not a problem, because some situations were inescapable, but if they are fairly common they are a game-breaker. What is the situation with elite escorts in IC at the moment?

I didn't address elite escorts in HKs or single patrol groups. I could, though, if there were a significant number of them. I can check.


358 CrewRating=1
566 CrewRating=0
734 CrewRating=3
802 CrewRating=4
924 CrewRating=2


Rating 4 is, of course, Elite. I know, even including the stock convoys I haven't modified yet, like AS, which is all elite escorts, that only accounts for maybe 40 of those CrewRating=4.

So there's another 750 or so units out there with an Elite level of readiness. I think this probably needs further investigation, then. I can do an across-the-board reduction where CrewRating=4 to CrewRating=3 for all HKs and single unit patrols. Shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to kick out some code to do that as party of my hacked module for performing the 20/20 style edits.

One of these days I'm going to need to cleanup the code base.

:know:

[Beery]

Sounds good. It really looks as if I got a totally wrong impression of what IC was all about.

[jasonb885]

Sounds good. It really looks as if I got a totally wrong impression of what IC was all about.

Oops.

:ping:

IC Elites before changing all Elite single patrols to Veteran:


661 CrewRating=2
791 CrewRating=4
2017 CrewRating=3


IC Elites after changing all Elites to Veteran:


635 CrewRating=4
661 CrewRating=2
2173 CrewRating=3


Looks like there are around 635 I can't account for. Must be a combination of Elite HKs and, I'd guess, Elite single merchants?

I haven't written the code for the section to deal with HKs and TFs. I wanted to do something similar with TFs that I did with convoys. I have about 10-12 TFs to work with, and I can mess with them in strange and magical ways. I wanted to reapportion the ships to seemingly more realistic compositions. Not sure what that might be yet.

But that same code could deal with making HKs not be Elite.

Although I can do a quick hack to handle that and not bother with TF rewrites at all.

I'll have to look into it. Until then, there are some elite HKs and, until I make a new release, some Elite single patrols too.

[Beery]

CCIP might have some interesting input on this. He's been struggling to get the Elite AI to work reasonably with the good sonar equipment, but he's been having trouble getting elites to be at all escapable without making non-elites completely useless. If elites are marginalized, it might make his job that much easier. On the other hand, he may have reasons for keeping elites as they are.

[CCIP]

Mind you, I've been testing Veterans, not elite. I've never actually ran anything on elite, and Veterans are pretty darn good too - but I guess Elites might be pretty survivable with some of my new tweaks - I'm just not 100% sure.

[jasonb885]

Okay, and here are the HK / TF Elites.


263 CrewRating=3
466 CrewRating=4


So there are 466 of my unaccounted for Elites.

The rest must be merchants or something weird.

And these are for single ships, merchant or warship, after I've dealt with elite warships.


78 CrewRating=4
246 CrewRating=3


So I'm down to around 500 elites now, and the 78 are merchants, which is weird but okay. And the rest are HKs.

I should be able to work out a way to weed those out.

[jasonb885]

Mind you, I've been testing Veterans, not elite. I've never actually ran anything on elite, and Veterans are pretty darn good too - but I guess Elites might be pretty survivable with some of my new tweaks - I'm just not 100% sure.

So maybe we should discard elites entirely, or?

[CCIP]

Good question. Like I said, not enough testing.

[sdcruz]

I think some of the icebergs have crew rating as well so be careful.

Regards
Shelton.

[Oesten]

Mind you, I've been testing Veterans, not elite. I've never actually ran anything on elite, and Veterans are pretty darn good too - but I guess Elites might be pretty survivable with some of my new tweaks - I'm just not 100% sure.

So maybe we should discard elites entirely, or?

Elites should be really rare. They are like the Captain Walkers of this world, the top aces of escorts. No way should the majority of escorts, even in 1945, be elites.

The ratio of elite escorts to non-elite escorts should be something like this IMO:

In 1939, 0% of escorts are elites. (No experience in '39)
In 1940, 1% of escorts are elites.
In 1941, 2% of escorts are elites.
In 1942, 4% of escorts are elites.
In 1943, 6% of escorts are elites.
In 1944, 8% of escorts are elites.
In 1945, 10% of escorts are elites.

[jasonb885]

Elites should be really rare. They are like the Captain Walkers of this world, the top aces of escorts. No way should the majority of escorts, even in 1945, be elites.

The ratio of elite escorts to non-elite escorts should be something like this IMO:

In 1939, 0% of escorts are elites. (No experience in '39)
In 1940, 1% of escorts are elites.
In 1941, 2% of escorts are elites.
In 1942, 4% of escorts are elites.
In 1943, 6% of escorts are elites.
In 1944, 8% of escorts are elites.
In 1945, 10% of escorts are elites.

Perhaps, but I can't control them in their entirety on a year by year basis. The RND definitions themselves often run for several years, making this kind of distinction impossible.

Best I can do is look at a particular convoy, see how long it runs in the game, and decide the best balance based on the beginning and ending periods for that convoy. For some convoys, like HX and SL, that's a year at a time, so it's easier. For some like OS, it's 3.5 years.

Since my elite units are chosen at random when I say, 25% elite, 75% veteran, it could be 25% of 8 or 25% of 6 escorts or however many escorts I explicitly define. I think due to rounding I have numbers rounded up, so for 6 escorts 25% might be 2 elites and 4 veterans, which is oversubscribed by 12%.

That's just how I did it.

If elites are a serious issue, I can certainly do the quick math in my head to ensure there's no more than one elite at most in late war convoys, or simply discard elites altogether. If they are a death sentence, I'd rather simply do the latter. It's easiest.

[Oesten]

jason:

How about reserving the elites for the hunter-killer groups, while the basic convoy escorts have none (early war) or only one (late war?) Would that be possible?

Oesten

[jasonb885]

jason:

How about reserving the elites for the hunter-killer groups, while the basic convoy escorts have none (early war) or only one (late war?) Would that be possible?

Oesten

It's possible. Many or most of the HKs appear to be elites already by default. I was actually thinking of trying to reduce or eliminate the elites entirely.

Certainly more testing with elites and late war convoys is needed.

I may reduce the number of elites further still.

[Beery]

If it was up to me, I'd keep a very few elites. Certainly Walker's group should have elite status, and other well known U-boat killers should also get this rating, if they can be added with some degree of historical accuracy. Veterans should also be rare, but more numerous - say 3 veterans for every elite. Veterans and elites are very difficult to shake - elites are impossible if you're playing on higher realism levels, so the trick is to make them rare enough so that you're only likely to encounter them once in about 10-15 patrols.

As an idea of what I'm trying to achieve as regards realistic survival rates, the game has to be a walkover in 1939-41 (i.e. 1 death for every 5 realistic-length careers), medium in 1942 (1 death in every 3 careers), and hell in 1943-45 (2 deaths in every 3 careers). This about matches what Uboat.net lists as the Uboat fates by year compared to the number of U-boats in service. This can be achieved by carefully balancing the AI abilities and the general AI ability rating per year. But first we need to get the game to have at least some level of consistency in terms of AI ability, and this is what I think we're trying to do now - we need survivability in the game to be determined more by our abilities and less by a sort of Terminator-level AI which never stops until it kills us. Anyway, I guess I'm rambling. Just ignore me - I probably took too much pain medication today, LOL.

[CCIP]

One observation by the way:

From what I've seen, two competent ships are far more deadly than a single veteran (can't say about elite though). A really big part of it is detection ability, and the AI, as I see it, does an excellent job of dividing coverages (in an abstract, probability-based way) so that you're far more likely to get detected by a pair of so-so escorts looking for you than one 'uber' escort. (again, not too sure about elite though).

As far as Walker - that depends on how they attack you. Unfortunately, I noticed that HK groups don't really behave like HK groups in game thanks to the flat AI. That is, you're often attacked by just one ship of the group instead of everyone and their cousin Jamie, and he tends to bug off rather quickly. If six black swans were to attack you all at one time, whether they're competent or elite, you'd be pretty equally dead in the game.

[Shadow9216]

Agreed. I ran into a "task force" which turned out to be a H/K group. Although I evaded, I couldn't resist the temptation to put a fish into one of the escorts who had strayed from the group. Even after sinking him his buddies sailed on unconcerned.

OTHT, maybe they didn't like him... :yep:

[jasonb885]

One observation by the way:

From what I've seen, two competent ships are far more deadly than a single veteran (can't say about elite though). A really big part of it is detection ability, and the AI, as I see it, does an excellent job of dividing coverages (in an abstract, probability-based way) so that you're far more likely to get detected by a pair of so-so escorts looking for you than one 'uber' escort. (again, not too sure about elite though).


Yeah, I don't know what the determining factor is for that. Sometimes a few escorts come to tackle you, other times a single one hangs around. But then I ran into a single River in '43 that finished me off. He seemed to keep detecting me and coming in. With my hull damaged from an air attack, I kept getting flooding at 170m. Eventually on the third occurance of the flooding it overtook me, and I died within 20s of flooding being reported. Somewhat annoying. All the men in the compartment died instantly and I lost the boat before I could get more men into damage control. (RuB 1.42 w/ included HDM, no modifications.)


As far as Walker - that depends on how they attack you. Unfortunately, I noticed that HK groups don't really behave like HK groups in game thanks to the flat AI. That is, you're often attacked by just one ship of the group instead of everyone and their cousin Jamie, and he tends to bug off rather quickly. If six black swans were to attack you all at one time, whether they're competent or elite, you'd be pretty equally dead in the game.

I haven't seen any HKs yet. But I've only killed two captains in '43 so far.

You can't help but have veterans, especially later in the war, since with only or or maybe two usually coming after you, if they're mostly competent you might simply go undetected completely. I guess it's a toss up. I don't want it to be too easy.

We'd need long term playability tests on the scale of RuB's deployment numbers to get a real feel for how balanced the game is, but people rarely say anything unless something really annoys them. I'd suspect most RuB players just reload on death. I'd rather the game be survivable enough, realisticly, that when I die I just shrug it off and start a new patrol, not feeling robbed.

I think I'm going to eliminate all elites in convoys and reduce or eliminate elite HKs as well. I find I pretty much always get nailed to death by aircraft in '43, and you can't sail underwater forever, so I think veteran escorts hardly gives players a free pass.

Just my thoughts, though. Without testing to confirm who really knows?

[CCIP]

We'd need long term playability tests on the scale of RuB's deployment numbers to get a real feel for how balanced the game is, but people rarely say anything unless something really annoys them.


Well this is exactly the problem I've been trying to address in the last while by re-working the whole survavibility (damage, repair, detection) system for RUb 1.43. And that's exactly what I'll be bugging people about when it's out. My hunch is that the game was never meant to be played 'all-out hardcore' out of the box, and was never balanced for survival (I mean, let's face it, a lot of players just love being depth charged to hell).

But we'll see what happens. I can guarantee RUb 1.43 will be easier to survive against escorts overall, unless you take a hedgehog or are dumb enough to stay on the surface and let yourself get hit by guns.


I think I'm going to eliminate all elites in convoys and reduce or eliminate elite HKs as well. I find I pretty much always get nailed to death by aircraft in '43, and you can't sail underwater forever, so I think veteran escorts hardly gives players a free pass.

Just my thoughts, though. Without testing to confirm who really knows?

Sounds alright for now, but again, keep in mind how I don't really know much about elites.

I guess we'll see with RUb 1.43. I think it's most likely going to be an intermediate step. The big if is ironing out any imbalances in the damage model and especially late-war sonar sensitivity. The late-war sonar has a good chance of going either way (too hard or too easy) against more than one veteran, but it'll definitely be 'easier' on the whole than any previous version.

[jasonb885]

Heh, one thing I notice from my logs is I don't get that many repeat offenders. People seem to miss the work-in-progress concept, or it's good enough, or they just delete it. I had the most downloads for the earliest versions, although the 20050712 version got quite a few hits.

I wonder if I'll ever hit a 1.0 release?

;)

[CCIP]

I think that's the case. Which is why I'd actually suggest you (or, rather, Beery) get this into RUb in the best-available version. A lot of people don't really follow threads on this forum all the time, and probably just forget about the whole thing after getting it once...

[jasonb885]

I think that's the case. Which is why I'd actually suggest you (or, rather, Beery) get this into RUb in the best-available version. A lot of people don't really follow threads on this forum all the time, and probably just forget about the whole thing after getting it once...

I am still pleased to boast some of the highest numbers of views for any thread for this brief a period of time.

:up:

I'd be happy to address any remaining issues important to RuB release first, before tackling anything else.

My guess is this would be reducing the number of elites, especially in HKs which are mostly elites, meaning certain death.

[Oesten]

I think I'm going to eliminate all elites in convoys and reduce or eliminate elite HKs as well. I find I pretty much always get nailed to death by aircraft in '43, and you can't sail underwater forever, so I think veteran escorts hardly gives players a free pass.

That sounds like the best approach, on reflection. Only Captain Walker's own ship and maybe one or two other 'aces' left as elites. Rest of HK's as mostly veterans. One or two veterans per convoy (late war), rest competent or below. Lots of novice escorts early in the war, especially the destroyers not designed for ASW work.

[jasonb885]

I think I'm going to eliminate all elites in convoys and reduce or eliminate elite HKs as well. I find I pretty much always get nailed to death by aircraft in '43, and you can't sail underwater forever, so I think veteran escorts hardly gives players a free pass.

That sounds like the best approach, on reflection. Only Captain Walker's own ship and maybe one or two other 'aces' left as elites. Rest of HK's as mostly veterans. One or two veterans per convoy (late war), rest competent or below. Lots of novice escorts early in the war, especially the destroyers not designed for ASW work.

What Wulfmann found, at least with my earlier releases with many more Novices and Competents, is it was rather too easy in early war. The ability of an escort to kill you is going to be related to both available technology for that specific ship class during the period and the skill of the crew.

I am somewhat resistant to lowering the effectiveness, even in early war, beyond what I already have. I believe I only have Novices, if any, in '39. By late '41 or early '42 I have maybe one Veteran per convoy, which quickly balloons to two to four by the end of the war.

Lacking any playtesting reports I don't know if the crew ratings are too high or too low for convoy escorts, just that in early war they were seemingly too low prior to my raising of them.

[Beery]

I've been looking over IC's files, and it all seems fairly straightforward in terms of plugging it into RUb - no conflicts at all, so no files to merge. If a new version will be coming out in the next week (it sounds like that may be the case, given what we're talking about), let me know, otherwise I'll just use the latest version and go with that for RUb 1.43. I'm assuming the latest version is the one on page 1 of this thread - is that right?

[Beery]

What Wulfmann found, at least with my earlier releases with many more Novices and Competents, is it was rather too easy in early war...

Between September 1939 and October 1941, the U-boats had a very easy time of it. An ace commander's tour of duty lasted around 8 patrols on average, and the survival rate was something like 1 death per 30 to 40 patrols. In the game, however easy we make it, it's unlikely we'll achieve that level of survivability. Even novices in the game get lucky occasionally. Basically, if we're after true realism, 1939-41 should be a walkover, with players not even feeling like escorts or aircraft can touch them as long as the player plays conservatively. For the sake of playability, we may not want to go that far, but I think it's important for us to know what the reality of the situation was, so that we can decide whether to go for playability or realism in this regard. In these sorts of situations I always prefer to have realism with a dash of playability, rather than playability with a dash of realism. A bit of playability goes a long way, but if you're missing a lot of realism, I find you lose the sense of reality that a well-researched and well-balanced simulation can give.

After October 1941, the escorts and aircraft get progressively better, until by 1943 they are killing U-boats very effectively.

Basically, we have a couple of tough calls to make. Every u-boat sim has a period (1939 to October 1941) where, in order to be fully realistic, the game has to be too easy for players brought up on arcade games. Then, there's a short period (November 1941 to March 1943) where playability and realism match nicely. Finally, there's a situation (April 1943 to May 1945) that suits arcade style players down to the ground - they can have endless excitement and lots of reloads, because the chances of surviving are almost nil, but in terms of playability, it is somewhat depressing for more serious 'dead-is-dead' players.

The question is, do we go for the 'Girlyman' (hehe) solution and tone down both extremes in the name of playability, or do we say 'what the hell' and go for the most realistic sim we can get, and damn the consequences? I prefer the latter, but I'm willing to accept the former.

[Lanzfeld]

:up: :up: :up: REALISM :up: :up: :up:

[jasonb885]

I've been looking over IC's files, and it all seems fairly straightforward in terms of plugging it into RUb - no conflicts at all, so no files to merge. If a new version will be coming out in the next week (it sounds like that may be the case, given what we're talking about), let me know, otherwise I'll just use the latest version and go with that for RUb 1.43. I'm assuming the latest version is the one on page 1 of this thread - is that right?

Yep, I always bump the thread and the release date. The string is YYYY MM DD HHMM, so you can always tell which is the most recent.

Perhaps this weekend I'll have a chance to nerf some of the elite HKs.

[jasonb885]

What Wulfmann found, at least with my earlier releases with many more Novices and Competents, is it was rather too easy in early war...

Between September 1939 and October 1941, the U-boats had a very easy time of it. An ace commander's tour of duty lasted around 8 patrols on average, and the survival rate was something like 1 death per 30 to 40 patrols. In the game, however easy we make it, it's unlikely we'll achieve that level of survivability. Even novices in the game get lucky occasionally. Basically, if we're after true realism, 1939-41 should be a walkover, with players not even feeling like escorts or aircraft can touch them as long as the player plays conservatively. For the sake of playability, we may not want to go that far, but I think it's important for us to know what the reality of the situation was, so that we can decide whether to go for playability or realism in this regard. In these sorts of situations I always prefer to have realism with a dash of playability, rather than playability with a dash of realism. A bit of playability goes a long way, but if you're missing a lot of realism, I find you lose the sense of reality that a well-researched and well-balanced simulation can give.


Therein lies the problem. Because players know it's a game, and that 39-41 will be a walk in the park, you can rack up some extremely realistic tonnage, even at 100% realism. With the DG changes you're limited to what you can sink with your torpedos, but that's still quite a lot.

If you look at HX39, SC40, SC41, HX40, OB, OA, SL39, SL40, OGEarly, HG, in the ImprovedConvoysInventory file in the 7z file, you can get a feel for what the early escorts are, how many, and the % level of crew rating. I dumped the novices I had earlier in favor of competent for most of the situations, coupled with the possibility that you can end up with a convoy with no escorts. Convoys in '39 have had their frequency reduced. There shouldn't be much convoy action until '40.


After October 1941, the escorts and aircraft get progressively better, until by 1943 they are killing U-boats very effectively.


Indeed.


Basically, we have a couple of tough calls to make. Every u-boat sim has a period (1939 to October 1941) where, in order to be fully realistic, the game has to be too easy for players brought up on arcade games. Then, there's a short period (November 1941 to March 1943) where playability and realism match nicely. Finally, there's a situation (April 1943 to May 1945) that suits arcade style players down to the ground - they can have endless excitement and lots of reloads, because the chances of surviving are almost nil, but in terms of playability, it is somewhat depressing for more serious 'dead-is-dead' players.


For me it isn't a question of ease. It's a question of knowing there's no risks and that I can go where ever and do whatever I please to maximize my score, I can be careless, and so on. It makes the game seem very unrealistic to me, even if it's historically accurate for it to be a cakewalk. The knowledge of the past dictates things have to be less easy for there to be reasonable playability. On the other hand, if your goal is to feel as if you're really living the times, the Sim should match history as closely as possible, even if it suffers what a more casual simmer would consider playability issues.

I fall into the latter camp, so I will probably be erring on the side of slightly more difficult than reality in the early years and slightly less deadly in the later years for convoy escorts, HKs, and random patrol units. (Obviously I have no control over, for example, planes or scripted patrols in IC, and I'm happy with the deadliness of planes in mid and late war anyway in RuB 1.42.)


The question is, do we go for the 'Girlyman' (hehe) solution and tone down both extremes in the name of playability, or do we say 'what the hell' and go for the most realistic sim we can get, and damn the consequences? I prefer the latter, but I'm willing to accept the former.

Then I am indeed a Girlyman (tm). I have to go for playability, because in the end for me it's all about fun. Given your posts surrounding RuB and realism issues, I sort of figured you'd come down on the other side of the fense. I know I can't convince you otherwise, so on this we must agree to disagree, I think.

I'm happy to entertain suggestions, but if during gameplay it starts to feel like things have been pushed too far into realisticly easy land in '39 and '40, I'll have to revert to less realistic, but more playable difficulty settings.

It's been so long since I've played I don't even remember how easy it was in '39. The last time I played in '39 I missed the convoy contact and sunk several single merchants. I wasn't especially harrassed by any patrols and went home. (Now, when I went into Loch Ewe to sink the Nelson, that was another story entirely!)

Anyway as it stands I can't say definitively that IC lands on one side of the fence or the other. I have no playtesting evidence recent enough to suggest either side. I can only state that I'd err on the side of playability over complete realism if I detect playability is in jeapordy.

[CCIP]

Frankly, I don't think we should worry THAT much about survivability so long as it's within reasonable limits. I find that the game does a fine job with early war. In fact with RUb 1.43 the early war should, on the whole, be a little tougher.

Late war? Just think of what Jace and Egan did to the planes. There's something to keep you busy right there. And when you're not busy with them - I have to say that the escorts do their first job very well now - keeping you down and preventing you from doing anything particularly stupid. The newly-boosted surface guns should only help that. And then consider how some of my tweaks to the damage model should make damage/destruction of systems/sub-systems more likely if you take a wrong step - way more so than in any previous version.

Personally, I think RUb 1.43 is generally on the right track. I think the point is to keep a challenge element to the game, and reward the player for 'good', realistic behaviour. I think that's a much better alternative than a semi-unsurvivable game that rewards stupid and reckless behaviour... Which is basically my impression of unmodded SHIII, unfortunately.

[jasonb885]

Frankly, I don't think we should worry THAT much about survivability so long as it's within reasonable limits. I find that the game does a fine job with early war. In fact with RUb 1.43 the early war should, on the whole, be a little tougher....

Sounds good!

In either case I am going to nerf the elites when I get home, perhaps tonight or during the day tomorrow. Alas I have so much stuff to do that's probably of higher priority. In fact, I'd be doing those things now, but at work it's much harder to accomplish those things. (Try studying a 1,000 page book for a certificate and avoid getting noticed at work!)

On another note, I am thinking about playing with adding Sergbuto's new merchants into the campaign. There'd be a new, large cargo so the boring C3 isn't the only option, and I think the transport might be small enough not to be silly to include in some convoys.

I haven't decided. That's more of a wishlist item.

Perhaps I'll nerf the escorts, add a PPL to HX43, and finish the GU/UG/MK/KM convoys. Then only AS will be left, which is so far south of the Equator I doubt much anyone will know or care if I don't bother with it.

[CCIP]

Well, that big transport - I'd say perhaps toning its original tonnage down, or completely precluding it from sailing on the single routes all over the place might at least be a good idea. I really find it a bit of an easy-picking otherwise.

[Oesten]

Regarding the realism argument, I'd go with Beery and make it as realistic as possible.

So what if the game is very, very easy in '39? Yes it will be, for the extremely experienced, extremely effective hardcore subsimmers on this forum. But for a novice player to SHIII, it will still be quite hard. Just doing manual shooting is hard enough, even against single merchants, without worrying about escorts and aircraft as well.

If RUB 1.43 is easy in '39, that will encourage new players, even people who have hardly even played SHIII yet, to play it, since it will give them a nice shallow learning curve. Many people may be avoiding trying RUB at the moment because they're afraid that it is too hardcore and that they will die almost every patrol they play.

In 1944 and 1945, having realism is also the best way to go. It should be a very major achievement just to survive a patrol, and actually sinking even one ship, is as great a victory as sinking 10 early in the war.

[graffen]

Regretably, I've been away from SH3 and these boards for about a month. I'd like to receive advice regarding whether the following mods applied in the order indicated, would/would not conflict.

Thank you!

(1) RuB1.43 (when it comes out next week)
(2) jasonb's ImprovedConvoys (7-20 release)
(3) SonarDC_Fix by Jungman
(4) Hampton Class Cruiser Mod by Sergbuto

[CCIP]

Regretably, I've been away from SH3 and these boards for about a month. I'd like to receive advice regarding whether the following mods applied in the order indicated, would/would not conflict.

Thank you!

(1) RuB1.43 (when it comes out next week)
(2) jasonb's ImprovedConvoys (7-20 release)
(3) SonarDC_Fix by Jungman
(4) Hampton Class Cruiser Mod by Sergbuto

(1) will include (2) and a further enchanced version of (3). I've also not heard any problems of (4) working with (1) :|\

[graffen]

(1) RuB1.43 (when it comes out next week)
(2) jasonb's ImprovedConvoys (7-20 release)
(3) SonarDC_Fix by Jungman
(4) Hampton Class Cruiser Mod by Sergbuto

(1) will include (2) and a further enchanced version of (3). I've also not heard any problems of (4) working with (1) :|\[/quote]

Wow, Thanks CCIP. I'm surprised that RuB1.43 is going to include all of jasonb's ImprovedConvoys tweaks, as well as the SonarDC fix by Jungman. That's sweet! RuB1.43 is really going to be something!!

[jasonb885]

Regarding the realism argument, I'd go with Beery and make it as realistic as possible.


Playtest away and comment, then.

It's all academic at this point. I have nearly _zero_ playtest reports so I can't point things in favor of either realism or playability without information. So far I've been satisfied with the two or three patrols I've been on, so without any further feedback I'll just leave things alone and play on. Playtest reports are what make changes possible.

[jasonb885]

Actually, my biggest disappointment is people won't actually look at the inventory before commenting.

I've reproduced the relevant sections below in a sloppy copy and paste. The actual inventory file, ImprovedConvoyInventory.txt, is far better formatted. The % is the spawn probability for each group of escort class. (So 50% for two DDs means 50% spawn chance _per_ DD, not 1 @ 100% and 1 @ 0% for example.)

The convoys names should be somewhat obvious. They're based on the actual convoy designations.

The armed trawlers are set to elite. That's why you'll find some convoys with 25 or 50% elite. It's the trawlers bumping up the number of elites from 0 to 1 or 2. Trawlers are just about useless and sink while looking for you even in moderate seas, so I made them elite.

Looking at the numbers they might be a bit veteran heavy early in the war. OA and OB run into '41, so it's a tradeoff between being too easy early on or too easy later on. Flip a coin. Most of the other convoys stop by the end of '40 and are replaced with new definitions, so they can be reduced to, say, all competent, possibly.


HX39

Escorts for Convoy:
Armed Trawler
British
PCTrawler 1 50%
Corvette
British
any 1 30%
Auxiliary Cruiser
British
any 1 70%
Destroyer
British
any 1 30%

Escort Skill:

Elite:33% Veteran:33% Competent:33%

HX40

Escorts for Convoy:
Corvette
British
any 2 75%
Auxiliary Cruiser
British
any 1 70%
Frigate / Sloop
British
any 1 50%

Escort Skill:

Veteran:66% Competent:33%

SC40

Escorts for Convoy:
Corvette
British
any 2 75%
Auxiliary Cruiser
British
any 1 60%
Frigate / Sloop
British
any 1 50%

Escort Skill:

Veteran:33% Competent:66%

OA

Escorts for Convoy:
Armed Trawler
British
PCTrawler 1 50%
Corvette
British
any 1 50%
Auxiliary Cruiser
British
any 1 70%
Destroyer
British
any 1 30%

Escort Skill:

Elite:33% Veteran:33% Competent:33%

OB

Escorts for Convoy:
Corvette
British
any 2 75%
Frigate / Sloop
British
any 1 100%
Destroyer
British
any 1 50%
Light Cruiser
British
any 1 75%

Escort Skill:

Veteran:50% Competent:50%

SL39:

Escorts for Convoy:
Armed Trawler
British
PCTrawler 2 100%
Corvette
British
any 1 70%
Auxiliary Cruiser
British
any 1 70%
Destroyer
British
any 1 25%

Escort Skill:

Elite:50% Veteran:25% Competent:25%

SL40:

Escorts for Convoy:
Armed Trawler
British
PCTrawler 1 100%
Corvette
British
any 2 75%
Auxiliary Cruiser
British
any 1 70%
Frigate / Sloop
British
any 1 50%

Escort Skill:

Elite:25% Veteran:25% Competent:50%

OGEarly

Escorts for Convoy:
Armed Trawler
British
PCTrawler 2 50%
Auxiliary Cruiser
British
any 1 70%
Frigate / Sloop
British
any 1 30%
Destroyer
British
any 1 30%

Escort Skill:

Elite:50% Veteran:25% Competent:25%

HG

Escorts for Convoy:
Corvette
British
any 1 100%
Frigate / Sloop
British
any 2 100%
Destroyer
British
any 1 50%
Light Cruiser
British
any 1 75%

Escort Skill:

Veteran:50% Competent:50%

OGLate

Escorts for Convoy:
Corvette
British
any 2 75%
Frigate / Sloop
British
any 2 100%
Destroyer
British
any 1 50%

Escort Skill:

Veteran:60% Competent:40%

[Oesten]

Actually, my biggest disappointment is people won't actually look at the inventory before commenting.

I've reproduced the relevant sections below in a sloppy copy and paste. The actual inventory file, ImprovedConvoyInventory.txt, is far better formatted.

That file wasn't well formatted in my download of your mod - in fact it wasn't formatted at all.

[Oesten]

The armed trawlers are set to elite. That's why you'll find some convoys with 25 or 50% elite. It's the trawlers bumping up the number of elites from 0 to 1 or 2. Trawlers are just about useless and sink while looking for you even in moderate seas, so I made them elite.

Looking at the numbers they might be a bit veteran heavy early in the war. OA and OB run into '41, so it's a tradeoff between being too easy early on or too easy later on. Flip a coin. Most of the other convoys stop by the end of '40 and are replaced with new definitions, so they can be reduced to, say, all competent, possibly.



How do the skill levels work?

Suppose you have 4 escort types listed for a convoy, 1 of each, e.g. one trawler, one corvette, one sloop, and one destroyer.

Then you have skill levels at: 33% elite, 33% veteran, 33% competent.

Does that mean that any escort out of the 4 has a 33% chance of being elite, a 33% chance of being veteran, and a 33% chance of being competent?

I don't see how you can say that the 33% elite applies only to the trawler.

[Oesten]

Looking at the numbers they might be a bit veteran heavy early in the war. OA and OB run into '41, so it's a tradeoff between being too easy early on or too easy later on. Flip a coin. Most of the other convoys stop by the end of '40 and are replaced with new definitions, so they can be reduced to, say, all competent, possibly.



I can't see how it's realistically possible for any escort to be 'veteran' in 1939. How can they be combat veterans when the war has only just started? Training alone, no matter how good or how long, can't turn a crew into veterans. For a convoy that covers ONLY 1939, and no other year, the best escort available should be competent.

I'd agree with cutting down the number of veterans in 1940 as well. There would be one at least in each convoy, the lead escort would be a veteran ship. But the others would be merely competent.

Then in 1941 you have the rapid expansion of the Allied escort force. Many more escorts available than in 1940, but because the force has expanded so greatly, there's a very high proportion of new ships in there. And the new ships can't be more than competent. So again, the vast majority, say around 75%, of escorts in 1941 should be competent. Veterans generally only the lead escort.

From 1942, you can start to have a higher proportion of veterans, maybe about 33%. From 1943, maybe up to 50% veterans, then in 1944-45, 66-75% veterans.

Just my opinions, hope they are useful.

[jasonb885]

Actually, my biggest disappointment is people won't actually look at the inventory before commenting.

I've reproduced the relevant sections below in a sloppy copy and paste. The actual inventory file, ImprovedConvoyInventory.txt, is far better formatted.

That file wasn't well formatted in my download of your mod - in fact it wasn't formatted at all.

Sigh.

It's UNIX formatted. Just open it in WordPad, Word, or whatever.

Sigh.

[jasonb885]

...
How do the skill levels work?

Suppose you have 4 escort types listed for a convoy, 1 of each, e.g. one trawler, one corvette, one sloop, and one destroyer.

Then you have skill levels at: 33% elite, 33% veteran, 33% competent.

Does that mean that any escort out of the 4 has a 33% chance of being elite, a 33% chance of being veteran, and a 33% chance of being competent?

I don't see how you can say that the 33% elite applies only to the trawler.

Correct, it's not obvious.

I internally assign elite to any armed trawler as a hack since they suck. So I can state as fact that the 33% of the escort that are elite are, in fact, the armed trawlers, because I am responsible for it. I also know in what proportions I assigned the competent and veteran components.

Due to rounding the numbers aren't always obvious.

If I have five escorts and make 50% of the competent, I might end up with either two or three competent escorts. I'd have to look at my code to see if I round up or down in that case. I honestly don't remember as it hasn't caused any significant issues thus far.

The skill breakdown for convoys without armed trawlers (i.e. mostly all of them) is far more representative as a result of the lack of forced-elite armed trawlers. While it's not immediately obvious if you look at the file, it ought to make more sense now that I've explained it.

So the early war convoys with armed trawlers are, in fact, not super-elite escorted convoys. The breakdown is just skewed because armed trawlers tend to really be worthless, even as elites. They're completely useless as competents.

Actually, the breakdown isn't the same as the spawn probability. When it's 50% veteran and 50% competent, it means out of, say, four escorts, two will be veteran and two will be competent. As it is a summary statistic only, obviously you can't tell from that information which specific escort will be competent or veteran. I didn't consider that level of detail necessary to determine if a convoy's escort is properly rated as a whole or not.

[Oesten]

Actually, my biggest disappointment is people won't actually look at the inventory before commenting.

I've reproduced the relevant sections below in a sloppy copy and paste. The actual inventory file, ImprovedConvoyInventory.txt, is far better formatted.

That file wasn't well formatted in my download of your mod - in fact it wasn't formatted at all.

Sigh.

It's UNIX formatted. Just open it in WordPad, Word, or whatever.

Sigh.

I hope that 'sigh' wasn't intended to be a personal insult. I would find that distressing, on a usually polite forum like subsim.

Txt files on my system open in Notepad, which is why I thought the file wasn't formatted. And I've never heard of 'UNIX formatting' before. People on this forum may have different levels of computer literacy to you, but that's no reason to insult them.

[CCIP]

:lol:

I think you're over-reacting, he's not insulting you. The "sigh" is probably a sign that you can't please everyone with your text format, of all things, ironically :)

I actually had as much trouble as you reading them, so I didn't really look into them in detail, aside from the stuff Jason posted on the forums.

[jasonb885]

...
I can't see how it's realistically possible for any escort to be 'veteran' in 1939. How can they be combat veterans when the war has only just started? Training alone, no matter how good or how long, can't turn a crew into veterans. For a convoy that covers ONLY 1939, and no other year, the best escort available should be competent.


I guess I should have used the game's internal ranked numbers instead, 0 - 4. You're reading too much into the words.

Game balancing in a delicate act. Even moreso when you don't have access to the original development team.

The designations have little to do with reality, but rather how effectively the game can use any given units equipment and resources to attack you. While I agree in the actual war it's unlikely there were many veteran crews at the start of the war, if any, the word has a different meaning when used in SH3 convoy escort.

For example, if we found all escorts in '39 to engage each other and not the player unless at least ranked elite, I'd rank them all elite and shrug off the skill designation as being unreasonable for the era.

If there are any veterans in convoys that start in '39, it's because they run through the end of 1940 or 1941 and I didn't want half the war to be a cakewalk for these convoys. I am working within the existing convoy definitions the game shipped with, since redefining them all by hand would take forever.


I'd agree with cutting down the number of veterans in 1940 as well. There would be one at least in each convoy, the lead escort would be a veteran ship. But the others would be merely competent.


That's too specific, even if accurate. I can designate a some percentage of ships to be veteran in convoys that start and stop in 1940. It's not possible to tell SH3 you want some particular ship to be a 'lead', though. It's up to SH3 to decide which warship is where in the convoy escort.

I can only pick the number, spawn probability, class, and skill level.

Because it's tedious to do that much work by hand, I further simplified the available options at the expensive of flexibility. For escort skill, I merely specify the percentage I wish to be of each level of skill. Those percentages are then multiplied against the total number of escorts and the resultant distributed randomly.

So, at present, I can change the distribution such that only one ship will be veteran, but I cannot pick which class that will be or make it the leader. (The former is possible with some rewriting of my code, the latter is not possible due to SH3 limitations.)


Then in 1941 you have the rapid expansion of the Allied escort force. Many more escorts available than in 1940, but because the force has expanded so greatly, there's a very high proportion of new ships in there. And the new ships can't be more than competent. So again, the vast majority, say around 75%, of escorts in 1941 should be competent. Veterans generally only the lead escort.


That was close to my original configuration before I altered it as it seemed too easy. Again, there is the issue of some SH3 convoys running for more than one year. So a balance has to be struck between being too easy or too hard for a multi-year convoy definition. (OA and OB for example.)


From 1942, you can start to have a higher proportion of veterans, maybe about 33%. From 1943, maybe up to 50% veterans, then in 1944-45, 66-75% veterans.

Just my opinions, hope they are useful.

That seems reasonable.

I'll have to look at all the definitions and their start and end dates and rework them accordingly.

[jasonb885]

:lol:

I think you're over-reacting, he's not insulting you. The "sigh" is probably a sign that you can't please everyone with your text format, of all things, ironically :)

I actually had as much trouble as you reading them, so I didn't really look into them in detail, aside from the stuff Jason posted on the forums.

It appears my own tools have defeated me, then.

I can view the text fine under Windows, but only with Wordpad. It hadn't occurred to me that others would have encountered few enough, if any, documents that only viewed properly in Wordpad to instinctively use Wordpad or Word to view the document instead of Notepad.

That's entirely my own fault.

In the future I can run the text through a UNIX <-> DOS end of line conversion so the documents will look normal in editors under Windows that aren't UNIX competent.

But, seriously, if you open it using Wordpad, presently, it will render completely readable.

:up:

I guess that means no one's read the README either...

:huh:

Good thing I've been posting the README, for each release, in the OP of this thread.

:know:

[jasonb885]

Okay, I give.

In the interests of speedy development I was picking escort competence based on a percentage multiplier. It's easier, since I don't need to make sure my number of escorts matches the quantity of each type of competence I want. For example, presently I can define 4 escorts and I don't need to ensure that I have competent set to, say, 4. It's less error prone to say 100%, which is similar to just expressing "however many, make them all skilled as competent".

Obviously that's somewhat imprecise though. When you're dealing with so few escorts, it's hard to get the percentage just right if you're trying to balance. So I have a speedy mess.

With convoy proportions it made more sense to do things that way, since you have like 10-50 ships, so saying 20% are medium makes sense. With 4 escorts saying 50% are veteran is messier, since rounding errors will influence it more greatly.

I'll change it so I can express crew ratings as a simple integer instead and just make sure the numbers always add up. Then I can specify 1 elite, for example, instead of 12% elite, without hoping 12% doesn't round up to 2 escorts when I wanted only 1. In otherwords, I'll make it a value I can explicitly specify instead of implicitly through a proportion.

Maybe I'll set it up so I can specify crew rating for each class of ship.

[jasonb885]

Sorry if I gave anyone an attitude.

This whole Seawolves thing seems to have at least some of us annoyed a bit.

:nope:

[CCIP]

Heh, don't worry, I know how you feel... but I'm actually a bit excited about the Seawolves thing now :know:


I think you're giving yourself a bit too much headache over the escort skill settings, since these are really very abstract values that you can't find any real historical data on - just rough approximations. Unless someone does a huge study on SHIII escort effectiveness and compares them to the real historical stats, we'll never know exactly how the skills should be distributed.

The bottom line is that you're pretty much on the right track with the elites, and the rest is not as huge as you might thing. Two competent-newbie escorts are more dangerous than a single veteran, anyway - so the numbers theoretically matter more.

[jasonb885]

...

The bottom line is that you're pretty much on the right track with the elites, and the rest is not as huge as you might thing. Two competent-newbie escorts are more dangerous than a single veteran, anyway - so the numbers theoretically matter more.

I have large numbers of escorts, up to 8, by the end of the war, and definitely 5 - 6 by mid war. I've been reducing the number of veterans somewhat as I go.

I'm about 33% (heh) done. Perhaps in an hour I'll have all the convoys redone in my configuration file using the new configuration syntax.

Next time I'm picking a Perl configuration language that's less verbose or more flexible!

:know:

[jasonb885]

Okay, done. Now it's time to test it out.

I also nerfed all the elite HKs. Any elites are now veterans, with others left at whatever their original values where. (I think most HKs were nearly all elite and veteran anyway.)

I fixed the reporting engine to discard trawlers when generating skill statistics, since it skews it and the crew rating of a trawler is mostly irrelevant anyway. I'll start converting the inventory and README into DOS format before publishing, so it's effortlessly readable on a Windows system.

:up:

If it plays okay I'll kick out a new release tonight.

[Beery]

...The bottom line is that you're pretty much on the right track with the elites, and the rest is not as huge as you might thing..

I agree. What we have now is better than the original game, and the original game is playable. It's easy to lose perspective (as I did last week when the sensors issue popped up). The important thing is that what we now have is better than what we had, and we're just going to keep plugging away at it until it gets as good as we can make it.

[joea]

I love this thread, very educational. :know:

[Syxx_Killer]

It is very easy to get around the formatting issues in Notepad. Simply open up the documents in WordPad, click the little save icon, and open in Notepad. You now have a properly formatted version for Windows to use in Notepad. It's like magic! :rotfl:

[Oesten]

Okay, done. Now it's time to test it out.

I also nerfed all the elite HKs. Any elites are now veterans, with others left at whatever their original values where. (I think most HKs were nearly all elite and veteran anyway.)

I fixed the reporting engine to discard trawlers when generating skill statistics, since it skews it and the crew rating of a trawler is mostly irrelevant anyway. I'll start converting the inventory and README into DOS format before publishing, so it's effortlessly readable on a Windows system.

:up:

If it plays okay I'll kick out a new release tonight.

Looking forward to the release. Hope it's ready for inclusion into RUB 1.43, it certainly deserves to be included.

[jasonb885]

...
Looking forward to the release. Hope it's ready for inclusion into RUB 1.43, it certainly deserves to be included.

I playtested three missions in '39 with a IIA. The single merchant contacts seemed reasonable for '39. I felt like playing with the IIA a bit, so I never made it past the east coast of Britain.

In either case, nothing blew up, so it seemed release ready.

The latest link is in the OP, along with what should be a Windows readable inventory and README.

:up:

[Observer]

FYI, working with the latest release. Sept.-Oct. '40. 30 days at sea no convoy reports yet. I thought you had upped the probability for the later half of '40?

On my current patrol, I just picked up a big convoy, I think it's OB. I'm closing in, but no reports yet.

[jasonb885]

FYI, working with the latest release. Sept.-Oct. '40. 30 days at sea no convoy reports yet. I thought you had upped the probability for the later half of '40?

On my current patrol, I just picked up a big convoy, I think it's OB. I'm closing in, but no reports yet.

Where at?

I think it's at ~ 2% in 1940, which would be something like 10 report and 20 spawn. At that rate they'll be pretty rare. Later it's at 0.8% and you'll essentially never find them.

Nice sig. ;)

[The Avon Lady]

Nice sig. ;)
Join us! :yep:

[Observer]

Where at?

I think it's at ~ 2% in 1940, which would be something like 10 report and 20 spawn. At that rate they'll be pretty rare. Later it's at 0.8% and you'll essentially never find them.

BF15. My contacts file is set up, and I'm close enough, that I should be getting HX as well. No joy yet.

[jasonb885]

Nice sig. ;)
Join us! :yep:

I'm in for da win.

:up:

I mirrored the image in case the free provider dies.

http://edseek.com/mirror/sh3/boycottx17zg.jpg

[jasonb885]

Where at?

I think it's at ~ 2% in 1940, which would be something like 10 report and 20 spawn. At that rate they'll be pretty rare. Later it's at 0.8% and you'll essentially never find them.

BF15. My contacts file is set up, and I'm close enough, that I should be getting HX as well. No joy yet.

Odd.

Info for HX40. It ought to show up eventually.


DelayMinInterv = 10080
ReportPosProbability = 75
ReportPosMin = 720
SpawnProbability = 90

[Observer]

Just finished the patrol. I never got a convoy report. I'll have to see how the next one goes.

[jasonb885]

Just finished the patrol. I never got a convoy report. I'll have to see how the next one goes.

I got two for HX40 in March 1940. I'm posting the report in a few minutes in my usual place...

:up:

[Syxx_Killer]

I was reading through the readme and noticed it said:

Corrects British Ocean class misreported as American Liberty class

I went to the Museum and it was still the Liberty. Does it show up as Ocean in the game?

Implements adoption curve for American Liberty, Victory and British Ocean ships

Does this mean when they start to show up in the game?

[Observer]

I was reading through the readme and noticed it said:

Corrects British Ocean class misreported as American Liberty class

I went to the Museum and it was still the Liberty. Does it show up as Ocean in the game?

The British Ocean is the same as the American Liberty ship. Same ship, different name. It's just a simple change to the roster name configuration file. I don't know if it will show up as Ocean or not. I suspect not because the names are handled by a different config file.

Implements adoption curve for American Liberty, Victory and British Ocean ships

Does this mean when they start to show up in the game?

Exactly. I can post the adoption "curve" if you would like. Of course it's programmed into IC, and really depends on the stock convoy dates, so it wouldn't be a perfect implementation.

[jasonb885]

I was reading through the readme and noticed it said:

Corrects British Ocean class misreported as American Liberty class

I went to the Museum and it was still the Liberty. Does it show up as Ocean in the game?

The British Ocean is the same as the American Liberty ship. Same ship, different name. It's just a simple change to the roster name configuration file. I don't know if it will show up as Ocean or not. I suspect not because the names are handled by a different config file.


I'd love to know which file.

Anyone have any ideas?

I suspect it's probably not changeable, since both countries have access to this 'liberty' class ship, and it's just a single class. I bet the 'liberty' class would need to be cloned just to effect a name change. Sigh.

Only sergbuto has those magic powers.

Probably not worth that much effort just for it to say Ocean instead of Liberty for, effectively, ships from '43-'45, although you ought to see some in '42 as well.

[Observer]

I was reading through the readme and noticed it said:

Corrects British Ocean class misreported as American Liberty class

I went to the Museum and it was still the Liberty. Does it show up as Ocean in the game?

The British Ocean is the same as the American Liberty ship. Same ship, different name. It's just a simple change to the roster name configuration file. I don't know if it will show up as Ocean or not. I suspect not because the names are handled by a different config file.


I'd love to know which file.

Anyone have any ideas?

I suspect it's probably not changeable, since both countries have access to this 'liberty' class ship, and it's just a single class. I bet the 'liberty' class would need to be cloned just to effect a name change. Sigh.

Only sergbuto has those magic powers.

Probably not worth that much effort just for it to say Ocean instead of Liberty for, effectively, ships from '43-'45, although you ought to see some in '42 as well.

Oh. That's easy! :up:

Look in the \data\Sea folder for the EnglishNames.cfg file. This has the names for all of the ships as we see them in game. When you open it you'll notice the LL = Liberty Cargo entry at the bottom. As you said, we would have to clone the Liberty folder in order to create a new ship, and a subsequently get a new name.

[Shadow9216]

Can you confirm we'd need to add specific changes to the SCR/RND layer for, say, Argentinian merchants to show up? They've already been added in the defside and roster files, but I'm thinking the game won't randomly add them to convoys?

[jasonb885]

Can you confirm we'd need to add specific changes to the SCR/RND layer for, say, Argentinian merchants to show up? They've already been added in the defside and roster files, but I'm thinking the game won't randomly add them to convoys?

No, they won't be randomly added to convoys. You can't specify an random nationality. You have to be explicit about nationality in the definition for each unit.

[Shadow9216]

Okay, so any changes resulting from the nationality mod would need to be scripted in.

:hmm:

[rulle34]

Hello Jason!
Here are some feed-back for your latest ImprovedConvoys-200507240013.

I have done a few patrols in late 40 and early 41. All seems fine. On my last patrol something unusual happened. I was chasing one convoy, trying to get in postion for attack, and then I saw that there was another convoy meeting the first one. In front of my binoculars I had two concoys in opposite courses.
I just thought you wanted to know.
Position: BF 44, Feb 16 time:21.48 1941

Best whises
/Rulle

[jasonb885]

Hello Jason!
Here are some feed-back for your latest ImprovedConvoys-200507240013.

I have done a few patrols in late 40 and early 41. All seems fine. On my last patrol something unusual happened. I was chasing one convoy, trying to get in postion for attack, and then I saw that there was another convoy meeting the first one. In front of my binoculars I had two concoys in opposite courses.
I just thought you wanted to know.
Position: BF 44, Feb 16 time:21.48 1941

Best whises
/Rulle

Thanks.

Someone in the main forum had reported something like that with the original convoys, too.

I think it just happens sometimes.

[NZ_Wanderer]

Single ship traffic in '39 and '40 is somewhat more than under RuB, but still far less than the stock campaign. Convoys are more rare in '39 and in '40, but are as frequent as in the original game in 41-45. I'm still tuning the radio contact reports for convoys and spawn frequency.

Sure wish I could have the new convoys but keep the stock single ships :D :D - The 20/20 part of rub is the only thing in that I don't put in cause I like to find lots of single ships...

[NZ_Wanderer]

The question is, do we go for the 'Girlyman' (hehe) solution and tone down both extremes in the name of playability, or do we say 'what the hell' and go for the most realistic sim we can get, and damn the consequences? I prefer the latter, but I'm willing to accept the former.

Ok, I still trying to catch up, so the decision has probasbly already been made on this, but I thought I would throw my 2c worth in anyway...

I Personally would prefer playability..

Having something as realistic as possible is going to turn most "gamers" off, spoil the playability for the greatest majority of those left, while only catering for a select few that "have" to have things as realistic as posssible...

It's soret of a pity that you can't have 2 releases.. 1 for playability and one for "REAL" - that way people themselves could choose :) :)

[Beery]

Having something as realistic as possible is going to turn most "gamers" off, spoil the playability for the greatest majority of those left, while only catering for a select few that "have" to have things as realistic as posssible...

RUb has always been squarely aimed at players who value realism, and who believe that realism gives the best playability. For these players what's realistic is automatically the most playable because when you add arcade elements it makes the game give unrealistic and ahistorical results and thus reduces the fun value. RUb is the REAL U-boat mod, not the Playable U-boat mod. There are other mods (e.g. the UNreal U-boat mod) for players who want less realism, and anyway, so far RUb must be doing something right in terms of balancing realism and playability in the way we have done, because it's currently the most popular mod for the game.

In short, RUb is never meant to be most popular, but the fact that it is must mean that realism is more playable than most people seem to think.

[Duli]

I agree with you, Beery. I am really looking forward to the RuB 1.43 mod.

[jasonb885]

The question is, do we go for the 'Girlyman' (hehe) solution and tone down both extremes in the name of playability, or do we say 'what the hell' and go for the most realistic sim we can get, and damn the consequences? I prefer the latter, but I'm willing to accept the former.

Ok, I still trying to catch up, so the decision has probasbly already been made on this, but I thought I would throw my 2c worth in anyway...

I Personally would prefer playability..

Having something as realistic as possible is going to turn most "gamers" off, spoil the playability for the greatest majority of those left, while only catering for a select few that "have" to have things as realistic as posssible...

It's soret of a pity that you can't have 2 releases.. 1 for playability and one for "REAL" - that way people themselves could choose :) :)

I think Beery described the current scenario quite well. Real U-Boat is all about the realm.

Myself, personally, I don't take it that far. For me realism and playability aren't synonymous.

In either case, I can't verify IC against some One True Playability Test (tm) to verify it's too hardcore, too software, or just right. I played some missions and it seemed okay, to me. Everyone else will have to decide for himself.

If it passes Beery's true realism test, I guess it'll end up in RuB. If not, it'll always be available as a separate mod for anyone that's interested.

In short, my goal is realism within the realm of playability. I have to personally enjoy myself for it to be released, since I use it myself. If someone suggests additional realism, I'lI add it. If i like it, then it's in. If not, then it's not.

:up:

(You should've seen that last paragraph before I edited it. It was insanely nonsensical. I typed something like I want realism, even if it's not playable and stuff, just by mistyping a few words. Wow.)

[NZ_Wanderer]

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a bit of reality, it's just I like the playability as well.
That's why when I get the versions of rub, I go through the documentation with an eagle eye and then only install whats going to make things good for me.
I think from memory the last install I only left out the file that had the 20/20 thing in, the plotting mod, hollywood mod, water mod and the guns changes.. Everything elkse I put in :) :)

[jasonb885]

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a bit of reality, it's just I like the playability as well.
That's why when I get the versions of rub, I go through the documentation with an eagle eye and then only install whats going to make things good for me.
I think from memory the last install I only left out the file that had the 20/20 thing in, the plotting mod, hollywood mod, water mod and the guns changes.. Everything elkse I put in :) :)

Then you're in trouble.

IC includes realistic single ship reduction, at least, as best as I could make it. You'll see a reasonable number of single merchants in '39 and limited convoy action. In '40 you will still see some single merchants, but fewer. In '41 and beyond, save the U.S. coast, you won't nearly ever see a single merchant.

Just fyi.

[Wulfmann]

I was not going to release my RND file but as I read this it seems it may be much more different than improved convoys mod. That is while I reduced the single ships by about 50%, there are going to be many many more than in yours. I have had patrols where I have not seen a ship in 1943 going or coming. I have had 1941 patrols where I have spotted 4 or 5 ships going out but usually about 1 or 2. I didn't think about that as I felt we were doing the convoys similar with you leaning to my escorts and I following you on the merchant ships. But, the single traffic might make mine an alternative to more in that area but still much less than stock. I remember doing a couple missions with IC and spent 2-3 hours watching my icon at 1024TC and then coming home. It is certainly real as just look at Kretschmer's score early and you can see he did nothing patrol after patrol. That may be real, but is also no fun.
But, UBoatRealsim may not want them as I am not a memeber of the Naxi party (No-Access-X-I) LOL
Wulfmann

[R48]

Wulfmann,

I'm interested in trying your RND. Did you increase the skill of early war escorts and patrols? I thought I read that you did this. I'd be interested in this.

[jasonb885]

Wulfmann,

I'm interested in trying your RND. Did you increase the skill of early war escorts and patrols? I thought I read that you did this. I'd be interested in this.

Just keep in mind Wulfmann reports CTDs often. He edits his RND layer by hand.

Mine is all scripted using a programming language. I haven't had a CTD since I resolved the last major bug in my application to generate RND layers two months ago.

Not a dig against Wulfmann, just fyi. Nothing more frusturating than a crash during a good patrol.

[R48]

Nothing more frusturating than a crash during a good patrol.

I didn't know his RND might cause a CTD. I've never had one since I got SH3.

[jasonb885]

Nothing more frusturating than a crash during a good patrol.

I didn't know his RND might cause a CTD. I've never had one since I got SH3.

It may not. It's possible it's fully functional at this point.

I just see him post often about CTDs and such.

[NZ_Wanderer]

Then you're in trouble.
IC includes realistic single ship reduction, at least, as best as I could make it. You'll see a reasonable number of single merchants in '39 and limited convoy action. In '40 you will still see some single merchants, but fewer. In '41 and beyond, save the U.S. coast, you won't nearly ever see a single merchant.

Ouch... That I'm afraid would take the playability out of it for me.. - I like seeing the single ships in the game, I don't always attack them but it's good to have them there incase I decide to :D

[sdcruz]

I must attest that using Jasons IC mod - i have NEVER had a CTD - Good work jason!! :up:

Regards
Shelton.

[Wulfmann]

Actually the only CTD I have had was the AI_Sensor mod and once Beery sent me the fixed version my RND has been flawless for about 100 patrols. I have run patrols from Sept 39-Dec 1944 so maybe there is something in 1945 I am not aware of yet

Still Jason's is more historically accurate in the single ships. I ran two patrols in a row and made no contacts on either so revived making myRND with more single ships but far less than stock. Matter of choice

But you shouldn't trust me, I am a troll!!! LOL

Wulfmann

[NZ_Wanderer]

But you shouldn't trust me, I am a troll!!! LOL
Wulfmann

Well I trust you cause I have installed your "modified" fix as well as the files you don't use out of this mod :up: :up:
Hope to give things a good test with a brand new campaign...

Thanks again for the modified file to give me some of my single ships back :rock:

[Beery]

But you shouldn't trust me, I am a troll!!! LOL

Wulfmann

Let me just say that although I completely disagreed with you in that argument, I think that the person who made that 'troll' comment was out of order. Tempers run high, I guess.

[Wulfmann]

Beery, I really know that is true. And I do not feel bad except I know Jason will but I will want to laugh about it.

I happen to sell an AK-47 I had that I had bought cheap and I do not sell guns at a profit (it is illegal unless you own them for one year! BATF law!!!) and I frankly saw no use for it. (NRA guys don't gasp, my DR-200 is superior, LOL)
I saw a guy selling the same gun and he said he was having no luck selling it. I said I sold mine for $225.00. He dropped his jaw, looked me in the eye and said "You are the biggest liar I have ever met."
No kidding, I swear.
I busted out laughing (for one I don't have a good enough memory to be a good liar)
Ever since at gun shows when I am talking to some one, I will say, "But don't listen to me, I am the biggest liar you will ever meet."

I am arrogant, condescending, opinionated, tackles and arrogant (I know I said it twice) and those are my good points!!! LOL But, liar, nope, troll, nope. Those are on the ones that said it. So I get to use it as joke material.
Don’t make fun of me unless you are ready to laugh about it later.

BTW, I really feel what Jason has done is a big improvement in the real convoys and single ships and is perfect for RUB. Mine is a compromise for more play.
No offense but the 20/20 has the same faulty stock convoys that original has.
Wulfmann

[jasonb885]

Beery, I really know that is true. And I do not feel bad except I know Jason will but I will want to laugh about it.
...


Sorry, but you were starting to sound like a shill or something.

Read my latest post and tell me you honestly believe all this is just an innocent mistake.

I'd agree it's a foul up. A bunch of small time losers thought they'd enhance their lame payware mod and screwed up the PR. Yes, I'll buy that. But honest mistake? Not giving them an opportunity to repent?

Heh, please.

[wabos43]

Jason, just tried out the improved convoys mod and its a definate improvement IMHO, the convoys do seem to approach historical reality. Do you have any plans to add Panama to the roster?

[jasonb885]

Jason, just tried out the improved convoys mod and its a definate improvement IMHO, the convoys do seem to approach historical reality. Do you have any plans to add Panama to the roster?

I hadn't thought much about it.

I'd need to go through all the data again and see where I didn't add Panama and ensure it's there. That would require a lot of re-researching. And of course, someone would need to 'clone' a country and update the appropriate files ao a new Panama nation can exist, complete with a flag graphic. Few enough convoys didn't include Panama that I consider it a minor issue.

So, no, I wouldn't expect to see that anytime soon.

Good idea though.

[wabos43]

Jason, just tried out the improved convoys mod and its a definate improvement IMHO, the convoys do seem to approach historical reality. Do you have any plans to add Panama to the roster?

I hadn't thought much about it.

I'd need to go through all the data again and see where I didn't add Panama and ensure it's there. That would require a lot of re-researching. And of course, someone would need to 'clone' a country and update the appropriate files ao a new Panama nation can exist, complete with a flag graphic. Few enough convoys didn't include Panama that I consider it a minor issue.

So, no, I wouldn't expect to see that anytime soon.

Good idea though.


Yeah I was wondering because I used the Nationality mod which gives more flags to create a Panama merchant fleet as well as Yugoslavia and Ireland. I also updated the side list to correspond to the entry date of Panama and Yugoslavia entering the war. Convoy composition can be a bit sketchy at times but from my understanding:

HX and SC convoys had a reasonable number of Panamanian ships from late 1941 onwards.

ONS and ON covoys had small numbers of Yugoslavian merchantmen, enough to warrant inclusion.

SC, HX convoys had some ships from the Republic of Ireland, very few, but it would be interesting to include them.


Anyway, the point is I've made up the Rosters for these nations, so if you'd like them I can send them to you. I assume you can add them to the composition of the convoys through editing the campaign file, I dont know how to do this but I could try if someone could give me some pointers how.

[wabos43]

See the following is possible with the Nationality mod by Sergbuto:


http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/2954/sh3img2872005172452296bmp1nk.th.jpg (http://img241.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sh3img2872005172452296bmp1nk.jpg)


and Panama

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/20/sh3img287200517240140bmp2rn.th.jpg (http://img109.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sh3img287200517240140bmp2rn.jpg)


[/img]

[jasonb885]

Interesting.

Feel free to send me the files and I'll give it some thoughtful consideration.

:up:

[jasonb885]

New version up.

I fixed the liberty ship adoption curve. Previously for late war years you'd find liberty ships, but in an incorrect quantity or not at all.

I added KX (from late 42 on) and UGS (also late 42 on).

[joea]

Great I was just going to give you a report for the newest version and you put another one up! :lol:

Anyway, patrol, U-100 VIIB class, Feburary 1941. Sent to AM14 but ran out of trops before I got there. SW of Ireland got a radio report of a large convoy and as I was by chance in a good position to intercept ahead of it so changed course. Ran into a lone C2 and sank it. Found the huge convoy (was on the surface and manged to stay ahead what a thrill to here "schiff ....whatever the german word is spotted" hit 2 C3s but they didn't go down...decided not to dwadle and headed north then ran into another C2 and sank it! BTW I had sent a contact report which was acknowleged.

On course nortyh I got word of a slow convoy heading SSE but ignored it....then noticed time accelaration was realllllly slow. Not sure if this was the same one but on a moonlit night with choppy seas ran into a HUGE convoy...actually medium speed and heading east. The calls of ship spotted didn't stop....I stopped engines and drifted...then would move ahead slowly, decks awash esp. when I spotted a J class DD... :huh: one singel one ahead of the convoy. Another thrill as he was about 1500 M but did not see me I followed him with my binos as my number two came up to install the UZO. Ok I cheated a bit with next ship view to see how many and what type of ships there were....saw a few Swedish ships too...but little buggers. Focused on a T3 (Brit) and a C3 and let loose 4 trops...then turned around and let loose my stern trop...sent a contact report about this time. Turned west as I was now very low on trops (2 left, ok I wasted a few on the first convoy) and realised I was coming very close to some ships...500M from a C3 and "we've been spotted" star shells and then "we're under attack" alaaarm!. Then stopped at 50 m went silent incompetent escorst could not find me....in the meantime out of 5 trops 3 hits. as the convoy passed up to periscope depth and saw a trailing corvette loinging around ... and the croppled T3... lined up for the coup de grace (and we didn't see guys jump off ;) ) and just as we fired the vette cam in for a run...again crash dive and we managed to evade.


Came to the surface and sent off our report (thanks to Irishred had intercepted traffic from our comrades) then proceeded to AM14 with one torpedo left. Here we did our 24 hours and this time by chance spotted a coastal merchant and put our deck gun to good use.

Fantastic patrol. No single ship contacts :up: Found the single coastie by chance. About the 2 C2s, are there any as single ships or does the game recognise stragglers. The first one had to come from another convoy as it was ahead of the first convoy I attacked. Otherwise good job. :rock:

[Syxx_Killer]

* Removed tugs, unarmed trawlers, and small coastal merchants, for now at least

Does that mean that the little boats patrolling enemy harbors are now gone? I liked seeing them. :lol:

[CCIP]

* Removed tugs, unarmed trawlers, and small coastal merchants, for now at least

Does that mean that the little boats patrolling enemy harbors are now gone? I liked seeing them. :lol:

Nah, these guys should be in the scripted layer, so I guess they'd be unaffected.

[jasonb885]

* Removed tugs, unarmed trawlers, and small coastal merchants, for now at least

Does that mean that the little boats patrolling enemy harbors are now gone? I liked seeing them. :lol:

Scripted layer. You'll still see them.

:up:

[vois2]

The detail and complexity here is just amazing, jasonb.
I certainly hope version 07-29 is included in Beery's next release of RuB.
I think the thread title here needs to be corrected to 7-29 instead of 7-24.
Thanks!

[jasonb885]

The detail and complexity here is just amazing, jasonb.
I certainly hope version 07-29 is included in Beery's next release of RuB.
I think the thread title here needs to be corrected to 7-29 instead of 7-24.
Thanks!

Yes, it ought to be.

Thanks!

:up:

[Beery]

It's in. :up:

[vois2]

It's in [RuB 1.43]. :up:

SUHWEEEEHEEEEET !!! Thanks, Beery.

[The Avon Lady]

Jason, could you please update the thread's opening post and inform people that the recent WinRAR versions handle 7Z files seamlessly.

WinRAR can be downloaded from http://www.rarlabs.com/.

[jasonb885]

Jason, could you please update the thread's opening post and inform people that the recent WinRAR versions handle 7Z files seamlessly.

WinRAR can be downloaded from http://www.rarlabs.com/.

Yes, but is WinRAR free? I know it's not Open Source (tm).

[The Avon Lady]

Jason, could you please update the thread's opening post and inform people that the recent WinRAR versions handle 7Z files seamlessly.

WinRAR can be downloaded from http://www.rarlabs.com/.

Yes, but is WinRAR free? I know it's not Open Source (tm).
After 30 days a popup reminder shows but it keeps on ticking.

[jasonb885]

...
After 30 days a popup reminder shows but it keeps on ticking.

That's what I figured. That's why I was advocating 7Zip. (But then I never compress files under Windows. I use Linux 99% of the time, along with gzip and bzip2.)

To each his own, though. I updated the OP accordingly.

:up:

[jasonb885]

Bump for latest version of UnRealUboat, which includes additional fixes for the MapUpdates reversion. (Still missing icons for aircraft, but that only effects you if you're running with God's Eye on.)

Everything else is the same as for UnRealUBoat 1.42.

:up:

[vois2]

I think that from your UnReal mod, I would like to insert the original Campaign_SCR file, so as to avoid friendly ships in port when navigating out of port. But will replacing that file change any other aspect of the RuB 1.43 game? Anything else in RuB 1.43's Campaign_SCR different from the original -- other than these friendly harbor units? thanks in advance.

[jasonb885]

I think that from your UnReal mod, I would like to insert the original Campaign_SCR file, so as to avoid friendly ships in port when navigating out of port. But will replacing that file change any other aspect of the RuB 1.43 game? Anything else in RuB 1.43's Campaign_SCR different from the original -- other than these friendly harbor units? thanks in advance.

If you use the stock SCR, you lose all Ops mod additions to the SCR layer, including some historical scenarios and whatever else they added.

I don't know if any of the harbor traffic stuff is in Ops yet. I found some of the mine fields to be somewhat in my way, though, so I'll probably continue to trash it, even at the expense of the Ops SCR stuff.

Personal preference I guess.

:up:

[Gizzmoe]

Bump for latest version of UnRealUboat

Thanks! :up:

[shipkiller]

Jason,

Can the unrealboat be used with the 8k visibility workaround and/or Rubuni’s mods?

Just like you, I have my own version of the "right" setup.

I would start with the 1.4b stock version.

Add Beerys mod.

Use your mod to "subtract" from beerys mod.

Add the 20k visibility mod.

Add Rubini's harbor traffic mod.

Add CCIP's camera and 30 second gun mods.

Add back the orange marker.

Are you aware of any inherent conflicts in doing this?

[caspofungin]

forgive me for what may be a dumb question, but is your RND file the same one used in the Ops mod? ie by installing the new version of improved convoys, will we lose anything the ops mod has given us?

Plus, thanks very much to you and the other mods for your efforts -- we all know it's a lot of work -- it's appreciated :up:

[CCIP]

At the present moment, the current Improved Convoys IS the Ops RND file :)

No, IC is fully integrated into the Ops project :up:

[jasonb885]

forgive me for what may be a dumb question, but is your RND file the same one used in the Ops mod? ie by installing the new version of improved convoys, will we lose anything the ops mod has given us?

Plus, thanks very much to you and the other mods for your efforts -- we all know it's a lot of work -- it's appreciated :up:

At the moment, the latest version of RuB has the latest version of Ops which has the latest version of IC.

Since I only modify the RND layer itself and add modify some existing nations rosters (and add functional C Class DD), you should be able to install newer versions of IC over RuB1.43 without any problems.

:up:

[jasonb885]

Bump for latest version of UnRealUboat

Thanks! :up:

Just fixed the Selection.tga to be the original. Also included a modified Maps.cfg so the 3KBearing mod will work to its fullest if you choose to install it.

:up:

[jasonb885]

Bump for the im-bored-on-sunday release.

I included CCIP's zig zag convoys. He redid _all_ the convoy routes so they're unpredictable!

I also messed with the task forces. They should be in columns of three with fewer battleships, more anti-aircraft cruisers, and the same quantity of destroyers. SH3 doesn't seem to always (ever?) place the battleships / CVs intelligently in the middle of the three columns, so sometimes kills may be a bit easier. Still less silly than a single column of 3 battleships with only fleet destroyers.

I changed the convoy contact reports to 60% or less in response to reports that convoys are reported substantially too often. At least, I think that's why I did that. I don't really remember why now.

Anyway, download if you want.

:up:

[CCIP]

Oh, I want :up:

The taskforces sound neat enough; should be cool as long as it doesn't translate into easy kills. We could definitely use some of these guys.

[gdogghenrikson]

Downloading now

and Good job on previous version. keep up the good work

[joea]

Cool :cool:

[CCIP]

Oh yea, jason -

Are my new coastal convoys included too, and have you looked into their composition at all? I think Observer was planning to dig up some info on them, but he's been busy with writing his helper programs lately...

***

I think you should find my sneaky little route mod as actually making a big difference in terms of catching convoys, especially in the usual hunting areas. You try to chase those guys down in AM now :arrgh!:

[Observer]

I think Observer was planning to dig up some info on them, but he's been busy with writing his helper programs lately...

Indeed. This thing has turned into a bit of a monster. KTB/Log reader/writer are coming along, but I'm having trouble with the fixing dinner and washing windows parts. :-?

I've been a bit out of it of late. Refresh my memory on what you were looking for...

[CCIP]

Data on British coastal convoys, along with HN/ON norwegian ones.
I put up a list of the coastal convoys from which to gather the data for my 6 generalized routes (each split into 3 different periods) in one of my two convoy-rerouting threads in the closed mod forum. Check them there if you have time. :)

[Observer]

A quick look shows it's not worth a chart since there's not much data on any of the routes. When looked at as a whole, about the only conclusion you can draw is 25% should be small/tramp steamers, 50% should be medium merchants and 25% should be large merchants. Can't really do a breakdown by nationality since there's not enough data points. In those situations it seems reasonable they should be mostly British and Nowegian.

You might mix up some of the convoys a bit. EN and FS seem wieghted to the small end (small merchants and tramp steamers) while BTC/TBC and BB are look more like the split above.

It's not much, but there's not much data. This seems to be true from '42 to '45. I didn't see much for '39 to '41, though that's not much of a surprise to me.

[jasonb885]

Oh yea, jason -

Are my new coastal convoys included too, and have you looked into their composition at all? I think Observer was planning to dig up some info on them, but he's been busy with writing his helper programs lately...
....

Oops.

I forgot to download your lastest copy after our last discussion about my downloading the wrong latest copy. This release does not include the coastal convoys to my knowledge.

Oops.

Next time, I hope.

:up:

[CCIP]

Not a problem. I'd rather you looked over their composition first, anyway :)

[Woof1701]

@Jason

Thanks very much for that update. Did you already get around to working on the escorts skill considering the discussion we had lately?

[jasonb885]

@Jason

Thanks very much for that update. Did you already get around to working on the escorts skill considering the discussion we had lately?

Actually these files predate that discussion by a week.

I haven't had any time to mess with things recently.

[Woof1701]

Actually these files predate that discussion by a week.

I haven't had any time to mess with things recently.

Ah ok. Thanks for the quick answer. I'll have a look for the new unpredictable convoys. :)

[antidotos]

Hi all,
well I m not sure it is the best place to post but I think Jason may have an idea (or CCIP ?). I use RUb1.43 (and the included stock IC).
1) is there a newer version for Improved Convoys ?
2) now something I noticed in my last mission with a type II in october 1939,
I encountered twice a Polish merchant in the middle of the north sea (actually was heading towards Britain coming out of the skagerrak), first I thought it was again a Norwegian coastal trader but i decided to investigate and was rewarded (sort of : I spent 5 torpedoes for just one hit, the first which turned out to be lethal hours later, I was informed of this by my omniscient NO....) after that I went on to my assigned position (to get points....) and hastily returned and.... practically on the same heading (but on a more northerly position) I met another Pole....(I carefully avoided confrontation this time, the previous one had attempted two ramming actions).
I think this is one too much, Poland no longer had any port in October, one casual merchantman is acceptable but a regular sealane Baltic-UK is not possible. I do not know if this comes from the stock game or if this can be addressed in the various mods (IC or and Ops) ?
More generally speaking is someone trying to work on "defeated countries" activity ?

[CCIP]

1) Yes. That's what Jason put out the other day. Download from 1st page :)

2) Oh, trust me, that's by far not the worst problem with defeated traffic. Try Norwegian C3's in Skagerrak in summer 1941 :roll:

That's something which is kind of outside the scope of the mod. It could be fairly easily tweaked by looking up defeated nations' RND groups and their entry dates, but I'd rather it be done through just browsing the RND file instead of trying to look for them in the editor. So, if someone wants to take that on... that'd be good :hmm:

[jaxa]

antidotos - many Polish merchants after German invasion were in foreign ports and survived. Polish trade fleet serves for transport duty in Atlantic convoys and Polish light cruisers, destroyers and submarines fight with German.

[Happy Times]

http://www.warsailors.com/convoys/index.html I dont know Jason if you allready have seen this page but i put it here anyway.Seems that some of those had close to 20-30% of ships non uk/us origin.Nationalietes i havent seen in sh3 included Poland,Belgium,Panama,Yuogoslavia and different Baltic states.I know IC is a work in process(so is this website also) but thougt id ask do you have plans concerning the nationalities?

[jasonb885]

http://www.warsailors.com/convoys/index.html I dont know Jason if you allready have seen this page but i put it here anyway.Seems that some of those had close to 20-30% of ships non uk/us origin.Nationalietes i havent seen in sh3 included Poland,Belgium,Panama,Yuogoslavia and different Baltic states.I know IC is a work in process(so is this website also) but thougt id ask do you have plans concerning the nationalities?

I don't have any figures and I'm too lazy to guess at the correct proportions for Baltic nations. Poland had too limited a role to show up in the statistics Observer did for IC and the tonnage mod for SH3 Commander to have much information on Poland, so I didn't include it.

I could include Panama, but someone would have to give me figures. I'm too lazy to guess. I've looked at warsailors and many other sites, but after two and a half months the motivation isn't there. IC is pretty close to complete.

Seriously, I just can't think of much to add.

I did the nationalities because it seemed reasonable, but personally I just fire away. I don't bother with the flags and rarely care what nation's ship I've hit.

The size and ship type composition was important, but that's now complete. The speed thing was important and I guessed when historical information wasn't available. CCIP dealt with the lack of intelligent convoy movement. I am still working on ensuring the escort screen is reasonable, but not too easy or too hard. That's tough. I setup what I think is a reasonable single merchant ship reduction. It can be tweaked.

I don't know that I want to tackle every issue in the RND layer, though. Rogue single merchants from defeated nations isn't really an issue, since the reduction mod makes single merchant traffic irrelevant after '40 anyway.

I'd create a specific RND entry for each convoy route for each year, but the only substantial changes will be escorts and so little is available on historical composition, combined with such a limited game engine, I couldn't make the changes visible enough for me to feel it warrants the effort.

I'd add Panama to Atlantic convoys where historically accurate, but only if someone will provide me actual figures and not just links to Web sites where I have to perform my own research. I just don't have the time anymore.

So, unless anyone has anything else that seems fairly serious that I missed, there isn't much left I intend to contribute. I'm going to attempt another rebalance of escorts after I've actually played it some now that I have a faster rig, but other than that, I don't have much planned.

I still haven't done most of the Med convoys or AS, but nearly no one plays there, so I don't see much point. (Especially since I don't think _I_ will ever play in those places.)

[CCIP]

Heh, I wouldn't worry though. In fact it will be a good thing when IC is complete and final, since I'm sure that'll better open it up as a base for further possible RND edits by others who are willing while still enjoying the IC features.

I think it's easy to realize that, well, there's always gonna be enough small things to mod in the campaign - but it's the big ones, which the IC mainly addresses, that are really worth the effort.

Anyway... Jason has the right idea here. With stuff like tweaking more minor nations' traffic, it's less an issue of ability and more an issue of interest. Anyone interested in actually doing this? It's pretty straightforward, really, and I think it'd be easily possible to coordinate those sorts of changes with IC, ops, and so forth :hmm:

[antidotos]

Jaxa, I know Polish ships fought well during the battle of the Atlantic, What I said was that it would have been suicidal for Polish merchantmen to remain in the Baltic after September, I think they exited as soon as they got an opportunity.
Thanks CCIP and Jason for the hard work and the clarifications.
Personally I would be interested in a better handling of minor and defeated powers, only problem I m really bad at hex editing....Now if there is a handy tool somewhere....

[jasonb885]

Jaxa, I know Polish ships fought well during the battle of the Atlantic, What I said was that it would have been suicidal for Polish merchantmen to remain in the Baltic after September, I think they exited as soon as they got an opportunity.
Thanks CCIP and Jason for the hard work and the clarifications.
Personally I would be interested in a better handling of minor and defeated powers, only problem I m really bad at hex editing....Now if there is a handy tool somewhere....

It's all text based processing, fortunately.

However, any mistakes and you end up with crashes, sometimes at load time, sometimes at encounter time. Depends on the type of error.

Or you can use the editor. Most of the groups have the nation in the name of the group. So you can find the 'PolishCoastalTraffic39' or whatever and adjust the exit date for it, if you want.

I just don't have the time to mess with it.

I passed up playing SH3 for BF2 Demo again last night. Sigh. I guess I am just bored. Or maybe I just don't like my type IIA.

[jaxa]

antidotos - you have absolutely right

[jaxa]

antidotos - you have absolutely right

[antidotos]

Thanks Jason,
I will plough into this local traffic thing.....
what is BF2 ?

[LukeFF]

what is BF2 ?

Battlefield 2, the sequel to Battlefield 1942.

[antidotos]

Thanks Luke for BF2, eh....
Actually I do not like this sort of game so I do not really know their acronyms.

[Gammel]

I spotted this poor souls on oct, 22 1940. Grid DT93
Convoy is unarmed and has no escort ships.
Is this correct? Why they sail as a convoy makes no sence to me.

Here are screenshots (brighness adjusted for better visibility here in forum, it was late evening)

http://img334.imageshack.us/img334/5036/firstship7wi.jpg
http://img334.imageshack.us/img334/6880/lastship4xi.jpg
http://img334.imageshack.us/img334/5618/map6pc.th.jpg (http://img334.imageshack.us/my.php?image=map6pc.jpg)

[antidotos]

I wouldn't want to say something stupid but historically I think some fast convoys were not directly escorted, I m practically sure of this in the Med with French ships (liners with troops), the case for formal Atlantic convoy is murkier.

[Gammel]

they where slow too, 7 knots. :-j

(btw, 50k tons down so far, 2 eals left, out of gun ammo.)
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8742/bumm3mh.jpg

[CCIP]

Had a nice experience with it today. Off the coast of Spain, I got word of both a convoy heading south, and a Taskforce (21kt) heading up from Gibraltar. I tried to catch the Task force, but it sailed straight through my sector without me ever managing to catch it. On the other hand, I caught the convoy, attacked it twice... but they proved darn slippery, to the point where I actually lost them and gave up after 2 days. I wait for them in CG17, they're in CG18. I'm looking in CG42, they're in 41.

So it looks to be working just as I hoped - both with TF's not being easy meat, and with the convoys now being real slippery fish. :up:

[Waldmensch]

where i can download the new version from 28.08. ?
I cant see a downloadlink. :doh:

[gdogghenrikson]

www.U-boot.realsimulation.com

[Syxx_Killer]

I was wondering, is there a version of the mod with the stock game's level of merchant traffic encounters? Would it be an easy change to do? What would be involved (maybe I could do it if any hex editing were relatively simple :oops: )? I'm just not to keen on staring at a blank map screen for long periods on end. I know, have I no shame. :oops:

[oRGy]

I'm playing with Rub 1.43 and the latest improved convoys, and finding single merchant traffic has been laughably easy for me.

Of course, the visibility mod helps.

:sunny:

[jasonb885]

I'm playing with Rub 1.43 and the latest improved convoys, and finding single merchant traffic has been laughably easy for me.

Of course, the visibility mod helps.

:sunny:

Should be a lot in '39 and '40 and nearly none by the end of '41.

Where are you finding them?

[jasonb885]

I was wondering, is there a version of the mod with the stock game's level of merchant traffic encounters? Would it be an easy change to do? What would be involved (maybe I could do it if any hex editing were relatively simple :oops: )? I'm just not to keen on staring at a blank map screen for long periods on end. I know, have I no shame. :oops:

When? In '41 and beyond you'll only find merchants on the US coast, until end of '42, and then no merchants except some in the Med.

I didn't make the TwentyMod modifications as easy to change, so I'd need to go through some code and changes values for some of the different GroupName entries for the different groups. But you should be seeing plenty of traffic in '39 and '40. I did about a half dozen test patrols in '39 and '40 to verify I was receiving enough contact reports, but not too many.

If it's in '39 or '40, I'll have to investigate.

[jasonb885]

Thanks Jason,
I will plough into this local traffic thing.....
what is BF2 ?

My demise.

Actually, it gets kind of boring after awhile. Cap, defend, repel, recap, and so on. I guess if I buy the actual game I can play on ranked servers and unlock better weapons or whatever, but I'm not sure I care enough to spend $50 on the game. Maybe in another six months when it's less than $40, but not until then...

[jasonb885]

where i can download the new version from 28.08. ?
I cant see a downloadlink. :doh:

Check out the OP (original post). The latest version is 20050821 actually. I bumped the thread because there's a 20050828 version of UnRealUBoat probably. It's been so long I don't actually remember, but the latest version is definitely linked in the OP for both IC and UnRealUBoat.

:up:

[jasonb885]

Had a nice experience with it today. Off the coast of Spain, I got word of both a convoy heading south, and a Taskforce (21kt) heading up from Gibraltar. I tried to catch the Task force, but it sailed straight through my sector without me ever managing to catch it. On the other hand, I caught the convoy, attacked it twice... but they proved darn slippery, to the point where I actually lost them and gave up after 2 days. I wait for them in CG17, they're in CG18. I'm looking in CG42, they're in 41.

So it looks to be working just as I hoped - both with TF's not being easy meat, and with the convoys now being real slippery fish. :up:

Sounds entertaining. I haven't had a chance to play (bad BF2 bad) since before 20050821, but I am pleased to see the contact reports for the TFs are working. They were actually enabled all along I think, but the time between contacts was so great that you'd basically never get a report, they move too fast.

It looks like you're suffering from your WP changes. Now it's not so easy to find those convoys. Very nice work.

:up: