[REL] The Little Ships of SH5 - Coaster Pack

[U-190]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

I had to take a break from modding in February because we have moved into new house and there was an endless list of things that needed to be done, leaving me with no time or energy for hobbies. I hope to return to this and other unfinished projects by the end of this month.

As for status, six new ships I was working on are all ready and imported into game, but there's still some work remaining in order for them to appear properly in campaign. More specifically:

- Two new ships are minesweepers, and they need minesweeping patrol spawns and nodes to be added to campaign in order to appear in game.
- Some coasters appear very rarely because most countries that use them do not have coastal traffic added to campaign.
- I'm still stuck on texture problems - I wanted ships to change textures and maybe even use navigation lights reflecting their status (neutral/belligerent) during the war, but way SH5 handles textures leads to constant problems with ships "borrowing" wrong texture from another vessel using the same model. There's also an unresolved bug that prevents minesweepers from using varying camouflages.

I hope to fix all the above and relase new ships sometime in August (provided real life doesn't throw a new wrench into my plans).

It's nice to hear that!

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

- I'm still stuck on texture problems - I wanted ships to change textures and maybe even use navigation lights reflecting their status (neutral/belligerent) during the war, but way SH5 handles textures leads to constant problems with ships "borrowing" wrong texture from another vessel using the same model.

Probably we already discussed that, but why don't you create illuminated windows/portholes as separate equipment? Indeed by adopting this method you should give up illumination effects on decks, superstructure, funnels etc. Moreover each vessel would need its own set of lights (you could keep each light separate so to use the same generic elements on more than one ship, but their placement would be a PITA). In any case, for small ships as your coasters, I think the above limits would be an acceptable price for bypassing the LOD texture problem.

Another possible compromise might be giving up LOD models. That would be a waste of computer resources but after all we already imported in game many dat units which have no support for LODs, and the game handles them decently.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

There's also an unresolved bug that prevents minesweepers from using varying camouflages.

Really? What is special about minesweeper's texture assignment?

Originally Posted by kapuhy

I hope to fix all the above and relase new ships sometime in August (provided real life doesn't throw a new wrench into my plans).

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by gap

Probably we already discussed that, but why don't you create illuminated windows/portholes as separate equipment?

Last time I tried the light from these illuminated parts disappeared at LOD switch range, but I might recheck that as m memory is fuzzy on details.

Originally Posted by gap

Another possible compromise might be giving up LOD models.

The problem is not just LOD models although their scrapping would solve a lot of issues. What I fear is situation where single brightly colored neutral ship wanders into vicinity of huge Allied convoy and all ships in the convoy decide to use "neutral" skin (this happens if neutral ship is a clone of regular "grey" merchants or vice versa).

Originally Posted by gap

Really? What is special about minesweeper's texture assignment?

I made a thread on the subject some time ago - never managed to solve it:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=250744

This happens to any of my ships I try to make multiple AO maps for (diffuse textures work fine).

[GrenSo]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Last time I tried the light from these illuminated parts disappeared at LOD switch range, but I might recheck that as m memory is fuzzy on details.



The problem is not just LOD models although their scrapping would solve a lot of issues. What I fear is situation where single brightly colored neutral ship wanders into vicinity of huge Allied convoy and all ships in the convoy decide to use "neutral" skin (this happens if neutral ship is a clone of regular "grey" merchants or vice versa).



I made a thread on the subject some time ago - never managed to solve it:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=250744

This happens to any of my ships I try to make multiple AO maps for (diffuse textures work fine).

Sounds like the issue silentmichal and I can't solve with the ladder in CR room in silentmichal's new interior mod v1.2.3 and my version v2.0 of it (last picture): https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...&postcount=596

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Last time I tried the light from these illuminated parts disappeared at LOD switch range, but I might recheck that as m memory is fuzzy on details.

Do guns disappear at LOD distance? If they do, light equipment will disappear as well. If not, I don't see why they should behave in a different way than any other equipment. Depending on their size and on screen resolution they might become so small that the game won't render them, but this is not LOD-related.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

The problem is not just LOD models although their scrapping would solve a lot of issues. What I fear is situation where single brightly colored neutral ship wanders into vicinity of huge Allied convoy and all ships in the convoy decide to use "neutral" skin (this happens if neutral ship is a clone of regular "grey" merchants or vice versa).

Yes, that's a known game limit. SH5 loads only one "copy" of each 3D model at any given time. If different versions of the same unit are rendered at the same time, all of them will display the same texture. I can't say whether the same applies to equipment though.

Confusing an allied or axis vessel for a neutral one would be somehow acceptable. As we have seen in my thread on wartime ship colors, vessels of many neutral countries sailed within allied convoys while still retaining peacetime colors or even neutrality markings (and they were considered valid targets by the Germans). Likewise, many German blockade-runners disguised themselves as neutral vessels, so again some confusion might even be realistic.
On the other hand, confusing a neutral vessel for an allied one might lead to some very bad outcomes, as destroying one of them will result in a renown penalty and even to CTDs. The one solution for avoiding that, is having two "physical" copies of the very same ships if we plan to use them both on the allied/axis and on the neutral side.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

I made a thread on the subject some time ago - never managed to solve it:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=250744

This happens to any of my ships I try to make multiple AO maps for (diffuse textures work fine).

Weird. Does that apply only to minesweepers? Have you tried if switching unit type solves the problem?

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by gap

Do guns disappear at LOD distance? If they do, light equipment will disappear as well. If not, I don't see why they should behave in a different way than any other equipment. Depending on their size and on screen resolution they might become so small that the game won't render them, but this is not LOD-related.

I'll dig out my old test mod for this and write more then, as I said I'm not sure of details now.

EDIT: Ok I found it. Video below shows the issue:



One of my coasters, with Mk.9L Shining Depth Charges strapped to its bridge, using emissive material modeled after control room lightbulbs (your idea ). Light disappears even before LOD switch. It's hard to see in this video but crew figures remain visible even after lights do not.

Originally Posted by gap

Weird. Does that apply only to minesweepers? Have you tried if switching unit type solves the problem?

Any ship I tried to use more than one AO map on. On the other side I know it does work properly on Flower corvette (which has several AO skins in TWoS). So either it's a mistake I repeated in all my ships or maybe something resulting from using GR2 Editor (which would also explain why multi-AO stock ships are unaffected).

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

I'll dig out my old test mod for this and write more then, as I said I'm not sure of details now.

Okay, I will look forward to your updates

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Any ship I tried to use more than one AO map on. On the other side I know it does work properly on Flower corvette (which has several AO skins in TWoS). So either it's a mistake I repeated in all my ships or maybe something resulting from using GR2 Editor (which would also explain why multi-AO stock ships are unaffected).

mmm... in that case I lean to believe that ship type has nothing to do with your problem, but just to be sure, you could set up your unit as a corvette (or any other unit type which has multiple AO maps assigned) and see if that makes any change.
On the other hand, if the culprit was GR2 editor I would expect the primary AO map to be broken as well as the others, but this is not the case obviously

[gap]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

EDIT: Ok I found it. Video below shows the issue:



One of my coasters, with Mk.9L Shining Depth Charges strapped to its bridge, using emissive material modeled after control room lightbulbs (your idea ). Light disappears even before LOD switch. It's hard to see in this video but crew figures remain visible even after lights do not.

Okay, thank you for sharing this video. I think I know what's going on.
In SH5 the visibility of distant objects is proportional to the dimensions of its bounding sphere. I noticed that while working on the model of a sea stack near Helgoland; its visibility was toggled off way before the one of other nearby terrain objects, and I couldn't discover what was causing that until I increased its size. I don't know if that applies only to terrain objects (and possibly any object imported in the GR2 file of stock terrain objects) or to every non-unit object though.

Try doing this: import your lights in a stock equipment file. One of the GR2 files where depth charges, bombs, or torpedoes are stored, should fit our needs. If that doesn't make your lights visible from a longer distance, switch to any GR2 file with two (or more) meshes on the same object. Use one of the meshes for storing your lights, make the other mesh invisible, import a big object in it (a huge single-faced triangle will do), and see what's happening in game. I am pretty confident that at least one of the above methods will solve for good the issue documented in your video

[Mister_M]

Hello Kapuhy !


Long time since last news about your beautiful ship models ! Any progress so far ?


By the way, can you confirm that your coastal tanker is a Mettawee-class gasoline tanker ? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mettaw...asoline_tanker)

Originally Posted by kapuhy

6. Coastal Tanker



613 GRT Coastal Tanker is based on historic American tanker Mary A. Whalen, built in 1938. She survives to this day in Red Hook, Brooklyn, crewed and maintained by members of PortSide NewYork. Mary has became famous after her 1968 grounding, which led to court case shaping modern US maritime law.

In game, she'll be seen carrying fuel on coastal trading lanes (only British, American and
Norwegian in this version). From 1943 onwards, she can be armed with some machine guns.

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by Mister_M

Hello Kapuhy !
Long time since last news about your beautiful ship models ! Any progress so far ?

Well the bad news is, still not ready. Good news is, almost ready as I finally got back to working on them

Originally Posted by Mister_M

By the way, can you confirm that your coastal tanker is a Mettawee-class gasoline tanker ? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mettaw...asoline_tanker)

It's not - look at the first sentence of description you've just quoted

[Mister_M]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Well the bad news is, still not ready. Good news is, almost ready as I finally got back to working on them

Happy to hear that !

Originally Posted by kapuhy

It's not - look at the first sentence of description you've just quoted

Thank you for clarifying.

[kapuhy]

New update for TWoS 2.2.25 users is ready:

Little Ships of SH5 v.1.1



Six new ships:
- Single Hatch Coaster
- Motor Mailboat
- Small Freighter
- Small Tramp Steamer
- YMS Minesweeper
- Hunt Minesweeper



New weapons for Fairmiles: Fairmile Motor Launch now uses heavy kicking but inaccurate Hotchkiss 3pdr on surface and Depth Charge Chutes against submerged U-Boats

New coastal routes:Coastal traffic added for Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Canada, Brasil, Cuba, South Africa, Soviet Union. Coastal traffic for Monsun Gruppe campaign replaced with more varied groups that will also sometimes have patrol ships as escorts.

Minesweeper Patrols American and British coast will be regularly patrolled by newly added minesweepers. They will also sometimes appear close to ports, clearing port approaches.

[Dönitz78]

Gorgeous ! Thank you for your work !

[GrenSo]

Thanks for the update kapuhy. Looks great, like your first version.

[kapuhy]

Hotfix: vdr1981 found and fixed a bug in one of my files, FishingNorth.mis - download links are updated with correct file, if you already downloaded and don't want to redownload whole thing - fixed FishingNorth.mis is here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/r247a...North.mis/file

It needs to be replaced in campaign folder in every campaign where it exists (reminder - don't replace files in main game folder but in mod folder, then just disable and reenable mod)