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

[h.sie]

before tweaking any visual sensors it must be sure that really these sensors are the problem. maybe the contact reports "wake" the escorts??

[Depth Charger]

Ummm... This has the potential to cause more sick leave days than the last swine flu epidemic... Have you told the WHO what you are doing?

Downloading now and it's going to be a long night. This is a huge step in the right direction! Thanks!!!

[rik007]

Originally Posted by h.sie

2) I meant: Selective restricting sensor range only if enemy "looks" at player Uboat: Enemy is blind for the player sub if its range is more than, say, 10000m. I could also program selective sensors regarding sun position: If day: Range=12000. If night: Range=6000. BUT: This is a new project.

H.sie this could be a breakthrough to realistic surface attacks! That's the other feature still missing in SH-series! Kretschmer e.a. used for example the tactics that they actually emerged inside the convoy at night. His crew on the bridge could see the merchantmen smoking on the deck of ships.

[Pdubya]

A bit like the Holy Grail of the sub service, eh? Same kind of accounts from Kaleun Siegmann in Werner's "Iron Coffins". It would be beyond amazing if we could eventually get there.

Oh, also H.Sie... call me overcautious, but I was worrying to myself that these "discoveries" you have uncovered might be lost. I know some of the data on where things reside is here on the forums, but I would feel a lot better knowing you are documenting memory locations and functions, etc, etc., for any future modders.

Not being critical, just wondering... keep up the great work!

[h.sie]

@rik007: realistic surface attacks at night are already possible using OLCE (GWX3 16km atmosphere) or M.E.P.v3. The nights are very dark, so that the AI_Visual sensors are competely blind. Too blind IMHO. You can even surface at a distance of say 100m without being seen. I don't know how your SH5_Water_for_Sh3 behaves at night, because the frame rate is too low when I run it on my PC.

@Pdubya: I have given all my assembler sources to a person I trust. If I get Swine Flu, he/she can continue. I'm not planning to share the sources and findings with the broad community, since with them, it would be very easy to do "bad things" with the sh3.exe.

[h.sie]

My problem with the "Easy version" of a Wolfpack Mod is as follows:

I think most of the time boredom dominated the life of a Uboat crew. A convoy attack or even a wolfpack attack with lots of sinkings was an exception, rare. And rare things are valuable.

Same in the game. As long as convoy battles are rare, players will be glad so see one. Wow! What a battle. They will be happy to finally be part of a wolfpack. "Well done, h.sie".

If I make an "Easy version", wolfpack attacks will degrade to daily events and lose their value. I bet that there will be some experts which will start sh3 only in order to trigger and analyse these battles under the microscope. And since the battles are not perfect, they will find weak points:

"Your wolfpack mod is not bad, BUT......":::

"Too many/few sinkings. Not realistic".

"Explosion animation not nice".

"The AI-Sub doesn't behave realisitc."

and so on.....I'll wager that this happens......

[Depth Charger]

Looks like I caught my own flu already. I downloaded and went through the install for V15G2.

It went well, notes were easy to follow. SH3 launches fine but if I try to start a career or single mission, the candy bar gets about 80% of the way, and then it just stops...

I unchecked the 4GB option and tried again with no luck in case it was my video card...

My mods are GWX, GWX Color Contacts, Mighty fine crew and Raphael's GUI. nothing else.

Any ideas and all help appreciated please.

Thanks.

[h.sie]

just wait some more time. gwx needs some minutes to load. don't trust the candy bar. test with unpatched exe. surely same behaviour

Originally Posted by h.sie

If I make an "Easy version", wolfpack attacks will degrade to daily events and lose their value.

Hah, absolutely true, make them fight for what they wanna see

[h.sie]

@Hitman: In order to input the convoy's course, you have to switch TDC to manual settings. then, bearing dial and periscope are decoupled. If you have switched TDC to auto, the bearing dial is coupled with the periscope and automatically shows the bearing (great finding) but not the convoy's course.

I like this solution.

[Depth Charger]

Originally Posted by h.sie

just wait some more time. gwx needs some minutes to load. don't trust the candy bar. test with unpatched exe. surely same behaviour

Waited 5 minutes and nothing. If I press the escape key, it closes back to windows...

[Depth Charger]

Originally Posted by Depth Charger

Waited 5 minutes and nothing. If I press the escape key, it closes back to windows...

Forgot, Unpatched loads and works fine...

[complutum]

I've got my SH3 patched to V15G2 plus Stiebler's surrender. Before aply your wolfpack patch i want to know if there is a starting date for it to work. I mean, in my current career i'm on september 1939 and i wonder when in real life started wolfpacks and if ingame is the same or if i shadow now a convoy i could get a wolfpack so early in the war.

Many thanks for your hard work

[h.sie]

@DepthCharger: Are you in full-screen mode? if so, change into window-mode, because sometimes there is an error-window that is hard to find in full-screen mode.

@complutum: No idea when it will be finished.

[h.sie]

After a short discussion with LGN1, I will make a new version in the next days with the following change:

For times up to 3 hours between two contact messages you don't get any penalty, that means, the chance won't rise that the wolfpack loses the convoy. But for longer times than 3 hours, this chance rises.....

But you should still try to send hourly contact reports whenever possible, in order to lead the wolfpack to the convoy using the shortest and fastest route.