Quote:
Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins
That was something that bugged Lurker a lot, as he really wanted those zigs in his mod too. But when you are controlling what they do by scripting, each zig is another instruction in the .mis file. It just collapses under its own weight as it becomes more complex. Imagine having to script each zig in a 1000 mile trip from one port to another. Now multiply that by 1000 (conservatively) missions for the war. At the time we had 32-bit Windows almost exclusively so 3.2 GB was a rock hard ceiling. Stuff broke.
Since Ducimus reasoned that to a sub commander there was no knowledge of shipping routes beyond a vague impression, and no idea of warship routing at all, to them encounters were random. The sub went where COMSUBPAC sent it and encountered whatever was there. Now out of Pearl, commanders had a little more freedom than subs did out of Australia but they weren't just out there skylarking wherever they wanted.
From that point of view random encounters are much more realistic. However, even though we know that sending ships where they actually went in the war does not make them behave correctly it's hard to resist the question "what if I were sitting offshore with a sub full of torpedoes when the Tokyo Express decided to land troops on Guadalcanal?" To do that you need something like RSRDC.
But if you really like TMO and you know that when you load up RSRDC you aren't playing TMO any more it's a deal with the devil. Heads they win, tails you lose. The choices you'd like to make are unavailable.
Maybe I'll start work on some plugin AI mods to see what's possible. I already have universally compatible (by MY definition of compatible) plotting mods and keyboard input mods. I'm considering a new plotting mod, where there is a single silhouette for all ships that would point in the correct direction with no velocity vector or ID/course/speed info either. It would be halfway between the stock plotting system and the TMO plotting system. Could be a winner. More choices are good and players should be able to make those choices, not the modders.
The funny thing is that at the Silent Hunter Modding forum we used to wonder what Webster was thinking and why. Some of the things that were said weren't too nice. And it turns out that Webster was the right thinker all the time. There is a place for the single purpose one aspect mod. If they are carefully made you can roll your own supermod. Then the choices are in the players' power, not to be arbitrarily compelled by the modders.
There's no reason that in order to get ships going where they went in the war you have to lose Duci's evil airplanes, other than the capricious choices of modders. That should change.
It would be nice to disassemble several of the mod packages into their constituent elements to make them available as separate mods. But so long as the modders are still around, out of respect for the rights of those modders I think it wouldn't be right to do so. I guess RSRDC just went from fair game into a gray area.
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I think Duci somewhat toned down his planes in his more recent versions, but I stopped playing for a few years and been awhile since I played TMO alone, but think it was more the env changes of water transparency if he did. I actually like some of Travs ideas with plans, having one just track you way high until others come in. Only issue I have is the long contact times they hunt you, hell in places near many airbases, they'll keep you down all day if you are found out.
No mod makes everyone happy, but the past bickering over mods, who did what, don't do this, etc...just as you mentioned Webster being terribly raked over the coals, I found silly. To me it should be about making the game better for anyone and in the end no one has rights to the files, it's just respect to give credit, but it often turned into just a pissing contest of egos, very silly.
I use TMO and RSRD, admitting I've butchered RSRD to my own liking for more excitement and I use a much harder AI than even TMO, but even now I can probably sink 100K tons per patrol. The game at it's core , correct realism just can't be obtained, but still a great game.