[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[gutted]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

199_FOTRSU50_Patch.7z

Do i need to start a new campaign? Am currently in port between missions.

[propbeanie]

Since it's replacing campaign files with bad ship calls, you shouldn't, in theory, have to start a new career. But you should be in port... I hate to have you find out though, that I'm wrong in that... It changes nothing on your boat or sensors. There are some changes in the DynamicMiss.cfg file, but that would affect assignments only, and the Campaign.cfg changes you already have with the other harbors fix, so you should be good just being in your Home Port... If it crashes right away, you'll know why ... Just let us know though, please.

The "Save" might be an issue though, if you go back any...

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Time to mix up 0.51 to fix whatever's wrong there. Complexity leads to error. Simplify please!

I agree!!

Regrettably, I've seen us take one step forward, but two back!

The issue with the stock game corruption hasn't been fixed....you guys have just moved on to other files screwing up the works. I'm speechless when I offer my help and its ignored or you don't understand plain English.

Deactivating this latest FOTRSU v0.50 Beta from the game, I find 7 Stock game files REMOVED from the stock game:



They are 7 different files from the 5 files that the NPL_Conte_Verde lost before....BUT FOR THE SAME REASON I informed you of this issue in the past few days. I'll not repeat myself.

You want it "simpler" you say....yet as I've already pointed out before, the stock game has 18 total Conte Verde files.....Your FOTRSU has 68:



I gave you a "Fix" with my last upload, which gave you 24 files total, with no stock game corruption. You ignore it to go another way.

Your way gives this in the Museum:




Guess that's what you want?!?

And this too:



Big Old U.S. Tanker looks like it's wearing a cheap suit. Too many skins My friends.

And what's with the LAA and MultiSH4 doing in the main game folder?



JSGME Activation shouldn't have to load these two programs every time you want the mod to run. And, what version of LAA do you have here anyway? There are specific versions of LAA, for specific NET Framework editions, plus whether your OS is 32 bit or 64 bit. The proper download is not found on just one. I'm at a loss to understanding this.

[propbeanie]

I think we overwrote the updates CapnScurvy, with your fix, which negated the updates. The extra -remove stuff, we'll look into. I don't know where more of those would have come from...

In the meantime, for those that love the cold and loneliness of the Aleutian Campaign, and nothing but "S" boats will need to download a "new" CampaignAlaskaBeta50.7z, which is an even bigger experiment than the 199FotRSu50_Patch.7x file, which does NOT have a fix for the -remove stuff the Capn refers to above.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

JSGME Activation shouldn't have to load these two programs every time you want the mod to run. And, what version of LAA do you have here anyway? There are specific versions of LAA, for specific NET Framework editions, plus whether your OS is 32 bit or 64 bit. The proper download is not found on just one. I'm at a loss to understanding this.

Large Address Aware as found in the Subsim download area works well for everyone and uses .NET 3.5 or newer. We haven't received a single complaint that it doesn't work. Heck, it works for me in Linux. That's good enough for me. If someone wants to get one for .NET 4.6 let 'em hunt it down. I'm not going to supply four versions of LAA and then confuse people about which to use when. Especially when this one has worked for everybody. It works just fine from within the SH4 main directory and needs no installation. Since it's operating from within the same path the programs we're altering, finding them is very easy with this file structure. That's how it will remain.

MultiSH4 also looks for files to alter. If it lives in the same directory, navigation to the correct directory is very easy. Putting it in another directory would mean changing paths to find the proper .exe to modify. Since this is a mod and JSGME is installing it, then we have limited choices in where to put MultiSH4. We can either put it in the main game directory, or nonsensically, in some subdirectory of the main game directory where nobody would ever think to find it. JSGME doesn't care if it's installing an exe file. Therefore it stays in the main game directory.

These files are small and don't overload the ability of JSGME. It's silly to object just because they are exe files. I'm at a loss as to why your panties would be in a wad over a simple and sensible expediency.

In the meantime, I'm pulling down v0.50 until we get a fix on the campaign stuff and missing bases.

[Rockin Robbins]

Just a reminder that v0.40 is still available in the Subsim download area for download. We'll get v0.51 (learned the hard way a few months back that you don't take something down and then put it back up with the same version number. Still have the lumps from that one) up as soon as we confirm that it works properly.

Sorry guys, we're rank amateurs who have never tackled a project like this before. I assure you that we make things up as we go along and are taught by the consequences of our errors. We are by no means qualified for the project we launched.

That being said, persistence beats excellence every time and I promise you we're persistent.

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi RR
It is useful for the gamer to know when changes are made to files.
For example when the zip file campaign fix was released as a separate download to V5.0 the data file could have been dropped in to V5.0 and then changed to V5.1.
Any newcomer would immediately get the most up to date version.
Those with the existing version V5.0 would just need to drop the campaign fix data file into their main game folder.

vdr1981 with his TWOS you will notice the main mod, this links back to Post #1 and the installation instructions and download link.
The 03b update links directly to the download.
The latest update has a flashing symbol to attract your attention.
The FAQ tips link back to Post #2


Any post he makes anywhere in Subsim can immediately be seen by any TWOS gammer.
Many gammers who view posts do not bother to go roaming through the pages especially when there are a lot of them.
An important update you post today may not be seen in a few days time when the post page or pages have advanced.
Peter
Courtesy acknowledgement to vdr1981

[gutted]

Didn't feel like reinstalling .4 so i plowed through another patrol of my career with .5. No issues during patrol but when i docked at port in July '42, both SJ & SJ-1 radar were available for installation on my porpoise. SJ-1 shouldn't be available till mid-late '43 right?

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by gutted

Didn't feel like reinstalling .4 so i plowed through another patrol of my career with .5. No issues during patrol but when i docked at port in July '42, both SJ & SJ-1 radar were available for installation on my porpoise. SJ-1 shouldn't be available till mid-late '43 right?

Honestly, we haven't looked at equipment or upgrade dates. We' re only looking at campaigns, ships and mod installation right now.

Equipment availability dates will have to be a future project.

I will echo Ducimus though and say that rivet counters will not be happy with FOTRSU. It is a difficulty mod, not a realism mod. There will be realistic things in the mod, but they are not the mod's reason for existence.

[gutted]

In this instance the problem is less to do with realism and more with progression.

When i first transferred to the Porpoise from an S boat in very early '42 i already had a choice of either the SD and Improved SD air search radars. The latter of which shouldn't have even been an available at that time.

It seems that it's straight to the best version of something for that particular sub each time there's upgrades. No Progression.

[Rockin Robbins]

Gutted that could be the "blind chimpanze" method SH4 uses for selecting upgrades, or it also could be built into the TMO 1.7 base mod for the original SH4. We'll look at all that.

Our motto is "First, make it work. Then make it work WELL." We're unfortunately still in the first part. We're close, but the last ten percent always takes about 80% of the work! You naturally solve the easy stuff first, and that leaves.....

We are in the home stretch of campaign and ship mechanics. The original FOTRS seemed like they had to leave the unfinished product at some poiint. There were a lot of consequential errors that we feel bound to correct. Our aim is for FOTRSU to be the default mod choice, replacing TMO in that category. To do that the mod has to work excellently. We're not there yet.

Once it works well, then boat physics, upgrade paths, enemy AI, etc will be gone through. Right now we have a laser focus on functionality!

Thanks for the observation. Let us know anything else you find

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi Guys
Keep up the good work.
I am sure no one thought it would be easy.
The road to the top can be a difficult climb but, when you get there the view is worth it.
It might feel like a slap in the face sometimes, two steps forward and one step back.
The key to success when you have a group modding is communication.
Supporting you all the way.
Peter

[Rockin Robbins]

Thank you Peter.

So far the most bizarre finding has been CapnScurvy with the Big Old US Tanker being some weird checkerboard pattern of.....words fail me.....weirdness!


This turns out to have been the case all the way back to v.01 of FOTRSU. So further research finds the same tangled texture trainwreck in the AOTD's FOTRS 2.0. Turns out the model uses T07B, that's texture #7 of a wide collection used to skin the ship, in a checkerboard pattern that is entirely inappropriate.

For now we're calling it a new form of camouflage and it becomes a FEATURE, not a bug. Although your chances of encountering this Frankenstein monster on the ocean are small, we're going to have to get into the actual modeling of the ship and connect up the proper textures to their proper nodes. It's just another back burner project!

It's the kind of stuff that makes modding fun!

[propbeanie]

... the vessel is docked in Dutch Harbor on January 2, 1942, for all to see...

I have encountered it at other times in the game, and it has been fine. There was another vessel that had this issue earlier in the process, and there's a posting on it somewhere buried in the thread... I do not recall the fix, if there was one...

[Rockin Robbins]

Trying out a new preinstallation method using a batch file. Does anybody have any experience with the command line version of 7zip (7z.exe) and know why it's so @#$#% slow? I can make it do what I want. (That's a lot of old-fashioned fun!) It takes a long time to unzip.

Anybody have any tricks to speed it up?