[WIP] Wolves of the Kaiser:1914-1918 Mod

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Unfortunately there are no plans for changes to the voices. If someone wants to volunteer that would be great, but I will not be contributing my own voice acting (trust me, you don't want to hear it ), and I'd rather not ask my other main team member to help (because he is busy with other things, and has been extremely helpful in other areas).

By the way, the pace of updates has been slower because I've been working 7 day weeks recently.

There will be no 3d modeling in late November due to a vacation. At my parents' house I do not have a PC capable of running SH4. I will, however, spend time writing text/tables for the mod, using MSWord and MSExcel:

-Newspaper Articles
-Wireless Messages
-Campaign Descriptions
-Unit Descriptions for museum mode and the mod manual

I am proud to say we already have over 200 unique distress messages for sinking ships, and perhaps 80-100 news messages for WWI news. I will be adding to that.

Some distress calls will be generic. Others will be historical and based on actual ship sinkings.

The news will be full of details - you will find out about the battles at the Marne in 1914, the first use of poison gas, the progress of fighting at Verdun, and the triple catastrophes of 1918 - Revolution, Mutiny, and Influenza.

Interesting! I have been working on the messages in SH 4 TMO mod, on the pacific side of things. I add many ULTRAs and cleaned up some of the messages, made them more in line with history in formatting etc. Changed those reveal information would not know at the time. Also, changing messages to be for different commands,, , strange when boats out of Fremantle Australia are taking orders and commands from COMSUBPAC. What a labor it is though lol.


Far as the speech...ah yea I understand. Perhaps as a fix or sorts can make sure the german speech packs out there are compatible, would definitely help the immersion.

I understand, I will be out of town for a couple weeks over holidays next months so sure will not get much completed on my end, but oh well, holidays and family.

[Jeff-Groves]

"I didn't realize the 3d model for one torpedo (Mk XIV I think?) is hard coded"
"because the maximum number of different torpedo types is hard-coded"

Details please.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

"I didn't realize the 3d model for one torpedo (Mk XIV I think?) is hard coded"
"because the maximum number of different torpedo types is hard-coded"

Details please.

Regarding the 3d model, I tried many times to change the Mk XIV model (again I think that is what it was); it failed but as soon as I used another torpedo it worked.

Max. number of torpedo types is actually hearsay; I cannot remember who said this but it was posted on the forums years ago. Never tried to confirm myself by adding new torpedoes.

[Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Unfortunately there are no plans for changes to the voices. If someone wants to volunteer that would be great

About one year ago, I was working, with some Austrian friends on a German voice mod for WotK, using a sh3 mod as base and sounds taken from some movies and documentaries (even some from scratch).
I haven't asked the permission from the original creator to use his SH3 mod as base yet, but if you are interested, I could resume that old project and ask for correct permissions.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Regarding the 3d model, I tried many times to change the Mk XIV model (again I think that is what it was); it failed but as soon as I used another torpedo it worked.

Max. number of torpedo types is actually hearsay; I cannot remember who said this but it was posted on the forums years ago. Never tried to confirm myself by adding new torpedoes.

CapnScurvy mentioned those points when active on the FotRSU team, and I seem to remember Rubini or someone else in one of the SH3 mods mentioning that also (for his aerial Fido torpedo?). How similar it is to the "10 player submarine limit" I don't know. That only involves the UnitPartsXSubName.upc though, and is actually a nine submarine limit (1-9). We never did attempt to push the envelope in that regard with the torpedoes in FotRSU though. We have with the submarine limit, and it is a "hard wall" when impacted. Keltos and Peabody did do torpedoes with CMN, and ended up replacing a torpedo for a "new" one.

[Bubblehead1980]

Introduced my girlfriend to some submarine movies as of late, she actually liked Run Silent Run Deep and The Enemy Below. In the enemy below, the German Captain is talking in his cabin with his first officer "Heine" , talking about WW I and how the skipper looked through the periscope and did the arithmetic in his head. Something I am curious about and do not believe have asked before.... how will firing of torpedoes work in the mod?

There was no TDC in WW I U boats correct? Will the TDC be disabled in the mod? I assume gyros had to be preset?

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt

About one year ago, I was working, with some Austrian friends on a German voice mod for WotK, using a sh3 mod as base and sounds taken from some movies and documentaries (even some from scratch).
I haven't asked the permission from the original creator to use his SH3 mod as base yet, but if you are interested, I could resume that old project and ask for correct permissions.

I would love that! Please do ask for those permissions and stay in touch.

As for your PM, just FYI I liked the merchants that guy made but I will be creating my own from scratch at an EXTREMELY high detail level. Appreciate the post though.

[Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

I would love that! Please do ask for those permissions and stay in touch.

As for your PM, just FYI I liked the merchants that guy made but I will be creating my own from scratch at an EXTREMELY high detail level. Appreciate the post though.

By the way, here there are two images of U-86. I hope they could be useful for modelling type 81

details of CT ( you can even see the tripod were machine guns were mounted)

hull shape and details of vent holes.

And regarding your remodelling your Type 87, I noted you made an error with vent holes.
your model has many vents, but in reality, only U-88 had that many. The other boats had just two long holes on their flanks; similar to those of Deutschland.

[Panzer_Schultz]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Thank you! I got the torpedo data. This new data is extremely enlightening. The number of shell hits needed to sink a merchant is about what I predicted. I would like to see the Marinequadratkarte (though I can't promise it will be included in the mod) - regardless it seems interesting, and I will probably at least have it as a non-usable map in the UBoot interior or the Captain's Campaign/Base Room. Interesting that they had over 70 demolition charges - I will probably just include 4-5 charges to make it simpler...with each one able to sink a medium-sized merchant. That would be in line with your data, plus many of the other patrols I have read about where no more than about 5 ships were destroyed per patrol with explosive charges. About Mowe and Wolf, I am still not sure how to imitate the effects of disguise paint schemes, although I have a couple ideas I want to test based on how sensors operate ingame.

Hello again!

Regarding the Demolition charges: I do not think, that the number of charges was the limiting factor of their usage, but mostly two factors: First they could only be used in calm seas, as the U-Boats were not equipped with very seaworthy rowboats. Also the charge should be applied to the outside of the ship just under the waterline which also implies that calm seas are needed.

And the next and maybe most important one was the time it took till you got the crew to leave the ship, send your sailors to the vessel, attach the charges and come back again. All this with potentially masses of enemy vessels around you.


I would say the number you said is reasonable though it would be cool if it could be restricted by weather and the time it consumes and not but the amount of "charges". Though I guess that would be quite hard to programm?


The Map can be found in the attachment of a digitalised book about the 1st world war on the sea. Though I do not know if it is allowed to post links on these forums? If not I will send the link to you via PM or Mail.


I also saw that you searched for torpedo-numbers on WW1 subs and I looked through two of my sources and found the following:



First figures are from the book “Geschichte des deutschen U-Bootbaus” by Eberhard Rössler
(BTR = Bugtorpedorohr = Bow torpedotube, HTR = Stern)


Second figures are from the book “Deutsche U-Boote 1906-1966”from Bodo Herzog
The numbers from the U81 and U87 Class seem to be swapped by mistake in the latter source.

UB-I Class 2x45cm (2 BTR) // 2x45cm (2 BTR)
U-9 Class 6x45cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR) // 6x45cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR
U-19 Class 6x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR) // 6x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR)
U-23/U-27/U-31 Class 6x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR) // 6-10x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR)
U-51 Class 8x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR) // 8x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR)
U-63 Class 8x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR) // 8x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR)
U-81 Class 8x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR) // 12-16x50cm (4 BTR, 2 HTR)
U-87 Class 12x50cm (4 BTR, 2 HTR) // 10-12x50cm (2 BTR, 2 HTR)
U-139 Class 19x50cm (4 BTR, 2 HTR) // 19-24x50cm (4 BTR, 2 HTR)


For the U139 another book about the U-Cruisers states, that the Boats 139-141 could only carry 19 Torpedoes while the boats from 142 onwards could carry 24 thus I expect the U139 Class to have carried only 19 Torps. They could also carry TeKa-Mines (3 of them replaced a torpedo).


Also U-Boats often used older and smaller torpedoes agains merchant vessels to save the newer G/6 or G/7 Torpedoes.


Are there other figures you could need? I could look if I find something then.



Best regards!

[Bubblehead1980]

Forgive the repost, figure my question may have been missed in the shuffle here


From previous post:

Introduced my girlfriend to some submarine movies as of late, she actually liked Run Silent Run Deep and The Enemy Below. In the enemy below, the German Captain is talking in his cabin with his first officer "Heine" , talking about WW I and how the skipper looked through the periscope and did the arithmetic in his head. Something I am curious about and do not believe have asked before.... how will firing of torpedoes work in the mod?

There was no TDC in WW I U boats correct? Will the TDC be disabled in the mod? I assume gyros had to be preset?

[Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Forgive the repost, figure my question may have been missed in the shuffle here


From previous post:

Introduced my girlfriend to some submarine movies as of late, she actually liked Run Silent Run Deep and The Enemy Below. In the enemy below, the German Captain is talking in his cabin with his first officer "Heine" , talking about WW I and how the skipper looked through the periscope and did the arithmetic in his head. Something I am curious about and do not believe have asked before.... how will firing of torpedoes work in the mod?

There was no TDC in WW I U boats correct? Will the TDC be disabled in the mod? I assume gyros had to be preset?

From what I gather, WW1 "(...) computing a target intercept course for a torpedo was a manual process where the fire control party was aided by various slide rules[13] (the U.S. examples were the Mark VIII Angle Solver (colloquially called the "banjo", for its shape), and the "Is/Was" circular sliderule (Nasmith Director), for predicting where a target will be based on where it is now and was)[14] or mechanical calculator/sights.[15] These were often "woefully inaccurate",[16] which helps explain why torpedo spreads were advised." from Wiki.



And http://www.tvre.org/en/torpedo-attacks-during-wwi

this has the slide ruler image and drawings of attacks methods.


So i think they did what the TDC during WW2 did manually, almost like Curd Jürgens character says in the movie.

[Vox165]

No mechTDC , but used slide ruler type calculators sometimes. Primarily binos obs at distance. Relied on stealth, and seamanship to get close by WWII standards. The Range for Single target 200-300m considered best-trained at that range. Range for convoy or groups 400-600m because of ramming fears.

[iambecomelife]

I plan to retain the existing torpedo launch tools with pre-WWI items removed/disabled; for instance obviously no FAT settings or capability ... IRL there was a "computer" on board WWI subs but unfortunately duplicating it is not my forte ... plus I lack enough sources for what the computer looked like appearance-wise. The sources I do have reiterate (as others have shown) that it was a very inaccurate device by modern standards.

New screenshots delayed but things have been going VERY well - I am back from vacation (where I didn't have a desktop) and back to 3d modeling.

A big breakthrough (kinda embarrassing) - Ambient Occlusion will be included!!

You may have noticed my ships and subs had no AO maps - I finally figured out why the game never showed them on my units. A little tweak to the .DAT files and experimenting resolved the problem.

I had been confused because stock ships do not rely on a certain node addition to display their AO maps, so when I tried imitating what the SH4 devs did it never worked. A bit hard to explain but now I know what I did wrong.

A massively-improved U-31 is being tested intensively, with good results. Soon it will be time to turn attention to the other boats.

Thank you, Oliver, for info about the vent holes error - I did not know that. One of my main sources was JKLM, who created a nice model of U-88 years ago for the WWI subsim "Project 25".

Sadly Project 25 is defunct, and I haven't seen JKLM on the forums in years. In fact, Project 25 was the inspiration for Wolves of the Kaiser - I was so disappointed after that sim was abandoned, I decided to create a WWI mod myself, using my limited experience...

[SlySkydiver]

Just seeing all the work has been done over all these years is amazing. It's amazing to see just how long you've stayed committed to making this mod and just how great the it looks like its going to be when it does release. We are sorely in need of good WW1 subsims and its good to see that you are filling that void! Great work so far, hope everything continues to go well for you and development of the mod.

[brotato1337]

Im not sure if its been mentioned before (it probably has but im lazy, apologies), which U-Boats are planned to be added initially, and is there plans to add any more after release? The Type U-139 would be amusing with its substantial deck gun armament