ROW Rocks! As does RSRD!!!

[pythos]

SH4 is very quickly becoming the sim it should have been when it was released. Both the Sims of title of this post have added some badly needed characteristics, which make the game that much more enjoyable.

[ReallyDedPoet]

They are great ones


RDP

[AVGWarhawk]

I very interested in how RSRD progresses. The first installment is great. I really enjoy it. Lurker has done a great job on it. I bet the next installment will be even more creative and enjoyable.

[letterboy1]

I plan to start a RSRD campaign when the second installment is complete. I'd just hate to start one now since it doesn't cover the entire war period.

[Rockin Robbins]

As long as RSRD conflicts with Trigger Maru, I'll have to pass. Doesn't matter how good it is, any mutually exclusive choice with Trigger Maru loses.

ROW knows the score and plays nicely with TM, RSRD could do the same.

[Fincuan]

It does work with TM just fine, although not straight out of the box. See the RSRDC thread for more.

[donut]

A version T_M_RSRD is desired by the community JSGME ready,all missions,photo Ops, supply,extract,& rescue,included.Well Done

[Ducimus]

Guys, while i appreciate the support, i do not want a situation to occur where mods are at odds with each other.

In the words of Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh: "I'm too old for this ****! "

[Fearless]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Guys, while i appreciate the support, i do not want a situation to occur where mods are at odds with each other.

In the words of Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh: "I'm too old for this ****! "

Totally agree. Besides you never know what is around the corner. ALL the mods are awesome

[donut]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Guys, while i appreciate the support, i do not want a situation to occur where mods are at odds with each other.

In the words of Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh: "I'm too old for this ****! "

Just an idea for the times,so "it sucked".We were thinking many SHIV players,were wanting to try RSRD campain layers,with T_M_,& don't know how.like me
Fincuan

It does work with TM just fine, although not straight out of the box. See the RSRDC thread for more.

Guess we can try this,although timid

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Fincuan

It does work with TM just fine, although not straight out of the box. See the RSRDC thread for more.

So basically delete all the files from TM that are duplicated in RSRD and merge? Doesn't sound like I end up with the gameplay improvements in TM. It sounds like I would get exactly the same result loading RSRD on top of TM with JSGME, which is not recommended. Why am I not encouraged? I'm not a big fan of do it yourself surgery.

Frankly I consider the gameplay improvements of TM more important than the environmental improvements of RSRD, which do nothing to rectify gameplay. There's no conflict there. TM just stays and RSRD gets passed up until someone rectifies the situation and makes the TM/RSRD/ROW supermod. It's coming, just who's going to make it happen and release it? Please no thievery, and give credit to all who took part, down to the smallest possible detail.

Just wait until the add-on comes out and the Atlantic U-Boat campaign needs to be added to all that. I guess ROW is effectively contained within the add-on already. It might get tweaked though, if I know leo, he's always finding something amazing.

[AVGWarhawk]

Frankly I consider the gameplay improvements of TM more important than the environmental improvements of RSRD, which do nothing to rectify gameplay

.

RR,

RSRD is not a environment type mod, it creates historical shipping traffic and historical routes. Major engagements are present. Messages are sent on intelligence to send you to those major engagements. Sometimes you find them sometimes you don't. This is how it rectifies game play. I have not used TM and can only assume that if RSRD is installed first, TM installed after it will change the files that you are looking to keep within TM. Just using RSRD, I find ships zigging and zagging. I find veteran DD and crappy DD. Not a bad mix as I see it. Duci has added some nice features and these features should be there if TM is loaded after RSRD.

[Rockin Robbins]

I guess we need some definitions so we're talking about the same thing. I know there's no right or wrong here and my definitions, like all definitions, are arbitrary. However, before we can talk about game improvements, we have to agree on what we are talking about. So give me a lot of rope here and see if I tie the concept of the game together or fashion a nice functional noose that happens to fit around my neck. Should be fun, no?

Environment: that set of stuff (technical term WAY beyond mortal explanation) outside the submarine, operating independently of whatever the submarine does, and perhaps "intelligently" reacting to whatever the submarine does. This would include the ocean, the sky, sun, moon, stars, enemy merchants, IJN.

Gameplay: that set of stuff relating to submarine operations: dive times, sensor capabilities, operation and display, communications, submarine controls, interior layout and detail, battery life, range on diesel and battery, I know I am leaving some important things out, but I hope you get the idea.

You can also conceptualize it this way: gameplay is comprised of the things you can do and control. Environment is comprised of those things you encounter which you do not control.

ROW and RSRD, then, by my arbitrary but I hope useful definition, are primarily environmental mods. They deal with the stuff you do not control: behavior of the ocean, appearance of the sky, how the boat floats in the ocean and reacts to wave action (a little bit of crossover there, but you don't control that so by rule #2 it is an environmental effect), where shipping will be found, how it deploys itself, default evasive tactics, attack aggressiveness for IJN. All that is outside the sub and under AI or programmatic control and is environment.

Trigger Maru has some environmental aspects (mostly acquired later when Ducimus saw how great the environmental mods were, beginning with the incredible NSM (YES! an environmental mod, controling what the environment does after you interact with it). But TM's most important changes are gameplay mods: correcting the too effective surface sonar (went too far Ducimus!:p), getting rid of the cute but cheating ship silhouettes and velocity vectors on the nav map, correcting dive times, correcting battery life, tweaking range and speed under diesel, calibrating 1/3 speed to maximum fuel economy, enabling CE identify target, enabling range to course end, max fuel range, one button attack map access, reducing the size of tools to give you more nav map real estate, nomograph, improved comand bar arrangement, I'm sure this list is not exhaustive. Ducimus has much more crossover into environmental effects than NSM, ROW and RSRD have into gameplay effects.

But what do I care about the environment when my boat dives too slowly, has sensors the work too well and give me too much information, the controls omit features that are very helpful (Hell, necessary!) for efficient sub operations, the batteries don't last half the correct length, I have to manually set RPM for fuel economy at the tachometers (which aren't accurate anyway!), my map tools take up half the real estate, I get lousy ship silhouettes and velocity vectors that bear no relationship to real sensor output, my attack map gives similar hand-holding inaccurate data, etc!

On the other hand, my behavior when attacking a ship will be the same whether I find it in a "historically plausible" place or not, or whether my boat floats right, or the waves are pretty enough, or the sky has the right kind of clouds. Zig patterns could influence my strategy to some extent, but sub behavior would be unaffected.

With your permission I hereby appoint myself god of SUBSIM for five minutes.:rotfl:

Ducimus, front and center! Sir, we appreciate all that you have done for Silent Hunter 3 and 4. Your contributions have been indispensible over the years and I couldn't live without your Trigger Maru mod. BUT as of late, and in one instance you are really going to hate , you have lost your focus, interefering with other mods (specifically environmental mods) ability to do their jobs and cooperate with TM. By the POWER invested in me by me I hereby appoint you lord of gameplay according to the above dictates--all issues of submarine control and operations including sensor behavior belong to you. Isn't that real nice? BUT you must immediately relinquish any control over ships sinking, waves waving, sky doing whatever the sky does, merchant behavior and placement, and yes, I'm afraid IJN AI attack behavior. Please don't cry like that, I know that was close to your heart. But as god, my job is to tell you things you don't want to hear and make you do things you don't want to do. TOO BAD! Am I clear? Thank you very much. Have a nice day.:p

WernerSobe, leovampire and fearless crew, lurker_hlb3: front and center! Werner, you have been remarkably focused and confined to single effects relating to target sinking behavior, which conflict with nobody's mods. Thank you. Keep it that way. You are dismissed.

Leovampire and motely crew, your mod concerning itself with traditionally recognized environmental effects has also been remarkably and efficiently focused. It installs without fuss and loss of function with all other mods. You are cautioned to keep it that way and continue discovering ways to improve your chosen field. I give you special dispensation to be able to deal with visual ranges. You have been a shining example of a group of modders who cooperate with all possible existing mods and maintains focus. Have a Milky Way bar! You are dismissed.

Lurker_hlb3 you are working on a key item in the puzzle that is Silent Hunter 4: enemy merchant and IJN behavior. You may also be dealing with hostile aircraft, but that doesn't matter. Because I hereby appoint you as lord of all traffic in the sea and in the air, its AI (reaction to submarine behavior), its deployment, number and effectiveness of weapons (including depth charges), with the exception of sinking behavior once struck by a torpedo or gunfire, which is Werner's territory. I realize that we have only begun to see what you can do. My concern is that your work remains focused and capable of working concurrently with other essential mods. Thank you for your service. Dismissed.

Now on those instances where you modders have exceeded your assigned territories, you are ordered to coordinate with the holders of those territories to incorporate your features with the proper mods. Ducimus will hand over enemy AI to Lurker, cooperating in every respect to see that it works properly. Lurker, if you have any aspects of sinking behavior or submarine operations in your mod, please hand them over in a constructive manner to their rightful owners.

You are ALL charged with the responsibility of ensuring that your mods interoperate without conflict with the others'. Any modders with independent mods can choose to work with you if they wish, but you three are appointed official supermodders. Others may apply as the situation changes. SWDW your application for RFB is hereby acknowledged and you will be a gameplay modder. Any environmental aspects must be handed off cooperatively immediately.

Any discussion? No. Good. Damn! I sound like that evil Darth GWX guy.... I hereby resign my commission as god of SUBSIM and resume my status as gameplayer. Have a nice day.

[Fincuan]

If one were to merge the mods the way I have done, which requires a bit more work than just putting one on top of the other, then one would enjoy ALL TMaru's improvements you listed in the gameplay part. You will obviously lose the things that RSRDC changes, the most important ones being Tater's campaign layers and Duci's new construction floatillas. I also chose all the RSRDC unit loadouts and properties over those of TMaru, but given enough time one could possibly have the best from both of them. If TMaru is 1 and RSRDC is 1, then in this case 1+1 =~1.9, which isn't too bad in my opinion. ROW and NSM can naturally be used just fine with this installation, since they work with TMaru to begin with. I'm currently trying to merge TMaru 1.6.5 with RSRDC 1.03, and will report back when or if it's done. If enough people are interested and the original modders do not oppose this , I might even release the work or at least write detailed instructions on how to do it. It's not space science, just tedious work

Note that I'm not merging RSRDC to TMaru because I think that Tater's campaign layers suck, which they do not, but because I want to try RSRDC without losing all of TMaru's improvements.

[Ducimus]

For those of you combining mods, well... more power to you! Combining mods, is how one learns to mod, quite honestly. So, as long as you dont expect tech support like, "this isnt working correctly!" type of thing, id encourage you to combine, mix, and match, and flavor to taste as much as you have the patience for.

I only have two items of warning

1.) Beware "Generic destroyer escort" in the campaign layers. Unless you want "parkers tin can", or worse yet, "Akikaze destroyer" cropping up somewhere randomly in the game world other then there designated places.

2.) Crewrating=4 in the mis layers. (Aka, "elites"). Id open up notepad, and do a find and replace job on those, and bump them down to crewrating=3. When i adjusted the AI in TM, part of that adjustment was the crew rating.

Its been awhile but what i think i did to crew rating was this:
Anything that was crewrating 0, changed to crew rating 2.
Anyything that was crew rating 1, was changed to crew rating 2
crew rating 2, was changed to crew rating 3
Anything that was at a crew rating 3, stayed there
anything that was crew rating 4, was demoted to crew rating 3.

So in the end, TM sports alot of crew ratings 2, and 3. This adjustment was neccessary because in my opinion crew ratings 0, and 1, are a freaking waste of space, and crew rating 4's are just insane, espeically after you tweak the AI to be a little more sensitive their underwater detection methods.


So, my only thing is, keep those two things in mind, and if things don't work out well, don't yell at me or urker_hib3, we didnt do it!