[REL] Kosh 9km Visibility Mod

[Probex]

9km Visibility Mod

NEW Version: Apr 28,07

Get it HERE: http://files.filefront.com/Kosh_9km_.../fileinfo.html
or here if direct link doesn't work: http://hosted.filefront.com/OACKosh/

Install with JSGME:
http://www.users.on.net/%7Ejscones/s...sgme_setup.exe





Salute Captains!


This is a somewhat experimental mod trying to achieve longer range of visibility in Silent Hunter 4.

This is NOT a 16km Vis mod like in SH3, but an improvement over the current foggy 8km one.

I have investigated the Scene.dat file and so far have been unable to extend the engine rendering distance much beyond 9km. So, I altered rather dramatically the fog rendering limits for CLEAR weather, and thus achieved an additional over 1km of visibility and also managed to make everything look a LOT sharper and clearer.

The ships are physically rendered at about 10000 yards. I have created a thin fog layer of about 50-100 yards to cover the unsightly "creation" of a given vessel. Shortly after the "rendering" process the ship will emerge out of the thick fog quickly but smoothly and be fully visible to the eye.
With this mod you will be able to see the vessels at 9km distance in CLEAR weather. The lessening of the fog gradation gives us more than 1km extra visibility over the stock game!


Side effects:

Land seems to be rendered at a different distance than ships, and I focused on getting the ships right, so sometimes when closer to land, you may see some furthest land edges shimmering (especially in free camera mod). I don't think that it is a big issue considering the dramatic visibility improvement this mod offers at sea.


Change Log:

Apr 28,07
Fixed my error in scene.dat that caused the land textures not to render properly.

Apr27,07
I made changes in the Sensors.cfg to match the new visual fog parameters.
As soon as the ship silhouette begins to emerge from the fog you can detect it visually and lock on to it. I also boosted SLIGHLTY visual detection acuteness of your watchmen.



Filename: Scene.dat
In the Fog settings for Clear Weather (no fog)
ObjectsRelativeZmin=0.81 (NOT more, or land textures won't render)
ObjectsRelativeZmax=0.9


Filename: Sensors.cfg

;Visual.
Visual range factor=0.3
Visual fog factor=0.95
Visual light factor=0.6
Visual waves factor=0.6







I hope that this mod will improve you SH4 experience.


Enjoy!


Kosh Naranek
aka Probex



PS. Feedback and help with extending the rendering range would be greatly appreciated.

[Chrall]

Good work Probex, I'll definitely try this out.

[Redwine]

Many thanks for job and effort Probex !

Plase, make a manual editing guide...
Some of us, have the scene.dat file edited yet...

[CaptainCox]

Cheers man, will try it out directly after work

[peewee]

It seems that this mod clashes with the 'smaller sun & moon mod' has anyone tried running both mods at the same time?

[U-Bones]

Originally Posted by peewee

It seems that this mod clashes with the 'smaller sun & moon mod' has anyone tried running both mods at the same time?

They both modify the scene.dat file, so no. You can load both, but both will not be in effect, and depending on load order can mess with other settings as well.

[U-Bones]

Quick feedback.

By the time I got my binoculars on a newly sighted DD, he was flank turning into a beeline towards me. This may need adjusting for good play, but I was loading this on top of FTT like sensor settings and this combo will need some sanity checking.

My opinion visually is that it is too sharp at distance. I think something in the middle between this and stock would be pretty nice. I do like the fact that i -could- use the binoculars at range...

[Probex]

FFT cranked up visual fog factor to 0.5 from stock 1. This means that you can visually detect the enemies at 14km or more! However, with the umodded game range limitations you (yourself, live person) can only see them when they are around 8km away.
(This is for YOUR sub though, not for the enemies)

9km mod, gives you an extra 1km (actually a bit more because of stock fog gradation).


For the enemies, FFT increased (in sim.cfg)

[Visual]
Light factor=1.75 from 1
Enemy surface factor=150 from 400
Enemy speed factor=9 from 15 knots

This may mean:
a) Perhaps enemies can see you better in poorer lighting conditions
b) Enemy distance is not as much of a factor in detecting you visually
c) Enemy ship's speed plays less of a role in their visual spotting.



So basically, you would have been detected by the Destroyer anyway with FFT, but perhaps you would not have been able to see him turn towards you until he was a bit closer steaming at full speed, without the 9km mod.

I have altered Sensors.cfg in order to decrease your crew's ability to see inside the fog.
FFT has it at 0.5, I put it to 0.95 (to match the new extra visibility), and the stock was at 1.



For testing, create a local Lan game and load the LAST of the coop missions (Convoy in Surigao Strait). Weather is clear. You will start seeing merchant ships coming into view out of the fog at 9km (almost immediately after being rendered by the game engine).

[U-Bones]

Originally Posted by Probex

FFT cranked up visual fog factor to 0.5 from stock 1. This means that you can visually detect the enemies at 14km or more! However, with the umodded game range limitations you (yourself, live person) can only see them when they are around 8km away.
(This is for YOUR sub though, not for the enemies)

9km mod, gives you an extra 1km (actually a bit more because of stock fog gradation).


For the enemies, FFT increased (in sim.cfg)

[Visual]
Light factor=1.75 from 1
Enemy surface factor=150 from 400
Enemy speed factor=9 from 15 knots

This may mean:
a) Perhaps enemies can see you better in poorer lighting consditions
b) Enemy distance is not as much of a factor in detecting you visually
c) Enemy ship's speed plays less of a role in their visual spotting.



So basically, you would have been detected by the Destroyer anyway with FFT, but perhaps you would not have been able to see him turn towards you until he was a bit closer steaming at full speed, without the 9km mod.

I have altered Sensors.cfg in order to decrease your crew's ability to see inside the fog.
FFT has it at 0.5, I put it to 0.95 (to match the new extra visibility), and the stock was at 1.



For testing, create a local Lan game and load the LAST of the coop missions (Convoy in Surigao Strait). Weather is clear. You will start seeing merchant ships coming into view out of the fog at 9km (almost immediately after being rendered by the game engine).

Ok good point, a lot of what I thought was local detection was probably long range and I missed the course change.

I -do- like being able to see what my crew sees instead of taking their word for it I will play with this clean tonight.

[panthercules]

I'm playing my first career patrol with RFB, and I have already noticed a couple of situations (mostly at night I think) where my crew are seeing ships that I cannot see myself, so this sounds like it would be worth a try. Just a question or 2 - (1) I think RFB modified this same file, so I guess I'd need to know exactly what changes need to be made to the file for this mod?; and (2) is this something that I could safely activate mid-patrol or will I need to wait till I get back to port to do this?

Thanks for taking a whack at this - I always used the 16km mods for SH3 and I was hoping we'd get something similar for SH4 pretty soon - this sounds like a good start anyway

[Probex]

Please re-download the mod!
Version Apr28,07

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...019#post517019





I fixed my error that caused the land textures not to render.


S!

[Probex]

Originally Posted by panthercules

I'm playing my first career patrol with RFB, and I have already noticed a couple of situations (mostly at night I think) where my crew are seeing ships that I cannot see myself, so this sounds like it would be worth a try. Just a question or 2 - (1) I think RFB modified this same file, so I guess I'd need to know exactly what changes need to be made to the file for this mod?; and (2) is this something that I could safely activate mid-patrol or will I need to wait till I get back to port to do this?

Thanks for taking a whack at this - I always used the 16km mods for SH3 and I was hoping we'd get something similar for SH4 pretty soon - this sounds like a good start anyway

In order:

1. RFB and FTT may not be using the same numbers since they are different mods.
The files you need to take a look at are sensors.cfg and sim.cfg.
These files are in the game directory\Data\Cfg and can be edited with notepad.

Uninstall the mods with JSGME first (in the EXACT OPPOSITE order of installation), then open a cfg in the game directory and then open the same cfg located in the particular Mod's directory. This way you can compare the stock cfg to the one that comes with the Mod side by side.

It is possible that RFB made changes to the sensors.dat and .sim located in the Library directory. In this case you may need to become familiar with the Minitweaker in order to take a look inside those. But, I think that as far as your crew seeing too far, the cfg files should be all you need to fix it.

2. This particular kind of change you could do in mid patrol without any problem. I do it all the time.
Changes that will cause an issue are such things as: crew changes, enemy shipping density changes, etc. In other words, mods that require a restart of a mission to put the new changes in place. If you change the traffic layer for example in mid patrol, then your saved game is trying to load ships and info that are no longer there.



I hope this helps.

[Probex]

Bump for my own mod, but it really does improve things.





`

[Probex]

Yet another totally selfish mod promotion before this thread drops down too much



S!

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by Probex

It is possible that RFB made changes to the sensors.dat and .sim located in the Library directory. In this case you may need to become familiar with the Minitweaker in order to take a look inside those. But, I think that as far as your crew seeing too far, the cfg files should be all you need to fix it.

I'm not sure exactly what you meant by that - my crew aren't really seeing too far, so by "my crew seeing too far" are you really talking about the fact that "I'm not seeing far enough"? (which I assume was the point of your mod, i.e., to let the player see further). So, are you saying that the changes in the .cfg file(s) are all I would need to be able to start seeing the ships at 9Km? If so, why did you have to mess with the .dat or .sim files that you mentioned?

I haven't really figured out how to use the minitweaker thing for SH4 (did eventually figure out how to do that a little in SH3) yet, so I'd just as soon avoid it for a while longer if I can, but I'm not sure what you're saying about whether I'll really be able to use this mod with RFB without having to dig around in those .dat or .sim files.

This sounds like a really promising start toward some more rational visibility limits than they seem to have given us with SH4. I was really disappointed, after all the work that went into modding a longer visibility distance in SH3, that the devs weren't able to deliver more than the same old 8Km limit in SH4.

Keep up the good work