Harbor Traffic mod?

[avers]

Hey guys, I've been playing sh4 with mods for a while and I noticed that the American harbors (like Manila and Surabaya) don't have a lot of ships or harbor traffic. Is there a harbor mod out there? Or is anyone planning on making a harbor mod? Or (and this might be a bit of a long shot) could someone teach me how to make a mod for harbors in sh4?

[Sniper297]

This isn't exactly a harbor mod;

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=4358

But it does add a lot of traffic, friendly and enemy, to the beginning of an Asiatic career in Manila Bay.

As for do it yourself, it's fairly simple - make a backup copy of

\Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Campaigns\Campaign\US_NavalBases.mis

Go to \Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific and run Sh4MissionEditor.exe

Open the US_NavalBases.mis, add harbor traffic as desired. Click on the tab Mission, then Parameters, check the box for "Ignore player submarine", then Accept. Save, exit, try it out.

If you screw it up copy the backup of US_NavalBases.mis in to replace the edited one and try again.

There's no danger in experimenting with editors if you always remember to copy any file you intend to edit to a safe backup folder before starting.

[avers]

Thank u so much, can I also edit air traffic using the way you told me?

[avers]

Also how do I add harbor traffic? This is my 1st time using the mission editor.

[Sniper297]

Good starting place;

http://rangerx3x.blogspot.com/2011/0...n-editing.html

[avers]

Thanx, but that just taught how to make new quick missions. How do I add more ships to ports in the campaign?

[Sniper297]

Same way you do for quick missions, only browse to \Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Campaigns\Campaign\US_NavalBases.mis

instead and edit that one. Start simple, add a SOMERS destroyer near Cavite facing north. Right click to bring up the properties, set speed at 12 knots, uncheck the "delete on last waypoint" box. Add waypoints, first one to the north, then 2 west, 3 south, 4 east, and on the last waypoint set it to loop to waypoint 1. Check it out in game, see if it runs the continuous path you set it for.

Start small, as you get better with practice add more traffic and change the start and end dates. The trick is to do simple things until you get the hang of it, then get more complicated.

[avers]

Ok thannx, one last question. What do I edit or add in the naval bases.mis?

[avers]

Also whenever I open the mission editor I get a bunch of messages that say stuff like ,"the unit class JPgunboat01 from country Japan not found in platforms library",. Should I worry about that?

[avers]

Ok I figured out how to add more units, but I'm having 2 problems. 1st in the mission editor I added a bunch of new ships and they all appear to be spawning in the game, except for a sub tender and I also added in 4 subs, but they are not appearing in the game, what's the problem? 2nd, I added in two PBYs to fly over the port, but instead a bunch of Japanese Betty's appear over the port and attack it, what's the problem here?

Edit: also I made some changes to pearl and when I started there, none of the ships that I added were there.

[Sniper297]

Not sure what version or OS you have, but if you're running anything newer than Windows XP and haven't set up UAC you could have problems. Also the STEAM version of any game needs to be set up to run offline to work correctly with mods or it will automatically "correct" itself.

Second item, modding with other mods installed can cause strange things to happen, some of the mega mods make changes to the same US_NavalBases.mis file. Submarines can be problematic, when I originally made the resupply bases I added US subs anchored next to a sub tender and had a few problems, so I left them out of the next version.

I never got around to buying the 1.5 patch so I'm still running version 1.4, I just checked and I do have JPgunboat01 in the SEA folder, so I don't know what the problem could be there - possibly the CFG file for that one was altered by another mod you're running? Best bet there is to do a clean install in a different folder (install a whole new version of SH4 and redirect the installation to C:\NewSub or something) then do your editing on that one.

As for odd stuff like ships not showing up, right click and select Properties, check the Entry date and Exit date. Also check the timing - one common error is to start the unit or group Dec 7th running 4 or 5 waypoints less than 100 miles, with the box for "Delete on last waypoint" checked on the unit/group will be finished and removed before the player even starts on Dec 9th.

Again don't be in a big hurry to get too complicated, it's a learning process and it's going to take time. I started modding computer games over 30 years ago and it took me several weeks to master the SH4 mission editor, if this is your first experience modding any game it will probably be a few months. You got SOMETHING to appear in game so you are making progress, don't get discouraged.

[avers]

I'm using windows 7. What's UAC?

[Sniper297]

The fact that you have to ask indicates you're in for a long period of learning.

When I want to find out something, every internet browser has a search feature. Enter "UAC" in the search window and I get stuff like this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

Basics of modifying computer games require basic knowledge of computer operation - file and folder management. VISTA and the later versions like Windows 7 and 8 have UAC to prevent the users from screwing up important files, unfortunately it does that by making it difficult to actually modify ANY file. What you need to do is something I can't help you with, since I'm still chugging along with XP so I've never done it myself. From what I've read, gamers set up Windows 7 (or 8 or VISTA) to run as administrator and disable UAC so they CAN mod game files without interference from the operating system. Again, something I have no experience with, I'm dreading the day I'll finally have to let go of XP (I'm still pining for the good old days of 98SE, I've learned to live with XP but I can't love it) and upgrade to 7, but for right now I don't know enough about it to advise. Here's a starting point;

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/comput...Windows-7.html

[avers]

Originally Posted by Sniper297

The fact that you have to ask indicates you're in for a long period of learning.

When I want to find out something, every internet browser has a search feature. Enter "UAC" in the search window and I get stuff like this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

Basics of modifying computer games require basic knowledge of computer operation - file and folder management. VISTA and the later versions like Windows 7 and 8 have UAC to prevent the users from screwing up important files, unfortunately it does that by making it difficult to actually modify ANY file. What you need to do is something I can't help you with, since I'm still chugging along with XP so I've never done it myself. From what I've read, gamers set up Windows 7 (or 8 or VISTA) to run as administrator and disable UAC so they CAN mod game files without interference from the operating system. Again, something I have no experience with, I'm dreading the day I'll finally have to let go of XP (I'm still pining for the good old days of 98SE, I've learned to live with XP but I can't love it) and upgrade to 7, but for right now I don't know enough about it to advise. Here's a starting point;

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/comput...Windows-7.html

Ok, I know what u mean, I've just never seen "user account controls" abbreviated so I was asking for clarification.

[Sniper297]

Well, the main thing is if you do not have the STEAM version, UAC is the only other thing that can screw up and unchange your changes. Main thing (from what I understand, again I have XP therefore no UAC to deal with) is to make sure you install it someplace else - ANYPLACE else - and not in C:\Program Files (x86). If you have it installed there re-install it someplace else and start over.