[WIP] Japanese Merchant Marine

[tater]

Originally Posted by sergei

That's what I was thinking Tater, in case you didn't have enough real photos to use.

I like this idea, but it has one flaw... in the case of ONI entries for "similar" ships that are in fact different looking we don't have a SH4 ship to take a shot of. Your PS skills might well be such that you could make them indistinguishable, but obviously if the player sees a SH4 shot they'd be certain it was a "real" ship.

Again, part of the rationale behind the real ONI pages is that it will create confusion. SH4 ships are roughly designed after the ships that they are named for (some considerably more roughly than others ). That said, they need to also function as "generic" ships. As such, when a ship is an analog for many RL ships of similar configuration (5k tons, MKFM Split, say), we can clone her, make some slight variation, then give her the ONI page for one of the "similar" ships that none the less look different enough that no one would probably mistake them in SH4.

It's a compromise, I realize, but the rec manual paradigm in SH stinks, frankly. The only way to really reorganize it is to make many fake countries, then assign copies of all the ships as clones that are warships for the new countries. the new countries would have names like " Composite Superstructure" or "Engines Aft."

It's rather complicated, however.

[tater]

BTW, regarding the rec manual, right now, my images are roughly scaled to each other as they are in ONI. In other words I have my PDF viewer to full screen, then take a SS of the page. If the ship is "little" in the ONI drawing, it's little in this one. That could change I suppose, but most are already done (though I have yet to alpha channel all, so many are not in my WIP version right now).

I'm open to suggestions.

[GerritJ9]

Mescator, the ship you are referring to is most probably the "Montevideo Maru", see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montevideo_Maru

Sadly, this was by no means the only instance of Allied subs sinking Japanese merchies which were transporting Allied POWs and/or Asian slave labourers (the latter victims almost completely forgotten today). To name but a few:
Kachidoki Maru
Rakuyo Maru
Junyo Maru
Lisbon Maru

None of the hell ships had any distinguishing markings to indicate they were transporting POWs as far as I know.

Tater, no need to apologize- we are all learning from each other as far as i'm concerned .

[tater]

I just read Fortress Rabaul, and there was quite a bit about hellships taking POWs away. I think he said that of all the POWs taken in the SWPA ibn '42 that went through Rabaul, only 2 survived the war.

[tater]

OK, Awa M. was painted green the beginning of February, 1945. She ran with lights on, and COMSUBPAC sent messages giving her free passage as a POW relief supply ship.

None the less, her TROM shows her unloading Red Cross, AND military cargoes during the entire period she was supposed to be a POW RS ship. LOL. She was sunk April 1st, and cruised all along the South China Sea.

The skipper of queenfish attacked her by radar alone, and was ordered to face court marshal. Sad, really, considering that the ship was cheating on the rules in the first place, and he never even saw her.

[Mescator]

Originally Posted by GerritJ9

Mescator, the ship you are referring to is most probably the "Montevideo Maru", see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montevideo_Maru

Aha, good find. That's her. As an Australian that one has special significance. Guess that's why it stuck in my mind.

[GerritJ9]

Feel free to incorporate part of my British Medium Old Tanker mod into this work- "Paula" was scuttled at Tandjong Priok in March 1942, but salvaged by the Japanese and added to their tanker fleet. It's not much of an addition, but I assume you will also be looking at tankers and every little bit helps I suppose

[tater]

Originally Posted by GerritJ9

Feel free to incorporate part of my British Medium Old Tanker mod into this work- "Paula" was scuttled at Tandjong Priok in March 1942, but salvaged by the Japanese and added to their tanker fleet. It's not much of an addition, but I assume you will also be looking at tankers and every little bit helps I suppose

Does it actually do anything?

Since it only changes the

[Unit 1]
Name=Arare Maru
DOC=19430101
DOD=19450816

stuff, and that is not used by the game at all as far as I can tell, I think we need to change the top bit of the roster for it to work.


[UnitClass]
ClassName=OMPaula
UnitType=101
AppearanceDate=19270101
DisappearanceDate=19470101
DisplayName=BR Medium Tanker

to

[UnitClass]
ClassName=OMPaula
UnitType=101
AppearanceDate=19430101
DisappearanceDate=19470101
DisplayName=BR Medium Tanker

I'm interested to know if it does work, though. If it does, then all that typing I like to do in the roster (I add all the right names, too ) isn't for naught.

This does bring up an interesting point, the eqp files would really require clones for the non-japanese versions so the guns/crews are not japanese. I have to say, there are a few SH4 ships I just want to get rid of, and Paula is one of them---it is not the least bit "generic" looking, and there was only the one in the Japanese Merchant Fleet.

[tater]

Needs work (specular was set way high on the texture), but these were places with 2 Y nodes in the eqp file (one for each level).

So The same ships can have different looks with just cfgdate changes.

[keltos01]

Originally Posted by tater

Needs work (specular was set way high on the texture), but these were places with 2 Y nodes in the eqp file (one for each level).

So The same ships can have different looks with just cfgdate changes.

this is really interresting Tater !

keltos

[Fish40]

I definitly can't wait for this! It's mods like this that make this sim one of the greatest!