[REL] Open Horizons II (old thread)

Rongel · 05-13-11, 03:34 AM

Okay, here is my somewhat detailed report, played about 3 hours and saw all sorts of things! This time I used map contacts, for testing purposes. Not all issues are related to this mod

First off I don't think the zone.cfg is compatible with a latest FX Update, the numbers are totally different (checked them with Winmerge). Latest FX Update has ten times higher values in most entrys...

Anyway, my mission was the "Rock" where I needed to sink 20.000 tons in Gibraltar area. I started in La Spezia and was immediately suprised how narrow the harbour passages were. While I was wondering this, we hit our boat to the harbour concrete!

We'll it was only a small scratch but a very bad omen about what is to come... Before anyone could notice what had happened, I escaped to the open sea.

So we started our journey to Gibraltar and after a couple of uneventful days, the weather turned bad. Light fog and windspeed of 15 m/s. I ordered to dive because there was no hope of contacting anything in that weather. So we kept going submerged and only surfaced to recharge batteries. One night, when weather was still really bad, we finally got a contact, but it wasn't too pleasant suprise: a task force was coming our way! I ordered to surface we fled the scene. It would have been a suicide to try anything in those conditions and with that opposition.

We were maybe half way to Gibraltar when the soundguy spotted a merchant convoy! Maybe 8 merchants, no warships nearby! Goldmine! We surfaced to get in to good position, but the cursed fog took all hopes of visual contact. So maybe hour later we were in good position and waited for the merchants to come closer when I remembered something. I rushed to the sound guy and grapped the listening gear. Screeches and whining everywhere. I actually was horrified at first, like choir of the damned was coming closer. But no, my contacts were a pack of dolphins! I gave my sound guy an evil look, and continued patrolling.

Finally we reached our patrol destination, but no contacts again. Crew was getting frustrated, so I decided we take a small peak to the nearby harbour, Oran. I was pretty nervous because of the mines and maybe patrol boats I kept hearing about, but to my suprise it was totally empty. So we took off and continued patrolling.

And then finally jackpot! A huge (real) convoy was coming in our direction. There was maybe seven escorts too, but I couldn't miss this chance. Battlestations! We got ourselves to good position between the escorts, dove to 100 meters and shut engines and then just waited and prayed that they don't spot us. The escorts passed us by and I ordered speed of 1 knots and periscope depth. I looked to the periscope and the water was full of ships, all around me. I spotted one new, but very familiar looking white ship. I think it was Small Split Freighter from eastern waters... The bad thing was that the waves were too high to get a good view, all i could see was masts. And then they spotted me too. I panicked and fired all five torpedoes to differents ships, no calculating, just guessing... Ordered to dive to 140 meters. The escorts started to ping me, and I listened and hoped for torpedo hits while diving. Then two explosions, my bird eye view told me that I had injured two small boats... Not too great result.

And you know the rest. Three escorts depthcharging and pinging. No damage yet, but it's only a question of time. Good thing is that the two ships sunk maybe 20 min later (I use FX updates zone.cfg) and I could see the lifeboats in the water. Saved the game and went to sleep, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it... Anyway, not the most exciting patrol, but I had fun!

So to make things clear I'll list some things that came to mind while testing this:

-Zone.cfg overwrite issue
-Dolphins need a voice! The hydrophone audio is good but there should be a sound when you are close to dolphins.
-New ships seemed to work okay, they looked whiter than the rest because shadows don't affect them the same way. You could spot them form the convoy. Maybe the textures need to be darker to compensate this? Also the ship you used, Kasagisan didn't have crew on board, and the equiptments were using un-textured SH 5 models. I can fix this and send you a new version.
-Also I didn't see the new ships through water. The shader was working, it affected all other ships and shallow water but not this new ship.

Anyway, great work and a good start!

05-13-11, 03:34 AM	#11
Rongel Grey Wolf Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Finland Posts: 859 Downloads: 174 Uploads: 0	Okay, here is my somewhat detailed report, played about 3 hours and saw all sorts of things! This time I used map contacts, for testing purposes. Not all issues are related to this mod First off I don't think the zone.cfg is compatible with a latest FX Update, the numbers are totally different (checked them with Winmerge). Latest FX Update has ten times higher values in most entrys... Anyway, my mission was the "Rock" where I needed to sink 20.000 tons in Gibraltar area. I started in La Spezia and was immediately suprised how narrow the harbour passages were. While I was wondering this, we hit our boat to the harbour concrete! We'll it was only a small scratch but a very bad omen about what is to come... Before anyone could notice what had happened, I escaped to the open sea. So we started our journey to Gibraltar and after a couple of uneventful days, the weather turned bad. Light fog and windspeed of 15 m/s. I ordered to dive because there was no hope of contacting anything in that weather. So we kept going submerged and only surfaced to recharge batteries. One night, when weather was still really bad, we finally got a contact, but it wasn't too pleasant suprise: a task force was coming our way! I ordered to surface we fled the scene. It would have been a suicide to try anything in those conditions and with that opposition. We were maybe half way to Gibraltar when the soundguy spotted a merchant convoy! Maybe 8 merchants, no warships nearby! Goldmine! We surfaced to get in to good position, but the cursed fog took all hopes of visual contact. So maybe hour later we were in good position and waited for the merchants to come closer when I remembered something. I rushed to the sound guy and grapped the listening gear. Screeches and whining everywhere. I actually was horrified at first, like choir of the damned was coming closer. But no, my contacts were a pack of dolphins! I gave my sound guy an evil look, and continued patrolling. Finally we reached our patrol destination, but no contacts again. Crew was getting frustrated, so I decided we take a small peak to the nearby harbour, Oran. I was pretty nervous because of the mines and maybe patrol boats I kept hearing about, but to my suprise it was totally empty. So we took off and continued patrolling. And then finally jackpot! A huge (real) convoy was coming in our direction. There was maybe seven escorts too, but I couldn't miss this chance. Battlestations! We got ourselves to good position between the escorts, dove to 100 meters and shut engines and then just waited and prayed that they don't spot us. The escorts passed us by and I ordered speed of 1 knots and periscope depth. I looked to the periscope and the water was full of ships, all around me. I spotted one new, but very familiar looking white ship. I think it was Small Split Freighter from eastern waters... The bad thing was that the waves were too high to get a good view, all i could see was masts. And then they spotted me too. I panicked and fired all five torpedoes to differents ships, no calculating, just guessing... Ordered to dive to 140 meters. The escorts started to ping me, and I listened and hoped for torpedo hits while diving. Then two explosions, my bird eye view told me that I had injured two small boats... Not too great result. And you know the rest. Three escorts depthcharging and pinging. No damage yet, but it's only a question of time. Good thing is that the two ships sunk maybe 20 min later (I use FX updates zone.cfg) and I could see the lifeboats in the water. Saved the game and went to sleep, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it... Anyway, not the most exciting patrol, but I had fun! So to make things clear I'll list some things that came to mind while testing this: -Zone.cfg overwrite issue -Dolphins need a voice! The hydrophone audio is good but there should be a sound when you are close to dolphins. -New ships seemed to work okay, they looked whiter than the rest because shadows don't affect them the same way. You could spot them form the convoy. Maybe the textures need to be darker to compensate this? Also the ship you used, Kasagisan didn't have crew on board, and the equiptments were using un-textured SH 5 models. I can fix this and send you a new version. -Also I didn't see the new ships through water. The shader was working, it affected all other ships and shallow water but not this new ship. Anyway, great work and a good start!