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

[Magic1111]

Originally Posted by волк

Even some simple, dramatic picture of a sinking uboot would be better than this "game over" screen. Anything would be better. I also hate it.

In some older thread, Hans proposed a movie played instead of this death screen. If only you could tell sh3 to show on death some .tga or even better tga with a .bik in the background (like the game start-screen with periscope in tga and a movie in .bik) it would be great.

Yes, good idea with the picture and .bik movie !!!

I hope, this can be done !

Best regards,
Magic

[h.sie]

Guys, I'm not willing to spend any time for these pure eye-candy things. What about to have a picture of a sinking boat as desktop background image. Then, after the death screen, close sh3 and look (intensively) at that picture. or, if I'm informed correctly, it is even possible to play a movie as desktop background.

[Volk2]

Originally Posted by h.sie

Guys, I'm not willing to spend any time for these pure eye-candy things.

For one person it is an eye-candy, for the other it is immersion - the current death screen breaks immersion. I thought that maybe it will be simple to do, let the game show a custom .tga (we would certainly make a good one) in the background of the current death screen, nothing more. But of course if it is no so simple, then don't bother.

Second thing - the death screen is no "small thing". It is often the culmination moment of a long career and many patrols, it's the death of the crew and uboot with which you were emotionally tied for some time

[fitzcarraldo]

Originally Posted by makman94

i know that you haven't forgot me H.Sie !
take your time....i am not in rush...i am also waiting with interest your next achievements Bravo !

I didn´t download the mod because the only way of have SH3 plus GWX with FM Interiors is with the 4GbPatch - Without this patch, my machine Intel Core i5 and 4 Gb RAM with graphics ATI Radeon of 1 Gb go direct to CTD. I think this is a good reason of the only 20 downloads. Is there some possibility of make the .bat for the SH3 patched with 4GbPatch?

Regards!

Fitzcarraldo

[h.sie]

@fitz:

you can apply the 4GB patch after applying "my" patch.

[SquareSteelBar]

Originally Posted by fitzcarraldo

...Is there some possibility of make the .bat for the SH3 patched with 4GbPatch?...

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...&postcount=161

[h.sie]

Originally Posted by волк

Second thing - the death screen is no "small thing". It is often the culmination moment of a long career and many patrols, it's the death of the crew and uboot with which you were emotionally tied for some time

@волк: What do you think, happened during the war? after long patrols, a crew and a boat with which you were emotionally tied for some time, sank / died without asking for permission. that was part of the sad reality I think.

In my opinion, the Uboat is much too less vulnerable against weapons. You can get a hit by a destroyer cannon and are still able to dive. So in my private SH3/GWX installation I reduced armor level and rised the explosion force of some weapons in order to really have a highly damageable boat (and crew) for which I have to take care for. no risks just for fun.

[Volk2]

Originally Posted by h.sie

In my opinion, the Uboat is much too less vulnerable against weapons. You can get a hit by a destroyer cannon and are still able to dive. So in my private SH3/GWX installation I reduced armor level and rised the explosion force of some weapons in order to really have a highly damageable boat (and crew) for which I have to take care for. no risks just for fun.

Yes, I fell quite invulnerable in my campaign, maybe because it's only '41. This makes the death screen an even more critical moment... Believe me, if I could add this .tga to this screen I would do this myself, but I can't, so don't be angry if I'm trying to persuade the only person here able to do this

And maybe you will some day release your's modification of damage model, it looks interesting, I agree that the uboat is too tough.

[h.sie]

I am not angry. I am thankful, even if there is a little sarcasm in my last words.

cannot the death screen image simply be replaced by another image???

[Volk2]

Originally Posted by h.sie

cannot the death screen image simply be replaced by another image???

To be serious, it looks like there is a way without use of assembler:

Originally Posted by privateer

The Death Screen you see is a Camera Path in the EventCamera.dat
There are numerous events paths in that dat.
S3D should allow you to move/adjust them.

No real change was released to this day, but maybe Privateer or Hans have done something about this and didn't yet released. So maybe it really is a problem with which you should not bother.

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Originally Posted by h.sie

Hi PT,

Hitting the ESC-key is no step forward regarding realism, since real kaleuns also didn't have an ESC-key (forgive me, I couldn't resist). And: High Time-compression also is not realistic. So if you want realism, just don't use TC and so the sudden-death-screen-problem interconnected with high TC disappears. Or in other words: Why do you want the game to behave realistic if you don't operate it in an realistic way?

You suggest me to play in 1x TC and take 5 years to finish a career? This is a GAME, not real life. We adapt the game to be as realistic as we can, but we are not going to build a room that looks like the interior of a VIIC, with red and blue lights, so we can play. Sometimes we have to aim for realism, other times we have to aim for playability. That death screen creeps every single soul in this forum, except you (for the looks of it). It has been object of discussion long before you joined subsim.

Why don't you see things positive: The feeling of frustration that you have when death screen is shown, could be seen as part of realism, because real kaleuns surely also were frustrated when things got out of their control, didn't behave as they wanted and death (screen) knocks at their door.

Frustration? The death screen for me is as frustrating as it would be to stop the movie at any given time when you're in the theater. Stop the movie with an error message. It pisses me off, and not just me. Some times the death screen is shown way before you would actually die in real life. We are not asking to get rid of the death screen, only pospone it to the last second of life of the crew and kaleu.

To be honest, even if I want to change the death screen problem: I simply do not know where to start and how to realise it with a simple fix and without re-writing the whole Uboat damage model. Of course it is possible to change the in-game condition when a Uboat is considered as lost. But one has to think about the consequences of such changes.

We are not here asking for YOU to change it. We are merely talking to eachother and discussing ideas/options about what to do. We are exposing what we like and hate, what we would like changed or not. Don't take it so personal.

Imagine there is no death-screen when dieselengine room is floated: Then I would also have to prevent that crew can be moved through this room, e.g. from torpedoroom to communications room. The guys in the torpedoroom are locked.

The idea is to keep it simple. Dont need to go so far, dont need to get rid of death screen, just postpone it. Make it work different. What pisses people of is the ability of the computer to calculate that you will die in 15 minutes, and show you the death screen NOW! We dont want it now, we want it after the 15 minutes, we want to accept the fact we are dead before we are dead, not be surprised by it with the game coming to a halt and saying "You will die soon, so I figure I would stop the game right now to save you time."

And, as LGN1 already said: One single floated compartment is not realistic. There are only 3 sections in real Uboats (which are subdivided by 2 pressure-resistant bulkheads). So, in order to make things more realistic, I have also to model that water can flow from one compartment to an adjacant compartment, if there is no bulkhead between them.

And: what happens when you sit at the ground of the sea in 20m depth and the boat doesn't move up because of a completely floated compartment. In real life the crew would try to leave the boat using their tauchretters (oxygen supply that helps swimming to the surface), but this situation is not modelled in SH3. So I fear to open a can of worms when I begin to mod this.

You ALREADY opened the can of worms by opening this thread. Now people are curious and flooding you with questions and requests. They feel its finally here the opportunity to get rid of a lot of things modders could never do before.

I fear this problem can only be solved in a good way by completely re-writing the Uboat damage model.

Maybe someone now asks: Why doesn't he do that? My answer would be: Take the simple Windows game Minesweeper and try to mod it so that it gives you bonus points instead of penalty every time you hit a mine. Tying to realise that you will get an impression of what can be done in Assembler without SDK and what cannot be done.

We are not here saying its easy and you don't want to do cos you're lazy. Yes, we know its hard, we know it takes time, patience, knowledge... I've been modding sh3 for over 5 years now, I know sometimes it can be a pain in the @ss. But there's no reason to despair: You did the major step, to open people's eyes to the vast possibilities hidden inside the executable file. It has been a taboo here in subsim for many many years, its the first time someone brings it up and its not shot down. Now I can see more and more people working on it, and more results coming from it. Its all heading in the right direction, and we're not in a hurry. We've been playing sh3 for years, and we this much development still going, I dont see reasons to quit.

You opened the can of worms. People will come all over you like zombies in resident evil. Just hang in there!

Also, on a side-note. You made a mod that fixes one of the things modders couldn't fix before, the flooding+repair times. You got only 20 downloads? I tell you why. Most subsimmers want things easy: if you tell them your mod only works under very specific conditions, and they have to follow a long list of steps to make it work, and they might have to even buy a new software to use your mod? Most people will just stick with the old stuff. And it's not your fault at all. It's the damn taboo about messing with the executable file. I believe we are in the breach of a new discovery, new mods will come out of it, as more people starts to step into the forbidden lands and come with results. I believe much has already been done with the executable, by some people with skills, but they don't share or even mention it here, cos it might be troublesome for them. Forum rules.

Someone have to step-in and take the first bullet (or not). If I had the skills, I would have put sh3.exe for download here already, just to see what happens. Worst case scenario, I would have to make a new account. But after so many years, I dont really think ubisoft would care. Its just forum policy.

I'd like to hear something from Neal on this.

[Magic1111]

Originally Posted by h.sie

Guys, I'm not willing to spend any time for these pure eye-candy things

....yes, maybe you´ve right....

Best regards,
Magic

[Volk2]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

Someone have to step-in and take the first bullet (or not). If I had the skills, I would have put sh3.exe for download here already, just to see what happens. Worst case scenario, I would have to make a new account. But after so many years, I dont really think ubisoft would care. Its just forum policy.

If any person needs a good sh3.exe, he can PM me. Still, he must himself do the very simple modification (you must just run the .bat file...) prepared by h.sie.

And you see, h.sie, how the death screen makes people angry, it really must be cursed In comparison with Philipp_Thomsen suggestions, my suggestion about a simple .tga was nothing, hehe.

[Rubini]

Originally Posted by Magic1111

Yes, good idea with the picture and .bik movie !!!

I hope, this can be done !

Best regards,
Magic

Yes, I agree too. If nothing better could be done on the matter, a good .tga or a movie will be very very better than what we have now.
And again, perhaps this could be doable without the .exe mod?
The privateer's idea must be investigated...

[Rubini]

Originally Posted by h.sie

Hi Rubini,

the max. value in-game for CA is 205. In Dials.cfg for the CA gauge you have a max. value of 200. So values above 200 cannot be shown. Setting the max. value to 205 in Dials.cfg should do the job (not tested yet).

h.sie

ASAP, when I return to my sh3 mod hobby (i need a special wife license now), I will look at this. Put it deeper on the to do list, probably just modding the dial will solve the problem then!