[REQ] Show #Kills on Conning Tower

[FritzHeinz]

I saw some of the new skins for various boats, and I especially like the small japanese flags indicating the number of kills. Wondered if it is possible to make a mod where you get those markings automatically after a patrol with succesfull killings.

[CaptainCox]

Unfortunately the mechanics in the game don't work like that. You have to do that manually one by one after each patrol in that case, and that's tedious. I guess one could make a program that did this sort a automatic, similar to the conning tower emblem function in SH3 and implement that in a SH4 Commander or what ever will come...still a long shot.

[FritzHeinz]

You could produce skins of all combinations of kills

(#merchants, #warships) --> (0,0), (1,0), (0,1), (1,1), (2,0), (2,1), (2,2),(0,2),...

and choose the right skin after your patrol, but thats indeed tedious and I hope this can be automated in some way because I already downed some 21 ships and a few planes in just 3 patrols...

[joea]

There's a tool like that already for Il-2 called paint victories. It is made for Il-l2 aircraft skins but something similar could be made for SH4??

[Mast]

Great idea! I'm sure somebody will make a mod to do exactly that or a combo to go with jsgme.

Mast

[CaptainCox]

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/zarodinu/pv/...ctories0_5.zip
If someone wants to check out "Paint Victories"

Or the IL2-MAT manager
http://aces_artwork.airwarfare.com/MATfiles.htm

[panthercules]

That was a great little program for IL-2 - I used to use it all the time to put victory markers on my planes and it really added a lot to the experience. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about how it worked or how to program something like that, but I would think that for someone who understands how sub skins work in SH4 it wouldn't be that hard to adapt that sort of utility for use with SH4 - sounds like a great way for someone to make a great contribution here

[CaptainCox]

I guess basic skills in VB or C++ code is a must to do something like this. Been doing progs in "VB" before but never a utility like this.

[FritzHeinz]

If the are more people that like the idea, perhaps we should ask the devs to include this as a feature in a next patch?

[joea]

I want to say though, the IL2 tool is not automatic, it opens the skin file you tell it to, and you then can choose different kill marks and where to apply them, as well as how many. Might be easier here as while for example, the Luftwaffe tended to mark rudders, while others like the USAAF, VVS or RAF fuselages (bombers nose for bombing runs) in this case it would always be on the conning tower and always those little rising sun flags.

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by joea

I want to say though, the IL2 tool is not automatic, it opens the skin file you tell it to, and you then can choose different kill marks and where to apply them, as well as how many. Might be easier here as while for example, the Luftwaffe tended to mark rudders, while others like the USAAF, VVS or RAF fuselages (bombers nose for bombing runs) in this case it would always be on the conning tower and always those little rising sun flags.

I agree - it wasn't automatic but it made it really easy to open up a skin and let you paste stuff on - the tricky part here seems to me is for those of us who don't know how skins work, where they're stored, what parts represent the proper sides of the conning tower, etc., it's pretty hard to contemplate trying to open up the skin files manually to do this - if that part could be automated by this sort of utility so all you had to do was choose your sub type from a drop down menu and the applet/utility would open up the skin to the right part, let you paste in your desired markings (presumably, the utility would just have to include two types of flag/markings - one for merchants and one for warships, so this would be easy), and then the utility would automatically save the skin back down in appropriate place and format for the game to use. As I said, it seems pretty easy to lay out the logic of how it ought to work - just wish I had some programming skills to be able to do it myself, but I don't think I'd get very far trying to do this in BASIC, hehe

[CptJoker]

Sounds like an awesome idea. I'd add to that the ability to add the white boat numbers. Shouldn't be much a stretch.

Just out of curiosity, is anyone else thinking of or already doing this?

[FritzHeinz]

Haven't seen any replies on this topic for awhile. I presume there are more pressing matters like making gameplay more error-free before anyone will adress such a nice new feature...:hmm:

[CaptainCox]

Its not that...its rather that its dam hard to do this. I was thinking about the possibility to try to port it from SH3...a long shot I know. Another way would be to do a C++/JAVA app or something. There are some guys around here with those skills...but this stuff takes time. I am not sure as to why the devs took this feature out, since it was in SH3. Maybe not all boats had conning art, but it's still a cool feature to personalize the game etc.

Or maybe mail the guy that did the prog for IL-2...I am not sure if hes still around or if he is even interested, but maybe he could give us some hints or even the source code...just thinking loud here.

The guys name is Nicolas "Nikko" Bertrand niberto@caramail.com