what a pain in the A*S this is
 

Found a lot of refrences for the starshell rounds but hard to track down what exactly is needed for in game reference and use. SS_Shell I think is the one I need to use making some changes here and there and testing.

Unfortunatly some of the old SHIII file's are mixed in with the new SHIV stuff so it is hard to track it all down on what needs to be changed to make this happen so it is slower going than I thought it would be.

I am pretty sure I got it set up right but now a problem
 

In the menu file it now has to be set up to display the shell's when you are in deck gun view.

Right now as most know there is a dark slot for Anti Aircraft rounds for the deck gun if there could also be a 4th slot for the Star Shell's it should be good to go with the change's I made to the other game file's.

I see there are dds images for this and that a display can be set up for 4 shells to be seen in the view to pick and chose from.

The problem is I have never ever tryed to do my own menu changes just what other people have posted.

So now we need somone good at the layout stuff of the dds files and setting them up in the menu file to actualy make this work so you can pick the round's to be loaded.

The DDS images for the sub gun's ammo is in Data/Menu/GUI/Shells

UUUMMM oh Digital_Trucker where are you when I need you!?

Right here, but a little late LOL
 

Going to take a look at it now. I'm no menu mastermind, but I'll see what I can do.

No problem take your time.
 

I just can not test the work for them unless I can access the shell's in the game. So this will be on hold till someone get's the menu changes to me I need to make.

Thanks for your time and effort Digtial_Trucker.

BTW these are all the file's I had to change just to get it half way working. Now when the menu work is done I can test it and fine tune it.

Data/Library/USSubParts both of the sim file's for the Deckgun 4 50and Deckgun 3 50 deck gun's.

Then Data/UPCData/UPCLocalization you have to make some changes in that file. UPCLocalization

Also:

Data/UPCData/UPCUinitsData have to make changes to both Amunition and Weapons

Working on it as I type
 

Graphics part is complete and now that the Falcons are done with their 2nd consecutive victory (it's a miracle!), I hope to have the menu part done soon (as in soon as I figure out the dreaded 1024x768_menu.ini). Whether it's realistic or not, I'd like to have the star shells myself for night time surface attacks:arrgh!:

BTW Digital_Trucker and I are now working together
 

To get this fixed and working for all of you. We are sharing each others work and idea's to get it fixed.

Just wanted to give you guy's a progress report.

Deck Gun screen changes made
 

Another small update. I got the changes done to the deck gun screen so that we now have selectable star shells. Just can't get them to load and fire yet. We'll keep plugging until it works.

For now, here's a little screenie showing the new shell selection

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...7-112648AM.jpg

I also took the liberty of labelling the anti-aircraft shells to avoid confusion. They are still available when they are supposed to be, so no functional loss.

Excelent now that I have a place to work from
 

I got the big Flack gun AA rounds to work on the
 

3in deck gun and the 4in deck gun just trying to figure out the star shell rounds still.

So now when it is done there will be HE AP AA and SS round's for all 3 deck gun's.

3in /50 4in/50 and 5in/25

I am looking forward to playing with star shells :up:

http://static1.filefront.com/images/...r.thumb500.jpg
http://static1.filefront.com/images/...l.thumb500.jpg

We are having a little problem with the menu file so give us some more time on this okay guy's?!

You guys rock. I know this was mostly for the other folks request, but I'll be DLing this when ya'll finish as well. I too missed the star shells...so thanks for working to make sure that my virtual captain can purloin that which is not standard issue.:arrgh!:

wow guys this looks like it will deffinately be a must for all us who like to cause mayhem in the early hours :up:

cant wait to sneak up on a convoy and fire a few Star Shells into the air and watch the chaos hehehe.

it isn't doe yet because there is something missing we havn't found yet
 

There is an ingame triger for being able to click on and use the star shells we are trying to locate and apply to the menu file. Until we find the right triger to use and set up we are stuck at the moment.

So give us a bit to figure it out seeing how many file's we have to go through to find it.

May need a decade or two to figure it out LOL
 

I've looked through everything I can find that has anything to do with guns and shells and whille the star shell appears in some places, it doesn't in others. For instance, I can't find it in any of the shells files, but it is mentioned (partially) in the menu file. The real problem is that there is a possibility that the game isn't looking to see if the shell is selected because it is not implemented and the use of the shell may be "hard not coded" (meaning that without changing the source code for the game, it won't work).

If that is the case, then the only choice is to replace the deck gun AA shells (which are late war 5" gun options) with the star shells. Even then, there may be some work to be done in the shells files (thank goodness for skwasjer's S3D, or I would just give up:damn: ).

To make a long story even longer, the ship is still afloat and the captain hasn't given the abandon ship order (yet).