Realism- and gameplay-related hardcode fixes for SH3.EXE

[h.sie]

While working on a new fix, I managed to spawn a Pop-Up Window in-game showing an arbitrary message text that halts the game until user presses "OK" button.

Is there any other situation where a halt of the game and a message could be useful??

I ask because I remember there was such a situation, but I cannot remember exactly what it was in detail.



@THOSE WHO USE THE FOG-WARNING-FIX:

What would you prefer? The current solution (reduce TC to 16) or a message box saying "Fog arises, Sir" and waits for user acknowledgement???

[Fader_Berg]

Originally Posted by h.sie

Is there any other situation where a halt of the game and a message could be useful??

I ask because I remember there was such a situation, but I cannot remember exactly what it was in detail.

Here it is...

Originally Posted by h.sie

@LGN1: Imagine the following situation: A destroyer hunts you without exactly knowing where you are, so he throws depth charges randomly. one of these depth charges causes a little damage of an unimportant instrument, say, the coffee machine. In real life the crew would NOT start repairs, because this would cause noise. But in sh3, the crew would immediately start repairs, so that your position will be known by the destroyer. My idea was to delay the effect of the repair noise on detection probability, so that you have about 1 minute time to look into the damage screen and decide if immediate repairs are really necessary or not. If not, you have time to order silent running.

Best solution would be a dialog like "System damaged, Sir. Should we start repairs? Yes, No, Cancel". But new dialogs are heavy for me, maybe impossible, because they change program flow.

[h.sie]

Hi FB,

thanks for feedback. A new "YES/NO/CANCEL" dialog would require a change of the program flow. I am still not able to do that on assembler level. the mentioned OK box only pauses program flow but does not change it.

by the way: thanks also for important information on how to store values in the savegame - it seems to work.

h.sie

[Magic1111]

Originally Posted by h.sie

While working on a new fix, I managed to spawn a Pop-Up Window in-game showing an arbitrary message text that halts the game until user presses "OK" button.

Is there any other situation where a halt of the game and a message could be useful??

Hmmm, at the Moment I don´t know a situation...


I ask because I remember there was such a situation, but I cannot remember exactly what it was in detail.



@THOSE WHO USE THE FOG-WARNING-FIX:

What would you prefer? The current solution (reduce TC to 16) or a message box saying "Fog arises, Sir" and waits for user acknowledgement???

What about a third solution: Reduce TC to 1 ? Is this possible ? That would be in my opinion a compromise between MessageBox/Stop the game and TC16 ?!

Hi h.sie!

Read in red please !

Best regards,
Magic

[h.sie]

This is possible, Magic, but Stiebler and me chose TC=16, because reduction to TC=16 is unique (not used by other events) so that it's clear that the TC reduction is caused by arising fog. TC=1 can be caused by other events, so that the user won't know what's the reason for TC reduction.

And: In the moment the TC is reduced, there is still no fog visible from the players perspective, because the weater transition has just started but occurs very slowly. (but the sh3.exe weather engine already has the fog-flag set at that moment)

[NGT]

Hello h.sie

Thank you for trying additional evolution on this nice game.

The "other situations" for pop-up can be the new add-on by your patch:

The whether change, little bit more wind, and torpedoes loading is stopped. Is good to know that, especially in high TC, because some times I think that loading go on normally, but….

Same thing can happen underwater, when you are not able to control weather (except stock SH3), and if it change, is not possible to continue loading torpedoes before 29 meters depth.

So, a pop-up like: "Torpedoes loading is not possible, Sir" can be useful.

Additionally, when torpedoes loading are finish, is good to know, because we are in low speed, and is good, to change speed, most of cases…

So, something like: "Torpedoes loading completed, Sir. Stay at low forward speed?"

Other situations: when crew on watch (officer) or flak gun, or deck gun are killed, is good to know that nobody man the guns (because, they are people playing with the guns also, and not only with 100 % realism. Is not forbidden…)

….and perhaps when hull integrity drops down to …. % (your choice how much…)


For realism fans can be optional, like all the other stuff thanks to Stiebler tool. No?



Thank you very much for all (and especially for weather fix FORTE...)

[Kaleun Cook]

I like the Fog Fix how it is right now because you can leave the computer without worries. By reducing the time compression the game still continues but not that fast that you have to worry that your crew won't spot ships quickly enough.

However, maybe the Fog Fix and the pop-up-message you discovered could be combined just to make sure no accidents happen. When the game "detects" that it is foggy weather, a spotted contact would cause a halt and the message. Would that be even possible?

Beside all this I think for the WO fix alone this thread should become a sticky.

Soo uhh, is this mod still in testing / fixing it up phase?? Or is it ready to be downloaded and used? Because Id sure like to have it.

[SquareSteelBar]

Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith

...Or is it ready to be downloaded and used? Because Id sure like to have it.

Go to the first post...

[h.sie]

@USNSRCaseySmith: V15E3 seems to be stable, since no problems have been reported so far. Nevertheless, I'm still working on 4 new fixes (3 from Stiebler and 1 from LGN1 and me).

@NGT: Thanks! I'll consider your ideas as soon as I've found a better solution than a message box that stops gameplay and needs an user acknowledge by clicking OK button. currently I try to display the messages in the message console on the bottom of the screen. but that's hard....

@Kaleun Cook: Thanks for your kind words, but you make me laugh. The 1WO-fix is the most unimportant one - only eye-candy. I'll leave the Fog Warning mod as it is, except for an bugfix (currently it detects fog even if the boat is submerged and noone can see the weather) and maybe a console message ("fog arises, sir" or similar).

Gähn,
h.sie

[sharkbit]

h.sie and stiebler:
I just got back into playing SH3 after a 4 month hiatus from Silent Hunter all together and the last couple months playing SH4 but I've been keeping an eye on you fixes. They are definitely one of the thngs that got my palms itching to play SH3 again.

I installed your patches yesterday. What I've seen so far, everything looks incredible. I just have a few more loose ends to tie up, do some shakedown cruises to shake off the rust-I get too spoiled in US fleet boats, and I'll be ready to terrorize the cold grey Atlantic and the sunny Med again.

Thanks for all of your hard work. It is much appreciated. I don't know how you do it.

[h.sie]

@sharkbit: Thanks. V15F will have a nice surprise you'll surely like.

[Kaleun Cook]

@Kaleun Cook: Thanks for your kind words, but you make me laugh. The 1WO-fix is the most unimportant one - only eye-candy.

That's what I meant - the least important one is already worth a sticky! Can't wait to see what your next version comes with.

[Magic1111]

Originally Posted by Kaleun Cook

Can't wait to see what your next version comes with.

Yes, me too....

[rik007]

Originally Posted by h.sie

While working on a new fix, I managed to spawn a Pop-Up Window in-game showing an arbitrary message text that halts the game until user presses "OK" button.

Is there any other situation where a halt of the game and a message could be useful??

I ask because I remember there was such a situation, but I cannot remember exactly what it was in detail.



@THOSE WHO USE THE FOG-WARNING-FIX:

What would you prefer? The current solution (reduce TC to 16) or a message box saying "Fog arises, Sir" and waits for user acknowledgement???

Maybe to alert for airplanes when TC > 256x.