Merchant Fleet Mod Progress Thread

iambecomelife · 09-19-08, 06:00 PM

Update #1 - Merchant M12B

I spent much of yesterday afternoon creating skins for M12B - a modern merchant with a long bridge deck. This style of merchant was designed with a midships island that extended beyond the superstructure. It was often used for high volume, low density cargoes like grain, cotton, and coal, as the increased hull space was a major asset. Most were purpose-built but a few were converted from traditional merchant ships. They were fairly common in the British, Dutch, Greek, and Japanese merchant navies - to my knowledge they were very rare in the US fleet.
The design became obsolete after the war, due to the increased number of purpose-built bulk carriers available to shippers.

I have made at least four types of this ship since 2006. I'd like it more if I could imitate the "swayback" look that a lot of them had in real life, but that often causes texturing problems and increases the poly count.

This model was inspired by the "SS Hartlebury", built in 1934. Before the war broke out she and her fleetmates connected Liverpool and London with ports in the Americas and East Africa. By 1942 she had been armed with antisubmarine guns on the bow and stern, along with several light AA weapons. In late June of 1942 she joined Convoy PQ-17, bound for the Soviet Union. She escaped the initial Luftwaffe attacks undamaged but was forced to make for Archangel at her best speed after the convoy was ordered to scatter. She was intercepted by U-335 on 7 July and sunk with heavy loss of life. Despite assistance from U-335's crew only 20 men survived. 38 crewmembers were killed, including the master, who died of head injuries about a year after the incident.

(from uboat.net)

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/1903.html

iambecomelife · 09-19-08, 06:00 PM

Update #2 - Merchant M15B

This ship represents medium-sized, modern motorships. It's loosely based on the composite superstructure version of the Doxford Motorship - a standard design produced by England and available in both composite and split deckhouse versions. They were popular replacements for the slow, coal-burning merchantmen that dominated the post-WWI British merchant navy. Several were built for foreign buyers, including Portugal and the Philippines.

The model took only about an hour to make; it was pieced together from a modern split superstructure cargo ship that I am also working on (designation M14B). These ships in turn also share parts with the British-style medium tanker I posted screenshots of several months ago.

BTW, I highly recommend using S3ditor for ship modeling - it is wonderful to be able to move nodes & components with a visual reference, instead of using guesswork. S3ditor also never corrupts data files like Pack3d sometimes does. The one major advantage of Pack3d is that it's good for importing obj files with multiple subparts - for this reason, I switch back and forth between pack3d and s3ditor depending on what I'm doing.

bert8for3 · 09-19-08, 07:15 PM

Looking forward to it

Task Force · 09-19-08, 07:48 PM

Sounds cool.

Alex · 09-19-08, 07:52 PM

Reece · 09-19-08, 07:59 PM

Sounds good to me!!

I want a new fleet now!

onelifecrisis · 09-19-08, 08:02 PM

IABL man you're like a woman - endless bloody foreplay! I want my wargasm already!

nikbear · 09-20-08, 02:17 AM

Can't wait to see these baby's

as long as this isn't a teaser and then nothing

your ships look so beautiful and really do put the rest of the merchie's to shame but......the waiting's an absolute killer

hopefully this is a sign of the greatness to soon come

Hitman · 09-20-08, 05:39 AM

The good part of this is that no matter how long it took to have them in SH3, porting them to SH4 (If IABL sees fit) will be a much easier job

mstang67 · 02-16-10, 01:00 PM

Has anyone tried this with Living Silent Hunter III V5 yet? I tried and followed Wulfmann's directions perfectly but the game crashes when I try to start a patrol. Loads up to about 50% then crashes to desktop.

My system:

AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+
2.30 GHz
2 GB RAM
Windows Vista Business (32 bit) w/ SP 2
ATI Radeon HD 4850

Freakwave · 02-18-10, 02:28 PM

@mstang67

Only tried it with GWX. See no reason why it cant work in LSH aswell.
Did you adjust the englishnames.cfg for avoiding duplicates and also removed the ships that cause trouble? Amercan tankers with british equivalents and three others i cant recall from top of my head but they are mentioned in this thread. Other than that i wouldnt know.

@IABL

nice to see screenies. You keep yourself busy since this isnt your only mod.

09-19-08, 07:15 PM	#3
bert8for3 Ace of the Deep Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 1,124 Downloads: 110 Uploads: 0	Looking forward to it __________________

09-19-08, 07:48 PM	#4
Task Force Rear Admiral Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: SPACE!!!! Posts: 10,142 Downloads: 85 Uploads: 0	Sounds cool. __________________ Task Force industries "Taking control of the world, one mind at a time"

09-19-08, 07:52 PM	#5
Alex Dominant Wolf Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 2,143 Downloads: 30 Uploads: 0	__________________

09-19-08, 07:59 PM	#6
Reece CINC Pacific Fleet Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Down Under Posts: 34,801 Downloads: 171 Uploads: 0	Sounds good to me!! I want a new fleet now! __________________ *Sub captains go down with their ship!*

09-19-08, 08:02 PM	#7
onelifecrisis Maverick Modder Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: England Posts: 3,895 Downloads: 65 Uploads: 3	IABL man you're like a woman - endless bloody foreplay! I want my wargasm already! __________________ Freedom of speech - priceless. For everything else there's Mastercard.

09-19-08, 06:00 PM	#1
iambecomelife Silent Hunter Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 4,710 Downloads: 300 Uploads: 0	Update #1 - Merchant M12B I spent much of yesterday afternoon creating skins for M12B - a modern merchant with a long bridge deck. This style of merchant was designed with a midships island that extended beyond the superstructure. It was often used for high volume, low density cargoes like grain, cotton, and coal, as the increased hull space was a major asset. Most were purpose-built but a few were converted from traditional merchant ships. They were fairly common in the British, Dutch, Greek, and Japanese merchant navies - to my knowledge they were very rare in the US fleet. The design became obsolete after the war, due to the increased number of purpose-built bulk carriers available to shippers. I have made at least four types of this ship since 2006. I'd like it more if I could imitate the "swayback" look that a lot of them had in real life, but that often causes texturing problems and increases the poly count. This model was inspired by the "SS Hartlebury", built in 1934. Before the war broke out she and her fleetmates connected Liverpool and London with ports in the Americas and East Africa. By 1942 she had been armed with antisubmarine guns on the bow and stern, along with several light AA weapons. In late June of 1942 she joined Convoy PQ-17, bound for the Soviet Union. She escaped the initial Luftwaffe attacks undamaged but was forced to make for Archangel at her best speed after the convoy was ordered to scatter. She was intercepted by U-335 on 7 July and sunk with heavy loss of life. Despite assistance from U-335's crew only 20 men survived. 38 crewmembers were killed, including the master, who died of head injuries about a year after the incident. (from uboat.net) http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/1903.html __________________ https://www.facebook.com/WolvesoftheKaiser/ Last edited by iambecomelife; 09-20-08 at 11:19 AM.

09-20-08, 02:17 AM	#8
nikbear Sea Lord Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Northampton,UK Posts: 1,859 Downloads: 86 Uploads: 0	Can't wait to see these baby'sas long as this isn't a teaser and then nothingyour ships look so beautiful and really do put the rest of the merchie's to shame but......the waiting's an absolute killerhopefully this is a sign of the greatness to soon come __________________ 'It is not surely known when the grey wolf shall come upon the seat of the gods' Ericksmal.

09-20-08, 05:39 AM	#9
Hitman Pacific Aces Dev Team Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Spain Posts: 6,109 Downloads: 109 Uploads: 2	The good part of this is that no matter how long it took to have them in SH3, porting them to SH4 (If IABL sees fit) will be a much easier job __________________ One day I will return to sea ...

02-16-10, 01:00 PM	#10
mstang67 Swabbie Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Bend, OR Posts: 12 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	Compatability Has anyone tried this with Living Silent Hunter III V5 yet? I tried and followed Wulfmann's directions perfectly but the game crashes when I try to start a patrol. Loads up to about 50% then crashes to desktop. My system: AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ 2.30 GHz 2 GB RAM Windows Vista Business (32 bit) w/ SP 2 ATI Radeon HD 4850 __________________ ET2/SS Billy Lane Nav Div USS Kentucky SSBN 737 2006 (1 patrol) USS Henry M. Jackson SSBN 730(G) 2006-2009 (3 patrols)

02-18-10, 02:28 PM	#11
Freakwave Sailor man Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 46 Downloads: 60 Uploads: 0	@mstang67 Only tried it with GWX. See no reason why it cant work in LSH aswell. Did you adjust the englishnames.cfg for avoiding duplicates and also removed the ships that cause trouble? Amercan tankers with british equivalents and three others i cant recall from top of my head but they are mentioned in this thread. Other than that i wouldnt know. @IABL nice to see screenies. You keep yourself busy since this isnt your only mod.