[REQ] Interim cloned merchant shipping
 

The stock merchant ship list is pretty sparse, and features some glaring historical innacuracies such as Liberty ships in 1939, or USN-only Cimarron oilers. As an interim step, before modders start producing more 3D models, would it possible to use the EQP feature to clone some generic stand-ins?

I don't know much about it, but from what I can surmise, you can take exisiting 3d hulls and customize them by adding and removing funnels, superstructures, etc through these EQP files. Would it then be possible to take the Cimarron hull, fore example, and tweak the EQP files to make two or three additional types of tanker?

You can't add or remove funnels,superstructure .. etc. The eqp file is used to change what weapons a ship/plane/sub has based on the time of year, or just what they had in general. The weapons aren't part of the 3dmodel of a ship, they attach to points on the model. The only way to change the model is with 3D studio max, and i'm not the one to ask about that ;)

Not strictly true
SH4 used the eqp method to change the towers on the Colorado

[Equipment 5]
NodeName=Y01
LinkName=NBB_Colorado_tower
StartDate=19380101
EndDate=19420931

[Equipment 6]
NodeName=Y01
LinkName=NBB_Colorado_tower_late
StartDate=19421001
EndDate=19491231

So is possible in SH5 I guess

In a case like that then the main model wouldn't have the tower modeled into it, and it would act just like a weapon point or radar point. I haven't found any ships in sh5 that have that same possibility. About the best a person could do without changing the 3d model is to have something appear where one of the guns would normally be, tho I tried to do this and the game just crashed.

Did you rename the node to a Y node ?
Model needs the Y node to attach those parts

Yes you are correct in that the SH5 units have funnels etc all modelled in
And would take an editor such as Goblin to remodel those
But is doable

No mileage in just cloning what we have
Ther are already 4 units using the Liberty model :stare:

I can see the OPs point
There isnt enough variety in units
Where are the fishing vessels ?
Smallest unit for merchants is 1850 then next is over 4000 then all over 6700

Not to mention the age old issue of Germany having allied units - Liberty errrm ok
As the point of the game is to sink ships you would have thought there would have been a decent mix on release
But alas again
NO

Yeh I know what you mean with there not being enough variety. In doing my plane mod I found out there aren't very many different planes. Most just use the same model but give different stats or loadout. But for me to add more I need all new models for more planes. Maybe I can pilfer some from sh3/4 :)

Agree 100% - this is probably one of the worst stock merchant selections for any game in the SH series. When I last played I almost sank a liberty ship before I realized that it was operating under the Nazi flag - utterly ludicrous. All in all, a VERY slapdash effort IMHO. Sergbuto asked the powers-that-be some pointed questions about why they changed the 3d model format (thus making it difficult to import SH3/SH4/modded vessels) - to my knowledge he didn't get a straight answer.

DLC :hmmm:

Yeah, it's so bad that I was going to make anything remotely resembling a merchant ship into a ad hoc merchant ship by adding .cfgs to the Brit SEA roster folder....but they've already done that.

Conspiracy Theory?!

I don't know where sergbutto asked but there was no intention to make SH3/4 modded vessels hard to import. The change to .gr2 format is just a problem of technology advance that we needed. We had TONS of issues with the old format and exporter.

Adding new ships should be easier - work in a modelling tool as its normal instead of hacking existing ships. This was one of the things we aimed - to allow people to freely add new ships/objects.

Its just that people are used to having this or that ship and of course if they worked, it would have been great.

Agree that the merchants selection is poor, and that is partly my fault.

Ok so you needed to advance technology due to problems with the old system
Can see that

Now there lies part of the problem
As you know modders do stuff in their own time and modding doesnt come quick
A lack of 3d ship builders has always been a PITA
And some form of tutorial\instructions on how to import using the new system would have been a good idea
Cos you just know we all want more merchants yesterday :O:

Have to say I like your honesty
Of course a lot of us think new units will become available in a DLC
May be the course or may be you ran out of time :hmmm:

Appreciate the answers tho

To do it with the eqp file, the objects you'd wish to move need to already be known so you can place them.

You can also make a real clone, and move the bits around—far easier in SH4 with S3D, open ship, move stuff, save ship. Done, trivially. Dunno about SH5.

If SH5 also reads dats, you could perhaps add some SH4 ships that you have altered easily with S3D?

(seems possible given dan's post, below. S3D is your friend, you can bang out all kinds of goodness in that case).

I wonder how the AOTD gang were able to import these aircraft:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=163515

I'm pretty sure those are SH4 era dat files, part of one of their mods?

I think it should be possible. Not everything has a .gr2 file part in the library folder. Some just have a .dat to hold the 3d models.

True there are many dats in the Library
But ALL the ships are in GR2 format - *:\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter 5\data\Sea

Do hope someone can get something going on though however its done
The same 7 or 8 units is a bit wearing
Esp if you come across a large convoy with multiples of each one :doh: