[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[Senf-Man82]

So there is no way to get a player controlled ship to funktion as tactical unit (like airfield) on the map and to spawn/send recon planes out at all? That is to be regretted :/

[propbeanie]

Sadly, no. Not with the current knowledgebase... unless someone isn't sharing... and as I mentioned before, a person would be world famous if they got something - anything - to resemble a player launched (and possibly usable) scout plane... Just imagine Climb Mount Niitaka (or Climb Mount Niitaka), sailing the ocean blue in your JyunsenB, launching a scout plane and finding the Wasp...

[SilentPrey]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

The Recognition Manual primarily follows Fotrs's attempt to put "something" into the book, but it's not as detailed as the SH4 Stock game having a 90; 45; and zero degree image. With any new ships we may have made for Ultimate, we pretty much just followed what the Fotrs guys did. Some of their pictures come directly from SHIII.....so the RM is in all kinds of different looking configurations.


When I get around to it, I'll be looking at the ship measurements and redoing the RM to suit my idea of what an RM should look like. I've actually had a plan for some time to put measurements onto the RM ship pictures to coincide with the ability to use the Stadimeter to "pick" a spot on the target to get a measurement from....not just the mast. You'd have a dial to "set" the spots height figure, then take a reading from that spot, giving you a reasonably accurate Range to target. I know there are some measurements that aren't even close to providing an accurate measurement of Range if your using Manual Targeting, so a "make over" is needed for more than one reason.

Thanks again, Capn. As a long time OTC player I am more than willing to wait patiently for your efforts to improve the recognition manual.


Excellent work, guys!


SilentPrey

[Faith]

First off, great job on the new version.
Hadn't had the chance of finishing my first patrol in the new version, but I'd like to give my impressions and comments:

- Started on January 2nd, 1944, at Freemantle. Ordered to patrol W of the Philippines for 5 days.
- N of Austrailia. No less than 8 IJN aircraft attacked me over the course of several days. Discovered gunners had to be manually put on positions.
- Choose to pass through a narrow straight where I knew no japanese defenses would be. No attacks during passage. Near Balikpapan onwards, I received constant air attacks.
- Passed a convoy NNE of Balikpapan. 2 tankers, 3 cargos (1 small, 2 medium), ignored.
- Shot down a Judy in shallows, but battery nearly consumed. Decided to sink to the bottom and wait for the night.


That's where I've stopped at the moment.

- As other people have already said, aircraft are an extreme nuisance. They are like flies, always coming back, and you never seem to cull their population. I don't know what has been changed, but right now it makes 1945 U-Boat patrols feel like an argument between two canadians. It's impossible to travel on the surface by day.
- Has radar been improved for IJN ships? Could they be detecting me for the planes?
- I saw a Nelson in Freemantle, but it's missing it's Oerkilon guns, or at least the gun barrels. Maybe change them for SH4 guns? I'll get a photo.
- Like the detail of the AI Fleetboat leaving the harbour. Nice to feel you're not alone in the war. Strange that other big super mods didn't do the same.
- During a custom mission I made, I believe that one of the new ships (the smallest one) could not move forward. But I'm not sure. Maybe it was just for this mission (a massive convoy with every japanese merchant in game). I'll check again.


Some other opinions:
- I don't like the new classes in the recognition manual, specifically in the IJN section. It's become a mess. It starts alright, but then passes to a mess of heavy and light cruisers, subs, and auxiliary cruisers. I realize that's because the new classes have been coded for plane spawning, but I don't feel the result is worth this. Is there a reason the plane spawning couldn't be done within the existing classes? Or is it impossible ?
- I don't agree with the new Shinshu Maru remaining a troop transport. It's a completely unique vessel, one that the US Navy wasn't even aware existed during the war (as far as I know). It feels better placed in the "Rare Troop Transport" class. Thus, it won't appear among the generic troop transports in harbours, and in convoys with "generic" ships, preventing duplicates.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Faith

- Has radar been improved for IJN ships? Could they be detecting me for the planes?

No, radar has not been changed (although a make over is intended). The frequency of planes has been brought on by the different warships containing Scout Planes (Pete's or Jake's floatplanes), AND the already heightened abilities of the planes to have super human visual capabilities (a leftover from FOTRS). We've modified these capabilities in our next version release, which should tone down their behavior. But, you should know, surfaced daylight travel was seldom used when in the enemy controlled environment most American subs were assigned to. You can't expect to patrol surfaced during the day in these parts of the Pacific.

Will it take time to get from point A to B...….Why, Yes it will!! But that's what it took......This isn't a quick "hop" across the "Channel" from one side to another!

Some other opinions:
- I don't like the new classes in the recognition manual, specifically in the IJN section. It's become a mess. It starts alright, but then passes to a mess of heavy and light cruisers, subs, and auxiliary cruisers. I realize that's because the new classes have been coded for plane spawning, but I don't feel the result is worth this. Is there a reason the plane spawning couldn't be done within the existing classes? Or is it impossible ?

It's Impossible.

The plane spawning occurs due to the warships "ClassType". This ClassType is what the hard coded files use to makeup the Recognition Manual. Each "Nationality" starts with (if there is one) the Super Elite Battleships, then the Battleships, then the Carriers and so on......These ClassTypes have a numbering sequence attached to them which is what is used to put the ships in-order within the RM, regardless of what name you call them. A Japanese Submarine that has the ability to fly a Scout Plane will be lumped into the same category as a Carrier, or a Sea Plane Tender. The developers didn't give us the "tools" to rearrange the RM or even provide some other way to categorize the entries. We're pretty much stuck with how they planed things...….one they didn't count on was for us to have Scout Planes on warships!

[propbeanie]

Got my replies in "orange" below

Originally Posted by Faith

First off, great job on the new version.
Hadn't had the chance of finishing my first patrol in the new version, but I'd like to give my impressions and comments:

- Started on January 2nd, 1944, at Freemantle. Ordered to patrol W of the Philippines for 5 days.
- N of Austrailia. No less than 8 IJN aircraft attacked me over the course of several days. Discovered gunners had to be manually put on positions.
- Choose to pass through a narrow straight where I knew no japanese defenses would be. No attacks during passage. Near Balikpapan onwards, I received constant air attacks.
- Passed a convoy NNE of Balikpapan. 2 tankers, 3 cargos (1 small, 2 medium), ignored.
- Shot down a Judy in shallows, but battery nearly consumed. Decided to sink to the bottom and wait for the night.


That's where I've stopped at the moment.

- As other people have already said, aircraft are an extreme nuisance. They are like flies, always coming back, and you never seem to cull their population. I don't know what has been changed, but right now it makes 1945 U-Boat patrols feel like an argument between two canadians. It's impossible to travel on the surface by day.
- Has radar been improved for IJN ships? Could they be detecting me for the planes?
Any detection of your sub by any means will lead to the massing of the enemy masses about your location. The planes have been calmed down for what we are supposing will be v0.72, which should be forthcoming.
- I saw a Nelson in Freemantle, but it's missing it's Oerkilon guns, or at least the gun barrels. Maybe change them for SH4 guns? I'll get a photo.
Ah-ha! good eye! We'll look into that.
- Like the detail of the AI Fleetboat leaving the harbour. Nice to feel you're not alone in the war. Strange that other big super mods didn't do the same.
We do have more planned for that, but we might make it an add-in option, since the more you put in, the more it impacts the players' computers...
- During a custom mission I made, I believe that one of the new ships (the smallest one) could not move forward. But I'm not sure. Maybe it was just for this mission (a massive convoy with every japanese merchant in game). I'll check again.
Are you referring to one of the new "Maru" models? We'll double-check it, but one thing to remember about using the Mission Editor for custom missions, is that all of the ships have different "requirements" for spacing -AND- the differences in speed loom ~huge~ in how they interact with each other. In other words, the big ocean liners with a high top-speed will require much more spacing between units than the smaller ships. Ships with lower a lower top-speed will not respond as rapidly either. Similar happens with a Task Force. A DD might only need 400 meters of spacing, but a CV might want 1200m between it and anything else. Generally speaking, if doing a "parade" type convoy like that, keep the ships about 700-800m apart...

Some other opinions:
- I don't like the new classes in the recognition manual, specifically in the IJN section. It's become a mess. It starts alright, but then passes to a mess of heavy and light cruisers, subs, and auxiliary cruisers. I realize that's because the new classes have been coded for plane spawning, but I don't feel the result is worth this. Is there a reason the plane spawning couldn't be done within the existing classes? Or is it impossible ?
Not possible. That is just the way the RecMan works. The "Class=" determines the sorting as it stands now. We are looking into other options, but the scout planes on the various ships just are too cool to not have there...
- I don't agree with the new Shinshu Maru remaining a troop transport. It's a completely unique vessel, one that the US Navy wasn't even aware existed during the war (as far as I know). It feels better placed in the "Rare Troop Transport" class. Thus, it won't appear among the generic troop transports in harbours, and in convoys with "generic" ships, preventing duplicates.
Duly noted. We'll see if we can't do that. I do believe that was our original intent anyway, but we got too busy with other niggly details...

Thanks for the comments Faith. We appreciate any and all input. I don't know if you noticed, but there is a bit of your Traffic mod in there, but not much. I only got through 1/4 to 1/3 of the additional ships, and none of the minefields. We're trying to come up with a way to mark-up the player's NavMap to show known minefield placement by date, and not "hide" other, more important info on the map... like enemy ships and planes... They can hide "underneath" even the Objective Markers. We're working on that also...

... and CapnScurvy beat me to it! I had to step away, and there he is!

[propbeanie]

OK Faith, it's these guys, correct?



and it's all of them that have the "LinkName=20mmGBSingle" listing in the EQP file. the other AA guns are OK

[s7rikeback]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

OK Faith, it's these guys, correct?



and it's all of them that have the "LinkName=20mmGBSingle" listing in the EQP file. the other AA guns are OK

OK, I found the problem and I am testing a new file. Standby...

[CapnScurvy]

The problem is in the dates and the original gun that's starts the .eqp file.


I've got it fixed.

Last save was June 2 19:12 hours at 177E'40, 31N'0. Continued on course 120 until 22:29 hours at speed of about 11 knots, in a Gato, when crash occurred. Repeated it twice. I'm running Win 7 on MacBook Pro using Bootcamp.
I've added mod Big Better Protactors and been testing successfully for a couple of campaigns when I had the opportunity on a patrol to Honshu to try snd intercept the TF headed for Midway. I did see this TF on the map around May 30 near 175E, 33N.
Testing had been going well, annoyed though with all those pesky aircraft.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

Trying to start new patrol from Midway on July 16, 1944. Ordered to patrol area of Convoy College. After hitting Start the patrol starts to load and never gets more than a 1/4 of the way before crashing to the desktop. Any ideas, pb?

Originally Posted by jldjs

Last save was June 2 19:12 hours at 177E'40, 31N'0. Continued on course 120 until 22:29 hours at speed of about 11 knots, in a Gato, when crash occurred. Repeated it twice. I'm running Win 7 on MacBook Pro using Bootcamp.
I've added mod Big Better Protactors and been testing successfully for a couple of campaigns when I had the opportunity on a patrol to Honshu to try snd intercept the TF headed for Midway. I did see this TF on the map around May 30 near 175E, 33N.
Testing had been going well, annoyed though with all those pesky aircraft.

Just so others know, these two issues are not related. cdrsubron7's issue is from the US_TaskForce layer spawning a US TaskForce in the Midway Atoll anchorage area in 1944. The player's sub was spawning into the middle of the group. I do believe that jldjs was out chasing Yamamoto on the Yamato in late May, early June of 1942, if I'm understanding them correctly, and gettinig a crash as they get close to Midway. The "battle" files in the mod have not been altered from what they were (TMO v1.7?? Stock??), other than changing the Type= calls for ships - and apparently "inadvertent alterations". Several of the "battle" files no longer even open. Here is a screen grab of the BattleOfMidway in FotRSU:



I circled the approximate location of jldjs' sub, and designated it with a CA Pensacola so I wouldn't lose the spot. There are at least two other groups over in Empire Waters that do not show in this capture. Midway is just below and slightly East of where jldjs' sub is, approximately 160nm away. As you can see, he is in the confluence of the opposing forces, hoping for a Nautilus shot, but with a better outcome. Unfortunately, the layer crashes. Either one, two or all of the groups have naming issues, specifically for the "Leader" of the group designations. I have no idea when this occurred to the mod, but we have "quick-fixed" most of the "battle" files for the next minor update. Probably what caused this was my mis-use of "Search and Replace" scripts looking for Type= "6" or "7" or "11" ships, and getting the 'names' of Group Leaders, such as a " EAC_JP DD Fubuki#6" that was used in another similar file. Replacing that "6" with an "18" value, as would happen doing a Type=6 CL to a Type=18 "Light Warship with Scout Planes", would then affect an existing group further down the page, led by " EAC_JP DD Fubuki#18". This would be a major name 'conflict', and the file will not work, and would most likely cause a CTD as soon as the player got close enough for the Group's spawn point...

Not being totally dedicated to "precision scheduling" in the mod for the dynamic cammpaign, we had ignored the "battle" files - until now... Can't do that now. 'Sides, we need some IJN submarines in the mix... Thanks for the report jldjs!

[Faith]

Sorry for the late reply. I hadn't got the chance to do an extensive test.
The new Ansyu Maru does in fact move in the test mission, but the propeller doesn't. There's a similar but also peculiar situation with the Aden Maru. The first time I looked, it was moving, but the propellers weren't. I looked again as it was changing course to avoid a ship, and they were turning. 15 seconds later, they weren't.
Maybe it only happens with the ship starting at a set speed, and begins turning after an RPM change ?

I also noticed an issue with the Oerkilons on the NPL_Hap (single stack liner) of the same kind as on the Nelson.







I'll continue testing in a few days.

[s7rikeback]

Originally Posted by Faith

Sorry for the late reply. I hadn't got the chance to do an extensive test.
The new Ansyu Maru does in fact move in the test mission, but the propeller doesn't. There's a similar but also peculiar situation with the Aden Maru. The first time I looked, it was moving, but the propellers weren't. I looked again as it was changing course to avoid a ship, and they were turning. 15 seconds later, they weren't.
Maybe it only happens with the ship starting at a set speed, and begins turning after an RPM change ?

I also noticed an issue with the Oerkilons on the NPL_Hap (single stack liner) of the same kind as on the Nelson.







I'll continue testing in a few days.

I can confirm that the Ansyu Maru did indeed have non-turning propellers.
I have now patched this, and it's now running normally.

I have looked at the other two new Maru's and these are also working correctly in the museum.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Files on it's way to area 51.

[Immelmann]

June 26th, 1942 in a Tambor trying to insert troops on Okinawa. Game crash video from twitch stream. Running FOTRSU v0.71 with the only change being that I have gone into the .cfg file and opened up time compression to the max value of Maximum=8192. This to make those long trips from Pearl take less time. A few observed anomalies in this 6 minutes of video. I don't think any of this is self inflicted, but who knows? And before anyone starts thinking in terms of processor workload due to streaming gameplay, I have to tell you this. I run a 2 pc streaming setup, so all my Skulltrail is doing is running SH4. Optical audio out to the streaming PC and HDMI video run to a splitter so that the monitor and capture card can both receive the video. Thanks again to the dev team.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/275130243

Hello Mod Enthusiast's,
FORTSU v_071 is great and getting better all the time so thought I would add my 2-cents worth of issues..... The (war patrol option) in start of game (for me) has an issue with saving anytime after leaving base. After exiting game back to desk top then restarting game and choosing the saved patrol all gauges in control room are stuck in the 12-o'clock position. However I never have this issue when I start and play a( career option), save, then restart? I believe others on this forum are having same issue?
captnmike......(run silent run deep)!