THOMSEN PARAMETERS APP - by Stiebler

[Stiebler]

The ships in SH3 tend to behave like 'rubber ducks' when bobbing on the sea, bouncing around too much, and turning, accelerating and deaccelerating far too quickly. Philip Thomsen discovered in 2008 that alteration of four key parameters (eng_power, drag (of rudder), gc_height and 'LR'), found in the .sim file of each ship, could make this behaviour much more life-like. He published his findings at SubSim in its own thread, and distributed a number of modified .sim files.

See Thomsen's thread:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=143775

Thomsen's findings were confirmed by others, including by H.sie who distributed some further modified files, but there was much debate about which values to use - indeed, no clear consensus ever emerged. Moreover, many other players of SH3 could not use the files distributed by Thomsen and H.sie, since they caused clashes with their own sim files.

Therefore, I have decided to make this THOMSEN PARAMETERS APP available for general use, since it can be used to modify ALL ships currently used by ANY user in their SH3 installation.

THOMSEN PARAMETERS APP is an executable file (.exe) that searches through your SH3 'Sea' folder looking for ship.sim files (eg 'NKC3.sim'). It then replaces optionally any or all of eng_power, rudder-drag, surfaced left-right drag coefficient ('LR') and gc_height (= centre of gravity) with values specified by the user. Every .sim file in your sea folder will be examined and altered!

(The instructions run to 2 1/2 pages, enclosed with the mod. I have tested the mod with about 180 sim files in NYGM (using recommended settings), but the app should work with any super mod, or even stock SH3, and with any ships made by others. Specifically, it functions correctly with IABL's MFM mod. Tests made by manual examination of a random selection of sim files for ships, and by carrying out 10 war patrols in mid Atlantic against a variety of convoys, and in single missions.)

Download from here:
http://www.subsim.com/mods1/nygm/ThomsenParamApp.7z

Stiebler.

[VONHARRIS]

Nice job.
Downloading now!

Thank you

[J0313]

This is great, Thanks.

[Borgneface]

S! Great work......Downloading it now and will install it when back to base.

Merci

[brett25]

really awesome stiebler, thanks

[VONHARRIS]

I would like to post something I spotted:
(I appologize in advance if I am wrong)

In the help file of the application it is stated that a silenthunteriii\mods\ThomsenSea folder must be created , to be enabled later by JSGME.

I beleive the correct path must be ThomsenApp\data and copy the sea folder in there so that JSGME would be able to activate correctly in SH3.

(The above worked for me)

Thank you!

[Luno]

Wow, this is perfect! Thanks Stiebler!

[fitzcarraldo]

Downloading for testing!!!

Many thanks Stiebler, a great work!

Regards.

Fitzcarraldo

[desertstriker]

as always excellent work Stiebler thanks this sure will make life easier with MFM

[brett25]

Hi Stiebler,

One question, why not any changes to the GC height, and LR? would these values help the ship look more massive and less bobbing, by placing it lower? Or does it mess up the depth under keel?

[scramasax]

thx I was looking for something like that

[Stiebler]

@Brett25:

One question, why not any changes to the GC height, and LR? would these values help the ship look more massive and less bobbing, by placing it lower? Or does it mess up the depth under keel?

There was a lot of dispute in Thomsen's original thread about the correct values to use for gc_height and LR.

The general concensus seemed to be that all the shipbuilders (the devs and the several makers of later ships, such as Sergbuto, IABL, Rowi58 and others) had done generally a good job for gc_height and LR.

I have added to my ThomsenParamApp the ability to change gc_height and LR globally, so that users can experiment, to see if they can find better values. For example, it might be that they discover that they have made most ships worse, but a few ships better. Then we can change the 'better' ships manually, while leaving the other ships alone.

Of course, that requires anyone who makes the experiment to publish his results for all to see! And the experimenter must be very careful to back up all the 'Sea' folder before making the experiment!

Stiebler.

[Stiebler]

@vonHarris:

I would like to post something I spotted:
(I appologize in advance if I am wrong)

In the help file of the application it is stated that a silenthunteriii\mods\ThomsenSea folder must be created , to be enabled later by JSGME.

I beleive the correct path must be ThomsenApp\data and copy the sea folder in there so that JSGME would be able to activate correctly in SH3.

Ouch! You're right!
I've uploaded a new 7z file with corrected instructions to the same download address as in my first post.
Also added an HTML file of instructions, in case there is anyone out there who cannot read the chm file.
The executable file remains unchanged.

Thanks for pointing up the error.

Stiebler.

[VONHARRIS]

@ Stiebler


You are welcome.
Thank you again for this application.

[Anvar1061]

Originally Posted by Stiebler

@vonHarris:

Ouch! You're right!
I've uploaded a new 7z file with corrected instructions to the same download address as in my first post.
Also added an HTML file of instructions, in case there is anyone out there who cannot read the chm file.
The executable file remains unchanged.

Thanks for pointing up the error.

Stiebler.

SSS
Stiebler,you couldn't make a video lesson of the correct installation?