[IDEA]: Reducing searchlights

h.sie · 05-15-10, 05:56 AM

Removing the searchlights from merchants, tankers and big battleships seems to be a great step into more realism. Schechter_Pfennig already did this in his mod:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=169499
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=169424

But now merchants + tankers NEVER have searchlights. What I want is a little bit of uncertainty - to be surprised if a merchant unexpectedly activates his searchlights. A probability of, let's say, 1% for a merchant to have and use his searchlight (maybe Bernard on board?) and 99% to stay dark.

So I had the idea to randomly change the availability of the searchlights using SH3-Commander, but as LGN1 (who also had that idea before me) reported, this causes CTDs when changing equipment during a patrol.

So the only possibility seems to be to restrict the availability time period to a very short time. For a propability of 1% a ship's searchlights must be available for about 2 or 3 weeks (this is 1% of the duration of the war.)

So for every ship and even every different searchlight of a ship I plan to restrict the availability time to a randomly chosen time period of 2-3 weeks.

The problem: This is static. A certain ship type e.g. will always use his front searchlight in May 1940 and his rear light in August 1943. Not nice. But I bet: A player who does not know this, will not discover it because of the multiplicity of different ships. You surely need to play more than 10 complete careers to discover the regularity.

It's a lot of work to make these changes.

What do you think: Is it worth the effort or should one be happy with the removed searchlights??

Constructive comments welcome....

h.sie

05-15-10, 05:56 AM	#1
h.sie Admiral Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 2,192 Downloads: 131 Uploads: 0	[IDEA]: Reducing searchlights Removing the searchlights from merchants, tankers and big battleships seems to be a great step into more realism. Schechter_Pfennig already did this in his mod: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=169499 http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=169424 But now merchants + tankers NEVER have searchlights. What I want is a little bit of uncertainty - to be surprised if a merchant unexpectedly activates his searchlights. A probability of, let's say, 1% for a merchant to have and use his searchlight (maybe Bernard on board?) and 99% to stay dark. So I had the idea to randomly change the availability of the searchlights using SH3-Commander, but as LGN1 (who also had that idea before me) reported, this causes CTDs when changing equipment during a patrol. So the only possibility seems to be to restrict the availability time period to a very short time. For a propability of 1% a ship's searchlights must be available for about 2 or 3 weeks (this is 1% of the duration of the war.) So for every ship and even every different searchlight of a ship I plan to restrict the availability time to a randomly chosen time period of 2-3 weeks. The problem: This is static. A certain ship type e.g. will always use his front searchlight in May 1940 and his rear light in August 1943. Not nice. But I bet: A player who does not know this, will not discover it because of the multiplicity of different ships. You surely need to play more than 10 complete careers to discover the regularity. It's a lot of work to make these changes. What do you think: Is it worth the effort or should one be happy with the removed searchlights?? Constructive comments welcome.... h.sie __________________ My Mediafire page: http://www.mediafire.com/hsie Last edited by h.sie; 05-15-10 at 06:42 AM.