Merchant Fleet Mod Progress Thread

[bigboywooly]

Thanx for answering at this late stage of the day
Not to bad at all
Q ship eh
Sweet

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

Thanx for answering at this late stage of the day
Not to bad at all
Q ship eh
Sweet

I really wanted to make lots of Q-ship models so that the player would be plagued by uncertainty. However, the file size & load time issues are obvious. At most I will probably use 3-4 different models.

[bigboywooly]

Cool idea
Just dont let slip which they are
Especially for ealy war

[iambecomelife]

To all potential beta testers - I am very tentatively setting a beta release date of 1/1/09 for the Merchant Fleet Mod's 2nd beta release (American & British Merchant Fleets). This is basically a wild guess - I might have it done on 12/26 (unlikely) or two weeks into January (also unlikely - probably too pessimistic). Depending on how stable it is I might distribute the beta to the entire community. Work will obviously continue, with patches, better damage modeling, more ships, and new nationalities (Holland, Denmark, Japan, etc). In fact the MFM will probably always be a work in progress. Nevertheless, there's light at the end of the tunnel. To think I once thought this would take me a month or two!

Merry Christmas, and thanks for putting up with me for two years.

[Hellraiser]

GREAT things are always worth waiting for.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

Guessed as much

So when I asked the total the other day and you said 40 to 50
Is that total ships or clones too ??


And a merry xmas Iam mate

I should have added something else: there is a way to have an almost infinite variety of merchant shipping in SH3 without the load times. I could keep the nomenclature system I currently use (M01B, T01B, etc) but instead of keeping the ID's static, I could use SH3 Commander to load one of several different models per identity slot.

There could be 4-5 different M01B's stored in a "bank" of merchant ships with one of the group selected either based on date or on a randomized selection process. Hence there would be different merchants available every time you ran SH3.

As long as vessel type and top speed were kept the same within a group, there would probably be no adverse effects on the saved games. Of course, you'd never see every model with each patrol but the potential for different vessel encounters over time would be staggering, at no extra cost in wait times or stress on the CPU.

Furthermore, with SH3 as it is now, late war vessels like the Empire Freighter take up space and consume resources even when you load up a career in 1939, before this type of vessel was built. With this system, your computer would use the Empire Freighter's slot (M35B) for a model you actually would have had a chance to encounter in 1939 - for instance, another variety of tramp steamer. In other words your computer would generate exactly what it needed WHEN it needed it.

[bigboywooly]

Hmmmm
SH3commander is very underused IMHO
Cool idea

[iambecomelife]

Minor update: I finished the ship halves this evening - now there is a little bit of node work that needs to be done, but nothing major. I am also redoing all of the ID manuals with S3ditor, as I had planned. Steve, I hope to send you the latest images and tonnages by tomorrow.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

I should have added something else: there is a way to have an almost infinite variety of merchant shipping in SH3 without the load times. I could keep the nomenclature system I currently use (M01B, T01B, etc) but instead of keeping the ID's static, I could use SH3 Commander to load one of several different models per identity slot.

There could be 4-5 different M01B's stored in a "bank" of merchant ships with one of the group selected either based on date or on a randomized selection process. Hence there would be different merchants available every time you ran SH3.

As long as vessel type and top speed were kept the same within a group, there would probably be no adverse effects on the saved games. Of course, you'd never see every model with each patrol but the potential for different vessel encounters over time would be staggering, at no extra cost in wait times or stress on the CPU.

Furthermore, with SH3 as it is now, late war vessels like the Empire Freighter take up space and consume resources even when you load up a career in 1939, before this type of vessel was built. With this system, your computer would use the Empire Freighter's slot (M35B) for a model you actually would have had a chance to encounter in 1939 - for instance, another variety of tramp steamer. In other words your computer would generate exactly what it needed WHEN it needed it.

A good idea, but assuming that this will also require a modified EnglishNames.cfg file to go with each "alternate" model, then you'll need to consider SH3Cmdr's real ship names feature.

For example:

• By default, SH3's EnglishNames.cfg has a line like "M35B=Empire Freighter" with corresponding model
• SH3Cmdr replaces that with a different model and a new line in EnglishNames.cfg like "M35B=Something else"
• Player sinks said ship, which appears in log as "Ship sunk!|Something else|etc"
• Player finishes patrol, exits SH3. SH3Cmdr rolls back returning "M35B=Empire Freighter" to EnglishNames.cfg
• Player updates their patrol log with real ship names option selected, however, a name will not be chosen for this sunken ship because the label ("Something else") does not exist in EnglishNames.cfg

This is not a critical problem, it just means that SH3Cmdr will not generate unique ship names for any of the "alternate" models.

The only way to ensure that ship names were generated would be if the ship model grouping was done in a way that meant that the class label did not require modification, but your example already suggests that this may not be possible.

As an aside, I have modified SH3Cmdr (for my own benefit) to allow unique ship names to be used based on the nationality of the sunken ship. It requires the user to record the nationality of each sunken ship on a piece of paper or whatever and then, once the patrol is completed, add corresponding country codes to each "Ship sunk!" line through SH3Cmdr's Patrol Log Editor.

SH3Cmdr then looks for the presence of a country code and if one is found, it pulls a name from a corresponding list of ships for that country. If there's no code, then it just does what it does now and pulls a name from a central bank of names. Too easy.

Whilst I haven't played SH3 since August, I had been following this approach earlier this year and it was working sweetly for me...my only drawback was that I didn't know for certain which ship names belonged to which country, but that's a minor data thing.

If, and only if, there is sufficient interest I might polish this up and release it as an SH3Cmdr and Patrol Log Editor update...but I would need the assistance of someone like Sailor Steve to split the ship names to each country first.

[bigboywooly]

I guess if the replacement ship was still the same sort\approx size - ie M08B=Medium Merchant 08

Then only the ships Sea folder would need adding in thru SH3commander
As the class name isnt changing then the ship names cfg would be good also

[Hitman]

If, and only if, there is sufficient interest I might polish this up and release it as an SH3Cmdr and Patrol Log Editor update...but I would need the assistance of someone like Sailor Steve to split the ship names to each country first.

I think you can take that for granted

It's a win-win situation, IABL's ships plus shorter loading times

[LordNeuro"Serbia"]

Beck from comp problems and what a great news. :p I m beck in a great time. Fantastic work like always. I cann hardly weit too see those lovly ships on periscope. And now when gwx 3.0 is out it gets even beter. I hope it will work with new gwx.
Keep the fantastic work and
Merry christmas too all who r sellebreting on gregorian calendar.

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/ZoranK/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/ZoranK/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg[/IMG]

[iambecomelife]

I suppose I could rename my vessels as generically as possible, with all of them described as "Freighter", "Tanker", and "Ore Carrier", etc. If I'm not mistaken, wouldn't this solve the problem? I am working on a pdf merchant guidebook with historical info on my merchants - this could be the source of proper information for players who want to know the exact class for a particular vessel (Empire Freighter, WWI Standard Class, etc). IMO it's not vitally important that SH3 display M35B ingame as an "Empire Freighter" - the word "Merchant" would do just fine and would ensure that there was no conflict when slot M35B was used by a tramp steamer.

As an aside, I have modified SH3Cmdr (for my own benefit) to allow unique ship names to be used based on the nationality of the sunken ship. It requires the user to record the nationality of each sunken ship on a piece of paper or whatever and then, once the patrol is completed, add corresponding country codes to each "Ship sunk!" line through SH3Cmdr's Patrol Log Editor.

SH3Cmdr then looks for the presence of a country code and if one is found, it pulls a name from a corresponding list of ships for that country. If there's no code, then it just does what it does now and pulls a name from a central bank of names. Too easy.

Whilst I haven't played SH3 since August, I had been following this approach earlier this year and it was working sweetly for me...my only drawback was that I didn't know for certain which ship names belonged to which country, but that's a minor data thing.

If, and only if, there is sufficient interest I might polish this up and release it as an SH3Cmdr and Patrol Log Editor update...but I would need the assistance of someone like Sailor Steve to split the ship names to each country first.

I would very much like this feature, as well as any other modifications that would give the player more details about the vessels he has sunk (cargo, crew, and so on if feasible). I did this all the time back when I played "Aces of the Deep" in order to add more of a "role playing" element to the game.

I'll mention this to Steve when I PM him some other stuff he wanted.

Would it be possible to add any other elements with information about ships (cargo, crew, etc)? If so, I can dust off the stuff I compiled for my "Aces of the Deep" RP system.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

I suppose I could rename my vessels as generically as possible, with all of them described as "Freighter", "Tanker", and "Ore Carrier", etc. If I'm not mistaken, wouldn't this solve the problem?

Hehe, this creates other problems though, both in SH3 and SH3Cmdr.

Sharing names across different units confuses SH3's Museum. This is OK if the units differ only visually (for example, while SH3 will still get confused between say, a lighted tugboat and an unlighted tugboat if both are just called "Tugboat", it won't be noticable because both sets of specs will be the same). But if the units are totally different, ie with different specs, then SH3 just grabs the first set of specs it finds and uses those for all other instances of the same ship name. So if the first "Merchant" it displays has a displacement of 2000GRT, then every "Merchant" it displays will show a displacement of 2000GRT.

This confusion doesn't occur within the game though, so a 2000GRT "Merchant" will be recorded correctly, likewise a 7000GRT "Merchant" and so on.

But this leads to a problem in SH3Cmdr...

SH3Cmdr won't get confused, but what it will do though is simply stop when it finds the *first* name match in EnglishNames.cfg. So if you have, for example, an EnglishNames.cfg that looks like this:

...
NLL=Merchant
NVV=Merchant
NC3=Merchant
...

..and sink an NVV in the game, when SH3Cmdr goes looking for a ship name, it will grab one for NLL. This is because the career log file will simply show "Ship sunk!|Merchant". SH3Cmdr has absolutely no way of knowing which particular merchant it was, so it would simply grab the first match, being NLL, and grab a name from it's [NLL] list. Prolly not what you'd want.

Again, this is OK for ship clones that differ only visually, because they can all be mapped to the one list, for example:

[CLASSMAP]
Tugboatlighted=Tugboat
Tugboatunlighted=Tugboat

I guess you can still get around these problems by carefully considering how you'd name/group your units, but it'd be a compromise all round.

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

I would very much like this feature, as well as any other modifications that would give the player more details about the vessels he has sunk (cargo, crew, and so on if feasible). I did this all the time back when I played "Aces of the Deep" in order to add more of a "role playing" element to the game.

I'll mention this to Steve when I PM him some other stuff he wanted.

SS should be aware of this - we've discussed it on and off over the last year or longer. I just haven't been around much lately.

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Would it be possible to add any other elements with information about ships (cargo, crew, etc)? If so, I can dust off the stuff I compiled for my "Aces of the Deep" RP system.

You can do it now by editing SH3Cmdr's "Ship names.cfg" file, for example:

...
0986=S.S. Horace Wells [Cargo: Steel; Crew: 125; etc]
0987=S.S. Horace Williams [Cargo: Coal; Crew: 100; etc]
0988=S.S. Horatio Allen [Cargo: Wood; Crew: 150; etc]
0989=S.S. Houston Volunteers [Cargo: Oil; Crew: 112; etc]
0990=S.S. Howard A. Kelly [Cargo: Onions; Crew: 100; etc]
...

The result would look like this:

EntryText=Ship sunk!|Grid BF 17|S.S. Horace Wells [Cargo: Steel; Crew: 125; etc] (British Small Merchant), 2100 tons

Easy to do, but it would require someone with a lot of time as there's approx 13,000 ship names in the list.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by JScones

SH3Cmdr then looks for the presence of a country code and if one is found, it pulls a name from a corresponding list of ships for that country. If there's no code, then it just does what it does now and pulls a name from a central bank of names. Too easy.

Whilst I haven't played SH3 since August, I had been following this approach earlier this year and it was working sweetly for me...my only drawback was that I didn't know for certain which ship names belonged to which country, but that's a minor data thing.

And I already have that data. For every ship I have a name for, I also have the country...and the specific tonnage! I talked with Dan at the meeting about the possibility of SH5 assigning the tonnage of the sunk ship directly to the name of the ship. 'Twould be cool if we could do the same thing now.

only if, there is sufficient interest I might polish this up and release it as an SH3Cmdr and Patrol Log Editor update...but I would need the assistance of someone like Sailor Steve to split the ship names to each country first.

That will be easy, since I already know the country for each ship. It's just grunt work, and that's what I do best.:rotfl: