NorOps News Update for December

[Safe-Keeper]

Note: To see the pictures, you may have to go to the blog and open each of them there. They should then be visible here in this thread. I also confess that the update is several seconds late.

I apologize whole-heartedly for my incompetence and swear to improve my efforts in the future.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Safe-Keeper here with the second monthly Norwegian Operations update!

Two things before we start. First of all, with school and the Visitation Service training occupying much of my spare time, and possible illness creeping up on me, I've found progress slowing down a bit. Ugh. Nevertheless, I've still gotten a good deal of things done, so I can assure that you shouldn't lose faith in ole Safe-Keeper just yet.

Second off, I want to say once again that it's been great to see so many show interest in my project. I know my fellow Norwegians well enough to know they'd be ecstatic about the idea, but I had no idea whether or not foreigners would show interest in the project. I was afraid I'd end up with an obsessed Norwegian community and the remaining 98% of the forum not caring less. You've proven me wrong! My only fear now is that with Silent Hunter 4 only slightly more than a quarter away, I might not be able to get this project done on time before the community defects to the sequel. Let's hope not.

So - news. OK.

I've been focusing heavily on the Bergen area this month, too. As you can see below, even more labels have been added to the navigation map, down to, as was promised, minor things such as districts and villages. Furthermore, every fort in the Bergen area will been labelled (and every one will surrender to Germany at about the right time, too). Just one more step in the direction of making Norway the most crowded country in the Silent Hunter III world!

Bergen Area as of December 2006... Er, I mean April 1940.

(Uploaded this one using ImageShack so that there'd be one pic' you could easily access without going to my blog)

If you think this is bad, wait until I tell you that I'm still not finished adding villages and towns, and that there are still plenty of forts to add at various locations. As there are so many entries (from hereon labels) now, I'm giving those that have a function in-game special suffixes to denote the ones that mark something important:

-V-: Airfield. This symbol, made to be remniscent of the airborne infantry Army symbol, marks an airfield. Air support will take off from here. I intended to use "~V~", but the symbolphobic game wouldn't let me.

(F): Fortification. This suffix marks the location of a historical fort or fortress. Artillery and air defence guns will be concentrated around these positions. Note that there also will be guns throughout the map not labelled by this symbol. Be on your toes!

(P): Industrial Port. The "(P)" over neutral Norwegian ports denounces that once secured by Germany, this city's ports will have the capacity to re-fit submarines docked here. If you find yourself in need of repair, re-fuelling, or re-supply, you can seek to one of these towns. As in the stock game, they will turn blue when it's OK for you to dock at them, at which point the "(P)" suffix will become obsolote and disappear.

While talking about the Bergen area, allow me to proudly introduce two new-comers: First off is the town of Haugesund, situated between Bergen and Stavanger. The 31 738-people town turned 150 years old in 2004 and was, despite its small size, an important centre of fishing until the catch in the area died out. Today, it's an important centre of Norwegian ship construction and maintenance.

In-game the Haugesund consists of labels on the navigation map (no, really?!), 3D buildings, civilian and military traffic, and its share of defenses, the Atlantic Wall being what it was. When Norway surrenders, you'll be able to dock in the town if you find yourself damaged or low on fuel and unable to limp to Bergen or Stavanger. Watch the other ships, though, it's a narrow approach!

Haugesund of 1855:


Today's Haugesund:

And finally... Norwegian Operations' version!

No briges in-game, unfortunately. They had not yet been built in the fourties.

Second off is Stavanger city herself.

Beautiful Stavanger (from Old Norse Stafangr, meaning Staff-fjord) lies in Rogaland county and is called home by 115 157 people (2006 estimate). The beautiful community has been the centre of the Norwegian petroleum industry its beginning in the sixties (which is also when the town started to expand into the 110 000+ people strong city it is today). The city also once had a tradition of producing canned goods - in the year 1950 there were fifty canned food factories in the city. Today, while the last of them has been shut down, the city remains the headquarters of the Norwegian petroleum production machine, hosting the main offices of Statoil, the Oil Directorate, Petroleumstilsynet (the State's organ for controlling oil industry safety and work environment), and several other petroleum-related companies, Norwegian and foreign both.

In-game, Stavanger becomes available for docking shortly after the invasion is started. In addition, the city's air field, working in conjunction with other bases such as Herdla Airfield near Bergen, should give you all the air support you need while operating in Norwegian and North Sea waters. The city sports the mandatory labels on the navigation map marking districts, Sola Airfield, neighboring towns, and so on, civilian and military air traffic, historical defences, and, unlike Haugesund, a 3D harbour!

Stavanger, present day.
Interesting how the harbour looks so much like its Bergen counterpart.

I haven't done enough work on Stavanger yet to release screen-shots (no, the caption contest one in the Silent Hunter III forum does not count), but rest assured that they will be with you eventually, and that the goregous city will look good!

Stavanger and Haugesund are just two of several planned additions for Norwegian Operations range of 3D-rendered settlements. The island town of Tromsø and the village of Måløy are two other candidates awaiting inclusion.

Next off, I'd like to thank danlisa at the SubSim community for announcing the intent to make winter camo skins for the remaining u-boats of Silent Hunter III that don't yet have them. Good show, danlisa.

Last off on the skinning front is _Seth_'s splendid re-textured cutter deserves a mention. _Seth_, who's already contributed winter camouflage skins for u-boats, is working on a re-texturing of DivingDuck's excellent cutter and has agreed to release it exclusively to Norwegian Operations. Here she is (no screen-shots in thread due to image limit)! Fishing is an important industry in Norway, so you'll be seeing a lot of fishing boats, trawlers, and other vessels about. Thanks to DivingDuck and Danlisa for increasing the variety!

And finally, I hereby announce a change in the way air attacks on Norwegian ports are handled in-game. Where in earlier versions you always had bombers attack the port at these and those times from this date to that date, bomber attacks on Norwegian ports are now randomized. No longer will you start a career in Bergen in January 1945 and know with 100% certainity that a flight of B-24 bombers is underway with an ETA of only a few minutes. Now there's a certain chance they'll not appear over the city at all. The system I'm using is neither the Random Area Radius nor the Random Generated Group system, but in my opinion it's far better for this purpose than both of them. Either way, the effect is that you either get attacked at the beginning of your patrol, or you don't. The following rates apply at the moment to the chance your port will be attacked by bombers at mission start:

Bergen: 25%.
Haugesund: 10%.
Other cities and towns: T.B.A.

That'd be all for this month, folks. See you around the forums!

Other NorOps resources:
Poor ole Blücher... - Battle of Drobak Sound; Project Preview
"Look to Noh'vay - ve haff doggiez!" - Project Announcement
November News Update - Bergen area expanding, SH3 Commander news enhanced, new Type II and VII skins.

All screen-shots depict a work-in-progress and are thus subject to change.

As a PS: I'm still looking for modellers and 2D artists ; ).

[bigboywooly]

Nice one SK
Pity the pics dont show of your ingame shots

[Safe-Keeper]

I was about to give you a frustrated reply telling you I made it clear that you needed to go to my blog and open them there. Then I remembered I had not yet uploaded the article to the blog:rotfl:.

Old age (21, can you believe it?) and sleepiness, I pray you, be my scapegoats once more!

OK, here you go. They should all be visible there!

[bigboywooly]

Chill
Hehe
Am off to your blog now

[Sailor Steve]

Wowser! Looks good!

How will it fit in with other campaign maps?

[Safe-Keeper]

Chill
Hehe
Am off to your blog now

How will it fit in with other campaign maps?

The NorOps map is built up by segments (Bergen area scripted, Stavanger area land, etc.) which are then merged with the GW(X) campaign map. Seeing that GW and GWX already have Norwegian content, some stuff will have to be deleted to create duplicates, and there'll be some things I won't have to do in the first place as it's already in the game.

Most activity will be around Norway and in the North Sea, east of Shetland (the Shetland Bus, refugee boats, thing such as that), and thus the rest of the world is minimally [altered] ("minimally accepted", what's wrong with me?!).

As NorOps is an ex-pack to GWX, it'll very likely not be compatible with other mods unless the campaign map and other files are extensively modified to no longer look for the features GW and GWX uses. Having said that, if someone would want to port it to NYGM, stock, War Ace, stock or other, they're of course welcome to do so. All they need to do is contact me and tell me they're doing it.

More pics of Haugesund:

The harbour


The area around the harbour, featuring fishing vessels, allied planes, German plane for atmosphere, traffic, docked ships, and patrolling boats.

You're looking at a line-up of roughly hundred vessels, all told, for that little town alone. Not only is there harbour traffic (and there'll be randomized traffic, too), but a few of the ships in the harbour alternate as time goes by, too. Arrive there for repairs and there'll be a row of fishing boats docked in the northernmost part of the city. Come back three months later and they've given up their spot for a German destroyer.

Only fear is that it might overload the .scr file. Someone from the GWX team said something about having to be careful to add too many ships. Adding thousand+ vessels (and it will be that many if each port is to contain >100 entities) to the scripted layer that will most likely already be full of GWX ships might be a bad idea in that case. Or?

[_Seth_]

Wow!!!! This is going to be.......AWESOME!!!!! First GWX, then NOROPS, Then SHIV...What have we done to deserve all this!!!!! Øyvind; On our own language:
DET HER ER KONGEBRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Subwolf]

Looks great

Safe-Keeper you shouldn't worry that your work is all forgotten about when SH4 is released, I will continue to play SH3 because I prefer the Atlantic battle, and I think I'm not the only one.

That picture of Stavanger, where I live, looks to be a year old or more. Taken during one of the festivals, with all those cabin-cruisers and people around there.

Forresten, hvor bor dere andre norske her? Nordlendinger hele gjengen?

[Safe-Keeper]

[By the way, where do you other Norwegians here live? Are you all from the north?]

Bergen here, me and Tryggvason.

[stabiz]

Niks, Ålesund her.

I really look foreward to this, and as Subwolf said, I love the Atlantic too, so SH3 will live a long life beyond SHIV.

Besides, I dont want to dish out the same amount in SHIV related DVD`s and books as I have spent on U-Boat stuff. (Oh, I probably will anyway)

[Safe-Keeper]

Another reason why it's a good thing that Silent Hunter 4 will be in the Pacific. That, and that I probably couldn't be more guaranteed that no one, ever, is going to pester me about porting NorOps to Silent Hunter 4.

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper

Another reason why it's a good thing that Silent Hunter 4 will be in the Pacific. That, and that I probably couldn't be more guaranteed that no one, ever, is going to pester me about porting NorOps to Silent Hunter 4.

Don't bet on it.:rotfl:

[_Seth_]

Harstad, er nok nordlending ...... BTW: This addon will live forever, trust me!

[GT182]

Looking good as always SK. And present day Stavanger is a great looking city. I wish I had the money to visit her.... in the summer of course.

[mr chris]

SafeKeeper this is a great piece of work
I wish you all the best with remaining work and look forward to adding it to my game as soon as it is ready, Gods speed to you