[WIP] Resuming work on Total Surface Warfare Mod

polyfiller · 11-17-20, 06:21 AM

Well I guess COVID & lockdowns is having one positive side effect .... I've resumed some work on this alive/dead/alive/dead/alive mod. I'm still working office hours during these times (busier than ever) but outside work, lockdown has motivated me to start modding again.

I looked at the total surface warfare mod and found I did a few small things in 2017, much more work in 2015 and prior to that, the bulk of the work was years before that. This mod is having one of the longest births in history !

So as a reminder as to what this mod is about and will offer if it is ever finished;

1) lots of playable surface ships (battleships, cruisers, destroyers, armed merchant raiders)

2) Very heavily worked damage systems for the playable ships - so that damage causes systems to stop working and be repairable where appropriate.

3) AI German submarines which operate below the surface and which LAUNCH THEIR OWNS torpedoes.

4) Some AI cruisers / destroyers with AI launchable torpedoes.

5) Reworked many AI ships damage models to prevent sinking in rough seas and enhance sinking.

6) Playable destroyers which can launch depth charges

7) Much work done on balancing weapons / armour / engagement and sensor ranges.

8) A bunch of other stuff I can't even remember.

Most of the functional work I finished many years ago. I have mostly worked on British & German playable units. There are some US units but I haven't focused much on those. The hard work I have been struggling with (apart from testing everything) is developing meaningful missions / campaigns. I have written a few tests scenarios such as using a light cruiser to rescue troops at Dunkirk and a couple of other missions. I am currently working on a playable Graff Spee campaign in the South Atlantic. My Mod is based on the 1.5 UBoat missions version plus Ops Monsoon (which has a lot of Atlantic convoy and Naval traffic already mapped). Unfortunately Ops Monsoon doesn't have much in the way of South Atlantic traffic and NO Naval task force operations in the South Atlantic. I'm currently building out that. Am also making use of the Milk cow methods deployed in Ops Monsoon to make the Altmark available for resupply.

I also have a very embryonic campaign written for the reverse side of the Graff Spee campaign - a playable Royal Navy campaign using a choice of light or heavy cruisers. Again building out all the South Atlantic traffic is the most time consuming thing to do.

So, this is where I am. I have yet to consider how to build a campaign to be played as a destroyer (with working depth charges) ... but I have the working I subs (deadly) and the depth charges working. It really is quite tricky writing campaign files which provide anything other than an experience of "see stuff, sink stuff" ... with ne sense of jeopardy that playing as a submarine provides .... but I'm trying.

There seems to be some new (and thankfully some old established faces) active on here...... if there is anyone who is already mod capable and want sto assist. let me know.

Here's the link to the original post for this mod; https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=144946

yubba · 11-17-20, 10:21 AM

I'm intrigued about working depth charges on playable destroyers I'm a 1.4 kinda guy,, after going as far as I can go with the PT I'm tinkering on the Fletcher and Gearing DDs in 1.4,, feel free to pull down the Super Fletcher in the PT campaign I put together all it lacks is depth charges and being campaign playable

polyfiller · 11-17-20, 06:53 PM

I'll have to add that to a list of things to do after after completed the campaign building I am doing ..... the depth charges involve changing one of the working torpedo types to turn it into a depth charge. You then use the torpedo launching systems (TDC etc.) to drop depth charges from a playable destroyer (the torpedo tubes have to be mounted to the destroyer obviously). As for converting the destroyer to be playable ... that around 24 hours of work. When I was doing lots of these, I could convert a ship to make it playable in around 4 hours ... but then tuning the damage system and other systems and testing made up the rest of the time. I take my hat off to folk who can create the 3D models (I don't have the skills to do that), but the technical work to convert a unit to playable and work the damage model in S3d takes a lot of time.

If someone can tell me how to take a video from Sh4 (I have never done that) then I could post up a demo of depth charging an AI submarine and post it up here. I also can't take credit for the depth charging coding ... I had help from a very old resource on here .... I think it was Lurker, but I honestly can't remember. Lurker was a real wizard with this stuff ;-)

yubba · 11-17-20, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by polyfiller

I'll have to add that to a list of things to do after after completed the campaign building I am doing ..... the depth charges involve changing one of the working torpedo types to turn it into a depth charge. You then use the torpedo launching systems (TDC etc.) to drop depth charges from a playable destroyer (the torpedo tubes have to be mounted to the destroyer obviously). As for converting the destroyer to be playable ... that around 24 hours of work. When I was doing lots of these, I could convert a ship to make it playable in around 4 hours ... but then tuning the damage system and other systems and testing made up the rest of the time. I take my hat off to folk who can create the 3D models (I don't have the skills to do that), but the technical work to convert a unit to playable and work the damage model in S3d takes a lot of time.

If someone can tell me how to take a video from Sh4 (I have never done that) then I could post up a demo of depth charging an AI submarine and post it up here. I also can't take credit for the depth charging coding ... I had help from a very old resource on here .... I think it was Lurker, but I honestly can't remember. Lurker was a real wizard with this stuff ;-)

We are in luck the Super Fletch has 10 tubes and has 2 4 tube launchers showing so we'd have 2 tubes for depth charges,, that would complete the beast

yubba · 11-18-20, 07:06 AM

look into this ,, https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...=133982&page=6

polyfiller · 11-20-20, 04:58 AM

Now that IS interesting. I'm not changing anything with regard to functional stuff in the mod just now. ... but this could leave the option to have a playable destroyer have both torps and depth charges playable at the same time. Good find, thanks. All I need to do is mount the decoy deployer and then change the munition type for that so it has the DC attributes.

Exodusek · 06-19-21, 02:08 PM

My mans why not realease just models of the ships to be current stock campaign playable and then work for campaign of your own? (would love to see that renown and admiral class since theres no ships of these type available for SH to be playable)

Aktungbby · 06-19-21, 02:17 PM

Exodusek!

11-17-20, 06:21 AM	#1
polyfiller Weps Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 356 Downloads: 40 Uploads: 0	Resuming work on Total Surface Warfare Mod Well I guess COVID & lockdowns is having one positive side effect .... I've resumed some work on this alive/dead/alive/dead/alive mod. I'm still working office hours during these times (busier than ever) but outside work, lockdown has motivated me to start modding again. I looked at the total surface warfare mod and found I did a few small things in 2017, much more work in 2015 and prior to that, the bulk of the work was years before that. This mod is having one of the longest births in history ! So as a reminder as to what this mod is about and will offer if it is ever finished; 1) lots of playable surface ships (battleships, cruisers, destroyers, armed merchant raiders) 2) Very heavily worked damage systems for the playable ships - so that damage causes systems to stop working and be repairable where appropriate. 3) AI German submarines which operate below the surface and which LAUNCH THEIR OWNS torpedoes. 4) Some AI cruisers / destroyers with AI launchable torpedoes. 5) Reworked many AI ships damage models to prevent sinking in rough seas and enhance sinking. 6) Playable destroyers which can launch depth charges 7) Much work done on balancing weapons / armour / engagement and sensor ranges. 8) A bunch of other stuff I can't even remember. Most of the functional work I finished many years ago. I have mostly worked on British & German playable units. There are some US units but I haven't focused much on those. The hard work I have been struggling with (apart from testing everything) is developing meaningful missions / campaigns. I have written a few tests scenarios such as using a light cruiser to rescue troops at Dunkirk and a couple of other missions. I am currently working on a playable Graff Spee campaign in the South Atlantic. My Mod is based on the 1.5 UBoat missions version plus Ops Monsoon (which has a lot of Atlantic convoy and Naval traffic already mapped). Unfortunately Ops Monsoon doesn't have much in the way of South Atlantic traffic and NO Naval task force operations in the South Atlantic. I'm currently building out that. Am also making use of the Milk cow methods deployed in Ops Monsoon to make the Altmark available for resupply. I also have a very embryonic campaign written for the reverse side of the Graff Spee campaign - a playable Royal Navy campaign using a choice of light or heavy cruisers. Again building out all the South Atlantic traffic is the most time consuming thing to do. So, this is where I am. I have yet to consider how to build a campaign to be played as a destroyer (with working depth charges) ... but I have the working I subs (deadly) and the depth charges working. It really is quite tricky writing campaign files which provide anything other than an experience of "see stuff, sink stuff" ... with ne sense of jeopardy that playing as a submarine provides .... but I'm trying. There seems to be some new (and thankfully some old established faces) active on here...... if there is anyone who is already mod capable and want sto assist. let me know. Here's the link to the original post for this mod; https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=144946

06-19-21, 02:17 PM	#8
Aktungbby Gefallen Engel U-666 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: On a tilted, overheated, overpopulated spinning mudball on Collision course with Andromeda Galaxy Posts: 28,786 Downloads: 24 Uploads: 0	welcome aboard! Exodusek! __________________ "Only two things are infinite; The Universe and human squirrelyness; and I'm not too sure about the Universe"

11-17-20, 10:21 AM	#2
yubba Admiral Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: in a neighborhood near you Posts: 2,478 Downloads: 293 Uploads: 2	I'm intrigued about working depth charges on playable destroyers I'm a 1.4 kinda guy,, after going as far as I can go with the PT I'm tinkering on the Fletcher and Gearing DDs in 1.4,, feel free to pull down the Super Fletcher in the PT campaign I put together all it lacks is depth charges and being campaign playable

11-17-20, 06:53 PM	#3
polyfiller Weps Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 356 Downloads: 40 Uploads: 0	I'll have to add that to a list of things to do after after completed the campaign building I am doing ..... the depth charges involve changing one of the working torpedo types to turn it into a depth charge. You then use the torpedo launching systems (TDC etc.) to drop depth charges from a playable destroyer (the torpedo tubes have to be mounted to the destroyer obviously). As for converting the destroyer to be playable ... that around 24 hours of work. When I was doing lots of these, I could convert a ship to make it playable in around 4 hours ... but then tuning the damage system and other systems and testing made up the rest of the time. I take my hat off to folk who can create the 3D models (I don't have the skills to do that), but the technical work to convert a unit to playable and work the damage model in S3d takes a lot of time. If someone can tell me how to take a video from Sh4 (I have never done that) then I could post up a demo of depth charging an AI submarine and post it up here. I also can't take credit for the depth charging coding ... I had help from a very old resource on here .... I think it was Lurker, but I honestly can't remember. Lurker was a real wizard with this stuff ;-)

11-18-20, 07:06 AM	#5
yubba Admiral Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: in a neighborhood near you Posts: 2,478 Downloads: 293 Uploads: 2	look into this ,, https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...=133982&page=6

11-20-20, 04:58 AM	#6
polyfiller Weps Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 356 Downloads: 40 Uploads: 0	Now that IS interesting. I'm not changing anything with regard to functional stuff in the mod just now. ... but this could leave the option to have a playable destroyer have both torps and depth charges playable at the same time. Good find, thanks. All I need to do is mount the decoy deployer and then change the munition type for that so it has the DC attributes.

06-19-21, 02:08 PM	#7
Exodusek Bilge Rat Join Date: Apr 2020 Posts: 1 Downloads: 91 Uploads: 0	My mans why not realease just models of the ships to be current stock campaign playable and then work for campaign of your own? (would love to see that renown and admiral class since theres no ships of these type available for SH to be playable)