[REQ] Modify Code for more realism. More Realism

[Patchman123]

Is there any way to modify the code in SH4 to create a way for sailors from enemy ships to swim in the water after a ship is sunk? It's possible because the game already has pilots floating in the water after a plane is shot down. Why not do the same with sailors?

Instead of one measly lifeboat and practically no sign on life on those merchant ships? Is there a way to stop the invincible deck gun on the enemy merchant ships?

I am tired of the merchant ship guy in TMO always being a crack shot. The guy can hit me with a deck gun. (I do not expect merchant sailors to be fully trained with deck gun use) from 6,000 yards away and I can't see him. The ships turn so rapidly when zig-zagging like a PT Boat rather than a 10,000 + ton merchant ships, which are heavy and difficult to maneuver.

The maneuvering speed of how those merchants turn is just physically impossible for a ship that size and a merchant ship cannot turn so rapidly like that with a rudder.

Anybody whose been on a merchant ships (I never have been myself) would know out in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes ships are the same vintage World War II merchant ships.

I think modders should do more with code in Silent Hunter IV in my opinion.

How about having a code where the crew follows standard military procedure where all the officers stand on deck and salute (the REGULAR way, NOT the Nazi way) the people on the deck and have bands for a returning U-boat.

It feels exhausting for a U-boat in OM. Operation Monsun you are given mindless orders in the game after you radio BdU in Brest, they send you out to an area where you're low on fuel and it is totally impossible to even get there, after you radio your status. Why do they send me out to a patrol sector where it is impossible to reach it?

Why isn't there more aerial activity in the game? No fleets of bombers pounding Germany. The sounds of a 1,000+ bombers makes a helluva racket in the night sky. You can hear the RAF bombers from over a 100 miles away, yet I do not hear them.

It doesn't feel like there's a war on in SH4. It feels like a cruise ship rather than a submarine. The German guy in Das Boot said, "This is a submarine, not a cruise steamer" That is the opposite of what he wanted. No discipline among the crew.

The crew lack military discipline and are essentially a bunch of loose cannons. The crew does not sleep or eat or act human. They are robotic.
It's creepy. It's like Twilight Zone meets World War II.

It's utterly mindless. I set the time compression to 1x for more realism I set it to a maximum of 1x because the sub is uncontrollable when on 4080x speed. You crash into the land and you're finished and your sub breaks like a tin can.

The subs in this game break like a glass bottle, rather than a durable metal submarine. Submarines when they run aground do not do what they do in real life that they do in SH4. A durable metal sub would not NOT repeat not be breaking in half when hitting concrete. A Sub is not an automobile when in accident physics like that. A sub can beach on the shore on a a sandy beach.

I saw on the History Channel once how a sub managed to beach itself on the bow on the documentary USS Bowfin: Pearl Harbor Avenger. The Bowfin beaches itself on a beach aground to drop someone off ashore or something, yet in the game in SH4 a is fragile and breaks like a ceramic doll when it hits the sand, which is physically impossible.

The game's sub physics are impossible when dealing with beaching and shore ramming. the game's sub physics are stupid when dealing with beachings.

The land collision physics need some work. A steel submarine meant to withstand heavy pressures at depth can surely withstand not breaking like a ceramic object when hitting the shore.

Come on people!

[Armistead]

Not sure about SH4 Uboats, seldom play.

You can have floating bodies in SH4, dead ones, but they float.

6000 yards is not a far range realistically, you must be playing an older TMO version, as now the range is much increased, I'm been hit at 10,000 yards.

You want 1000 planes in the sky, that would nil the game useless to 90% of us who don't have uber rigs, do you realize your PC would have to process 1000 items. Many bog down with groups of 100 planes, which you can see in the game.

My crew rotates and sleeps, if they do not, they become useless.

Mods exist that make ships act more normal in how they move.


I use TC all the time and never crash into land, I plot away from land.


SH4 is an older game. It has been modded to perfection within the code allowed and modding still evolves. Instead of complaining about things, take the time to learn most of what you're complaining about has been modded and corrected. As far as making the game a living sim where sailors jerk off under the covers, ain't gonna happen.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Patchman123

I think modders should do more with code in Silent Hunter IV in my opinion.

I think you should learn how to mod instead of whining about all the things you want.

[razark]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I think you should learn how to mod instead of whining about all the things you want.

[tomoose]

.....to request something.

I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his post comes across a lot whinier than he intended AND that he doesn't realise that modders are not paid programmers and do this on their own time without expectation of compensation (other than great praise from us lowly non-modders) and to help improve the overall gameplay.

They are not magicians and there are aspects that they simply cannot fix (they are NOT the devs).

My gut reaction to the OP was to post "Stop playing and unload the game" but again perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions.

Originally Posted by tomoose

.....to request something.

I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his post comes across a lot whinier than he intended AND that he doesn't realise that modders are not paid programmers and do this on their own time without expectation of compensation (other than great praise from us lowly non-modders) and to help improve the overall gameplay.

They are not magicians and there are aspects that they simply cannot fix (they are NOT the devs).

My gut reaction to the OP was to post "Stop playing and unload the game" but again perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions.

at first read i see someone who is just frustrated with how the game works and by his requests its obvious he hasnt got a chance to explore the mods that are out there that fix most of his "complaints"

to the OP - there is no game "code" that modders alter, the term "hard coded" is something you will hear a lot as you read more about what can and cant be done with the game.

a lot in this game is "editable" with some freely accessed and available utilities that allow reading and understanding some settings the game uses and modders just change these to get different results that make the game better, that is all.

[Patchman123]

Look people,
I ain't no whiner. I'm not whining about anything. I just want to see better collision physics and the like from the game. Why isn't more being done? Why am I a whiner? I am not!

I think that more needs to be done. A submarine does not suddenly break up when it collides with the land. A submarine can survive beaching on the shore. The sand seems metallic and not sand. An island is like a metallic object that breaks a submarine like a ceramic plate.

I would like to know which mods fix the complaints I have. Why isn't there a collision physics mod? Why does ramming an island damage my submarine?
Even a 5 knots a slow SLOW speed. It still damages my ceramic submarine.

My submarine can't settle on the bottom or have controllable dive planes so that I can settle on the bottom in shallow waters to avoid detection. I settled on the bottom in SH3 with the U-boat mod, but I was still detected by British sonar even though I was running silently.

They still depth charged me. Why don't I ever hear plates breaking? I know the crew rotates on the watch. That's about it.
The crew doesn't do much else. The game does not have a way to see the submarine.

I'm frustrated that the mods do not do enough. It is not possible to have a thousand planes because of the game engine, but I am hoping that someday we will help create more realistic World War II games with thousands of planes in the sky with a subsim that will have more detail and more planes and ships and actually make a difference in the war. How about having a game where the Germans encounter U-boats and have convoys sail on their actual dates and bombing raids happen according to logs in the 8th Air Force and so on. Have a game in the future where thousands of planes dot the sky in a subsim and have bombing raids against Manila by Japanese planes. No Japanese planes strafing the harbor for example on December 8th 1941 in Manila like the ACTUAL war? No Clark Field. No Japanese bombing raids. Why can't be have cities reduced to rubble like Manila? Why can't Japanese planes be seen in the sky in the Philippines Submarine Campaign in TMO or RFB?

There are no P-40s either. No bombing raids. No Rabaul reduced to rubble or having B-25s strafe ships in the harbor or remnants of Allied or Axis bombing raids. Why has there never been a "M" rated submarine game?

With more realism that is graphic. Why do subsims have to be PG-13 Disney versions of war?
Why can't I see Japanese air raids heading for Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in the sky with Japanese planes flying high in the sky?

Why don't destroyers buckle upward from the pressure of an exploding depth charge from detonating at a shallow depth? I saw Unsolved History on the Military Channel on Dish Network Channel 195 and an American destroyer attacks a Japanese midget submarine in Pearl Harbor in the show and the destroyer was lifted upward by the explosion and damaged by it, yet I do not see that in Silent Hunter 4.

Why don't depth charges detonate at a minimal depth setting or have a minimal depth setting instead of detonating at 20 feet or so? I believe that depth charges had a minimal depth at which they could explode at.



My map names mod will NEVER be incorporated into a major mod. I give the community permission to use it however they want to. Any flaws with it?

[Armistead]

RSRD scripts most historical traffic, you see plenty of air raids, you can watch planes attack in mass against surface fleets, watch TF battle it out, etc...Probably 90% of historical plane and ship traffic is in the game.

Of all your complaints, things that are not in the game, cities that crumble, why, subs don't attack cities. This is a submarine sim, no one really cares about watching cities crumble, that's more of a plane sim.

You can't beach your sub. Realistically if a sub hit a reef or land at speed, it would damage. Why do you need to beach your sub, it's just not a needed feature?

You can sit on the bottom at zero speed, but it doesn't hide you from sonar, nor would it realistically. Many DD's picked up sunken vessels on the body with sonar why searching for subs.

In stock DD's use to make mistakes and blow themselves up all the time with shallow charges, so it was corrected....Still can happen, but it's very rare as it should be.

With any game, the AI is limited, it's not gonna do all the functions humans would do.

This is an old game. Sure they could create the uber realistic game, but it would require the best rigs limiting sells. I imagine in 20 years we'll be playing games as such.

Again, they're many mods, but most are based on aspects of sub warfare, not other parts of war.

yes your sub has a glass hull when it comes to contact with other objects but if done carefully its very easy to put your sub on the bottom without any damage.

have your engines come to a complete stop about 5-10 meters off of the bottom and when you have slowed down to at least a speed of 1 (dead stop is best) then lower your depth 5 meters at a time waiting for it to stop before going deeper then your sub will settle slowly doing no damage when you contact the bottom. when you touch bottom lower the depth about 15 meters lower then your depth so the sub stays steady and doesnt move around causing damage

when you are ready to move again just raise up your depth but you cant use the engines untill you clear the bottom or you will get engine, hull, and rudder, damage just as you should in real life

its not like the movies where you just sink till you hit the bottom or you would bend the rudders, props, and shafts doing it and in doing so you are effectively destroying your own sub

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Patchman123

Look people,
I ain't no whiner. I'm not whining about anything. I just want to see better collision physics and the like from the game. Why isn't more being done? Why am I a whiner? I am not!

Of course you're not. I was just teasing a little. The problem is that no group of devs could possibly take everything into account in the time allotted to them to create the game.

I think that more needs to be done. A submarine does not suddenly break up when it collides with the land. A submarine can survive beaching on the shore. The sand seems metallic and not sand. An island is like a metallic object that breaks a submarine like a ceramic plate.

That is a valid complaint. The real problem isn't how the sub acts when it strikes land. The real problem is that it strikes land at all. The lookouts don't bother to mention that you are fast approaching an island the navigator didn't bother to notice on the charts. What should happen is that the OOD simply steers the boat around the island. As for beaching the boat, yes, you should be able to do that. But the devs didn't think of it, and there doesn't seem to be a way to fix it without rewriting the codes, which is illegal.

I would like to know which mods fix the complaints I have. Why isn't there a collision physics mod? Why does ramming an island damage my submarine?
Even a 5 knots a slow SLOW speed. It still damages my ceramic submarine.

In the original SH1 you could sink your sub ramming a wooden sampan. I learned that lesson the hard way, and at least they've fixed that.

My submarine can't settle on the bottom or have controllable dive planes so that I can settle on the bottom in shallow waters to avoid detection. I settled on the bottom in SH3 with the U-boat mod, but I was still detected by British sonar even though I was running silently.

True, interacting with the bottom is something that should be possible. That said, sitting on the bottom isn't a guarantee that you won't be found, it just helps some. Way back in '94 Aces Of The Deep let you do that. Of course you could also get stuck there.

They still depth charged me. Why don't I ever hear plates breaking? I know the crew rotates on the watch. That's about it.
The crew doesn't do much else. The game does not have a way to see the submarine.

See it how? From the outside? Sure you can, at least in the version I play. Of course if you wanted true realism you would never use external views anyway.

I'm frustrated that the mods do not do enough.

And that is why I accused you of whining. Modders don't work for you, or me. They work for themselves and do what they want. It's not their job to create the mods you want. If you want something more then you do need to learn how to do it yourself.

It is not possible to have a thousand planes because of the game engine, but I am hoping that someday we will help create more realistic World War II games with thousands of planes in the sky with a subsim that will have more detail and more planes and ships and actually make a difference in the war.

How often would a u-boat actually see a thousand-plane raid? It doesn't make much sense to put in things that might happen once in ten careers.

How about having a game where the Germans encounter U-boats and have convoys sail on their actual dates

If that were done you would be able to look up the convoy and know exactly when and where to intercept it, and what ships to look for. That is information no kaleun could ever have, and would make it easy to cheat. Randomness is much better.

and bombing raids happen according to logs in the 8th Air Force and so on.

Again, how many of those raids did any u-boat captain ever see? You're asking for things that eat up resources best used elsewhere.

No Japanese planes strafing the harbor for example on December 8th 1941 in Manila like the ACTUAL war? No Clark Field. No Japanese bombing raids. Why can't be have cities reduced to rubble like Manila? Why can't Japanese planes be seen in the sky in the Philippines Submarine Campaign in TMO or RFB?

Those are things that might be scripted in, and might be cool to see, but it only happens once in a career, and again wasn't done because they were more concerned with things that happened on a regular basis, not once.

Why don't destroyers buckle upward from the pressure of an exploding depth charge from detonating at a shallow depth? I saw Unsolved History on the Military Channel on Dish Network Channel 195 and an American destroyer attacks a Japanese midget submarine in Pearl Harbor in the show and the destroyer was lifted upward by the explosion and damaged by it, yet I do not see that in Silent Hunter 4.

You'd have to show evidence for that one. I've read a lot about Pearl Harbor, and yes, USS Ward did attack a midget sub, but I don't recall reading about her taking damage from her depth charges.

Basically you seem to me to be asking for a lot of lesser things, when the real problems still haven't been fixed.

[Patchman123]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Of course you're not. I was just teasing a little. The problem is that no group of devs could possibly take everything into account in the time allotted to them to create the game.


That is a valid complaint. The real problem isn't how the sub acts when it strikes land. The real problem is that it strikes land at all. The lookouts don't bother to mention that you are fast approaching an island the navigator didn't bother to notice on the charts. What should happen is that the OOD simply steers the boat around the island. As for beaching the boat, yes, you should be able to do that. But the devs didn't think of it, and there doesn't seem to be a way to fix it without rewriting the codes, which is illegal.


In the original SH1 you could sink your sub ramming a wooden sampan. I learned that lesson the hard way, and at least they've fixed that. Shouldn't mod makers do it for the benefit of the community? Sometimes, I've seen mod makers do mods by request. It's not entirely by their own doing for themselves. They've got help from the community. So, the idea that the make them because only they want them is not right because they have demand from the community, too.



True, interacting with the bottom is something that should be possible. That said, sitting on the bottom isn't a guarantee that you won't be found, it just helps some. Way back in '94 Aces Of The Deep let you do that. Of course you could also get stuck there.


See it how? From the outside? Sure you can, at least in the version I play. Of course if you wanted true realism you would never use external views anyway.


And that is why I accused you of whining. Modders don't work for you, or me. They work for themselves and do what they want. It's not their job to create the mods you want. If you want something more then you do need to learn how to do it yourself.


How often would a u-boat actually see a thousand-plane raid? It doesn't make much sense to put in things that might happen once in ten careers.


If that were done you would be able to look up the convoy and know exactly when and where to intercept it, and what ships to look for. That is information no kaleun could ever have, and would make it easy to cheat. Randomness is much better.


Again, how many of those raids did any u-boat captain ever see? You're asking for things that eat up resources best used elsewhere.


Those are things that might be scripted in, and might be cool to see, but it only happens once in a career, and again wasn't done because they were more concerned with things that happened on a regular basis, not once.


You'd have to show evidence for that one. I've read a lot about Pearl Harbor, and yes, USS Ward did attack a midget sub, but I don't recall reading about her taking damage from her depth charges.

Basically you seem to me to be asking for a lot of lesser things, when the real problems still haven't been fixed.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...66694749779812 That's wasn't the USS Ward. That was some other destroyer. That was the USS Monaghan in Pearl Harbor that attacked the other midget sub in Pearl Harbor and had its stern lifted up in the air by the depth charge explosion and the force of the explosion being so great that it caused the Monaghan to ram a barge because the explosion was so violent that it caused the destroyer to lift up a few feet in the air and caused the destroyer to lose control.
Here's the documentary evidence for you.


Man, I wish more could be done. Does GWX ring a bell? That was by community demand. The community asks for more and they deliver. The frustration I have with the mods is that I can't download them because the FileFront/GameFront links are no longer there? Is there a reason why GameFront is deleting them? Copyright infringement maybe or maybe they don't wanna get sued by Ubisoft? These people are idiots to remove such mods. I tried to download the hull numbers mod and the file was no longer there on filefront? IS there some kind of agenda involved here? Anti-military far-left agenda maybe? idiots at Filefront. Those anti-military morons in California, I CANNOT stand those jackasses!

http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/wwii/pearl/ph54.htm

[razark]

Originally Posted by Patchman123

IS there some kind of agenda involved here?

Yes, there is an agenda. It's more along the lines of "Remove stuff that isn't being downloaded to free up disk space" than some left-wing conspiracy to replace the military with a new "Panda Tree Hugging Corps", though.

Originally Posted by Patchman123

Man, I wish more could be done. Does GWX ring a bell? That was by community demand. The community asks for more and they deliver.

GWX came about pretty much the same way any other mod did. Somebody didn't like something, so he changed it. If you don't like the way the game behaves, figure out how to change it. If you don't know how to, go learn, ask some questions, examine other mods that do similar things.

[Patchman123]

Originally Posted by razark

Yes, there is an agenda. It's more along the lines of "Remove stuff that isn't being downloaded to free up disk space" than some left-wing conspiracy to replace the military with a new "Panda Tree Hugging Corps", though.



GWX came about pretty much the same way any other mod did. Somebody didn't like something, so he changed it. If you don't like the way the game behaves, figure out how to change it. If you don't know how to, go learn, ask some questions, examine other mods that do similar things.

Yes, I have some questions. Does anyone want the Dutch islands in the map names mod to be in English?

[Armistead]

Patch, here is example. I once sent Ducimas this message requesting a mod.

"Ducimas,

Just tried TMO, what gives, things are different, you screwed up the Captians Quarters, what happened with the gun range, did you screw this up. I ran into land today at high TC and destroyed my sub, are you serious, please make them beach it when approaching land and all go out and make love to hula girls. How about before releasing this crap, you actually play the game for once and see what happens...FIX these things NOW....where is the F'en Beer, no beer on the sub....geesh.. You suck, your mods sucks, I'm going back to stock.

Arm....."

...................................

It got nothing, just called another F'en idiot that didn't read the support document..., so I sent him another.

......................................

"Your Royal Highness, Prince Ducimas

Your Royal Highness, there are many people here at Subsim who desperately need your generosity. People who have been locked out, marginalized, lacking any formal education regarding correcting game files in order to promote realistic play.

Sir Duke, Master Ducimas, we the lowly, non-educated of Sumsim would like to ask you to consider assisting us to correct the issue of our subs not having any beer on board with TMO 2.2. Bringing back the Hula girls would be a nice touch.

Master, I have sent my wife with beer to be your most loyal servant, keep her as you will.

I throw myself upon your hospitality, any joy the game gives me I claim from your Royal Highness alone, as the most powerful, the most constant and the most generous of all modders.

I do not seek a reply, but await with all love and respect towards Your Royal Highness.


I have the honour to be, Sir, your humble and obedient servant.

Armistead


..........................

He replied and said he would let me know after he saw wife and beer arrived.....and stilled called me a dumbarse and only said "maybe in a few months" I waited and waited, finally my wife came back with a note..." Here is your wife back, she talks too much, but the beer was good, here are your hula girls"

I was shocked, I gave no orders, the crew left in several rafts leaving me on the boat.



However, I flanked ahead and beached the sub totally with no damage and beat my crew to shore amongst all the girls.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Patchman123

That was the USS Monaghan in Pearl Harbor that attacked the other midget sub in Pearl Harbor and had its stern lifted up in the air by the depth charge explosion and the force of the explosion being so great that it caused the Monaghan to ram a barge because the explosion was so violent that it caused the destroyer to lift up a few feet in the air and caused the destroyer to lose control.
Here's the documentary evidence for you.

I don't know where you're getting your information, or where the video makers got theirs. Here are the complete action reports from all the officers aboard Monaghan, and nowhere do they say anything about their ship being affected by the depth charges.

Now it's true that destroyers must accelerate just before they drop, as depth charges certainly can cause damage if they go off under the ship. This is the reason American PT boats carried DCs later in the war - to discourage pursuing Japanese destroyers.

Man, I wish more could be done. Does GWX ring a bell? That was by community demand.

No, that was because the people who formed that team wanted more themselves. They did, as many modders do, ask what others wanted to see in the mod, but they did it because they wanted to, not because someone demanded it.

The frustration I have with the mods is that I can't download them because the FileFront/GameFront links are no longer there? Is there a reason why GameFront is deleting them?

Mostly because of lack of interest, and bandwidth availability. It costs money to keep a site like that going. When I had mods up at GameFront (back when it was FileFront) they would send me emails saying that they would take down this mod or that one unless I actively asked them not to. If anyone puts a mod up there and then goes away, it gets taken down fairly quickly.

Have you tried Maik's excellent site, or here at Subsim Downloads? Have you asked other members if they have copies of mods you want?