h.sie,

The monologue is fascinating reading and I think there are a lot of people waiting to see how your mod pans out.

Thank you for putting so much time and effort into this mod, and I can't wait to give it a go. :yeah:

@WB: Thanks. Good to know there is some interest. Sometimes I fear to spam this forum.


@ALL: Removing the searchlight nodes does not work:
-> CTD when loading a savegame and .dat file changed.

So the only solution I can offer is the "move-searchlight-nodes-out-of-visible-range" method which unfortunately conflicts with the exernal camera as mentioned before. I don't mind about that, because I plan to play 100% realism of course without external camera.

But what about YOU (the reader of this post): Would you abstain from the external camera in order to have randomized searchlights?

EDIT: External camera itself works, but not the "," and "." key to change to the next/previous unit.

Thanks,
h.sie

Hi H.....if I were you I'd create the mod to your liking and then the community have an option to consider http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

I think the next, previous unit in the external cam is a small loss compared to the greater gain of your Mod.
+1 for no searchlights

Thanks guys. So I know it's worth the effort.

During testing I found a strange SH3 bug. I first thought it was related with my mod, but it isn't. It also appears without my mod.

I made a Single Mission for testing purposes with my Uboat in the middle of a convoy consisting of 6 different merchant ships. Distance to the ships approx. 1000m. Dark night.

Before I start to attack the ships with the Deckgun, I save the game.

1) Now I continue the game and attack them. Behaviour of the ships as expected: The sensor indicator gets red, ships use searchlights and attack back. Uboat sinks soon after some hits.

2) But when I load and continue the previously saved game, then after attacking them the sensor indicator keeps green. Ships don't use their searchlights, only one ship shoots back one or two times. Then silence. Nothing else. A completely different situation.

Now I know why one should not save / reload when enemy ships are in visible range (and even more when there is a battle running.)

But that makes testing my mod harder.

EDIT: When saving/reloading while the convoy is out of visible range, all works perfectly and as expected, even if the searchlights are randomized after the save and before the reload. This is what I urgenty needed to assure.

I have a similar testing mission but it's set up slightly differently. I get the convoy to start 50 km away from me directly due South and set the convoy to sail North. When the game loads I sail South towards them. This allows me to see whether there is a problem in the _SCR file (CTD on load), a problem with spawning the ship (they spawn around 30km from your location) or a problem with the ship itself (if there are buoyancy issues the ship tends to lag behind, if there are other issues it may sit at the original start point etc.).

Testing
 

Testing any mod takes endless hours with little reward since if it works, nothing happens.
It also insures that you will get no feedback on the mod if it works perfectly.

Would remapping the "," and the "." keys in commands_en.cfg help avoid external camera problem?

@WB: Yes, I edited my scenario to be similar to yours. Uboat coming from north to south. Convoy from south to north. Initial distance: 40km. Now all works fine. I think the critical point is when ships begin to be rendered.

@irish: yes, it would help, but it must be done in commands_en.cfg file which is part of most GUI mods. If I put a modified commands_en.cfg into my mod, it would conflict with these GUI mods. But in spite of this it's a good idea. I could describe in the Readme, how to manually remap these keys.

h.sie

Hello Wreford_Brown,

I plan to use only core- GWX3 ship types for searchlight-randomization in order to make the mod compatible to BBW's GWX-WilhelmshafenV6 and your VonDosExtraShips Mod. But that will only work, if your mod does not replace these 17 core ship typs:

NSD, NAMM, NKSEF, NGRA_, NKBL_, NKC3, NKGN, NKLK_, NLL_, NRC_,
NSCT_, NVV, NLOL, NLST, NPTB, NPTR, NTR.

So could you please tell me whether your mod does or does not replace them? Currently I cannot download your mod from your mediafire page: "No server available"......

Thanks & greetings from
h.sie

My mod doesn't change any of these ship types.

SetKeys allows one to remap the keys with ease.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=1016

@irish: setkeys is also a good idea. by the way: the "camera out of sectors" problem with the "." and "," key only occurs for ships with the hidden (moved-up) searchlights. and those ships are a minority compared to all available ships.

I've always thought that the external cam appears to be linked to the searchlights and your testing seems to prove this theory.

Whenever I used the external cam it seemed to be further away from the ship when its searchlights were on. Either the theory is correct or it's a weird coincidence.

Hi WB,

yes, really funny. But knowing this dependency, one eventually could change the linking of the external cam to a different (undestroyble?) part of the ship. This would avoid the camera-out-of-sectors problem.

Maybe I should look into cameras.dat.....or into the .cam files of the ships, if there are some?

h.sie

It's me again. For the fine-tuning of the (time-dependent) pseudo-randomisation I need some expert help: In GRA.cfg I read:

ClassName=GRA
AppearanceDate=19380228
DisappearanceDate=19470101
DisplayName=Granville Freighter

[Unit 1]
Name=Frederick Victory
DOC=19420228
DOD=19470101

and so on until

[Unit 521]
Name=Bergen Victory
DOC=19420228
DOD=19470101

Does that mean that there will never be a GRA type in the game before 19420228 although the AppearanceDate is 19380228??

What is the difference between AppearanceDate and DOC?

Thanks, h.sie