Modding playable surface ships (looking for advice/help)

EPinniger · 02-23-06, 05:14 AM

I PMed the modder who created a playable Polish surface ship (can't remember his name, Orzel possibly?) a while ago with these questions, but haven't received a reply, so he either doesn't visit the Subsim forums any more or just isn't interested in replying.

Anyway, I'm attempting to mod player-controllable surface ships into SH3. As far as I can see it is impossible to actually make any of the existing ships playable (the engine doesn't appear to allow you to control anything that isn't a submarine) so the solution seems to be to create a sub which has the 3D model of a ship and cannot dive.
Weapons, depth charges, torpedoes etc. will be a problem, but I'll deal with that when I get to it, currently I'm just trying to create a basic unarmed sub which uses the model and physics properties of a ship (a Hunt-class destroyer to be precise)

Here's what I've done so far, and the problems I'm encountering.

Basically, I "cloned" a SH3 destroyer, moved the clone to the "submarines" directory, replaced its .cfg data with that of a U-boat, removed the weapons from all of its hardpoints/nodes and put a "conning tower" equipment type in one of the now empty hardpoints (so the crew + player camera viewpoint has somewhere to go) I also edited the data so that the ship cannot dive and has a default depth of 0, and set its "interior" 3D model to that of the Type II U-boat.

I can get this new unit to appear in the Museum, and in a mission as a NPC ship. However, I can't get it to work as a player-controlled craft. If I create a mission with it as the player craft, when the mission starts your craft is a Type IIA U-boat (the first on the list of selectable U-boats in the single mission screen)

I'd appreciate any advice on how to make it available as a player vessel - is there a list of selectable U-boat types somewhere in the game's configuration files? Alternatively is there a way to override the selection in the single mission screen?

I'd also be interested to know if what I've done so far is correct. Certainly it seems to work OK in that the ship appears in missions and the Museum without any problems. My previous attempts using different methods just caused the game to crash.

sergbuto · 02-23-06, 06:45 AM

Is this work for X1 software?

EPinniger · 02-23-06, 09:55 AM

Who are X1 software? (apologies for my ignorance, but I'm new to SH3). In any case, no, I'm just an amateur modder (with a fair amount of experience at both C++ games programming and modding games of various genres).
I've never posted here before as I'm more interested in surface ships than subs, and only bought SH3 a couple of weeks ago when I found a cheap second-hand copy. It's definitely a great sim, particularly with the realism mods, but I couldn't resist tweaking some of the game data files to see if I could make surface ships player-controllable. After a lot of trial and error, and CTDs, I've got as far as mentioned in the above post (a new sub using a destroyer 3D model, which works OK in the game as an AI ship, but I can't make it available to the player)

Dowly · 02-23-06, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sergbuto

Is this work for X1 software?

:hmm:

Just kidding! :rotfl:

sergbuto · 02-23-06, 11:36 AM

Then, why not to team up with Orzel and join the efforts instead of repeating the same stuff? That is what he made his call for.
http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=48210

02-23-06, 05:14 AM	#1
EPinniger Watch Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 16 Downloads: 2 Uploads: 0	Modding playable surface ships (looking for advice/help) I PMed the modder who created a playable Polish surface ship (can't remember his name, Orzel possibly?) a while ago with these questions, but haven't received a reply, so he either doesn't visit the Subsim forums any more or just isn't interested in replying. Anyway, I'm attempting to mod player-controllable surface ships into SH3. As far as I can see it is impossible to actually make any of the existing ships playable (the engine doesn't appear to allow you to control anything that isn't a submarine) so the solution seems to be to create a sub which has the 3D model of a ship and cannot dive. Weapons, depth charges, torpedoes etc. will be a problem, but I'll deal with that when I get to it, currently I'm just trying to create a basic unarmed sub which uses the model and physics properties of a ship (a Hunt-class destroyer to be precise) Here's what I've done so far, and the problems I'm encountering. Basically, I "cloned" a SH3 destroyer, moved the clone to the "submarines" directory, replaced its .cfg data with that of a U-boat, removed the weapons from all of its hardpoints/nodes and put a "conning tower" equipment type in one of the now empty hardpoints (so the crew + player camera viewpoint has somewhere to go) I also edited the data so that the ship cannot dive and has a default depth of 0, and set its "interior" 3D model to that of the Type II U-boat. I can get this new unit to appear in the Museum, and in a mission as a NPC ship. However, I can't get it to work as a player-controlled craft. If I create a mission with it as the player craft, when the mission starts your craft is a Type IIA U-boat (the first on the list of selectable U-boats in the single mission screen) I'd appreciate any advice on how to make it available as a player vessel - is there a list of selectable U-boat types somewhere in the game's configuration files? Alternatively is there a way to override the selection in the single mission screen? I'd also be interested to know if what I've done so far is correct. Certainly it seems to work OK in that the ship appears in missions and the Museum without any problems. My previous attempts using different methods just caused the game to crash.

02-23-06, 06:45 AM	#2
sergbuto Pacific Aces Dev Team Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 1,331 Downloads: 15 Uploads: 0	Is this work for X1 software? __________________ Serg's SH4 and SH3 pages

02-23-06, 11:36 AM	#5
sergbuto Pacific Aces Dev Team Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 1,331 Downloads: 15 Uploads: 0	Then, why not to team up with Orzel and join the efforts instead of repeating the same stuff? That is what he made his call for. http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=48210 __________________ Serg's SH4 and SH3 pages

02-23-06, 09:55 AM	#3
EPinniger Watch Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 16 Downloads: 2 Uploads: 0	Who are X1 software? (apologies for my ignorance, but I'm new to SH3). In any case, no, I'm just an amateur modder (with a fair amount of experience at both C++ games programming and modding games of various genres). I've never posted here before as I'm more interested in surface ships than subs, and only bought SH3 a couple of weeks ago when I found a cheap second-hand copy. It's definitely a great sim, particularly with the realism mods, but I couldn't resist tweaking some of the game data files to see if I could make surface ships player-controllable. After a lot of trial and error, and CTDs, I've got as far as mentioned in the above post (a new sub using a destroyer 3D model, which works OK in the game as an AI ship, but I can't make it available to the player)