[REL] Open Horizons II (old thread)

[gap]

Originally Posted by Trevally.

Glad your on the team Gap




[SideEntry 9]
Country=German
Side=0
StartDate=19450509
EndDate=19451231

With this entry, the Germans switch from Axis to neutral on May 9th.

Thank you Sir, I will do my best for serving our cause!

I see what you mean: I was thinking that the side definition was relative to Germany, but it seems that the war can go on even if Germany is out of game. Am I correct?

[SteelViking]

Originally Posted by sober

In port the zombie ships sit way too low .

I have tested the zombies in open ocean, and they behave 100% fine. Something in port must be messing with them.

Right now, I left all their collision and damage model stuff so that they could still be ran in to, sank, etc. I can remove it and see if that fixes the problem, as maybe it is some weird interaction with the wharfs.

[Trevally.]

Originally Posted by gap

Thank you Sir, I will do my best for serving our cause!

I see what you mean: I was thinking that the side definition was relative to Germany, but it seems that the war can go on even if Germany is out of game. Am I correct?

If you use "open Horizons" the last campaign will end :-

[Campaign]
NameId=BlackMay43
Title=Campaign.Title
Description=Campaign.Description
StartDate=19430301
EndDate=19450509
IsStartingCampaign=false
RequiredSubTypes=
RequiredProfileAchievements=
RequiredCareerAchievements=Arcticconvoys41_Defeat, BlackPit42_Defeat,DistantWaters42_Defeat

So as you can see the game ends on the same date.

If this date was changed to later in the year - I think your missions would continue but you would switch sides to neutral and have no ships to sink

[Zedi]

Originally Posted by Trevally.

..

If this date was changed to later in the year - I think your missions would continue but you would switch sides to neutral and have no ships to sink

Thats correct. Interested in extending the campaign to cover Pacific too so we can hunt japs using uboats?

[THE_MASK]

Realistically , to have blockships at the moment could you use a neutral ship and alter it to be indestructable . I could raise the underwater terrain so that a sub couldnt pass under it , but could sail on the surface ok . You could have them appear at a certain date in the campaign .

[gap]

Originally Posted by Zedi

This is the dilema I have and I need somebody good at history and these details, so I will not make mistakes I will regret later. Details like this needs a lot of time for research and reading, exactly what I dont have.

My opinion is to use the date of the first engagement/skirmish/escort passage (prior to the declaration of war) as transition from the neutral state to the state of Axis or Allied nation on the DefSides.cfg file. Hopefully these cases of "early skirmishes" are not very common, they are relative to nations far from Europe (that is the arena of the first campaigns) and/or the first skirmisches lead by just few days on the declaration of war. In any of this cases the discrepancy between the date of first skirmisches and the beginning of open hostilities (let's call it "window period") will not affect so much the balance of the campaign as seen from the player's perspective.

Of course, in creating generic and "regular" traffic, especially by warships, you should be aware of actual histrorical involvment of any nation in naval war during different phases of the conflict.
In most cases (I hope it is possible with the use of Mission Editor!) during the window period you should keep the warship activity within a certain level (for instance patroling their homeland territorial waters, or keep watch off homeland ports), increasing it once that nation entered officially in war, in accordance to historical datas. Anyway this is not always true as, according to the example posted by me some hours ago, there are histrorical evidences that USNavy started escorting Allied convoys in Western Atlantic several months before USA entered in the conflict.

Finally, IMHO the ambiguity related to the window period can add some fun to the game. I make myself clear with an example: you're patroling your designed area when you meet a ship with the flag of the X country. You open the Flags of the world book and you read that according to it (but not according to defsides.cfg file!) by your current date X nation is not yet at war with you. The game freeze bug should be a sufficient deterrent from engaging the vessel. Anyway you may want to have a closer look into it (who knows? Maybe it is travelling in convoy with other -enemy- ships) but, once you're in range it spots you and surprise! it starts shelling you, declaring openly her hostility! Eveniences like this may be worth reading carefully radio messages with their reports about hostile activity, so to be aware about the risks you undertake when meeting other nation's shipping (I am quite sure that existing radio messages got historical records of such a kind of early skirmisches / international accidents, if not we can easily add the needed ones).

Originally Posted by Zedi

There is also another dilemma I have .. Panama during ww2. They had a lot of issues with US, but they were also hostile with the axis forces. Also, many countries registered their ships under Panama flag for various reasons and these ships have sailed in many convoys. In game, Panama is listed as enemy starting 41 or something but im not sure how accurate is this.

According to wikipedia Panama entered officially in war on Dec 7th 1941 following the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_...n_Pearl_Harbor).
Similar to other countries of the Pan American Union it didn't partecipate militarly into the Allied war effort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_...American_Union). The Panama Canal zone itself was under the control of USNavy and USAAF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partici..._War_II#Panama). You may want to assign to this country only merchant shipping. The information provided by wikipedia should be doublechecked though.

[Stormfly]

Originally Posted by SteelViking

Thank you for the offer stoianm. I know how to control the ship's flotation, I have used all of those parameters to adjust the flotation of the ships in the imported ship pack. But, I am confused as to why the zombies would be floating any differently.

did you also checked the new passenger liner ?

...it seams that it have still to much pitch (bow up/down movement), could also a tiny little bit deeper

[SteelViking]

Originally Posted by Stormfly

did you also checked the new passenger liner ?

...it seams that it have still to much pitch (bow up/down movement), could also a tiny little bit deeper

Yes actually Stormfly, just this morning I tested the passenger ship when sitting still and realized that. Already fixed it.

Setting up the hospital ship right now. Same 3D model as the passenger, just with the hospital texture.

@Zedi, if I just put the hospital ship into the roster under Red Cross, will they start showing up in convoys? Or, is the Red Cross not yet implemented in the stock campaign?

[Zedi]

Originally Posted by SteelViking

Yes actually Stormfly, just this morning I tested the passenger ship when sitting still and realized that. Already fixed it.

Setting up the hospital ship right now. Same 3D model as the passenger, just with the hospital texture.

@Zedi, if I just put the hospital ship into the roster under Red Cross, will they start showing up in convoys? Or, is the Red Cross not yet implemented in the stock campaign?

Is not implemented, yet. Send me the ship cfg and I will start to read about these ships to see where they were sailing, if they were escorted etc.

Gap, the defside.cfg its ok as it is now or it needs some fixing?

[SteelViking]

Originally Posted by Zedi

Is not implemented, yet. Send me the ship cfg and I will start to read about these ships to see where they were sailing, if they were escorted etc.

Gap, the defside.cfg its ok as it is now or it needs some fixing?

I have bad news about that hospital ship. No matter what I try, I cannot get both the hospital ship, and the passenger ship to render in game at the same time.

Either one shows up, or the other, never both. Tried every configuration of files, and .cfg setups I can think of.

So, I just trashed all work I have done on the hospital ship.

[Zedi]

I suggest to leave that ship only for hospital ship purpose. Liners are very hard to spot anyway because they travel fast and rare. Finished almost 3 times the campaign and meet only once a liner with a lot of escort rushing with over 30knts. No way to get such a ship as a prize. But hospital ships were more common. So pls send me the cfg file so I can place the ship in the campaign.

Did you tested the Z ships in the campaign and they are floating ok?

[gap]

Originally Posted by Zedi

Gap, the defside.cfg its ok as it is now or it needs some fixing?

I am still looking into it, as it takes time to ascertain all the dates due to the ambiguities that I was mentioning yesterday.

On this topic, can you guys tell me your opinion?
Wich date shoud I use as switching point between neutral and Axis/Allied diplomatic state of each nation? its first unofficial skirmishes with future enemies or its explicite declaration of war?

The answer to this question is crucial for the upcoming campaign when these skirmishes took place at sea, as it is the case of the examples that I was referring to in my previous posts.

[HanSolo78]

Originally Posted by SteelViking

I have bad news about that hospital ship. No matter what I try, I cannot get both the hospital ship, and the passenger ship to render in game at the same time.

Either one shows up, or the other, never both. Tried every configuration of files, and .cfg setups I can think of.

So, I just trashed all work I have done on the hospital ship.

Working on .dat files?
Did you remap the IDs?

[Trevally.]

Originally Posted by Zedi

Thats correct. Interested in extending the campaign to cover Pacific too so we can hunt japs using uboats?

NO!

[Trevally.]

Originally Posted by gap

I am still looking into it, as it takes time to ascertain all the dates due to the ambiguities that I was mentioning yesterday.

On this topic, can you guys tell me your opinion?
Wich date shoud I use as switching point between neutral and Axis/Allied diplomatic state of each nation? its first unofficial skirmishes with future enemies or its explicite declaration of war?

The answer to this question is crucial for the upcoming campaign when these skirmishes took place at sea, as it is the case of the examples that I was referring to in my previous posts.

Yes, this is a hard question to answer.

The example you gave where US escorts made up Atlantic convoys must mean that they would attack any uboat sighted even before war declared.
I think this should be reflected in the campaign.