[TEC] Controllable Surface Ships?
 

Hello All

I'm new to Silent Hunter and to Subsim.com, but so far I like what I'm seeing. This forum seems to be full of very courteous and helpfull people. Anyway I'll get to it, I've been playing SH4 for about a week now. I've done some tweaking here and there but nothing major so far.

My question to you experts is how hard would it be create a playabe surface ship on a scale of 1 to 10..

I've gone over the many of the threads that have to do with adding new ships and porting SH3 ships into SH4. I've also read some that go into detail about adding SH3 Subs to SH4. I know you guys have been asked this question many times before but I'm really serious about this.

Whether the ship can be ported in, cloned, or built from scratch I would love to make an attempt. I've been modeling in Max for about 5 years and I know I could model and skin a basic DD or Merchant. I've done some modeling for a BF2 mod and a few aircraft for FlightSimulator2004. Where I would need lots of help is the techinical things like how the interiors work, crew placement, how the damage modeling works, and things of that nature.

My end goal would be something on the scale of a light cruiser. I just want to be able to ambush a convoy at 5-10km away with some big guns. I know there are many other people on this forum that are interested in the same thing.

If we can get Subs into SH4 we can get surface ships into SH4.

About the modeling, once you have a ship in mind, a destroyer for example,you have to model the interiors for a few views, like a bridge, also an external bridge like a conning tower, then the radar and radio rooms, and gun stations. Maybe the interior of a control room from a cannon's turret. Everyone corresponding with a button in the menu. The places for sailors are adjusted through nodes as can be seen in the dat file. The behavior for the ship can be adjusted, with *.zon and *.sim files. For being playable, through the *.cfg and *.upc files. You should better start clonning a file from sh4, cause we still can't, as I think, pack *.dat files from scratch. First clone a ship, then clone the interior from a submarine taking note from the nodes in the dat file, and modifying the meshes and textures. Later hexediting to change the names in this interior file to avoid conflict with the original submarine. And finally associate the interior to the ship and adjusting the parameters with the mentioned files. Including *.cam file.

Well, that is something I thought but I have no time to try, so is better for me to have another one make the hard work. :up:
I hope somehow will be useful to you.

Thanks for the quick reply and the useful info.

I'm thinking that for testing purposes I will use a merchant to keep things as simple as possible. A question on the interiors, would it be possible to use the meshes and interiors from an existing sub temporarily?

Also I'm guessing you can only have two working guns from what I've gathered so far.. Unless it would be possible to add another menu button for extra gun positions. I read in another thread that there was a SH3 mod that slaved the second deck gun to the target of the first deck gun... Does anyone know if this would be possible in SH4? If so then you could have one main gun position and one AA gun position with all the others slaved to the same target... theoretically:hmm:

Yes, you should. The interiors are asigned to the submarine through the cfg file, and configured through the Unitparts.* files (Data\UPCData\UPCUnitsData), and the *.upc file. Note that interiors like the submarines also have cam, zon, sim, etc files to control its features.

Nop, you can have more than 2 weapons, since a sub could have the deck gun, and also more than one anti-aircraft. I've seen 3 anti-aircraft guns as much in a submarine. But as everything it depends on the amount of nodes coded within the dat file. About the mod you say, I don't know....but the gun stations are AI controlled when you're not in manual control of them. If you're are thinking in the main weapons of a Battleship, I supose the targertting sistem is linked to the UZO in the Menu folders, but I'm not sure about it. Somebody more experienced with GUI themes can answer better.

Ok thanks for the help

I'm going to start messing around and see what I can come up with. I'm sure I will be back with more questions.

Good threads for 3D stuff SH3/4 style ( and believe me there is a lot to be invented and discovered before we can do this 100%)

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ghlight=Pack3D

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ighlight=Verts

Good stuff about hexing here
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ghlight=PACK3D

There is more stuff If you search around but you will most likely need PACK3D
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ghlight=PACK3D
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ghlight=PACK3D


http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ghlight=PACK3D

This is a really cool interior mod by DivingDuck and Urfisch
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=104514


Currently there is a big problem importing back models with textures couse of problems porting TMAP data.
If you have a better tool to import stuff back and forth using 3DMAX PLEASE TELL US ;)

And welcome to SS :)

I can understand that.. This this is still a very young game. It's the same with all games, in the beginning it's all new and unknown but as time goes on the modders pick it apart and do some amazing things with it bit by bit.

Anyway, Thanks for the links I will check them out. I think I've settled on trying to get the Tyohei working as a playable surface ship. I'm still trying to understand what controls what, but I will keep trying different things out.

BTW are you the same CaptainCox from the mpcforums?

Yep the same, but that was in another life ;)