[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[CapnScurvy]

Regarding Websters Ship Maneuvering Fix.

The Displacements: may be the same between the Fix and FOTRS, but the Mass: is quite larger than FOTRS. Also changed is the GravityCenter: position. Both will change how the ship sits in the water and what it will do in wind.

I'm just not convinced that having a ship increased in weight, with the possibility of it sitting lower in the water (I'm not sure if this is what it will do or not....been too long ago to remember whether it's Displacement, Mass, or both, that makes the ship heavier) to the point the center of gravity needs to be re adjusted, is the right way to go about slowing down the performance. It's a tricky business making a ship heavier for cutting down performance, and needing to move the center of gravity so it stays afloat in all conditions.

Did Webster do it right....maybe he did. I don't know. I just know what I ran across years ago with his mod.

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Regarding Websters Ship Maneuvering Fix.

The Displacements: may be the same between the Fix and FOTRS, but the Mass: is quite larger than FOTRS. Also changed is the GravityCenter: position. Both will change how the ship sits in the water and what it will do in wind.

I'm just not convinced that having a ship increased in weight, with the possibility of it sitting lower in the water (I'm not sure if this is what it will do or not....been too long ago to remember whether it's Displacement, Mass, or both, that makes the ship heavier) to the point the center of gravity needs to be re adjusted, is the right way to go about slowing down the performance. It's a tricky business making a ship heavier for cutting down performance, and needing to move the center of gravity so it stays afloat in all conditions.

Did Webster do it right....maybe he did. I don't know. I just know what I ran across years ago with his mod.

Well, Capt, you would certainly know about those things more then I would.

On another note, I've been testing the sound folder from v2.0 in v1.3 and have to say that I like the new periscope raising and lowering sound. Also the new sonar pings that the Japanese DDs make when they're tracking you. It sound alot like the pinging you hear in the movie "The Enemy Below".

[XTBilly]

Official situation report on the ship damage model.

What I've achieved so far in terms of realism and gameplay...

1. The "She's going down" message is received mere seconds before the ship actually sinks. Sometimes you'll pray to receive it sooner...

2. Ships VERY rarely sink of hit point depletion. The cargo they're carrying is a factor though, which may, or may not be decisive. The new HP system, based on tonnage and armor level, (almost) guarantees a non HP kill. Except for really small ships of course.

3. Ship crews will fight to their last breath, even in hopeless situations. They will also abandon the ship at the last moment. A destroyer for example, will continue to fire it's weapons even if almost half the ship is underwater. Something like CapnScurvy's signature.

4. More realistic use of torpedoes. Hitting a damaged ship listing fore, lets say, in the aft section, will flood the aft compartments, actually creating counter-flooding (a real WW2 tactic) and balance the ship's buoyancy, requiring more torpedoes to finish it than necessary. Hitting the same spot will further reduce HP, but HP are not so much decisive as they were, may not create the additional flooding required to sink her. A nearby compartment may do the job. Watch where you aim.

5. No more arcade "one torpedo kills" on medium/big ships. Hitting the ammo of a cruiser, let's say, will severely damage the ship, will create flooding depending of where it hit her, but may not affect speed or fighting/maneuvering ability, and the crew may contain the flooding, depending on it's severity, position, and the crew's quality.

6. More realistic use of the deck gun. Shooting a freighter at the superstructure will require 10 times the shells. Maybe more. Shoot at the waterline, concentrate on a specific point to create flooding, observe, shoot more if required. Shooting a target randomly, will exhaust your shell supply with limited results due to the new hit point system.

7. No more uncontrollable flooding. Ships had tenths, others hundreds of watertight compartments. A torpedo hit will not affect compartments far from the explosion. It will however damage nearby ones, if you're lucky. While a ship may seem to have severe listing, it may not be enough for the water to penetrate further, or the crew may contain the flooding.

8. Simulated water pressure. If a ship's undamaged compartment gets underwater by flooding, it's watertight resistance changes dramatically. It will start itself flooding and eventually be destroyed, hopefully unbalancing the ship's buoyancy even more, and spread the flooding to it's neighboring compartments, creating a chain reaction that dooms the ship. All of this depending on the degrees the ship is listing, the damage suffered and the compartments under water.

9. Arcade one torpedo, magnetic keel shot kills are no more. Torpedo depth IS important to create flooding underwater, where it hurts the most, but don't expect to break ships in two. Flooding and listing however compensate enough for the loss.. Getting the ships capsizing is another project I'm working on.

10. Each individual ship has it's own unique sinking time, depending on the ship's tonnage and damage done, even though it uses some shared compartments with other ships.

While there are some other changes, they're not tested enough to be included in the above list. While the above results are certified and working, not every single ship complies to the above. That's the problem some other great modders solved by creating unique, balanced compartments for every ship.

Unfortunately, I don't have the skills required to produce diamonds, like Werner Sobe and Observer did, but the point is that I'm achieving some of the required results with my own way. The real problem I'm facing are the shared compartments. A change done to correct a ship's behavior, may negatively affect others using the same compartments. I guess I'll find a way to overcome this. Frequent problems also stop me. My thanks to CapnScurvy for helping me getting out of a dead end I found myself in. Balancing is the key, but it requires lots & lots of work, time, coffee and smokes. Not to mention the wife's nagging for divorcing her from her laptop...

This mod is a great challenge for me, but I'll do my best to make something good, my own contribution to the community that's given so much to me all these years!

Best regards,
Billy.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

Well, Capt, you would certainly know about those things more then I would.

Not really!!

The real test to any modification is what the game will do during play. There are so many variables that come into the calculations, that testing is the best proof of getting the expected results. I don't want to sound like I know what a mod will do without testing it.....I've never tested Webster's Ship Maneuvering Fix. I do know that the stock game has the ships sitting fairly well, with the Gravity Center calculated for the possible wind conditions. Yet, its the stock game that has the jack rabbit like performance.

I pointed out that I witnessed a ship with its Gravity Center off from stock so much (this time I don't remember who's mod it was I was working with), that in calm winds it just began to rock back and forth to the point of capsizing within 5 minutes. Not a result anyone wants.

==============

XTBilly, looks like your doing a fantastic job with the damage model!! Another modification that requires a lot of testing to get right.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

Hey RR

While I browsing through the D/L section I came across a couple of small mods that might or might not be of help with the Ship Maneuvering. Links are below. Like I said I don't know if they would help any with our project or not, just thought I'd bring them to your notice.

Webster's Ship Manuvering Fix for v1.4 and v1.5

Ships Acceleration Physics v0.2b

Yup! Those are the two under consideration with an independent project here being door #3.

Maybe it would help if I posted a couple of videos of the two above mods to see what you guys, especially CapnScurvy thought of what he saw.





One thing that suffers with anti-dragster mods has been station keeping in convoys. You'll no longer meet convoys with two neat columns of merchies surrounded by two or four DDs in perfect station. As soon as the convoy is generated the columns will start to fall apart. Depending on your point of view, this may be good or it may be bad.....or both!

Fixing a small problem by substituting a larger problem, like ships sinking in bad weather because they are no longer seaworthy, isn't an option. It can be argued that you shouldn't be shooting escorts anyway and that dragsters are cosmic justice for your folly. On the other hand, late in the war when merchie targets became scarcer and were better guarded, Lockwood made destroyers the highest priority target.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

I pointed out that I witnessed a ship with its Gravity Center off from stock so much (this time I don't remember who's mod it was I was working with), that in calm winds it just began to rock back and forth to the point of capsizing within 5 minutes. Not a result anyone wants.

==============

XTBilly, looks like your doing a fantastic job with the damage model!! Another modification that requires a lot of testing to get right.

Could this be the from FOTRS v1.2? They were hilarious! No, we don't really need to do that.

[XTBilly]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Could this be the from FOTRS v1.2? They were hilarious! No, we don't really need to do that.

No, we definitely don't want that!
Great video RR!

I think that you and CapnScurvy are absolutely right about the dragster DD's.
So, if I get it right, both fixes made by Webster and JRex mess with the ship mass/displacement/tonnage to make them heavier. I've tried to experiment with the ship's center of gravity in order to make them capsize but the results were catastrophic. Any fix like this will make the damage model unusable.

But I've experimented (a little) with the obj_hydro\surfaced & submerged\drag fields and saw some difference in maneuvering, at least on the bigger ships. I deleted the maneuvering mod from our drive since it had almost no effect on DD's. Has anyone tried to make things better experimenting with only the drag fields?

And what is that magical field called max_force under propulsion? The description reads "Engine's max force [Tons]". Could this help us to adjust ship acceleration?

[Rockin Robbins]

You know, if we had a maneuvering fix that ONLY affected DDs, DEs, smaller warships that would be perfect. Larger ships don't stop to hunt us anyway. Merchies aren't fast enough that a jackrabbit start to 8 knots is going to mean anything.

What do you think? Wouldn't that make the mod easier and keep station keeping in convoys good? Might be the key just to simplify and only affect DE and smaller warships.

Every once in awhile I have a brain fart and it comes out okay.....

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by XTBilly

Official situation report on the ship damage model.

What I've achieved so far in terms of realism and gameplay...

1. The "She's going down" message is received mere seconds before the ship actually sinks. Sometimes you'll pray to receive it sooner...

2. Ships VERY rarely sink of hit point depletion. The cargo they're carrying is a factor though, which may, or may not be decisive. The new HP system, based on tonnage and armor level, (almost) guarantees a non HP kill. Except for really small ships of course.

3. Ship crews will fight to their last breath, even in hopeless situations. They will also abandon the ship at the last moment. A destroyer for example, will continue to fire it's weapons even if almost half the ship is underwater. Something like CapnScurvy's signature.

4. More realistic use of torpedoes. Hitting a damaged ship listing fore, lets say, in the aft section, will flood the aft compartments, actually creating counter-flooding (a real WW2 tactic) and balance the ship's buoyancy, requiring more torpedoes to finish it than necessary. Hitting the same spot will further reduce HP, but HP are not so much decisive as they were, may not create the additional flooding required to sink her. A nearby compartment may do the job. Watch where you aim.

5. No more arcade "one torpedo kills" on medium/big ships. Hitting the ammo of a cruiser, let's say, will severely damage the ship, will create flooding depending of where it hit her, but may not affect speed or fighting/maneuvering ability, and the crew may contain the flooding, depending on it's severity, position, and the crew's quality.

6. More realistic use of the deck gun. Shooting a freighter at the superstructure will require 10 times the shells. Maybe more. Shoot at the waterline, concentrate on a specific point to create flooding, observe, shoot more if required. Shooting a target randomly, will exhaust your shell supply with limited results due to the new hit point system.

7. No more uncontrollable flooding. Ships had tenths, others hundreds of watertight compartments. A torpedo hit will not affect compartments far from the explosion. It will however damage nearby ones, if you're lucky. While a ship may seem to have severe listing, it may not be enough for the water to penetrate further, or the crew may contain the flooding.

8. Simulated water pressure. If a ship's undamaged compartment gets underwater by flooding, it's watertight resistance changes dramatically. It will start itself flooding and eventually be destroyed, hopefully unbalancing the ship's buoyancy even more, and spread the flooding to it's neighboring compartments, creating a chain reaction that dooms the ship. All of this depending on the degrees the ship is listing, the damage suffered and the compartments under water.

9. Arcade one torpedo, magnetic keel shot kills are no more. Torpedo depth IS important to create flooding underwater, where it hurts the most, but don't expect to break ships in two. Flooding and listing however compensate enough for the loss.. Getting the ships capsizing is another project I'm working on.

10. Each individual ship has it's own unique sinking time, depending on the ship's tonnage and damage done, even though it uses some shared compartments with other ships.

While there are some other changes, they're not tested enough to be included in the above list. While the above results are certified and working, not every single ship complies to the above. That's the problem some other great modders solved by creating unique, balanced compartments for every ship.

Unfortunately, I don't have the skills required to produce diamonds, like Werner Sobe and Observer did, but the point is that I'm achieving some of the required results with my own way. The real problem I'm facing are the shared compartments. A change done to correct a ship's behavior, may negatively affect others using the same compartments. I guess I'll find a way to overcome this. Frequent problems also stop me. My thanks to CapnScurvy for helping me getting out of a dead end I found myself in. Balancing is the key, but it requires lots & lots of work, time, coffee and smokes. Not to mention the wife's nagging for divorcing her from her laptop...

This mod is a great challenge for me, but I'll do my best to make something good, my own contribution to the community that's given so much to me all these years!

Best regards,
Billy.

This is really big! It alone would be the biggest mod release in years, comparable to OTC, I think! I would think that just about anybody regardless of mod configuration would want this. Wow!

The stuff coming out the edges of FOTRS Ultimate just amazes me. Please make this mod as a plugin JSGME module for FOTRS Ultimate, but also release it for others, please!

Just like WernerSobe's Natural Sinking Mechanics, if a game installation has a ship torpedoed that your mod doesn't cover, nothing crashes. That ship just sinks in the stock manner, making this a perfect mod for everybody.

Remember my spreadsheet contains all ships from all mods. No guarantee of absolutely no mistakes.

[cdrsubron7]

Remember my spreadsheet contains all ships from all mods.

Hey RR. Is this ship on that spreadsheet?




I came across her last night while patrolling south of Tokyo Bay. My lookouts must have been taking a nap because the next thing I know this ship is firing at me. I crash-dived and afterwards came back to PD. My crew was kind of irate over the fact that the crew of this ship had the gall to fire on us. It being only fair to return the favor we fired two torpedoes at her. After that she didn't last very long.

This ship was designated Wheelsteamer: Yea Class

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

You know, if we had a maneuvering fix that ONLY affected DDs, DEs, smaller warships that would be perfect. Larger ships don't stop to hunt us anyway. Merchies aren't fast enough that a jackrabbit start to 8 knots is going to mean anything.

What do you think? Wouldn't that make the mod easier and keep station keeping in convoys good? Might be the key just to simplify and only affect DE and smaller warships.

Every once in awhile I have a brain fart and it comes out okay.....

That just might be the right thing to do. As your video's showed, the Merchants convoy get's hay wired just on their own accord.....without any help from a subs detection. Must be the differences between each ships capabilities/performance that puts the convoy into a dither with itself. If just the Escorts, Destroyers, some of the Light Cruisers were to have a performance hit, that COULD take care of the worst of the performance issues.

=====================

This morning I took another look at the two videos. What struck me was the fact both videos had the same ship (it looked like a Kiturin Passenger ship "Modern Passenger Liner") getting out of line before anyone else. It's the second ship in-line, in the center column. Seems there are others going to do the same as time passes, but the Kiturin is one of the earlier ships not wanting to stay in station. There was a couple others, back in the pack doing the same thing, I just couldn't tell which they were. Is the Kiturin back in the convoy at another position....or is the convoy entirely made up of different ships?

To me, this means the Kiturin may have a specific problem with what was changed (if anything) to its files. What that something is? I don't know. Does the Stock game have the same behavior as these two mods when added to the same convoy make-up? Just wondering. I might be speaking out of turn, but if the same ship(s) seems to be the one breaking out of column all on its own, maybe this ship needs to have it's .sim file re adjusted.

[XTBilly]

First, I wanna admit that reading such comments from mod gurus like Rockin Robbins and CapnScurvy really make me proud. Cdrsubron7 & Propbeanie also agreed to torture me by testing my monstrosity. I guess they're preparing their whips now!

Thanks for all the support gentlemen, I have a bet with myself on that, I'll finish it.
Please, allow me some time to get it work right, so your depth charging will be easier on me after release.

RR, yes, maybe the mod should be compatible with stock and other supermods (GFO, TMO) that keep the stock compartments in individual ships. RFB is out of the question of course. Found out that JRex's ship fix clearly produces unwanted results, probably the heavier ship issue. Clearly incompatible with the damage mod. No issue yet though with Webster's fix. Importing FOTRS v2.0 ships, or OM freighters shouldn't be a problem, as I have the formulas ready to convert them for immediate use. They will need to be tested though.

Doing some research and testing on the jackrabbit issue, I think I can make something about it, it's very simple, just to make the situation better, as you suggested, but without touching the ship tonnage. Just don't expect to be comparable with the fixes done by Webster and JRex.

I really think that affecting only the DD's and DE's will have the convoy issues you mentioned, as the escorts will struggle to keep position. I'll prepare a test version for you, to test with your infamous Convoy from Hell mission, and maybe you could have a quick look of how the convoys are spawning in the campaign. If you're just partly satisfied with the result, we can fine-tune it further later on.

I'll have it ready in our drive before the end of the day. Just don't upload any clips about it!

@CdrSubron7, excellent screenshots as always! I've not encountered this beauty yet! Hats off to Maddy's originality!

Edit:
CapnScurvy I'm sorry, I posted before reading your post. You and RR have a serious point here and probably a solution. I'll upload two test versions for the team to check out.

Regards,
Billy.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by XTBilly

I really think that affecting only the DD's and DE's will have the convoy issues you mentioned, as the escorts will struggle to keep position. Regards,
Billy.

But that's the beauty of my brain fart! The DDs aren't in line with anybody. They wander about anyway! Nobody will ever know if they behave slightly differently.....

I'll upload video but mark it private and just pass out the link in PMs. That way it won't show up in any searches.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Does the Stock game have the same behavior as these two mods when added to the same convoy make-up? Just wondering. I might be speaking out of turn, but if the same ship(s) seems to be the one breaking out of column all on its own, maybe this ship needs to have it's .sim file re adjusted.

What a perfectly obvious, brilliant idea. Nothing matters unless you compare to a control group!

Looks like I have a project.....

The convoy is the Rockin Robbins Convoy from Hell mission.

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The convoy is the Rockin Robbins Convoy from Hell mission.

If someone wants to upload this sometime today I give it a run trough also after I get home from work tonight.