Merchant Variety Pack - Mid/Late War v1.1 Released

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Woof1701

Thanks from me as well. Will have a look at it tomorrow!!!

What would you say is a realistic period to use Mid and Late War skins?

Use the civilian skins from 1939 to late 1940. Around the beginning of 1941 most British ships should be camoflaged, so use the camo one for 1941 onwards. For early 1942 you may want to alt-tab and run the program if you get close to the US East Coast, since many American ships remained uncamoflaged until the summer of that year. After mid-1942, though, pretty much every large ship you meet should be in camo.
I read some interesting stuff about the dangers of uncamoflaged ships once. In one 1940 HX convoy the "Janus", a Swedish tanker, was placed next to two British tankers. The "Janus" had a bright gray and white paint scheme and was so visible in the full moon that all three ships were spotted and sunk - fortunately, with light casualties.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by rulle34

Thank you!
Since you have to manually put in the C3 file, does this mean that you only will have ONE skin for the C3, no matter if you run the "early" batch or the "late" batch?

/Rulle

There are actually two skins - one camo and one with a black hull and black funnel. I wanted to do more but the C-3 dat file only supports one skin.

[iambecomelife]

BTW, to those who want the mod in one package, I am tentatively planning to do so. The new release will correct errors with existing skins, have the easier install process for both versions, and contain MANY more prewar skins. Now that I understand the premise behind the random number selection I can add some companies I left out of the last release - as long as I find enough research materials, of course.

[rulle34]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

BTW, to those who want the mod in one package, I am tentatively planning to do so. The new release will correct errors with existing skins, have the easier install process for both versions, and contain MANY more prewar skins. Now that I understand the premise behind the random number selection I can add some companies I left out of the last release - as long as I find enough research materials, of course.

Sounds great!!
Big thanks for your great work with these mods and thank you for your answers.

/Rulle

[Spaxspore]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

I aim to please .

I conducted some experiments during a storm and found that camo and civilian-skinned ships seem equally easy to spot. I guess the game just isn't advanced enough to simulate the impact of camoflage on vessel visibility.

I love the early war skins, am doin my 1st patrol with the mid/late skins so i loaded the skins ver1.1. Its late '41 and am Runnin a type VIIB, I came across a convey, but guess what... a nasty strom a is brewing and the visiblity is niel . I cant see the pretty skins in the dark , oh well may be next patrol.


Capt. Hendrick Mauser
Aboard U-48
Deep Altanic Convoy Hunting
Late 1941

Hello,

I have a problem with Mid/Late Skins Pack. Skins simply do not change when I run batch file.
I'm sure I have installed it properly, as it is in ReadMe written.

My game path is D:\games\silhunt3
And I've edited file MVPMLW.bat so it starts now from this:

D:
PAUSE
cd D:\Games\SilHunt3\
PAUSE
@echo off
Cls
set %random%=0
set /a num=%random%/6546+1
if %num%==1 goto 1
if %num%==2 goto 2
if %num%==3 goto 3
if %num%==4 goto 4
if %num%==5 goto 5

Is it allright?

BTW, Early Variety Pack works pretty well.(i'm using MVPMI.bat)

Thanks for your great mod,

Best Regards,
Andrew Nazarov

[999-Jay-999]

I am waiting for when iambecomelife gets the hole shabang into one mod and allows easier installation with a more user friendly batchfile...

As easy it is right now for some it still seems a headache for those like myself that are not in the right frame of mind to fiddle with this that and the other when trying to NOT muck up there install directory.

I to have my game on drive D:/Games/SH3 so..... little waiting may be in order....


Eager to use this as I have been using the early edition since release..

Well done for such a great mod iambecomelife !

[Nilas]

Really great stuff! One question please.. since there's 'only' 5 skins per vessel here and 15 in the early war ed. won't you have to manually delete the last 10 (6-15) in each folder if you don't want the early skins to be used?

[HundertzehnGustav]

one person thanks


loved the first pack, great work even tho the mapping is buggy as heck.
MUST HAVE

[FullFathomFive]

I have been enjoying the Early War pack almost from the day one of release using the original install procedure. Terrific work, iambecomelife, and , indeed, a must have! I am, however, having a problem using the Mid-Late War release. Following the non- JSGE install directions closely (I think!!!), when clicking the .bat file there is no indication that files have been installed (as I get with the Early War pack), just two lines of what I think are the opening and closing lines of the batch process. Should there be more happening? After running this very abbreviated .bat, and also after deleting everything "five or higher, an "in game" check shows my merchants still wearing their last batch of Eary War duds..... Some words of advice for an old guy will be much appreciated.... and thanks again for these great additions to SHIII!

[JBClark]

Nice work , many thanks.

[iambecomelife]

To you guys who are having trouble installing, I'll take a look at it but I'm not at my own computer right now. As a last-resort workaround you can rename the skins based on the nomenclature for the default tga's. This is guaranteed to work, but you won't see the changes in skins that the batch file gives you. Here's a sample of the changes you need to make:

B1.tga to NKLS_T01.tga
L1.tga to NLL_T01.tga

and so on. Put them in your data\sea\[unit] folders. Here's a key:

B - NKLS or C-2 cargo
C - NKSQ or Coastal Merchant
D - NOTM_T2 or T2 Tanker
E - NOTMS or T-3
F - NOTSF or Small Tanker
G - Victory Ship
H - NKSs or Small Merchant
J - NPPL or Ocean Liner
K - Transport
L - NLL or Liberty Ship



IMPORTANT - Chack and see how many spaces are in each name (I can't remember offhand if it's NKLS_T01.tga or NKLS__T01.tga.)

Also, check and see if the paths in the batch file match the directory you've installed the pack to; see the readme for detailed instructions. If you STILL can't install it, try designating the full path for all the command lines in the batch file, using the [find] and [replace] functions in msword to do it quickly. For instance,

copy C:\SilentHunterIII\MVPMLW\B1.tga C:\SilentHunterIII\Data\Sea\NKLS_T01.tga, etc, etc.


Avonlady and Woof1701 invented a batch file that looked like it would work regardless of paths, but it didn't work on my own installation, except on drive C:\. The current batch file has elements of their work and an old batch file I developed with CRULL's help. Sorry about this; I really wish that getting random skin changes was more straightforward.

[Beery]

Hi iambecomelife, or anyone who knows these mods and/or merchant vessel history.

I'm looking at the Merchant mods (all of which are very nice indeed by the way), and I'm considering the best way of incorporating them in RUb. Jaesen Jones has created a system that handles the randomization and the change of skins after 1940 so that it all happens automatically when the game is loaded before each patrol. Anyway, I have a couple of questions:

Firstly, in real life, when did the changeover to camouflage happen? Was it something that happened all at once, or was it more gradual? If it was gradual, what would you estimate were the start and end dates?

Secondly, if there was a gradual change in colour schemes, would convoys have been mostly camouflaged during the transition, would ships in a convoy have tended to be all the same - i.e. all camouflaged or all non-camouflaged, or would there have been a mix of camouflaged and non-camouflaged ships in the same convoy?

Also, what about the C3? I notice only one skin of this type was included in each of the mods. Why is this?

Another thing. Did any ship colour schemes change significantly at later dates? Now I have a way of making random changes based on any date in the war. Is there any guidance anyone can give me regarding other changes that they would like to see implemented.

Also, any idea if the textures would work if they were put in the textures folder rather than in the ships folders?

Finally, I noticed in a number of the game's ship folders, there are three different skin files. I assume these are for when there are multiples of a ship type in a convoy. Is that right? If there's only one of a certain type in a particular convoy, does it always choose the #1 skin, or does the game choose randomly?

I appreciate any help anyone can give me.

[Beery]

Bump.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Beery

Hi iambecomelife, or anyone who knows these mods and/or merchant vessel history.

I'm looking at the Merchant mods (all of which are very nice indeed by the way), and I'm considering the best way of incorporating them in RUb. Jaesen Jones has created a system that handles the randomization and the change of skins after 1940 so that it all happens automatically when the game is loaded before each patrol. Anyway, I have a couple of questions:

Firstly, in real life, when did the changeover to camouflage happen? Was it something that happened all at once, or was it more gradual? If it was gradual, what would you estimate were the start and end dates?

Secondly, if there was a gradual change in colour schemes, would convoys have been mostly camouflaged during the transition, would ships in a convoy have tended to be all the same - i.e. all camouflaged or all non-camouflaged, or would there have been a mix of camouflaged and non-camouflaged ships in the same convoy?

Also, what about the C3? I notice only one skin of this type was included in each of the mods. Why is this?

Another thing. Did any ship colour schemes change significantly at later dates? Now I have a way of making random changes based on any date in the war. Is there any guidance anyone can give me regarding other changes that they would like to see implemented.

Also, any idea if the textures would work if they were put in the textures folder rather than in the ships folders?

Finally, I noticed in a number of the game's ship folders, there are three different skin files. I assume these are for when there are multiples of a ship type in a convoy. Is that right? If there's only one of a certain type in a particular convoy, does it always choose the #1 skin, or does the game choose randomly?

I appreciate any help anyone can give me.

Thanks for the compliments.

The switch to camoflage in the British and US merchant navies is hard to pin down. I know that several (if not most) companies definitely were not using it in the fall of 1939. Belligerent nations obviously made the transition faster, so British ships started receiving camo by late 1939 while neutral vessels remained in their company liveries, with large flags painted on their sides to advertise their nationality. Based on the few available photos that can definitely be dated, by 1941 it would have been very difficult to find a British ship that was not painted grey or a similar neutral tone. Larger, more important vessels like liners and big passenger/cargo ships seem to have received it first, with lesser ships following.

After Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war, some American companies unwisely kept their ships in the civilian schemes, giant flags and all. By the spring of 1942, though, the number of camoflaged US vessels jumped. To my knowledge it would have been virtually impossible to find an uncamoflaged US or British oceangoing vessel by late 1942-early1943.

There would definitely have been mixed convoys in the early years, since the Ministry of War Transport did not have the luxury of forming convoys with exclusively camoflaged ships. Also, many convoys would include neutral ships that stayed in their company liveries while the war was in full swing. I recently posted an anecdote from 1940 about a Swedish tanker that was so brightly painted it got the ships stationed in neighboring columns sunk. This would indicate that at least initially the MOWT did not prevent civilian-painted vessels from joining the convoys.

For the greatest realism I would probably suggest:

1939 - All vessels civilian-painted, except for a few valuable vessels requisitioned as oilers, transports, etc.

1940 - Perhaps 1/3 - 1/2 of belligerents' merchants painted grey. Neutrals continue to wear company colors.

1941 - Very few belligerent nations' vessels unpainted. U.S. ships still in civ. colors.

1942 - U.S. gradually paints its vessels, with vast majority camoflaged by summer of that year.

1943 onwards - Virtually no major uncamoflaged British, US, or Norwegian ships. Small numbers of ships (primarily US oilers, store ships, and transports) adopt Naval camoflage measures, such as disruptive schemes.

We're on the verge of being able to clone the merchant ships, thus making it possible to assign schemes based on nationality. For now, though, the Early War Edition of the MVP contains a small number of grey ships to simulate pre - 1941 instances of camoflage. Once the cloning process becomes commonplace it will be a simple matter to give the British and French alone camo ships in 1940, add camo to Americans in 1942, and so on. Plus, it would be pretty hard-core to have to identify funnel colors and company names before you shoot; under the current system, ships' skins are assigned irrespective of nationality.