Recoded Weather fix - envsim.act

[rik007]

Originally Posted by Fifi

That i don't know... i don't open act files...and don't have ex editor.

But I do

Actually it is very confusing. I use the EnvSimAct_10 versions which you use in NYGM. You use the Hsie version which works as it should and has of course all the fixes. The Stiebler's version which comes with EnvSimAct_10 does not have the hsie Night vision fixes.

I will check it further if I have more time.... maybe I can create the missing one or maybe we overlooked something. That's all in the game!

The best way forward is to use Hsie's wheather fix which is out-of-the box working in your mod as well as in OneAlex.....

[Fifi]

Instead of EnvSim.act 2016, you could try the Stiebler EnvSim.act dated 24/11/2011 10h03… findable in one of the NYGM mod (NYGM3_6F)

I am using it via Commander/flotilla 906 to give Bergen correct sea state at start (otherwise with sim act 2016 the sea state is too high)

It is still a good EnvAct, but different of the 2016 one…

[rik007]

Originally Posted by Fifi

Instead of EnvSim.act 2016, you could try the Stiebler EnvSim.act dated 24/11/2011 10h03… findable in one of the NYGM mod (NYGM3_6F)

I am using it via Commander/flotilla 906 to give Bergen correct sea state at start (otherwise with sim act 2016 the sea state is too high)

It is still a good EnvAct, but different of the 2016 one…

Thank you Fifi! So your preference is the 2011 version to include the Bergen sea correction, right?

[Fifi]

Originally Posted by rik007

Thank you Fifi! So your preference is the 2011 version to include the Bergen sea correction, right?

No, I only use the 2011 version for Bergen career (flotilla 906), others flotillas are using the last 2016 version

If I knew how to do it, I would have opened & adapted the last 2016 version for same Bergen sea state as in 2011 version

[Hooston]

The distance to the horizon is explained well by wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon. In practice refraction will increase this slightly as explained in the article and obviously haze will decrease it. To summarise:

d=sqrt(2hR) where h is the observer height and R is the radius of the Earth, 6371000m.

Horizon distance for your uboat man with an eye height of 5m is therefore 7982m. Is this driving the design of the original game? However, to get the visibility distance to an object you add the observer's horizon to the target horizon, so in ideal conditions:

• you should see the top of a 30m mast at 7982+19551=27533m
• If you are looking for a 100m funnel smoke plume then you get around 44km.
• Similarly, a spotter 30m up in a battleship will see a 40m mast at 42km.

Best conditions daylight reporting in my old "16km" SH3 is around 14km. I'm not sure when objects spawn into the game - is it 32km?. The daylight distances are much too short. This is frustrating as it makes following a convoy in most weather conditions much harder than it should be.

At night you should be getting a blend from approaching daylight to roughly zero depending on conditions and crew equipment/training. For example:

• The Italian cruisers at Matapan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Matapan) failed to spot battleships at 3500m.
• At the battle of Savo island (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Savo_Island) US destroyers were detected visually by the Japanese on different occasions at 16km, 9km and 12.5km; but USS Blue failed to spot cruisers about 2000m away!
• Early war uboats were regularly getting to a few hundred metres from merchants without being detected.

So I think you have the typical modder's problem of trying to fix something fundamentally broken. I suggest:

• Maximum visibility in full moon no better than daylight (assuming you cannot fix the daylight model!), that's around 14km for me and seems OK.
• Make the best case uboat AI's ability compatible with the player's with a monitor and graphics setup to standard gamma in a room with artificial light.
• The merchants should be VERY bad and the warships almost as bad unless at action stations (or centimetric radar equipped)
• I find the game much more exciting when I can only see about 1km. Is this a good "no moon but clear" number for uboats spotting merchants?
• The absolute figures are less important than the balance between uboat and ship spotting. Maybe scale the uboat vs ship visibility in line with relative size including an allowance for the size of the wake?

[rik007]

Originally Posted by Fifi

No, I only use the 2011 version for Bergen career (flotilla 906), others flotillas are using the last 2016 version

If I knew how to do it, I would have opened & adapted the last 2016 version for same Bergen sea state as in 2011 version

Yeah.... I was already on it. The first attempt was a hard crash to destop . What I'm doing is to copy Hsie's Night Vision into the Stiebler envsim.act.

I can learn you how to do it ... the first step is to install x32dbg (https://x64dbg.com/) and then open sh3.exe.... I'm affraid the stream of NYGM will then stop for quite a while....

[rik007]

Well as for Hooston .... :

I have no time nor intention to make work of your requirements

[rik007]

Hi all,

If somebody is interested in the original V10 Stiebler Wheather fix including Hsie's Night vision mod: I merged them so here you are:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/r2mdx...%2529.zip/file

It is not compatible with the Night Surface attack as this is the original Stiebler + original Hsie Night Vision fix.....

Regards,

Rik

[JohnCarterOfMars]

I have a few quick question for the group:

Since this fix was posted in 2016 and predates the OneAlex variant, what is the proper setting to make the Stiebler Weather Fix work?

In post #1, two methods are mentioned:

#1 says that if you aren't using the H.sie "hardware" fix, you can simply swap the EnvSim.act files without turning off the H.sie weather fix in the patch options.

#2 says that if you ARE using the "hardware fix," then you have to turn OFF the H.sie weather fix in the patch options and use the alternative EnvSim.act file.

I read elsewhere that the "hardware fix" is the 4Gb mod, which has a checkbox in the H.sie patch options. Is this true? I know this is turned on in the OneAlex variant, and is also necessary for Windows 10/11.

Does that mean that I MUST turn OFF the H.sie Weather Fix patch option in order to properly use this with OneAlex?

I'm also curious because I'm using Rik007's Moon Mod, and the instructions in his mod for using the Stiebler weather fix is to leave the H.sie Weather Fix patch option ON.

What does keeping the H.sie Weather Fix option ON do with the Stiebler EnvSim.act? Are both weather fixes working side-by-side or does this Stiebler recode leverage some of the H.Sie weather code in the exe and override the bugs in the act file?

On the other hand, if the 4Gb option IS the hardware fix, my question to Rik007 is: which version of the EnvSim.act did you use as the basis for the Moon Mod, the EnvSim.act or the EnvSim_HsieFix.acx, and what SHOULD it be?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by JohnCarterOfMars

I have a few quick question for the group:

Since this fix was posted in 2016 and predates the OneAlex variant, what is the proper setting to make the Stiebler Weather Fix work?

In post #1, two methods are mentioned:

#1 says that if you aren't using the H.sie "hardware" fix, you can simply swap the EnvSim.act files without turning off the H.sie weather fix in the patch options.

#2 says that if you ARE using the "hardware fix," then you have to turn OFF the H.sie weather fix in the patch options and use the alternative EnvSim.act file.

I read elsewhere that the "hardware fix" is the 4Gb mod, which has a checkbox in the H.sie patch options. Is this true? I know this is turned on in the OneAlex variant, and is also necessary for Windows 10/11.

Does that mean that I MUST turn OFF the H.sie Weather Fix patch option in order to properly use this with OneAlex?

I'm also curious because I'm using Rik007's Moon Mod, and the instructions in his mod for using the Stiebler weather fix is to leave the H.sie Weather Fix patch option ON.

What does keeping the H.sie Weather Fix option ON do with the Stiebler EnvSim.act? Are both weather fixes working side-by-side or does this Stiebler recode leverage some of the H.Sie weather code in the exe and override the bugs in the act file?

On the other hand, if the 4Gb option IS the hardware fix, my question to Rik007 is: which version of the EnvSim.act did you use as the basis for the Moon Mod, the EnvSim.act or the EnvSim_HsieFix.acx, and what SHOULD it be?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

I don't know the relation of these files with the moon mod, but it was always use only one or the other and if using Stiebler's file, uncheck the H.sie weather fix in the patch options.

But it was simply because they are two files that work on the same envsim file, so only one can and need be active at any one time.
The differences in the two files were how their authors handled weather changes. See Stiebler's original post about his for details.

[JohnCarterOfMars]

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

it was always use only one or the other and if using Stiebler's file, uncheck the H.sie weather fix in the patch options.

Thanks for the reply, John.

Can you tell me what Steibler meant by "H.sie's famous hardware fix for SH3" in his post #1 instructions? I don't know if I'm using it or not. I'm using the OneAlex edition of the GWX mod.

Regards,
Also John

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by JohnCarterOfMars

Thanks for the reply, John.

Can you tell me what Steibler meant by "H.sie's famous hardware fix for SH3" in his post #1 instructions? I don't know if I'm using it or not. I'm using the OneAlex edition of the GWX mod.

Regards,
Also John

I don't know what the OneAlex mod does for weather but if the weather fix is checked in the patch options, then it uses H.sie's. Normally, a player could choose one or the other envsim.act file to use based on which they preferred, regardless of any supermods, etc.
Without looking at the OneAlex mod, I assume the same applies to it so if the weather fix is checked, it uses H.sie's .act file and .exe file weather work. I also don't know if H.sie's patches are already applied in the OneAlex mod but if you don't have to install it yourself to use them as used to have to be done and the patch option menu is included in the mod, then it is applied. In such case, then yes, you are already using H.sie's hardcode fix in the mod.

"H.sie's famous hardware fix" is probably more accidently misnamed than anything else. Stiebler more likely meant H.sie's famous hardcode fix, which pertains to the .exe editing H.sie did for the various fixes/patches of his.
Both of them worked on the envsim.act files to create weather changes, etc. as they saw fit. H.sie's also used .exe working together with his .act work for the weather work he did.

In a nutshell, both .act files in Stiebler's weather 10 patch are his work, but he gave them separate names based on what kind of install the player has.
I.e., what Stiebler's instructions are saying is that if you are not using H.sie's patch mod, use the enclosed envsim.act file in his weather patch if you want to use Stiebler's work, but if you are using H.sie's patch mod then do the mentioned file renaming and use the EnvSim_HsieFix.acx instead. In this case, you also turn off H.sie's weather option in the patch menu as you would be using Stiebler's weather file instead.
In other words, the weather patch option in H.sie's patch option menu is to turn on/off his .exe weather work. The .act file is completely separate from that, but as said above, H.sie used BOTH the .exe work AND his .act file for his weather work. Hence the patch on/off menu option.

ALL of Stiebler's weather work is in his .act file, not in the .exe and .act file both like H.sie's, so the patch option menu isn't needed for his file.

[JohnCarterOfMars]

Thanks, John. This is different than the instructions that Rik007 gives to use his Moon Mod with the Steibler Weather fix. I'll take that discussion back to his thread.

[John Pancoast]

Good idea, rik probably did some work on the file so his instructions are probably correct with the moon mod but he'll let you know for sure.

[rik007]

Most of the time I used Hsie wheather fix for testing.

As for the optionsselector and envsim.act I followed Stiebler's instructions in the readme:

... 2. If you ARE using H.sie's hardware fix.
You will need to activate the correct EnvSim file as follows:
a) Use the Options Selector provided with the H.sie V16B1 package to switch OFF H.sie's Bad Weather Fix in your SH3.exe file. Place your newly created SH3.exe file in this folder (EnvSimAct_10), where you can see the two envsim files mentioned above.
b) Rename EnvSim.act to EnvSim.acx (this means it will not be recognised by Silent Hunter III.).
c) Rename EnvSim_HsieFix.acx to EnvSim.act
d) Activate the package with JSGME as mentioned in (1). Alternatively, copy across both the new EnvSim.act file and your new SH3.exe into your folder \Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\, where it will replace the original version.

So John P. is almost correct ....

I must say after re-reading Stiebler's readme again he is not clear what to do with the optionsselector when enabling his wheather fix. I assumed it should be the opposite of disabeling the wheather fix so it should be on accordingly.

So maybe I was almost correct on documenting that the switch should be on when using Stiebler's ...