[REL] Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate, full release

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Dignan

If I get around to it this weekend I***8217;ll post my findings here

Thanks

As a little side-note, while doing another "test" this morning, I went out of Fremantle in a Porpoise at the Beginning of 1943 start, and encountered the dreaded "No primary objective found". I did find the reason though, in a set of files in the PatrolObjectives folders, that are assigned to the Porpoise through the Flotillas.upc file for certain dates, but the dates in the PatrolObjectives.cfg file had different dates, and it is boss of the show in this regard. I am going through and checking all such dates again between the files, 'cause if I missed this one (and a couple others previously), it stands to reason that there might be more... Slight delay (again) in posting the next release now.

[Dignan]

Ok, so here's what I found. It appears the stadimeter is calibrated for the highest point on a target, in most cases that is the mast. I tested it on the Cruiser in the sub school mission, a fishing trawler and a US tugboat. By checking the solution on the attack map (with map contacts on) it appears the stadimeter is most accurate when measuring from the masts, not the funnels.



I also had another question about a possible bug I'm encountering. I noticed there are no creaking noises when you dive anymore. I really liked those. Added atmosphere. Is this intentional? Any way to fix it?

I also was wondering if it's hard to tinker with volume levels of sounds. I like to really hear the torpedo tubes opening, it's satisfying. Can I increase the volume on those easily?

Thanks again for all your work on this. I'll keep testing Stadimeter readings and report if I get any results that contradict what I've found so far.



Dignan

[propbeanie]

I thought we had the "creaks" fixed for this release... I'll have to look into that and make sure it "kept". We have had things rollback on their own a few times with no help from WalMart at all... The issue comes about from certain files being too long in length, and after your first dive, they are "lost". Do you get a dive alarm each time you dive, or only the first dive?...

As for the volume levels of things, there are two ways to do that. The one is taking the audio file and changing its level. Another way is to make a mod with Data / Sounds / SH.sdl in it, find the listing for the file(s) there, and increase or decrease the level with that, in the upper right hand corner of SH.sdl, which can be edited with Silent3Ditor. If you can't get them loud enough through SH.sdl (not unusual), then use an audio editor (Audacity works) to increase the level, but be prepared to change it some in SH.sdl again, to bring it under control... Be sure and include the wav file in your mini-mod. The sounds in SH.sdl and in the folder itself are "sorted" by their categories for the most part, but there are some late-comers that are not. The file itself in your case here is "Torpedo tube opening.wav" in the Sound folder. In SH.sdl, it is already at 100%, so you will have to edit the file first, and there is not a whole lot of room on that, other than EQ and compression.

Originally Posted by propbeanie

How "deep" in the folder structure are you with the game? A "default" stock Steam install will be "C:\Program Files (x86) \Steam \SteamApps \common \Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific \Data \Campains \Campaign \PatrolObjectives \Insertion Coast Watcher Bouganville \Insertion Coast Watcher Bouganville.mis" (and .tsr), well within the theoretical 255-260 character limit for Windows file/path names.

propbeanie,
I found 17 files that were deleted during the installation of the FotRS UE mod. They're in the original FotRS mod download but not in my game's Data folders. I came upon it quite by accident when I found the "Insertion Coast Watcher Bouganville" folder empty, missing the .mis and the .tsr files, after getting an error message on my re-install. There are 3 or 4 other Insertion folders under "PatrolObjectives" that are also missing .mis & .tsr files.

Apparently, on my computer, there's a problem with the length of the file name. Other players may be missing these files as well and not be aware of it. Go into the actual game program were ever its located; and by using this path: "\Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific \Data \Campaigns \Campaign \PatrolObjectives\InsertionCoastWatcherBouganville " see if the Insertion Coast Watcher Bouganville.mis" (and .tsr) are actually there. Also check for missing files in the 3 or 4 other insertion patrols with longer names, they're not hard to find. There are 17 missing files in total from mine which I tried to insert by cut & paste to put the missing files into the proper folders, without success. Got the same error message about the file name being too long.

I hope this is helpful.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by von Zelda

propbeanie,
I found 17 files that were deleted during the installation of the FotRS UE mod. They're in the original FotRS mod download but not in my game's Data folders. I came upon it quite by accident when I found the "Insertion Coast Watcher Bouganville" folder empty, missing the .mis and the .tsr files, after getting an error message on my re-install. There are 3 or 4 other Insertion folders under "PatrolObjectives" that are also missing .mis & .tsr files.

Apparently, on my computer, there's a problem with the length of the file name. Other players may be missing these files as well and not be aware of it. Go into the actual game program were ever its located; and by using this path: "\Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific \Data \Campaigns \Campaign \PatrolObjectives\InsertionCoastWatcherBouganville " see if the Insertion Coast Watcher Bouganville.mis" (and .tsr) are actually there. Also check for missing files in the 3 or 4 other insertion patrols with longer names, they're not hard to find. There are 17 missing files in total from mine which I tried to insert by cut & paste to put the missing files into the proper folders, without success. Got the same error message about the file name being too long.

I hope this is helpful.

Not a good thing at all. When I encountered similar before, I thought I was going nutz (alright, no snide remarks - I know, it is a short drive). There is nothing in the mod that I can find that is doing that sort of behavior. There is a 260 character limit to file names and paths combined in Windows. Also, after the last Windows 10 "Update", I now have files that have suddenly become "Read-only" in their properties pages. This has necessitated me running the "Properties" and clearing the "Read-only" attribute on the game folder every time I want to do a mod activation, else I only get a partially modded game.

On my computer, I have a folder structure of "F:\Games \FotRSUE \Data \Campaigns \Campaign \PatrolObjectives \Insertion Coastwatcher Bouganville \Insertion Coastwatcher Bouganville.mis", which comes to 131 characters, if I counted correctly. In my example path there, I added extra spaces before the backslashes so that the line will "break" on them, so those are not counted, but the ones in the names are. The longest file names are the "Insertion Commando East China Sea 01.mis" and #2 files, so they add an additional 2 characters. Now, I use a short "Root" folder names (Games) and name my Silent Hunter folder after the mod (FotRSUE), which saves me characters. This practice comes from my SH3 days, where that was important for the old Win98SE limits. Even with the longer path in your game, you are at 155 characters, by my count, including the "D:" for drive, the spaces in the file path and names, and not counting the spaces you added for line breaks in the text input here... well-within the Windows environment limit. I am beginning to think that either the same thing happening on my computer is also happening on yours, or maybe ~everyone's~ computers, from the MS updates, or something fishy is going on here, like maybe bad hard drive sectors or something similar... I do know that my game folder drive is getting about 3/4 full from all of the modding I've been doing, so perhaps that is contributing to the effect. But whatever it is, I do NOT like it. Does anyone else have the same effect here that von Zelda describes?

As mentioned, I also found some bad dates in the Flotillas file assignments, which would cause trouble under certain situations, depending upon the dates of coming back in to End Patrol and for a new mission assignment, but those will be "fixed" in the next release, which is again in the "testing" phase. Those particular files included a goodly portion of the "OPS" assignments a player might encounter, including the Bougainville and South China Sea assignments. Probably the thing to do von Zelda is to look in your "Trash" can on the Windows desktop, and see if you can find those files in there. You can sort them by date in several ways, or by name, but on the Home Edition of Windows, you cannot see who did the deleting. I'm not sure that would help anyway, because MS always blames the User. You could also de-activate the mod, and see if the folders re-populate the way things were when JSGME first started.

It might be that this has been going on for a while on your computer. Maybe also do a ChkDsk of the drive, either from a Command line, or Windows File Manager (Computer) by right-clicking on the target drive under This PC, choosing "Properties", and on that page, the "Tools" tab, then under the "Error-checking" section, "Check now..." button. Windows might tell you that it can do that the next time you start your computer (if the drive is "locked"), or it might be able to dismount the drive and do it. There is a check box for that utility which you can use to have it "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors", but if you have a very large hd, that will take a good long while. The "Automatically fix file system errors" will take long enough as it is. Then, there is also the possibility of Windows settings on your computer for the drive. I thought of something else, but it just flittered out of my brain... I hate head colds... Anyway, what are the specs on your computer and that particular hard drive?

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Thanks

As a little side-note, while doing another "test" this morning, I went out of Fremantle in a Porpoise at the Beginning of 1943 start, and encountered the dreaded "No primary objective found". I did find the reason though, in a set of files in the PatrolObjectives folders, that are assigned to the Porpoise through the Flotillas.upc file for certain dates, but the dates in the PatrolObjectives.cfg file had different dates, and it is boss of the show in this regard. I am going through and checking all such dates again between the files, 'cause if I missed this one (and a couple others previously), it stands to reason that there might be more... Slight delay (again) in posting the next release now.

I played recently a single mission, "Against All Odds". In the Skipjack you need to get to the depths of the Bohol. No matter what I do however about 3/4 of the way to the Bohol from the starting point the game says "FAIL". I did not see a specific time limit on this mission. Is there a time limit and if so I think it is the only one I have seen. It always tells me I have failed the mission around 3/4 of the way there.

[Hrulj]

I'm having some trouble starting the mod. I installed it, started the game, but when I go into campaign start the game crashes. It goes trough the name choice, the intro video and base, but when I select start mission it loads until it reaches "no game too difficult" and then crashes. I am unsure what is causing it, and what could be the fix for it?

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by merc4ulfate

I played recently a single mission, "Against All Odds". In the Skipjack you need to get to the depths of the Bohol. No matter what I do however about 3/4 of the way to the Bohol from the starting point the game says "FAIL". I did not see a specific time limit on this mission. Is there a time limit and if so I think it is the only one I have seen. It always tells me I have failed the mission around 3/4 of the way there.

I do not like that scenario. You do manage to get much further than I ever did. First time I ran that, years ago, I thought "what a joke!" You do not stand a chance against all of that. There are a total of 37 patrol and other craft, ranging from sampans to gunboats to full destroyers. There are 5 sets of vessels that do nothing but endlessly circle over your anticipated path to the "EndZone". All of the other ships will cruise up and down your anticipated path to destination. They can't help but find you. Your sub enters the game at 1000 hours on 22nd August, 1942, and the "timer" triggers at 1300 hours on 8th August, 1942. It does not appear to be used however, and I don't think it could be. You have to travel a grand total of about 64km, or 35nm from where you enter the scenario, to where you get a mission completed message. All of this in the small area between Cebu, Bohol & Leyte... Now, where you start the game, the water is only 18 meters deep, which would be like 59-60 foot of water. It gets shallower as you go forward, so you might be hitting the bottom, if you submerge. The water does get a bit deeper further up, like to 20m, but that's still only 65 foot deep... I have never succeeded at this scenario, though I have tried multiple ways, including "historical". The closest I got was to stay on the surface, and move southeast, toward that little island ahead, trying to slide between two sets of fishing boats, running over and ramming the little guys when necessary, and shooting it out with the gunboat coming at you head-on, though it seems a bit tough to sink... I went "behind" the island, hoping it'd be a screen for me, but it isn't much... You can ram the sampan and suffer no harm, the fishing boats might hurt a little... A torpedo directed at the gunboat helped, but the gunboat usually moves too nimbly anyway. Somehow or other, they always manage to put a couple of shells into my sub before I've even got the sub's guns crewed, and usually, it's basically over before I get rid of the gunboat. Those armed trawlers are not nice, and when the subchasers and Akizuki catch up with you, should you survive long enough, it ain't pretty... At least the deck gun is up front, which helps at the beginning of the scenario, but does hurt later when you're being chased. I do not like that one.

Originally Posted by Hrulj

I'm having some trouble starting the mod. I installed it, started the game, but when I go into campaign start the game crashes. It goes trough the name choice, the intro video and base, but when I select start mission it loads until it reaches "no game too difficult" and then crashes. I am unsure what is causing it, and what could be the fix for it?

You didn't tell us much about what you have. First of all, does the game work fine without the mod? Second, where did you install the game? Which OS are you using, and is it 64-bit? How much RAM do you have? Have you used the LAA or another memory applet on the SH4.exe so that it can address more of your RAM? This is necessary, else it will crash. Did you empty your Save folder (usually C:\Users \UserName \Documents \SH4" before attempting to run FotRSU? this is necessary, else it might crash. These and potentially more questions need answers. Now, there are basic install instructions in the first posts of this thread, and more detailed ones in the Support folder of the mod. Those are in pdf format. Let us know!

[Hrulj]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

I do not like that scenario. You do manage to get much further than I ever did. First time I ran that, years ago, I thought "what a joke!" You do not stand a chance against all of that. There are a total of 37 patrol and other craft, ranging from sampans to gunboats to full destroyers. There are 5 sets of vessels that do nothing but endlessly circle over your anticipated path to the "EndZone". All of the other ships will cruise up and down your anticipated path to destination. They can't help but find you. Your sub enters the game at 1000 hours on 22nd August, 1942, and the "timer" triggers at 1300 hours on 8th August, 1942. It does not appear to be used however, and I don't think it could be. You have to travel a grand total of about 64km, or 35nm from where you enter the scenario, to where you get a mission completed message. All of this in the small area between Cebu, Bohol & Leyte... Now, where you start the game, the water is only 18 meters deep, which would be like 59-60 foot of water. It gets shallower as you go forward, so you might be hitting the bottom, if you submerge. The water does get a bit deeper further up, like to 20m, but that's still only 65 foot deep... I have never succeeded at this scenario, though I have tried multiple ways, including "historical". The closest I got was to stay on the surface, and move southeast, toward that little island ahead, trying to slide between two sets of fishing boats, running over and ramming the little guys when necessary, and shooting it out with the gunboat coming at you head-on, though it seems a bit tough to sink... I went "behind" the island, hoping it'd be a screen for me, but it isn't much... You can ram the sampan and suffer no harm, the fishing boats might hurt a little... A torpedo directed at the gunboat helped, but the gunboat usually moves too nimbly anyway. Somehow or other, they always manage to put a couple of shells into my sub before I've even got the sub's guns crewed, and usually, it's basically over before I get rid of the gunboat. Those armed trawlers are not nice, and when the subchasers and Akizuki catch up with you, should you survive long enough, it ain't pretty... At least the deck gun is up front, which helps at the beginning of the scenario, but does hurt later when you're being chased. I do not like that one.


You didn't tell us much about what you have. First of all, does the game work fine without the mod? Second, where did you install the game? Which OS are you using, and is it 64-bit? How much RAM do you have? Have you used the LAA or another memory applet on the SH4.exe so that it can address more of your RAM? This is necessary, else it will crash. Did you empty your Save folder (usually C:\Users \UserName \Documents \SH4" before attempting to run FotRSU? this is necessary, else it might crash. These and potentially more questions need answers. Now, there are basic install instructions in the first posts of this thread, and more detailed ones in the Support folder of the mod. Those are in pdf format. Let us know!

Yes, the game worked fine before. I bought the Uboat pack expansion today so I can install this mod since I only had the base game on steam and needed it updated to 1.5. Tried that out too, worked fine.

Game is in steammapps common, sh4. Made the MODS folder trough generic mod enabler. Extracted the mod files there.

The system is 64 bit, ram is 16gb. I have not used any of that. Should I?Where can I find it? It's probably what's causing the crash. Although I can enter single missions and play them with the mod.
I did empty the save folder.

[propbeanie]

First off, you mention "steammapps common, sh4", but don't say where that is. It is important to NOT be in a Program Files folder with SH4 on a 'modern' Windows OS. Using a Steam game, there are some caveats to moving the Steam Library out of there, if needed. Consult Steam's Knowledgebase Article "Moving a Steam Installation and Games for more info. That will take a while to do, and the more games, the longer it takes. Windows is the problem if you are in that "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam" folder, since it "protects" the user from themself, by not allowing "un-authorized" alterations to what it considers "system" folders, such as Program Files. To be "authorized", the app has to be written to at least the Windows Vista GUI, and SH4 and JSGME are both Windows XP.

2nd thing with the Steam version and v1.5 Uboats add-on, are you landing in the correct folder when attempting to activate the mod? I do not have an SH4 Steam game, so I am not familiar with how that works. FotRSU is not compatible with v1.3 of the game (the base Steam version), so you have to be in the Uboats v1.5 folder.

How many single mission choices do you get in the menu? If you have a lot, like four times the number of stock, then that portion of the mod is seemingly activated OK. However, the Single Mission portion of the game does not load all of the Career files, so needs less RAM to run them, and your computer has enough muscle to get through the ones you have tried. In the "Extras" folder, you will find "laa_2_0_4_NetFramework_4_5.zip", which you should be able to use. It has a netFramwork gui. But "laa_2_0_4.zip" works fine also. Any 4gig app of that type is fine. They all do the same thing of flipping some bits in the SH4.exe file's header that then signifies to Windows that the app is capable of addressing more RAM. By default, the program was written to that spec, but most computers back in the Windows XP days had 32-bit OSes. Take one of those zip files, and drop it in the root folder of your game, where Data, Extras, Support and other files are, and extract that there. Run the resulting "Large Address Aware2_0_4.exe" (or similar) file, and use the "Browse" dialog button (shaped like [...] ). Make certain that you are in the correct folder, and choose the "SH4.exe" file. Put a tick mark in the box next to "2.", which should then populate that portion, which then activates the "Save" button. The deed is done. That is, ~if~ your SH4.exe is writable... so maybe the first step for this should be to find your "SH4.exe" file in the game folder, right-click on it, choose 'Properties' from that context menu, and on that 'General' tab, under the 'Attributes' section, make certain that little "Read-only" tick box is empty. OK your way out, and then do the LAA stuff. The game should run much better now...

[Hrulj]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

First off, you mention "steammapps common, sh4", but don't say where that is. It is important to NOT be in a Program Files folder with SH4 on a 'modern' Windows OS. Using a Steam game, there are some caveats to moving the Steam Library out of there, if needed. Consult Steam's Knowledgebase Article "Moving a Steam Installation and Games for more info. That will take a while to do, and the more games, the longer it takes. Windows is the problem if you are in that "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam" folder, since it "protects" the user from themself, by not allowing "un-authorized" alterations to what it considers "system" folders, such as Program Files. To be "authorized", the app has to be written to at least the Windows Vista GUI, and SH4 and JSGME are both Windows XP.

2nd thing with the Steam version and v1.5 Uboats add-on, are you landing in the correct folder when attempting to activate the mod? I do not have an SH4 Steam game, so I am not familiar with how that works. FotRSU is not compatible with v1.3 of the game (the base Steam version), so you have to be in the Uboats v1.5 folder.

How many single mission choices do you get in the menu? If you have a lot, like four times the number of stock, then that portion of the mod is seemingly activated OK. However, the Single Mission portion of the game does not load all of the Career files, so needs less RAM to run them, and your computer has enough muscle to get through the ones you have tried. In the "Extras" folder, you will find "laa_2_0_4_NetFramework_4_5.zip", which you should be able to use. It has a netFramwork gui. But "laa_2_0_4.zip" works fine also. Any 4gig app of that type is fine. They all do the same thing of flipping some bits in the SH4.exe file's header that then signifies to Windows that the app is capable of addressing more RAM. By default, the program was written to that spec, but most computers back in the Windows XP days had 32-bit OSes. Take one of those zip files, and drop it in the root folder of your game, where Data, Extras, Support and other files are, and extract that there. Run the resulting "Large Address Aware2_0_4.exe" (or similar) file, and use the "Browse" dialog button (shaped like [...] ). Make certain that you are in the correct folder, and choose the "SH4.exe" file. Put a tick mark in the box next to "2.", which should then populate that portion, which then activates the "Save" button. The deed is done. That is, ~if~ your SH4.exe is writable... so maybe the first step for this should be to find your "SH4.exe" file in the game folder, right-click on it, choose 'Properties' from that context menu, and on that 'General' tab, under the 'Attributes' section, make certain that little "Read-only" tick box is empty. OK your way out, and then do the LAA stuff. The game should run much better now...

Seems I am doomed to not play the mod then
The game is in Program Files, steam. Attempts to move library fail due to that disk already having a library and it's the only disk I have. Thanks for the help all the same.

As for how steam installation works it's written as two games in the library but on startup both have the same menus and options.


Edit, decided to try out LAA and safe mode, the game now works. Didn't have to move steam. Thanks for your help, seriously!!!

[propbeanie]

As I said, you have to do it the Steam way. Read all about it on that page of theirs I linked to above. If you have a fast external USB drive, with a good throughput, you should be able to play off of that also. You need either a second usable primary partition to create another Library folder, or you have to "move" things the way that Steam page says to, which is a painful process to say the least, but it is possible to do. There are other games that Steam offers that are moddable, but only if outside of the Program Files grip. Any old game that is DirectX v9 based is most likely like this. It used to be that you could pick up and move a Steam game, but several years back, they changed their license agreement, and this is what we are left with. I have Steam SH3 and SH5, and had to move the install. I left off some games that I had, but it still took most of a day to get it all accomplished. It is what it is. You will not be able to mod the game at all, with any mod as long as it's in that folder. Even after you "move" it all, Steam will still be in the Program Files folder, but the games will be where ever you put the Library folder. I put mine in "Games", and they have the familiar "D:/Games / Steam / Steamapps / common / SH4" path... If all you have of Steam games is the Silent Hunter stuff, it might be easier to un-install the lot, then re-install, but direct the Library to a folder that you name. You have to pay close attention to their installer though, because it likes to point the user to the easy way of doing things.

[Hrulj]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

As I said, you have to do it the Steam way. Read all about it on that page of theirs I linked to above. If you have a fast external USB drive, with a good throughput, you should be able to play off of that also. You need either a second usable primary partition to create another Library folder, or you have to "move" things the way that Steam page says to, which is a painful process to say the least, but it is possible to do. There are other games that Steam offers that are moddable, but only if outside of the Program Files grip. Any old game that is DirectX v9 based is most likely like this. It used to be that you could pick up and move a Steam game, but several years back, they changed their license agreement, and this is what we are left with. I have Steam SH3 and SH5, and had to move the install. I left off some games that I had, but it still took most of a day to get it all accomplished. It is what it is. You will not be able to mod the game at all, with any mod as long as it's in that folder. Even after you "move" it all, Steam will still be in the Program Files folder, but the games will be where ever you put the Library folder. I put mine in "Games", and they have the familiar "D:/Games / Steam / Steamapps / common / SH4" path... If all you have of Steam games is the Silent Hunter stuff, it might be easier to un-install the lot, then re-install, but direct the Library to a folder that you name. You have to pay close attention to their installer though, because it likes to point the user to the easy way of doing things.

Sorry in case you haven't seen the edit I managed to get it working. Thanks for your help appreciate it mate!

[propbeanie]

You are more than welcome! Glad you are going. Let us know if you have any further issues.

[Dignan]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

I thought we had the "creaks" fixed for this release... I'll have to look into that and make sure it "kept". We have had things rollback on their own a few times with no help from WalMart at all... The issue comes about from certain files being too long in length, and after your first dive, they are "lost". Do you get a dive alarm each time you dive, or only the first dive?...

I believe I do get the alarm and sound sequence when I dive every time. Just no creaks whatsoever. I'm going to try throwing an old sound mod of my own on over FOTRSU and see if it makes a difference.


EDIT/UPDATE: Still no creaks when I laid an older sound mod of mine over the top of FOTRSU. However, I did notice when I was poking around in SD3 that there doesn't seem to be any entries/files for the creak noises in the sdl file. Could that be the problem?