Not Your Grand Mothers RUB Campaign Mod Ver 1.1 released

[Der Teddy Bar]

Originally Posted by bill clarke

I have Not Your Grand Mothers Ship Damage Mod Beta 10.1.36-1
should I down load this new version and over write the files ?

Bill,
The NYGM RUB Capmaign Mod is another Mod of the NYGM franchise. Just to confuse things more, the NYGM Crew Management Mod is ready for release.

The Campaign files have been modified so that the "its a merchant it must be going 7 knots" and "its an escort it must be going 11 knots" are no longer.

In the default game and the RUB modified game, even on manual TDC, it is simply a point N shoot situation. When getting into a firing position ahead of the vessel, it is a simple race ahead, submerge and wait ## minutes. No need to look as the vessel is always travelling at the same old speed.

NO LONGER! The chase has now got so much more exciting! Every ship and convoy in the game now has a random speed associated with every waypoint. There is no rhyme or reason to the speeds, they are truly random based on the ships original speed.

You will need to continually monitor your prey, constantly re-checking its speed. Not sure of its speed? Better use a spread of torpedos as a real Captain would have been forced to!

No longer will there be the boring same old same old when attacking a ship. Imagine... you plot the convoy’s course and speed and see that you might just make it if it doesn't maintain its current speed. Do you risk the chase on the off chance that the convoy will slow down? Taking the plunge you arriving at where the convoy should be and not finding it... do you head back home or maybe wait as the convoy is yet to arrive?


These campaign files (all found in data\campaigns\campaign\) were first adapted from the original SH3 files for RUb (‘Real U-boat’) by a variety of modders, see RUb’s original documentation.

Starting with the files provided with RUb version 1.45, Stiebler made the following changes:

CAMPAIGN_LND.MIS.

*IMPORTANT NOTE*: sometimes, when dragging the map across the eastern Russian cities, a Crash-to-Desktop (CTD) occurs. This bug is a feature of the original SH3, and is not due to the new campaign_LND file. The CTD can occur at any time, but most frequently at high time compressions and/or when the U-boat is in port.

A. CORRECTIONS.
Many corrections to the cities and ports, including removal of some duplicates (eg Gibraltar had been entered twice for the same dates and side). Sides assigned correctly to many of those incorrectly handled, especially those affiliated to Vichy France such as Toulon. Colonies of France and Italy better handled. Dakar now made a French port instead of South African. Azores made neutral until October 1943. Some new additions, usually replacing existing not-very-useful ports; eg Reykavik (Iceland) and Takoradi (Gold Coast, Africa) added. ‘Lowestofte’ (England) renamed to give correct ‘Lowestoft’. Turkey and Argentina now enter the war in March 1945. Other changes, too numerous to list. File ‘data\roster\defside.cfg’ altered.

B. AIRBASES.
1. Azores air base now correctly enters the war in October 1943 (was January 1943).
2. Large air-base on St Helena moved to Ascension Island (south Atlantic, north of St Helena). This means that the map of air cover provided with the standard SH3 game no longer shows correct air cover for the south Atlantic. Imagine the circle of air cover currently shown around St Helena as having been moved upwards over Ascension Island.
3. Deadly new, elite, large British airbase ‘Biscay1’ now covers the Bay of Biscay and a small part of the Atlantic west of Spain, from August 1942 to August 1944 (the period of the great Coastal Command air offensive on U-boats crossing the Bay). It is no longer safe to sail casually on the surface from a Biscay port into the Atlantic.

C. NEW MINEFIELDS (already incorporated into RUb 1.45).
Teddy Bär’s ‘British East Coast Minefields’ incorporated. These stretch out to 100-150 km from the British East Coast (200 km in some places), see accompanying .jpg maps. The shallowest of these minefields is set to 8 metres deep, so the U-boat can sail across them surfaced in good weather. But NOT in stormy weather! Consequently, grid patrols once assigned next to the British east coast in ‘data\cfg\Flotilla.cfg’ have been re-assigned to the next square east.
[Signs of being sunk by a mine: There is no warning or audible explosion. Sudden massive damage and flooding to the U-boat, usually causing quick sinking. If you were travelling at high time compression, you are sunk instantly by ‘flooding’.]

D. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0� to “CrewRating=1� and (original) “CrewRating=1� to “CrewRating=2�. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)


CAMPAIGN_RND.MIS.

A. CONVOYS AND INDIVIDUAL UNITS IMPROVED.
1. Revised to remove all neutral ships from convoy, replacing with closest Commonwealth ships. So now you will not be penalised for sinking ‘neutral’ ships in convoy (which were legitimate targets). There may be a few omissions, with convoy passage times overlapping countries entering the war.
2. Alteration of convoy/unit speeds between waypoints (Teddy Bär’s original idea).
I have implemented this as follows:
Each convoy is classified according to its original starting speed (SLOW = 5-7 kts; FAST = 8-9 kts; VERY FAST = 12-14 kts). Starting and way-point speeds are then programmatically altered randomly by +/- 1 kt or +/- 2 kts (also possibility of +/- 4kts for VERY FAST convoys), but must not exceed limits (SLOW- min = 4 kts, max = 8 kts; FAST- min = 6 kts, max = 10 kts; VERY FAST- min = 8 kts, max = 15 kts.) No two waypoints can have the same speed - if this occurs, the new speed is adjusted randomly towards the mean speed and changes of 0.5 kt may rarely occur.
The speed of each individual unit (merchant or warship), not in a convoy, is altered as for the convoys, but without the convoy limits.

B. NEW OR CORRECTED SHIPS.
1. Tankers of type OTMST2 sometimes used before they were available (August 1942). These have been replaced with type OTSF.
2. A Hospital Ship is now running backwards and forwards from Liverpool (Britain) to Halifax (Canada). Ship has a British flag, but ranks as a Neutral (safe passage has been guaranteed by the German Government). It has dull red cross markings on the funnel and ship sides, and carries no guns. Don’t sink it, or you will lose 10000 in Renown! (Hospital ship files created by Iambecomelife and Sergbuto, requires the folder NHOS to be added to folder ‘data\sea’, and file NHOS.cfg to be added to ‘data\roster\british\sea’.)
3. Two merchants LagosTramp and LagosTramp2 have been added to the Gulf of Guinea sea area (west Africa, near Lagos).

C. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0� to “CrewRating=2�, and “CrewRating=1� to “CrewRating=2�. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)


CAMPAIGN_SCR.MIS.

A. CONVOYS AND INDIVIDUAL UNITS IMPROVED.
Altered original and waypoint speeds randomly for all non-Group units, as described for campaign_RND.mis (above). Also altered speeds for the Gibraltar patrol groups. Other groups and convoys not altered, since they must arrive at their destinations at exact times.

B. NEW OR CORRECTED SHIPS.
1. Added warship ‘LagosPatrol’ for Gulf of Guinea, west Africa.
2. Added my version of a Milk Cows mod, which supplies fuel to U-boats in the North Atlantic, west Atlantic, central Atlantic and Freetown areas, as well as providing the German tanker ‘Brake’ in the western Indian Ocean. Full details in Stiebler’s ‘MilkCows’ mod read-me file. Requires addition of the folder ‘NSS_UBoat9b14’ to folder ‘data\submarine’ and the file ‘U-Tanker.cfg’ to folder ‘data\roster\german\submarine’.

C. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0� to “CrewRating=1� and (original) “CrewRating=1� to “CrewRating=2�. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)


CONTINUITY CHECKS.
In addition, used self-penned program to check continuity of all data in all three campaign files (that they are consecutive and in the right order).

MESSAGES_EN.TXT (in same folder as campaign files).

The original English version found in RUb 1.45 was ‘Radiolog_lite.txt’, created by Irish Red and Sniper1. I have completely overhauled this, correcting many entry and spelling errors and making a few new entries at key dates of the U-boat war. It is not desirable to have an over-full list of radio messages, since the game keeps dropping to a time compression of 1x after each message. [The German and French versions corresponding to MESSAGES_EN.TXT have not been altered by me.]


All modifications described above (excepting Teddy Bär’s Minefields fix) carried out and tested in full campaign mode by:

Stiebler, January 2006.

[Letum]

Ive crossed Biscay in 1943 4 times now and not seen one aircraft. Is this unusual? Could it be because I set my TC to 2x above default maximum?




Well, that explains why Ive only ever seen aircraft in my 1xTC patrols.
Any hope of a fix?

[baxter]

I never see any aircraft when I'm traveling above 256 TC. At 256 and below I see plenty.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Originally Posted by Letum

Ive crossed Biscay in 1943 4 times now and not seen one aircraft. Is this unusual? Could it be because I set my TC to 2x above default maximum?

Baxter is correct.

In SHIII when above 256x the aircraft spawning/encounters etc are somewhat broken.

Also of importance, as noted by Avon, when using higher compression that the sighting ability of your crew is greatly impared. That is, if at 256x you would have seen the ship at 6000 metres then at 512 if could be 4000 or even less. There is a thread around somewhere.

I play in window mode and surf the net, do e-mail, mod and the likes while playing SHIII at 256x.

[irish1958]

Can this mod be used with IUB 1.02 and HT 1.47?
irish1958

[Tazzie]

Originally Posted by Der Teddy Bar

There are two versions of the Mod, one version is for NON rub installs i.e. SHIII patched to Ver 1.4b only and a SHIII 1.4b with RUB 1.45 installed.

The difference between the versions is minor. RUB 1.45 includes two additional ships, the NHOS Hospital Ship & NKGM Large Cargo ship. There were only 5 instances that needed changing.

Can this be used with HT 1.47 and NHOS Hospital Ship & NKGM Large Cargo ships installed?

[Stiebler]

GlobalExplorer wrote:

Have you ever tried to write a parser for the .mis files that uses something "safe" like GetPrivateProfileString() ?? I did, and, depending on the language, it takes 10-15 minutes to parse one of the .mis files. Thats because for every access in the form (Key,Section), the whole file must be searched. With ~200.000 lines in one file this gets a bit, er, slow. My current parser reads the file into an array, and then parses it in one direction. So in fact, it parses the whole file in a bit more than the time one (!) access to GetPrivateProfileString() takes. I'm not saying this is the best practice, but it is very fast, and I think Ubi will do it in a similar way, though probably more robust.

I write my own parsers. And they are very fast. Since text only has to be read into an array once, access thereafter should also be very fast (if properly organised).

Irish1958 wrote:

Can this mod be used with IUB 1.02 and HT 1.47?

Sorry, no. HT 1.47 uses its own campaign files. I'm not familar with IUB, but it probably does too.

Concerning time compression (TC):
SH3 calculates the position of every unit (or unit block, such as a convoy) at every time unit (whatever the internal time tick may be). If you run at 1xTC then no unit, including your U-boat, has travelled very far when the update comes. At 128xTX, everything has moved 128 times further before updates occur. At 1024xTC everything has moved quite a distance before the update occur. So a ship or aircraft may jump suddenly into the middle of your field of view when it wasn't visible before. Alternatively, it may hop completely over the U-boat without either side ever seeing the other. I think use of TC above 512 is unwise, except to accelerate travel to remote patrol areas.

It is possible to use interpolation routines to check whether two units have hopped over each other without spotting one another. I've done it myself for a customer, but it is complicated and Ubisoft, probably wisely, has decided not to add the extra computational burden.

Stiebler.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Originally Posted by Tazzie

Can this be used with HT 1.47 and NHOS Hospital Ship & NKGM Large Cargo ships installed?

The SCR file is the file that makes HT what is is. So you can use our LND & RND with the HT.

The only issue then, and again this is a matter of perspective, is that all the escorts in and around the ports and along the English coast are the usual sitting ducks travelling at the exact speed day in and day out.

[Soviet_Warlord]

-edit nevermind, just noticed it was already answered

Oh ya, woohoo 400 posts

[Letum]

Ive found a single merchant going at 3knts. Any way to fix such irregular speeds?
3kntas is just too slow

[Stiebler]

Letum said:

Ive found a single merchant going at 3knts. Any way to fix such irregular speeds?
3kntas is just too slow

We aimed to provide a wide range of speeds to mimick the effects of heavy weather or other variable factors from real life. 3 kts isn't really 'just too slow' in a heavy storm for an old tramp; nor for a ship suffering from damage or engine difficulties. Speeds like that are what you occasionally get when the word 'random' enters our programming vocabulary.

However, if it's a problem for many people (and it must occur very rarely because of the way the randomizer was written), it wil be easy enough to fix.

Stiebler.

[Panama_Red]

If you are going to "simulate" real life, then you should have some ships like this (slow because the engines needing repair, etc).

[Nedlam]

Originally Posted by Der Teddy Bar

The SCR file is the file that makes HT what is is. So you can use our LND & RND with the HT.

That's good to know. I can live with the escort drones around the ports since I rarely venture into them.

[Kalach]

Originally Posted by Letum

Ive found a single merchant going at 3knts. Any way to fix such irregular speeds?
3kntas is just too slow

The way I see it the merchants aren't changing speeds just for fun, it's meant to simulate engine problems and lowering fuel consumption and such. Or speeding up to get back on scedule.


<edit> I've been beaten to it, didn't notice there was a page 2

[jasonb885]

Originally Posted by Stiebler

Letum said:

We aimed to provide a wide range of speeds to mimick the effects of heavy weather or other variable factors from real life. 3 kts isn't really 'just too slow' in a heavy storm for an old tramp; nor for a ship suffering from damage or engine difficulties. Speeds like that are what you occasionally get when the word 'random' enters our programming vocabulary.

However, if it's a problem for many people (and it must occur very rarely because of the way the randomizer was written), it wil be easy enough to fix.

Stiebler.

I'd be curious what specifically you modified and how you modified it?

Is there a standard configuration definition somewhere?

It sounds like there have been extensive changes, so there's nothing valuable I can do with IC as it will simply overwrite some key values. (All my waypoint Speed= entries were static and not randomly chosen, for example, I randomly assigned external cargo types, exact convoy composition was determined by a static configuration file, ect.)

The next evolution of tools are operating against my RND layer, so now my postprocessing tools are useless. Somewhat disappointing, but not entirely surprising. Although I now have little to offer.