[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Thanks, had a family reunion to attend.

"Not registering on the SD"?

The only thing the SD radar is capable of.....is two things. Displaying a plane icon on the Navigation Map and reporting to you in the message text box that a plane has been spotted. One of those has been removed by FOTRS due to them thinking the plane icon was giving too much away by showing on the Nav Map. So, they put a blank plane image in its place (I've yet to understand why modders remove functions from the game when all that's necessary is for a player to set their options to do the same thing!!). Other than that, the two stock radar screens....A-Scope or PPI, were not designed to show a plane.

My radar screens will show a plane, but that's only after I changed the SJ sensor capabilities. Both A-Scope and PPI screens work off of the same SJ radar parameters......not the SD radar sensor. Their two different things.

One thing you should be aware of with my radar screens. The PPI has a maximum range of 80,000ft. The A-Scope has a shorter maximum range of 60,000ft. One will show a plane at a longer distance when the other will not show anything. But...... both use the SJ sensor parameters, while the SD sensor parameters are only going to give you a heads up from the message text box. The only way to get a plane to show on the PPI/A-Scope screen is to have the SJ radar antenna above the water level (go to Radar Depth at least). Raising the SD Antenna while submerged will not display a plane on the two SJ screens.....it will only get you a message text stating a plane has been spotted.

Thanks for taking the time for the explanation, Capn.

Usually, if something can be turned off, it can be turned back on, is this possible?

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

Thanks for taking the time for the explanation, Capn.

Usually, if something can be turned off, it can be turned back on, is this possible?

Regarding the SD radar, it never was intended to show a plane on the two A-Scope or PPI screens. It's only way of communicating a plane detection was through the message text box, and showing the plane icon on the Navigation Map. Those two things are hard coded as to what they do. The planes icons can be replaced, but that's not up to me to decide.

The SJ radar does show on the two radar screens but their connected at the hip. You can't pull one to do the SD radar capabilities, without having the other screen do the same thing.

In real life, the SD receiver unit was nothing more than an oscilloscope looking device....much like the A-Scope screen. It would have been perfect for the game to have separated the two screens to display the two different radar capabilities.....but they didn't. And, there's nothing we can do about it since the distinction between the two types of radar (Air Search and Surface Search) are made in the hard coded parts of the game.

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Regarding the SD radar, it never was intended to show a plane on the two A-Scope or PPI screens. It's only way of communicating a plane detection was through the message text box, and showing the plane icon on the Navigation Map. Those two things are hard coded as to what they do. The planes icons can be replaced, but that's not up to me to decide.

The SJ radar does show on the two radar screens but their connected at the hip. You can't pull one to do the SD radar capabilities, without having the other screen do the same thing.

In real life, the SD receiver unit was nothing more than an oscilloscope looking device....much like the A-Scope screen. It would have been perfect for the game to have separated the two screens to display the two different radar capabilities.....but they didn't. And, there's nothing we can do about it since the distinction between the two types of radar (Air Search and Surface Search) are made in the hard coded parts of the game.

Again thanks for taking the time to explain things for me, appreciate it. I'll continue to work with what we currently have.

[XTBilly]

No worries boss.

The FOTRS campaign created by AOTD team and Maddy surpasses everything I've seen so far.
This fantastic campaign is one of the strongest cards in FOTRS sleeves. People will love it. I did.

I'm a little confused. What's the point of spending countless hours to make a mod and then denying people access to use it? What's the problem if it is included in another mod or another site? Sharing the "glory"? More people will use it and play it. Isn't that the reason that it's been created in the first place?

Ahhh... enough of this.
CdrSubron7 made me abandon the SH1 random campaign with his single missions. They were THAT good.

So far, neither RSRDC (not a chance) , not even TMO's great campaign options are compared to the masterpiece which is the campaign included in FOTRS Ultimate. I really think that we're more than covered in this sector. That's until new ships start scripted in it.

I understand Rockin Robbins. He wants to give players even more choices to make their own gameplay. But at this particular occasion, nothing's lost.

Billy.

[cdrsubron7]

Ahhh... enough of this.
CdrSubron7 made me abandon the SH1 random campaign with his single missions. They were THAT good.

Ahhh......you're just saying that because it's true.


There's no ego in my family, I have it all.

[XTBilly]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

Ahhh......you're just saying that because it's true.


There's no ego in my family, I have it all.

You have a more serious "opponent" this time.
But again, you have great "tools" so, I'll say the situation is balanced. For now...

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by XTBilly

You have a more serious "opponent" this time.
But again, you have great "tools" so, I'll say the situation is balanced. For now...

[cdrsubron7]

Hey, Boss

Have to compliment you, sir. This idea of FOTRS Ultimate was terrific. I have so many options now for writing single missions I'm getting to many ideas at once. I can't get them scripted fast enough to keep up. I mean that as good thing. My original 6 missions I mentioned over the weekend has swelled to nine currently with about 5 or 6 other ones that are in the works.

Bravo Zulu, Boss.

[J0313]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Regarding the SD radar, it never was intended to show a plane on the two A-Scope or PPI screens. It's only way of communicating a plane detection was through the message text box, and showing the plane icon on the Navigation Map. Those two things are hard coded as to what they do. The planes icons can be replaced, but that's not up to me to decide.

The SJ radar does show on the two radar screens but their connected at the hip. You can't pull one to do the SD radar capabilities, without having the other screen do the same thing.

In real life, the SD receiver unit was nothing more than an oscilloscope looking device....much like the A-Scope screen. It would have been perfect for the game to have separated the two screens to display the two different radar capabilities.....but they didn't. And, there's nothing we can do about it since the distinction between the two types of radar (Air Search and Surface Search) are made in the hard coded parts of the game.

I have a question. Why hasn't anybody managed to get into the hardcode of SH4 like they did in SH3? Just asking.

[Haukka81]

Originally Posted by J0313

I have a question. Why hasn't anybody managed to get into the hardcode of SH4 like they did in SH3? Just asking.

I would like to know too , never found reason for this :O


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CapnScurvy]

I can do a lot with the game................but I'm no expert with the hard coded stuff. That's probably about the same answer for most of us. It would take access to the core files to make changes to them. This requires a knowledge of program design, and the tools to work within these files.

Those kinds of tools aren't free for the using. You need to be working within an established computer design company (where they bought your tools and application software for you) and have an interest to work within the SH4 coded files to do the kind of work that's been done with SHIII. So far, no ones stepped up. As with game programing, typical 3D modeling software can cost a 1000 dollars that can do what some have done with the game. Sure Blender is free, but it's not going to do everything what the game calls for.

So, we're left with shuffling around images; adding a new 3D model now and again; coming in through the back door to make a change; or just switching something's name and calling it a modification. We will never get to the real meat and potatoes of the game when we're left to just white wash the surface.

[aanker]

Originally Posted by J0313
I have a question. Why hasn't anybody managed to get into the hardcode of SH4 like they did in SH3? Just asking.

-

Originally Posted by Haukka81

I would like to know too , never found reason for this :O

Is it legal to HEX edit the exe and include it in a mod? That would be like giving SH4 away for free, right? I don't know.

It would be nice to 'un-join' the two screens so each could be elevated to different heights (surface & air) - and display like the SH1 A scope & SJ radar stations. Probably a lot of HEX work and many other files, plus it would still be directional; which isn't historically accurate.

I don't know how powerful the 010 tool is yet.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by aanker

-

Is it legal to HEX edit the exe and include it in a mod? That would be like giving SH4 away for free, right? I don't know.

It would be nice to 'un-join' the two screens so each could be elevated to different heights (surface & air) - and display like the SH1 A scope & SJ radar stations. Probably a lot of HEX work and many other files, plus it would still be directional; which isn't historically accurate.

I don't know how powerful the 010 tool is yet.

That has been the opinion of SH4 modders from the beginning: that modding is the modification of configuration files in the /data directory. Everything else is hacking. If you read the EULA, which nobody does, we're specifically forbidden to deconstruct, modify, publish a derivative, blah, blah, blah with the executable file.

There has been one exception to that rule in SH4 and that has been MultiSH4, which basically makes a three byte hex edit to the exe to put saves in a directory of your choice (three letter names only!)

As far as decompiling the radar modules, rewriting them, hooking them into the exe so it doesn't know there's been a change, I can't imagine that flying. Early on the the game, 2007 and 2008 we were mighty glad Ubi gave us a moddable game and purposely chose not to do anything they might construe as invasion of their territory.

Our feeling was that if we wanted moddable games in the future we'd better keep our nose clean. So we made a strict definition of what permissible modding was.

I'm not familiar with what the SH3 modders have done with the exe there. But I'm not in favor of doing something just because we might not get called on it. I think we should do right because it's the right thing to do.

[max-peck]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I'm not familiar with what the SH3 modders have done with the exe there. But I'm not in favor of doing something just because we might not get called on it. I think we should do right because it's the right thing to do.

Hi RR

I have played SH3 with HSIES patch, that changes the executable to change things such as O2 usage, torpedo reloading times, repair times, range estimations, periscopes, external top reload times and many many more things

If only out of interest I suggest you read the first post here to see what HSIE managed to accomplish
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=174225

As I understand it, and as HSIE says in his thread, he cannot release a modified version of the executable.
However, what he has done, is release the Patch Kit to allow us to modify our own executables
This does not break the EULA (I think? Neal lets HSIE host his patch kit on SUBSIM?)

I am sure if it did Neal would have shut HSIES thread down six years ago

As to how relevant this is to us?
Probably not very much - unless we have the following

Someone with the time and inclination and skill to look into the code and figure out how to change the things we want
An indication from UBI that we are not breaking the EULA
Someone who can then make a patch kit to do these things
Permission from Neal to then host it here

EDIT
In summary - if you think you have someone on the team who can make a patch kit rather that modify the exe, try talking to Neal and see if this is a feasible idea

[james_nix]

Originally Posted by aanker

-

Is it legal to HEX edit the exe and include it in a mod? That would be like giving SH4 away for free, right? I don't know.

You have to HEX edit to get the game to run on Windows 7,8, or 10. By increasing the memory to accept more than 2gb.