[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by jldjs

They came out and back in in same order, I was not in port, and I used the same save to lok at results. My first restart of the Save after removing the mods showed the dials details, Saame after each restore of the mods sequentially in order that I removed them.
BTW. the versions of the Easier AI mod I use only contains the range change in Sim.cfg, and AI_sensors.dat (June 14 2010) and Ai_Visual_Sensors.dat(June 14 2010) in Library.

... but your gauges where "white" until after you took out the three mods? and fine after inserting them one by one a second time?... It's difficult to hit a moving target, and FotRS U is not standing still for us... I had it last night where I lost all keyboard input as I was doing my final approach on a convoy, and coming up to periscope depth... by the time I finally managed to get the torps away, I had a DD within a couple hundred yards. I hit crash dive and went under the convoy to get away... I do not know what I did, but just a few minutes later, I all of a sudden had keyboard input again. Very frustrating and difficult to fix something that doesn't break-break...

Playing the game from a save may also have influenced that behavior, but who knows?

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

I've been aware of JSGME's short comings for years.....never pull out a mod out of sequence from the mod activation order that it was put in. Follow the simple rule: "Last mod in, First mod out". OR, give JSGME plenty of time to add mods to the game, and allow time for JSGME to remove from activation mods before you shut down the computer. JScones, the creator of JSGME used to be on these forums, his posts are still around. He knew JSGME wasn't fool proof, that's why he put the "Snapshot" feature into JSGME to give users a way to check the original stock files for corruption. We should all follow good modding practices to allow JSGME to work as well as it can.

And I have never seen JSGME in error on its snapshot feature. It was the most important thing JScones ever put into his masterpiece.

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

I didn't know that JSGME had an issue with size. If size of mods like FOTRSU .40 Beta has become too large for JSGME to keep up, I suggest the mod should be broken down into two or three parts...allowing JSGME to digest the file modifications to the stock game in manageable pieces. RR that's your department.

I don't believe it has anything to do with size. I think its a constant, very small error rate. And it's as likely to be a Windows error rate as a JSGME error rate. The rate is no worse than one hundredth of a percent (.0001) but at least one thousandth of a percent (.00001). The only reason we find it so often with FOTRSU is that with between 8000 and 9000 files, it happens one out of five or ten times we uninstall our mod. But with a smaller mod, like TMO you might have to install and uninstall 50 times before you have an error. Chances are you'll never uninstall TMO 20 times.

We're doing mod research, so we install and uninstall enough times to see the tiny error rate at work. One hundredth of a percent chance means a hundred percent chance of it happening if you do the action enough times!

It's easy to jump to the conclusion that JSGME has a problem with large mods. I don't think the evidence suggests that at all. It's human to jump to that conclusion but we actually have no evidence that's true.

My gut feeling is that JSGME isn't even at fault, Windows is. So there's nobody to complain to. And the fix is easy, taking less than 10 minutes for a guaranteed fix. So the problem isn't worth pursuing.

[CapnScurvy]

Regarding this stock game corruption "error" only occurring

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

no worse than one hundredth of a percent (.0001) but at least one thousandth of a percent (.00001).

of a time.
It's happened twice now in two times of deactivating FOTRSU .40 Beta from the game. That's batting 1000 to me.

My second Snapshot after deactivation of the mod showed the same 7 files REMOVED. The same 5 from the NPL_Conte_Verde, plus those 2 crazy German flags (that's after I replaced them from my "clean game files" stash):





The difference was the addition of the 1 DIFFERENT file, which was the "sh4.exe" file that I purposely edited to have the Large Address Aware enabled in the game.

The good news about that is my game didn't crash when I went to the Museum! LAA allowed me to view all assets in the Museum with no problem. That's a better start than the other day. It's my fault for not thinking right away that LAA was not loaded for Silent Hunter. It made all the world difference in getting this huge group of files to work as intended. I'm going to put together a tutorial on adding LAA to a Windows 10 Operating System for those who wish to try it......made a huge difference in allowing the modded game to display the Museum.

Sooooo, I'm happy to report the Museum works as expected, with all assets on display. None of the ships displayed a black texture. Only a texture issue with the Netherlands Search Plane in that it displayed white, not black-only (a snafu there for sure). That Shiratsuyu DD showing a black texture when playing a Campaign game must be from a misspelled texture name or a missed start/end date for the texture. All DD's showed fine in the Museum. Also, the Medium Tanker had no bow wake...that's easily fixed though.

I also started up another Campaign with a Gato, Mid 1942 from Pearl, no issues with the Command Room dials. Or, with the outside exterior camera....worked as expected with the additional Shift+Arrow keys to speed up long distance travel, and the extra Zoom feature using the Mouse Wheel or Tab Key, to give a 7x binocular magnification to that view.

===========

I wanted to say before I forget, the naming scheme looks great for the various ships. Great job in removing names like "Big Old Whatever" from the list; and not having a Maru found in the Allied side of things. Nice job!!

[propbeanie]

See CapnScurvy, you're getting slightly different results out of the Museum than I am, as far as what does and does not have full or partial skins... Time for some experiments in Windows with some resource monitors open... if I could only remember how to use this stuff...

Who can answer me this: In Silent Hunter 5, how big are some of the mods for it? How many vessels do they have in those mods? Do any of them hit 200? Does Silent Hunter 5 use the same engine as 4? or was it updated for "modern" computers with multiple cores and better memory controllers?

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

See CapnScurvy, you're getting slightly different results out of the Museum than I am, as far as what does and does not have full or partial skins...

What are you seeing in the Museum PB?

I'm seeing good textures on all ships. American, British, German, Australian, Japan etc. No CTD's for a particular ship or plane. They all appear when called on.

The one Netherlands Search Plane (a PBY), the last in its list, shows a white texture color, with no markings.....I know I put an orange triangle insignia on the thing. The only visual model issue I've found has been with the Medium Tanker ship that has no bow wake. Other than that, they all seem correct. I'll run through them again to check their sound files.

[propbeanie]

Two Japanese planes with skin problems. The one is the Scout plane version of the Zero, which was all white on mine, and another that was all black, lack of any skin, but I can't find my notes for their designations... Since that happened the other day, I then had issues with even getting the Museum to even open, and CTD'd just as it opened. I backed everything out (I had been doing a Bismarck versus Bismark experiment), just in case I messed things up, re-applied the mod and last thing last night, tried it again, and the Museum ran fine, skins on everything... so, I dunno...

Edit: Strangest of all strangeness... I just tried to run the Museum again, and it wouldn't do it... Took my experiment from last night back out, and it ran fine... All skins are in place on everything. Is it a Windows Resources thing, or just a demand from the game for 'precision'?

[Larrywb57]

Was the "chaser" going slow? That's another thing that gripes me about the Sonar in SH4, and that's if a boat goes slow enough - what? 6 knots? eight? - then it "disappears" from sonar.

Since you mentioned this, I remember reading of this website about sonar not picking up engine noises if the target was going less than half of there top speed. The ship was going about 1 knot and that why I didn't hear anything.

[torpedobait]

Webster made a mod to stop the crew from shouting after the boat takes damage. I always apply his mod as the last in sequence with JSGME and it works flawlessly for TMO with or without RSRDC. However, it does not work with the Beta FOTARS. Was it your intent to add this lovely feature so we don't have to listen to the crew yelling out each command or acknowledgement all the way back to base?

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Two Japanese planes with skin problems. The one is the Scout plane version of the Zero, which was all white on mine, and another that was all black, lack of any skin, but I can't find my notes for their designations... Since that happened the other day, I then had issues with even getting the Museum to even open, and CTD'd just as it opened.
Edit: Strangest of all strangeness... I just tried to run the Museum again, and it wouldn't do it... Took my experiment from last night back out, and it ran fine... All skins are in place on everything. Is it a Windows Resources thing, or just a demand from the game for 'precision'?

That Japanese Scout plane (a Zero with float pontoons) is supposed to be a light white color. You need to zoom in a bit better to see it.

The other? I don't know, but if all is correct now, sounds like a file corruption issue.

Speaking of which:

I backed everything out (I had been doing a Bismarck versus Bismark experiment), just in case I messed things up, re-applied the mod and last thing last night, tried it again, and the Museum ran fine, skins on everything... so, I dunno...

This "Bismarck Test Mission".....you've constructed it with the FOTRSU .40 Beta?? Don't use any other FOTRSU mod version to make test missions.

================

On my Museum, the only two issues are with the Medium Tanker not having a bow wake....a model issue. And the Netherlands Search Plane having a white external texture......not like this:




=================

Originally Posted by Larrywb57

Was the "chaser" going slow? That's another thing that gripes me about the Sonar in SH4, and that's if a boat goes slow enough - what? 6 knots? eight? - then it "disappears" from sonar.

Since you mentioned this, I remember reading of this website about sonar not picking up engine noises if the target was going less than half of there top speed. The ship was going about 1 knot and that why I didn't hear anything.

Well that's been a gripe of mine too.

Although you'll encounter this much more with a mod then you will with the stock game. Mods like RSRDC looked at the tactic of adding hundreds of waypoints at different ship speeds, to shipping routes, to put uncertainty into game play. The only problem with that is the subs manual use of sonar (letting you use the hydrophone) won't pick up the screws of a slow moving ship. Your sonar man will report it, but you won't hear a thing. The reason the stock game has less of this issue is that ships routes are usually steady with their speed. Their set at say 9 knots for a freighter, and left there throughout the ships route. With a freighter whose MaxSpeed in its .sim file is set at 15 knots, a 9 knot constant speed works without a problem.

As you can tell from reading the first part of my post. We're still going over issues that corrupt either the stock game, or issues within the mod itself. But, I'm very interested in looking into the manual use of the hydrophone and fixing it if I can.

[nionios]

What should I do when the radio message traffic in early 1942 says that my sub (SS-176,USS Tench) was lost at sea?
It seems that from now on I'm on ghost boat.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by torpedobait

Webster made a mod to stop the crew from shouting after the boat takes damage. I always apply his mod as the last in sequence with JSGME and it works flawlessly for TMO with or without RSRDC. However, it does not work with the Beta FOTARS. Was it your intent to add this lovely feature so we don't have to listen to the crew yelling out each command or acknowledgement all the way back to base?

The file names may have been changed, or the sample rate changed, but we'll look into it, and try to get one out that we'll send off to Webster, along with his New Lifeboat mod. We'll put the FotRS Ultimate stamp on it, if he agrees with it, and then we'll add the "official" FotRSU numbers and put 'em out there, still with his name on them - ~IF~ he wants us to... I dunno how long that'll be, but WE'D BETTER HURRY, CAUSE I JUST GOT DEPTH CHARGED AND WE'RE TAKING DAMAGE!!! wow. do they have to be so obnoxious? I think a light bulb broke. The thermal layer is at 112, so we're cruising at 160 on silent running, and the DD is dropping 'em ~deep~...

[propbeanie]

CapnScurvy, that PBY looks like it's fresh off the showroom floor, and hasn't even been to the shop for company paint yet...

I had zoomed in on that Zero Floatie, and it looked like something out of the S3ditor preview screen. Just an off-white for shape, no markings, or texture, other than the rocket launchers. After a computer re-start and changing some other mods, it's now skinned, as is the one that was completely lacking skin. I dunno what to think. I do know that experimental mod that I had, while it initially looked like it worked, I'm going to say that it did NOT work, and it's been pulled, placed on the back burner of forgetfulness, and may never be brought up again. In fact, I can't even remember what it was about...

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by nionios

What should I do when the message traffic in early 1942 says that my sub (SS-176,USS Tench) was lost at sea?
It seems that from now on I'm on ghost boat.

See, too much "chatter" on the radio, and you the rumors of your demise have been greatly exaggerated... We might have to go through that list line by line and get rid of all references to subs lost, unless they aren't in the game's possibly active list...

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by nionios

What should I do when the message traffic in early 1942 says that my sub (SS-176,USS Tench) was lost at sea?
It seems that from now on I'm on ghost boat.

I guess you have two options. First, continue playing on the ghost ship or second start a new career.

USS Perch (SS-176)

[Sniper450]

I have been playing with the settings and have found I can get the camera to work. In the options screen for gameplay settings, I have tried this with the setting set at realistic and at high BUT having the "no external camera" box unchecked. It will work at these two settings ONLY IF when at the fleet boat campaign screen (where I select my boat, date and such) I set a difficulty level of easy. Setting it at anything but easy wont allow me to use the external camera. I have not attempted yet the other two settings when at the options/gameplay settings screen. Should this be like this?