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

[torpedodude23]

Progress, progress..
Very happy to see this mod get better and better! I've been following this mod for about 1 - 2 years, and I just want to say that you're doing great!! We can wait. And of course, if you need breaks, go ahead and take one, we don't mind! (Or atleast I don't)

[Tigerzhunters]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

lol! Yeah Jeff, the joint movements are not the best unfortunately ... what I do is, I use rotation controllers to represent arm/leg motion so that the crew walks, turns heads, moves the fire hose, and so on.....another thing I want to improve...ideally the final product will look less jerky and puppet like...was very impressed with your post of that SH5 figure walking with the rifle! Good work... I just finished my real life work related project, Jeff, so I will be emailing you re: animations soon!

In other news, the roster of ships gets larger and larger! More updates/screenshots coming here and on the FB group...Plus, I am investigating one of the big "reach" goals in re: player sub interiors. Lastly (and a bit less exciting), news radio messages have now reached the end of May 1918! Woohoo! Now I just need June - December 1918 and I am done with that aspect! (Whenever I do not have access to my modding PC I make sure to work on radio messages, etc on my laptop ...... it's a great use of my time when I am at work and can't work on ships or subs in Wings3d.)

well you was like need rework it from zero also is there will have any event like battle coronel Battle of doggerbank 1914-1915 Battle Of Jutland

[Jeff-Groves]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

was very impressed with your post of that SH5 figure walking with the rifle!

The stuff to create MeshAnimations is like the first releases of S3D.
There are things I can Script to improve the ease of usage. First is to see Who is Brave enough to use the process!

I just might update the Rowers for SH3 Survivors as proof it works.

I do have another version that creates SH4 style animations! Not MeshAnimations but Skeletal Animations as used in SH4. So the stock Secondary Characters in SH4 can do SH5 Animations.

That is being worked on to allow the Characters IN THE SUB run SH5 Animations. They have more bones so get a more refined action.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

The stuff to create MeshAnimations is like the first releases of S3D.
There are things I can Script to improve the ease of usage. First is to see Who is Brave enough to use the process!

I just might update the Rowers for SH3 Survivors as proof it works.

I do have another version that creates SH4 style animations! Not MeshAnimations but Skeletal Animations as used in SH4. So the stock Secondary Characters in SH4 can do SH5 Animations.

That is being worked on to allow the Characters IN THE SUB run SH5 Animations. They have more bones so get a more refined action.

That's good to know about the rowers, because I had been using the old "rotation key frames" method for my own lifeboat rowers - clearly, SH5 offers the chance for more smooth, realistic looking action. Very excited by your other thread!!

In the meantime, I am hard at work on the big battlecruiser update, getting them into their release shape - Invincible class and Indefatigable class have been tested and everything has been going well! Plus updates to particle effects - I am much happier with smoke from damaged units at this point. Question for true experts - does anyone know where exhaust was emitted from WWI diesel boats? I know that U-19 class and UB-I class had a pipe like the old U-9 kerosene engined boats, but not about other classes. Thanks!!

[Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Question for true experts - does anyone know where exhaust was emitted from WWI diesel boats? I know that U-19 class and UB-I class had a pipe like the old U-9 kerosene engined boats, but not about other classes. Thanks!!

Here I am
Actually the last type with a pipe was the Type 19 (which was the first diesel run class); from Type 23 on, every type had, like the boats from ww2, one or two exaust vents on the hull sides.
You can see them in this nice pic of U-54 steaming at full speed

U-111 manouvering

and on this nice model of U-64

Not every class, houever had the exaust vents places near the stern.
Type 43 had the exaust vents paced near the conning tower

I don't know however if that was an unicum or if other classes had similar arrangment.

btw I didn't know UB-1 had a pipe too; where was it placed ?

[iambecomelife]

Thanks Oliver you are a lifesaver!! I was not expecting anyone to have an answer. I will go ahead and model exhaust vents as shown in your pictures. On the UB I type blueprints the motor exhaust is a muffler that has vent holes. Like what you see on a modern Diesel powered tractor trailer truck. I think actual details varied in service, and some may not have been equipped like this.

I have more good news...wartime wireless news messages are finally done! This was a major research project itself. There are about 1,050 news messages...from June 1914 to December 1918. Players will learn about Franz Ferdinands assassination, the July 1914 crisis leading to war, the battles of Tannenberg, the Marne, Gallipoli, Ypres, the Somme, Zeppelin bombings, Isonzo, Verdun, Jutland, US entry into the war, first poison gas attack, the Neville Offensive, the death of the Red Baron, French army mutinies, the 1918 German Spring Offensive, and much more! News comes by radio daily or about every third day, it will be very immersive.

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

Excellent to see the progress continuing on this epic effort. That is very interesting about the exhaust vents. That looks like a much better arrangment than the vertical pipes. Those are very nice photos posted of some of those early boats ..the wonders of photography never cease to amaze me what has survived all of these years. Well done!!!!


and Happy 2023 to all hands and esp the Master of this marvelous effort. thank you sir


Admiral Von Gerlach

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Admiral Von Gerlach

Excellent to see the progress continuing on this epic effort. That is very interesting about the exhaust vents. That looks like a much better arrangment than the vertical pipes. Those are very nice photos posted of some of those early boats ..the wonders of photography never cease to amaze me what has survived all of these years. Well done!!!!


and Happy 2023 to all hands and esp the Master of this marvelous effort. thank you sir


Admiral Von Gerlach

Oh my goodness it's great to hear from you again friend!! I will be sending you a message with screenshot updates and other new stuff (since you said you don't use Facebook and are not a member of the WOTK group).

About recent updates I finished a big work interview so I am modding again! Next update is battlecruisers ... total list is Invincible Class, Von Der Tann, Moltke Class, Indefatigable Class, Derfflinger Class, Lion Class, and Queen Mary. SMS Lutzow/Derringer model I made earlier was not good enough and I am finishing up the new model as a much nicer replacement. The latest models will have nice features like 3d doors, deck hatches with animated crew walking our, and 3d life rings/portholes....no reason to use the old SH3 and SH4 system of painting these details on, I am getting great framerates with the new ships.

I have run multiple missions to test sinking behavior of Indefatigable, Invincible, Iron Duke class, Colossus Class, King George V Class and Orion Class, so far I am very happy with flotation and sinking rate
....learned a lot about using the ZONES.CFG file. Plus it's so nice to have most of the capital ships installed on my test setup! The roster feels much more populated.

I also need to generate a new battlecruiser explosion effect..hopefully something nice and dramatic. I will mod files so German battlecruisers are quite sturdy, while British ones have a substantial chance to explode (if your torpedoes hit a shell room or powder store).

Another big goal is about to be reached...about 90% of the ace tonnage scores have been done! I just need to do part of 1918. That way you can compare how well you do compared to Otto Hersing, Walter Schwieger, and of course Lothar von Arnauld de la Periere. The king of aces! About a quarter of the great aces didn't survive the war and one was captured (Claus Rucker, who was sunk by Titanics sister RMS Olympic).... just goes to show how hazardous U-Boat duty was.


HMS Tiger, Lion, and Queen Mary also come out soon. Many other things ste happening behind the scenes so sit tight...

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

wonderful to see that roster of BC they were the noble greyhounds of that era, majestic and amazing spearkheads of the fleet. My Brandfather became friends with Von Hasse who wrote the chronicles of Derfflinger, and had some remearkble insights and stories shared with that fine German Officer with him after the war.



that is a good idea re the vulnerablity of the English ships to magazine explosion, as it actually happened multiple times at Jutland, the other catastrophic event that did also occur was bunker combustion but that was usually in harbour so not an issue for this project.



Having those 3D details will be marvelous. Well done re that those details mean a great deal for immersion and realism in modeling. Great to hear about. Glad you are forging ahead on this amazig and so very worthy effort.



Carry on!















Admiral Von Gerlach (still beached ashore)

[Jeff-Groves]

So. Where is this "WOTK group"?
I know the WOTK page but doesn't appear any option to join a group.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

So. Where is this "WOTK group"?
I know the WOTK page but doesn't appear any option to join a group.

I meant a follower of WOTK on facebook - there is not any official WOTK group. Although some people in the FB group are helping with the mod, like subsim member tonnageking

[Jeff-Groves]

Ah. I get it. So............
Could I post things like animation stuff there?

[iambecomelife]

Admiral Gerlach, Kpt Lehmann, TonnageKing, Kapitan Oliver, and Jeff Groves,
I will be sending a PM soon.

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

Ah. I get it. So............
Could I post things like animation stuff there?

Yes, you can PM me your animation work and recommendations - did you already sign up to follow the facebook group? At this point there are about 600 members and I don't remember seeing you yet. There are no membership requirements, you can just like/follow on FB and make posts commenting on the work, or select PM's.

[iambecomelife]

From now on I will be going for weekly updates! Either here or on the FB page.

07/15/2023:

-SMS Lutzow and Derfflinger were damage-tested ingame, using a player U-Boat as the attacking vessel. Compartments/hit zones were corrected from the USS North Carolina "parent unit"; now these German battlecruisers catch fire properly, list, and sink like they should.

-I had UK destroyers depth charge U-31; based on the results I will be increasing the DC lethal radius and/or hit points. In my opinion the standard DC's are not dangerous enough; several exploded quite close to us and inflicted minor damage which IMO is not enough of a challenge.

-Two major refit jobs are very close to completion in time for our big Summer battlecruiser update! SMS Seydlitz's hull received corrections and will be ready for in-game testing probably Sunday or Monday after I return from work. HMS Lion/Princess Royal Class and HMS Queen Mary received fine details that improve the model dramatically over the old variant.

-On Wednesday, the German battleships SMS Konig and SMS Helgoland and cruiser SMS Emden were added ingame and tested successfully! They were generously provided by jhapprich, who unfortunately has not been around recently....he modeled these ships so well. This, of course, saves me a lot of time.

-TonnageKing has kindly volunteered to model ships for the Austro-Hungarian Navy! Thanks to him we will have at least one navy modeled in the initial release other than the Royal Navy and Kaiserliche Marine. His first vessel will be the Viribus Unitis Class battleship. You may have seen the infamous movie of the Szent Istvan rolling over in 1918, that was a sister ship - it was one of the first disasters at sea ever to be filmed!

-I am making a big advance in ship part construction that will save time - to make a long story short, I'm working hard on high detailed parts that can be manipulated in wings3d more easily. A lot of time spend modeling was wasted, in the past, manipulating tiny parts to create quality looking ships - this will be a thing of the past! which means a much faster release date.

-One very exciting change is coming - improvements to interiors. I am collecting photos of WWI U-Boat interior compartments wherever I can; unfortunately these are rare but I did come across some excellent material. To save time a lot of material will be reused - for example there will be no more than two torpedo rooms for all classes, one will represent subs with twin bow tubes, the other will be for four torpedo tube boats like U-87 Class and U-139 Class.

-Intelligence radio messages are being generated!

As stated before, the Wireless news message project was finished recently, and added over ONE THOUSAND unique World War I news messages between June 1914 and December 1918 for Silent Hunter IV - these intelligence messages are a supplement. They will notify you of certain ship movements in the campaign layers, naval hazards, Q-Ship sightings, and news about Allied or German officers - who has been promoted, decorated, KIA, captured, etc. They will be monthly or bimonthly messages - less frequent than the news reports.

Please note this is NOT mission creep; these messages are text-based modifications that can be done while I am on the train, flying on vacation, on lunch break at work, or visiting relatives. Basically situations where I cannot access my main modding computer. So this is a great use of time that does not detract from the modeling/interface work. Hang in there and thanks for your patience, this long ride is a marathon not a sprint but we are getting ever closer. I hope the new weekly update commitment keeps everyone more informed. Much more news soon, and there will probably be more posts between now and next week!!

[iambecomelife]

Mini update Wolves of the Kaiser: 1914 - 1918, 07/21/2023

-Corrected a .zon file modeling bug that kept the battlecruisers Derfflinger and Lutzow from taking damage; now they flood, catch fire, and sink like they should.

-Made excellent progress with the Kaiser Class battleship. I believe someone at subsim modeled it years ago but the model has been lost; this forced me to make my own which was a setback but fortunately it's on the brink of completion! This battleship and the UK battlecruiser Tiger are the last major warship modeling jobs.....every other battlecruiser and battleship needed has now been modeled.

-Took and edited screenshots for the WOTK facebook group.

-Started the process of interior modeling; I already have some pipes and valve handles but will be making a lot more. The plan is to start on U-Boat command rooms and then work on other spaces. Reference materials include the pictures of UB-110, which was photographed in detail by the British (see below.)

-Lastly, Jeff Groves has kindly offered to help with some animation issues for AI crewmembers.

Many screenshots will be posted here today or Saturday; keep a lookout.