Hi mate!

Thanks again by this great mod!

Two questions:
-If I use V15A and also the 120x fix - will my time (just an example) display now 4:00 instead 2:00 (as in current 60x)?:hmmm:

-Can I apply the V15A over an already coursed sh3.exe with V01 ?

first of all i want to congratulate you H.Sie not for this specific mod (which i still trying to create following your instructions) but becuase you are opening a NEW AGE to sh3's modding !

a modding that is definetely needed if we want to start having a simulator at last.of course this is only a start but i can't see a better start than this !!:up:

is it valid now to start thinking (..hoping ) that the AI would become 'clever' at future ?? :hmmm::yeah:

now, i can't create this .exe following your instructions becuase i have win 7 (x64) and the dos box doesn't stay open if i,for example, run the fciv.exe

i tried also, as someone allready posted , to use the dos box through acessories but what exactly do i have to type in there in order to continue the procedure ? you said something about ''cd'' but nothing happens....

can someone give instructions of the procedure on win 7 ?

bye

@Rubini: The repair time display now works fine for all factors: 60 or 120 or whatever. But I would not suggest to choose a factor above 120. Repair times are displayed only in 1 hour steps.

the higher you choose the factor, the more often you see a funny effect that repair times rise during repair. this is, because the crew fatigues faster than repair progresses, so that as the result the calculated repair times rise. but I don't care because I will play without fatigue

ATM you always have to use the unpatched non-starforce sh3.exe (checksum see above) as the basis for patching. no other version can be used. otherwise you'll shred your executable. so always make a backup copy.

h.sie

@Makman: Thanks, mate.

In theory, all is possible now.

But in reality, I have to restrict on "easy-to-fix-bugs" like the repair times which could be fixed using a simple floating-point division (besides about 20 other assembler commands to shift, save and restore CPU registers).

Without the SDK, you see a huge amount (some gigabytes) of bytes when you look at the dynamically allocated memory of sh3.exe without knowing the meaning of that all. no names, no labels, nothing. Only Hex values from 0 to F.

4F09 3B44 1200 FF0A 4F09 6571 8237 ABDD 6571 8237 ABDD 3B44 1200
FF0A 6571 8237 ABDD 1200 FF0A 4F09 6571 8237 ABDD 6571 8237 ABDD
3B44 1200 FF0A 6571 8237 ABDD 4F09 3B44 1200 FF0A 4F09 6571 8237
ABDD 6571 8237 ABDD 3B44 1200 FF0A 6571 8237 ABDD 1200 FF0A 4F09
6571 8237 ABDD 6571 8237 ABDD 3B44 1200 FF0A 6571 8237 ABDD.

(shown are about 200 bytes. sh3 has about 1000000000 bytes in memory)

So first of all you have to identify and search for the variables you need. Therefore you have to make some assumptions. If these assumptions are wrong, you'll fail. E.g. trying to fix the repair times, I failed for weeks because, I always thought there were some Hitpoint-counter coded in Integer format responsible for damage and repair times. But short before giving up, I made the assumption, that the damage is coded in "float" format and is 0,0 if no damage and 1,0 if destroyed. And I furtheron hoped that they decrease during repairs and keep constant when silent running and so on. knowing this, "only" some tenthousands of bytes, which behave this way, remain so you have to make your search better, and so on and on and on until only one variable remains, which hopefully is the variable you searched for. that search and identification process can take much time, days, weeks, sometimes without any success, because maybe your starting assumption was wrong.

after identifying your variable which contains the damage, you have to search for the assembler routines which modify the damage. these routines have to be fixed accordingly. it is very hard (for me) to understand compiler-generated assembler code without any comments.

Long story short: Easy fixes can maybe be done in a hard job. But complex things like AI, wolfpacks and other additions are impossible (for me), because too many variables are involved and interdependencies not understood.

sorry for damping down your euphoria ("NEW AGE" and so on).
but even if I fail to fix other bugs in the future,
these new repair times combined with the stock flooding behaviour,
make this game very much playable for me now.
and I really look forward to start to play a career for the first time.

h.sie

@Makman:

Let's say you open command prompt and current directory is

C:\Users\Makman

And let's say your working directory (for patching) is in a different directory on a different drive or partition, e.g.

E:\tmp

So first change to drive E: by typing

C:\Users\Makman> E:

and hit "Enter". Then you see

E:>

Now change to tmp Directory by typing

E:> cd tmp

That's all. You'll see

E:\tmp>

Now you are in your tmp. working directory and can start with the course as described.

h.sie

That was only an assumption...
There're four different patch versions to v1.4b for the different releases:

http://patches.ubi.com/silent_hunter_3/

Maybe you're able to extract the included sh3.exes to confirm my assumption...

It's hard to find accurate numbers. I guess because it depends a lot on the crew's activities/state(resting, working, panicking,...). Here are some findings:

1. Buchheim writes in one of his books: '... konnte gut 3 Tage getaucht bleiben'.

2. http://www.uboatarchive.net/CumulativeEdition.htm

'...Submerged endurance: 4 days (B3) ' for VIIC/42

I guess there would be no big difference between VIIC/42 and standard VIIC.

3. http://www.uboatarchive.net/DesignSt...ypeIXC-S38.htm

'... The air purification and oxygen renewal systems are based on the requirements of 44 men during 72 hours total submergence...'

I guess the last point is the strongest indication. It's for a IXC, but I guess the requirements for a VIIC were the same.

For the XXI:

http://www.uboatarchive.net/DesignSt...ypeXXI-S38.htm

'Because of the longer submergence periods permitted through the use of the larger battery and schnorchel operation, additional capacity was built into the oxygen and CO2 removal systems. The capacity is based on the requirement of 50 men during 150 hours of use.' It furthermore says that a similar system was installed on the IXD2.

IIRC, Evan82 once wrote that the XXI in game can stay submerged longer than the VIIC and IX, but also not long enough.

Cheers, LGN1

great !! thank you H.Sie ...all worked now ! :up:

unfortunatelly the check sum shows a different sum for my .exe ( it is the 'cracked' one ...i think it was called noDVD..etc from ubi-forum ,....its date is: 16/9/2005 12:45) so i think this is the cuase of not completing the procedure

anyway...thank you very much for the tips !:up:

Hi makman,

you're welcome.

if you don't have the right exe, you'll have to be patient a little bit.

i will help the starforce-victims, too, but first I will finish my work on my exe.
then the transformation for starforced exe follows. i am currently thinking about how this can be done in an easy way.

h.sie

what i never understood: is the anti-starforce patch made by ubi or is it an "inofficial" one?

The noDVD patch released 2005 in www was done by a hacker named 'Reloaded'. That wasn't surely no official one...

The noDVD files which come with special low-priced releases since some years [given at disposal of licensed publishers like e.g. 'Green Pepper' or 'Purple Hills'] are the the official ones [in my opinion], probably done by UBI since I can't imagine that the Ubi developers worked with SF protected files during building and testing* SH3...

*if they ever did :rotfl2:

Hi makman,

go to your next supermarket - maybe in Greece it's like in Germany...
There you'll find tons of older non-protected low-priced [6,99 € here] PC games released by special licensed publishers like mentioned above...

I bought it for 4,99 € in the Pimpel-Market (don't remember the correct name), lying in the baragin bin directly next to the vegetables. what a career for a good subsim.

The appropriate place for the unmodded game... ;)

As privateer says, the inofficial no-starforce version is less stable than the official no-starforce version (CTDs, save game bugs,...). I strongly recommend anyone who wants to play the game to buy the official version. It's really not expensive. For the price of SH5 you can even get several copies of SH3 without starforce and permanent internet connection :D

@h.sie: Did you figure out how to change the CO2? I guess a submerged endurance of 72 hours for the type VII and IX and twice the time for the XXI would be fine. (Probably the type II and IXD2 then also have 72 hours :-?).

Cheers, LGN1