[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[propbeanie]

Well... shooting the Tsugaru Kaikyo in FotRSU ain't NUTTIN' like doing it in stock or GFO... We're not even down to Aomori (or whatever - the harbor) area yet at 0200. There are shore batteries in the middle of nowhere here now, on the south shore... And they had my range right off on the first shot. On the first round, damage to the hull, damage to the batteries. Got up to flank and turned to the north, away from the gun(s), and mind you, we're out in the middle of the wide area. I'll have to go back in there and measure, but you can't see the shoreline hardly at all. Second round, they took out the conning tower and everything associated with it. We're stable though, and relatively seaworthy, just don't have no ears, and no eyes... we're headed back East to get out of here, and lick our wounds.

Now, what concerns me, no warning from the crew. I'm down below, looking at the chart (literally, trying to gauge the fuel reserves), dreaming of all the prizes we're going to tie around our belts, and all of a sudden, "zap zip bing pow BAM! We're taking damage sir!" It takes a bit for shots to come in from that distance, and no one saw the flashes? How'd they get 50 caliber machine gun fire on me from the shore?... If it was a 5" or more cannon, how'd they not hole my boat clean through? and ~Battery~ damage - again? But the hull's integrity is apparently still relatively intact (it held at PD for the get-a-way)? I heard the sound of broken glass... where'd that come from? And no one is wounded when the conning tower is struck bad enough to completely take out both periscopes and for me to get the message like "the sail has been destroyed, sir!" The sonar, radar, and deck gun (as usual) are destroyed again, as is the AA gun. Every time there's damage top-side, they're gone.

It's almost like the shore battery was sitting in-wait on us, and had our course, range and speed from someone onboard my boat! No straddling shots, just dead-on the boat, first, 2nd and 3rd rounds, and then we're underwater and it stopped, well, the shooting did... Damage control did real well though, 'cause we are leaking, but not real bad. The prognosis is not real good, but workable (I hope). We need some bad weather on the way home so that we can stay topside as much as possible and recuperate... buggers. Who ever heard of a shore battery that good? and with that small of caliber stuff?... And I STILL haven't seen a ship... Two patrols, and nothing but airplanes and fishing boats. One tough mod for me thus far.

Tomorrow, I'm going to start another career out of the Philippines, and see how that one goes. I do have Webster's Airplanes in there...

[propbeanie]

WOK, started another career (on the other computer) out of Manila, December 9th, 1941, "go to Celebes Sea". Get there. "Sink all merchants"... [SpongeBob Narrator]"Three days later"[/SpongeBob Narrator] - that's with a slightly fake French accent... Anyway - haven't seen a one of 'em... are there *any* ships in the campaign?...

Again, airplanes, mostly US (at the time) around Manila, and they weren't near as bothersome with Webster's plane fix... makes me wonder though, these dudes got in real close before the radar saw them. I wonder what it does with enemy aircraft?... Anyway, time to sleep...

Edit: On December 29th, we finally saw a ship, and I didn't care whose she was... actually, Japanese flagged NL_C, now at the bottom of the middle of the Celebes Sea. Traveling all by her lonesome, it took 4 torpedoes though, and I'm now low on fuel and headed to Java, which will most likely end up being Fremantle before too long...
.

[propbeanie]

Doin' my SubSim duty this morning, before I get going on the kitchen cabinets again, and I'm relatively sure this has been mentioned before, and that (again) CapnScurvy is working on it (he's really Clark Kent in disguise)...

Using my Intel duo-core E4400 2ghz dual-core computer with 2 gig of ram. In the Museum, got a CTD in the German listings after the "Old Liner" displays just fine, and clicking on the Next button to go to the next ship.

My dual-core for some reason is now able to play things reasonably well, so long as I stay away from the Command Room in the boat, and even at that, it will now display much faster than before. All I've done is match the game's graphics resolution to the Windows settings, which is the "native" setting of the LCD monitor, and put it full-screen, not windowed. In my mind, this is counter-intuitive... One would think (me) that using a lower resolution, such as 1024x768, whether full-screen or windowed would be easier on the computer, but this "native" stuff on the LCD monitors is really important, I guess... Dependent upon what is trying to display, I might have 24fps in "normal" play, and if there's quite a bit going on, I have been down in the single digits, but no crashes (other than as noted above) since changing the resolution (knock on wood)...

[CapnScurvy]

Propbeanie, thanks for answering my questions. I'll take a peak at the phrase "Torpedo in the Water" upon starting a saved point. Don't know if there's anything we can do about it though.

Your computer would run better if you had more memory than the 2 gigs you have. Plus you will need to use an app like Large Address Aware for the game (telling the game to open more access to the additional memory). Yes, the game states there are minimum computer requirements, but there is no limit to going over the top. Believe me, the game will run better with an improvement in computer memory amount AND, having the game access the additional memory (which it won't unless you force it to with an app like LAA).

Using my Intel duo-core E4400 2ghz dual-core computer with 2 gig of ram. In the Museum, got a CTD in the German listings after the "Old Liner" displays just fine, and clicking on the Next button to go to the next ship.

In the Greman section, the next ship after the "Big Old Liner" is "Big Passengership". Didn't know there was a problem with the Big Passengership?

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Propbeanie, thanks for answering my questions. I'll take a peak at the phrase "Torpedo in the Water" upon starting a saved point. Don't know if there's anything we can do about it though...

I have been in the habit from the SHIII days of submerging (if I'm on the surface) at dusk and going deep for my saves. In SH4, I'll usually go below the thermal layer, and upon hearing "Passing thermal layer", I'll go another 40 or 50 foot and then save and exit. Upon re-entering the game and loading the save, I will usually hear "Passing thermal layer" as an echo as the screen starts to display. But I'm only getting it once. Then the game starts just fine. I've not tried to save when it's been "busy" topside yet, and haven't had the opportunity too often, since it's been downright boring most of the time in these few campaigns that I've done... I guess we'll have to do a more thorough cdrsubron7 interview, and see if he can give us some more details of the game's behavior...

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

Your computer would run better if you had more memory than the 2 gigs you have. Plus you will need to use an app like Large Address Aware for the game (telling the game to open more access to the additional memory). Yes, the game states there are minimum computer requirements, but there is no limit to going over the top. Believe me, the game will run better with an improvement in computer memory amount AND, having the game access the additional memory (which it won't unless you force it to with an app like LAA).

Unfortunately, the few options I have with this old beast is upgrade the video card, which as far as an AGP card goes, this is almost "top-of-the-line". Very few cards are better, and most of those have bigger pipelines for the ram, but not faster clocks. The cpu can go up to 3ghz on the beast, and that's what I'm shooting for. However, it does involve over-clocking the chipset, and I'm not much of a fan of over-clocking. But, for the glory of science, I shall endeavor to succeed... - The last option, of course, is to dump the mini-beast that it is... This will not be my main play machine though, and it's a good little video capturer machine, so SH4 will come off of it, once we're settled in with the mod, and I'll just be on the quad-core - still wishing I had more ponies under the hood, of course...

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

In the Greman section, the next ship after the "Big Old Liner" is "Big Passengership". Didn't know there was a problem with the Big Passengership?

I thought all it said though was "Old Liner", but I might be mistaken... The computer is a limiting factor though, and the mini-beast may well have run out of "overhead". I'd been through the Indian and the Dutch "fleets", as well as half of the USofA's... "I'm givin' 'er all she's got, Capn!!!"

[CapnScurvy]

Propbeanie,

As I pointed out in my PM to you last week, my system for modding the game isn't much different than yours. My "work" computer is stuck at a 2 gig memory limit too with my mother board, yet run a faster video card than yours. Like you, I've got another computer that runs a larger memory capacity, and its on this system that shows the value of the LAA.

===========

FOTRS uses a lot of "Big Old" this, or "Big Modern" that with its ship class naming. The only "Old Liner" they have has "Big" in front of it.

I will usually copy the entire inventory of the Museum (its all laid out in the asset directory at the menu text box) before walking through each entry. That's how I know what's next in-line that caused your CTD. As you said, it could be you reached your maximum memory usage and the game just decided to shut down. I'm not a fan of overclocking either, so maybe we're left with one thing to do.......upgrade the workhorse of our computers for the sake of keeping up with the times. A little upgrade every few years is needed if you ask me.

[XTBilly]

Hi dear friends!

The "310-Ship Acceleration Model" for FOTRS Ultimate Beta has been (finally) uploaded in our Google Drive\WIP folder.

It changes all the game's ships acceleration physics, so that pesky destroyer can no more accelerate like a 600hp powerboat. It was created using the latest Beta release. I was (finally) satisfied with it, so, PLEASE, give it a try and tell me your opinion.

This mod does not have the options that the previous ones had. It includes all the ship classes in one package. Works well for me, please, give me some feedback\suggestions.

That leaves only the Ship Damage Model (SDM) in the works.

Hope you like it!

Cheers,
Billy.

[propbeanie]

Ooh, noice, XTBilly. I'm going there next...


CapnScurvey: a person can learn something new every day if they just pay attention, eh? I never noticed those drop-down dialogs up there... oldmanitis, I suppose...

Now, everything under "German" works fine, through all the "Big xxx" stuff. Using the dropdown boxes, that last ship I saw before the crash is indeed "Old Liner", but it is under the "Rare Troop Transport" class, or whatever they want to call that. If you're using the "All" menu, the next "ship" that loads after that is "Submarine" and "Type IX-D2". When I choose that "Submarine" menu item, I will get the water displaying, which then starts to "move", like there should be a ship or boat there, but the boat never displays, the water freezes, and the computer does the all-too-familiar CTD. Three times on this machine. I'll go downstairs later and try the big beast and see what I get.

In the meantime, quoting you: "... so maybe we're left with one thing to do.......upgrade the workhorse of our computers for the sake of keeping up with the times. A little upgrade every few years is needed if you ask me..." I say "copy that". Even the old core 2 duo quad core with it's (at the time) "modern" vid card is starting to burst at the seams... It mostly does audio and video stuff, and the new "standards" in video editing are putting a BIG strain on that system... However, funding is a problem, so I guess I'm gonna have to go stand out on the street corner and beg me up some parts...

Lunch break is over, back to the kitchen cabinets, at least until I can think of something I have to "research" on the computer... :wink:

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by XTBilly

Hi dear friends!

The "310-Ship Acceleration Model" for FOTRS Ultimate Beta has been (finally) uploaded in our Google Drive\WIP folder.

It changes all the game's ships acceleration physics, so that pesky destroyer can no more accelerate like a 600hp powerboat. It was created using the latest Beta release. I was (finally) satisfied with it, so, PLEASE, give it a try and tell me your opinion.

This mod does not have the options that the previous ones had. It includes all the ship classes in one package. Works well for me, please, give me some feedback\suggestions.

That leaves only the Ship Damage Model (SDM) in the works.

Hope you like it!

Cheers,
Billy.

Nice, Billy. I'll grab it tonight after I get home from work.

[max-peck]

Originally Posted by XTBilly

Hi dear friends!

The "310-Ship Acceleration Model" for FOTRS Ultimate Beta has been (finally) uploaded in our Google Drive\WIP folder.

Great work Billy
Downloading now

[max-peck]

First - to Rockin Robins
I know how to get the hydrophone station working how you want it, albeit with a different way of interacting with it

Click and hold on your left mouse button on the little yellow diamond pointer


Whilst still holding the left mouse button you can scan left and right in a delicate manner by moving the mouse, rather than relying on the home and end keys, that seem to sweep 30 degrees at a time


I hnow that you ideally want the mouse wheel to do this (so do I!!), but until such a time as we figure out how to implement that, this is another method of getting the control you want
Plus it will give you a method of control that won't make you want to tear your hair out


Next up - Billy

I have only encountered two ships so far, but the results are very encouraging

First freighter
Perfect visibility (no rain or fog), but high waves (15ms)

I would usually close to under 1000 yards for this but I decided to test your mod, so set up 1500 yards away, and set all my torpedo speeds to slow. Giving me a torpedo running time of approximately 1 minute 20 seconds (this is from memory, I wish I had written it down!)

I figured - hell this is a test. Let's give them a good chance of seeing the torpedoes and changing speed to avoid them


I had targeted the funnel

Well - he managed to slow down - but not by enough!

But this feels about right.
In stock FOTRS if I targeted the foremast he tended to slow down so much I hit the bow or missed entirely

Second Freighter about 24 hours later - same conditions - again I set up 1500 yards off of the track and set my torpedo speed to slow to give him a chance to see it
Targeted the smokestack - this time he decided to speed up

In a rather satisfying way, I got a hit in his aft hold







Again - this looks about right to me - although I have no hard numbers to back me up. But I do remember in both FOTRS and TMO targeting just behind the smokestack and then the ship accelerates so well that I missed entirely. That just felt wrong

I have yet to find a convoy or taskforce, which I suspect will be the real test.
But so far - Damn Outstanding Work Billy

I will continue this patrol through the weekend, if I see anything else I will let you know

[cdrsubron7]

Great report, max. Now I know what to test also.

Great, screenies. I guess I'll have to turn in my Brownie, I know when I'm beat.

[max-peck]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

Great report, max. Now I know what to test also.

Great, screenies. I guess I'll have to turn in my Brownie, I know when I'm beat.

You just keep taking shots Subron

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by max-peck

You just keep taking shots Subron

Ok, you talked me into it. I think I'm going to go and buy a new camera though. My Brownie is getting kinda long in the tooth.

[Rockin Robbins]

Bug report with career starting Jan 1943 from Pearl.

1. Ships detected on radar drop you to 8x, planes to 1x, that is programmed into FOTRS Ultimate. Turning off the radar doesn't help getting out of port without downshifting to 1x every couple of seconds because turning radar off leaves SD radar fully functioning. This is a must fix! You must be able to turn off the radar to get out of a port with heavy friendly CAP.
2. Sonar reports long range contacts while on the surface at 13 knots. If it's adjustable, sonar contacts should be available only at medium range when under six or eight knots. Otherwise sonar should not work. Some mods have just set sonar to work below 40'.
3. Button works well to raise/lower SD antenna. Sure would be nice to have a keyboard command!
4. When you press the report contact button in the radar panel you just get a "no radio messages received." I suspect no contact is reported either. I didn't even know you could report anything but visual sightings. Is this button inappropriate on the radar panel?

That's it so far. I want to stalk some merchies before I check out the "no return to Pearl" bug.

Max, you're doing some pretty great screenshots too.

By the way I'm running straight FOTRS Ultimate v.1 beta with TMOKeys, Crash and Creaks fix, 802 Emulate Stock and 800 Razzle Dazzle.