[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Oooh... ~pretty~... You're sure now, that the destroyers and airplanes, persistent devil dogs that they are, won't be able to see my boat at 150 foot and drop them garbage cans full of boom-boom on me, right... ???
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This water clarity thing sounds like a good thing to have installed when your playing my missions, right guys?

[propbeanie]

Why? So we can SEE the fifty ways we can die?...

Ooooh, back to a handsome devil for my avatar... I'll have to go get the wife... :wink:
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[max-peck]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Oooh... ~pretty~... You're sure now, that the destroyers and airplanes, persistent devil dogs that they are, won't be able to see my boat at 150 foot and drop them garbage cans full of boom-boom on me, right... ???
.

Well - it shouldn't (I am assuming)
Reading through the TMO 2.0 manual, it looks as if Ducimus added extra sensors to the Jap Aircraft to enable them to see subs underwater

FOTRSU is based on an earlier version of TMO (1.6 or 1.7??)
Which is before he added the extra sensor to the aircraft

So the underwater clarity should make no difference

Please see disclaimer below
This is just a wild assed guess
Actual mileage may vary

[propbeanie]

there max-peck - yeah, based on v1.7

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Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

... I thought we could ping while surfaced?? I must be dreaming...

No, you're not dreaming. We can ping "down" for depth. Just used that by Java. I tried to ping for a target the other day, and didn't get any action from it whatsoever, in an S boat though. I just thought it was me doing something wrong.

.

Originally Posted by propbeanie

... The Pearl Campaign ain't lookin' very good ... when the planes come back, and they will ...

They did, all hands are lost... They don't say if anyone survived. I mean, we were stuck on the surface, couldn't submerge without sinking, what with the destroyed sail and a hole in the pressure hull... Is there an "abandon ship" command?... for the Porpoise class, or any sub, for that matter, when we're on the surface?... I can't decide whether to go back to the save, or just start all over again. It's only the 2nd patrol, but... Shtinking shore batteries and airplanes and dirty devil destroyers... :wink:

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I'm running on the surface at 10 knots and always the first contact I get is a sonar contact. What's going with that!

So I manned the radar station, set 30,000 yards range (that's the longest range, right?) and swept. No contact. Went to periscope depth and pinged the target, which was easily locatable with passive sonar. 15,000 yards! With a little experimenting I found the FOTRS Ultimate radar is good only for seven or eight miles on ships, the exact same range as the SD radar detects planes!

This is clearly stuffed. Nobody's ever complained about stock radar ranges. I propose we just reinstate radar performance from stock.

First off...... no, the maximum range setting is not 30,000 yards. The A-scope will go to 60,000.....the PPI's maximum range scale is 80,000. This doesn't mean you'll see targets at those ranges....far from it.

The SJ Radar will pick up targets at roughly 17,000-18,000 yards......that's about 8.5 nautical miles. Why that range? Because everything I've read about the SJ units states they were only reliable at that range. Here's one example taken from the website http://www.history.navy.mil/:

Reliable maximum range, with antenna at 33', is 5 miles on a medium sized ship. Range accuracy, plus/minus 15 yards.

Or this side note from another article:

Edward L. Beach, '"Culpable Negligence' A Submarine Commander Tells Why We Almost Lost the Pacific War" American Heritage,
Vol. 32 (Dec. 1980), 47. The maximum range of detection for submarines prior to the development of radar was six to nine miles; with radar this was extended to over twelve miles so long as the submarine was surfaced.

That 12 mile distance was with the SJ-1 units introduced later in the war.

Or, this from writer Robert Dienesch, taken from his article called "Radar and the American Submarine War, 1941-1945: A Reinterpretation"

The SJ radar had a 10-cm wavelength and initially utilized an " A " scope for measuring range. It later included a Planned Position Indicator (PPI) which provided a tactical picture for the commanding officer. The SJ affected all four stages, detection, positioning, attack and escape, of a submarine attack. In the first stage, the submarine was concerned with locating its target. An SJ radar working in ideal conditions could detect a single merchant ship at roughly 17,000 yards and a single warship at 10,500 yards (depending on the size of the ships and the weather conditions). A convoy of merchant shipping was detectable at 19,000 yards and a large escorted warship could be detected at 25,000 yards.

O'Kane found that the SJ more than doubled the normal visual search range of a surfaced submarine using its elevated periscope alone.9 Thus, SJ equipped submarines could cover their patrol area more effectively, finding more contacts than would be expected without radar.

I don't think the 8.5 nm figure is out of wack for the Radar. However, in keeping with the idea that the FOTRS creators knew what they were doing, I didn't get into looking, or changing, their parameters for the other ways of detection. Guess I will now that you bring it up.

[cdrsubron7]

300FOTRSUAI_Levels

This has been uploaded to our storage area. There are five levels as requested bu our fearless leader. A brief description is below. The levels go from highest to lowest.

Level 5 - This is the highest level, only for the bravest of the brave, I call it IUBL level. IUBL translates into Impossible Ultra Brutal Level. Try it at your own risk. Not for the faint of heart.

Level 4 - This represents the AI levels you would find in TMO v2.5 created by Ducimus. Just below Level 5.

Level 3 - This will be for FOTRSU. It's middle of the road, but you still can't relax for a minute.

Level 2 - This will represent the Stock Level. Shouldn't present any problems for you pros out there.

Level 1 - This level would be equivalent to TMOwtw. The sonar operators on the Japanese DDs seem to be deaf.

These levels are not written in stone and can be changed without much difficulty.

Neglected to say that this file is in JSGME format also.

[cdrsubron7]

FOTRSU700Single Missions

All my single missions now have the new nomenclature. I have put them in a JSGME format for easy install. Funny after all the name changing they still show up ingame with the mission names. Wonder what I did wrong.

Aleutians Gauntlet has been included in this upload, if your feeling adventuresome, give it a try and let me know what you think. I've already been put on the bottom four times.

[cdrsubron7]

I forgot to mention that both of the above plugin mods are in the plugin folder, natch.

[propbeanie]

Hey uh, I just found an issue, sort-of... I think that the Single Mission is a modified one that AOTD_MadMax must have used for testing purposes. The folder is named "SM06 Photo Recon". The game menu name would normally be "Photo Recon". I was just after a SM after having lost my boat in the Campaign earlier, and I saw one that I ~thought~ was one of cdrsubron7's, and loaded it. The name begins with B-something-or-other... dad-blame, had it written down here, now my note is gone... Anyway, it's actually a German word. Probably means "Photo Recon"...

When the mission opened, I thought "hey, I know this one!" It'd been a while since I'd played it, so I stayed there, hit Flank, etc. and away I go. I remember almost getting run over by some of the capital ships, so I went up to the bridge, and lo and behold, there's Dutch ships there that are all white, as in Arctic white. No texture whatsoever. I'm guessing something from v1.3?? who knows. Anyway, just about the time things start to boiling over, the game crashes. The last time I tried, there's a Japanese DD that's been hit by Allied fire, and is burning, but the smoke and fire are all sorts of pixelated. So I made a little 7-zip archive, put it in the WIP folder, if any of you graphics gurus want to look at it. I also included the "Original" one off of my computer, which seems to run just fine. But I will be checking through all the "Stock" installed Single Missions and Single Patrols to see if there's any issues there. Little thing I noticed the 2nd time I went to play the AOTD version is that the briefing is in German...

Also included in that zip, besides a text file, is the Nagato mission that AOTD Max apparently used when he was testing it and the Bismark. Interesting little ditty...

[CapnScurvy]

I think there are several SingleMissions that are left in the mod that were test missions.

Propbeanie, you need to take a screen shot of those anomalies of "all white" ships. Sounds like they shouldn't be doing that. But, I'll admit your computer seems to "see" things that some of us don't. Frankly, any mission that's either v1.3 or 2.0 from FOTRS should be looked at with an eye for trouble.......we don't need German language as a lead-in for the mission. Our mission guru should look into those AND, the Campaign missions too.

====================

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Interestingly, pinging also happened from the knuckle sonars under the keel. That means they could ping targets to obtain range, even while surfaced, something the game hasn't let us do in any configurations so far.

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

I thought we could ping while surfaced?? I must be dreaming.

Originally Posted by max peck

No, you're not dreaming. We can ping "down" for depth. Just used that by Java. I tried to ping for a target the other day, and didn't get any action from it whatsoever, in an S boat though. I just thought it was me doing something wrong.

The S-Boat, and the early Porpoise (and some of the other earlier subs) use deck mounted Hydrophone recievers. Those subs, if the mod is set correctly, will only pick up hydrophone sounds if your submerged (just like the German boats). When your upgraded to later subs, or accept the upgrade to the newer hydrophone reciever.....then you can stay surfaced to have the hydrophone pick up passive sounds from target ships.

Here's the S-Class Hydrophone reciver:



No upgrades for its placement.....you're stuck with submerging for the use of the hydrophone while using the S-Class through out the war.

Here's an early Porpoise (and others) Hydrophone reciever:



You have to submerge for this style of reciever to work too.

When you upgrade, you'll have this set of balls to play with:



No need to submerge with the upgrade. Again, it depends on the start year of your game, and the boat you're on that determines what hydrophone you'll have. One of the "ball" units is your passive Hydrophone reciever, the other is your active Sonar transmitter/reciever. The game can have both displayed on the hull, yet only the active Sonar works......the passive Hydrophone "ball" doesn't, as long as the game still has the older deckside unit in play. Just going down under to take a look isn't going to prove which unit you have. You need to look in the Weapons and System page of the sub to know what's installed. Devs were just too lazy to correct the modeling.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by max-peck

Well - it shouldn't (I am assuming)
Reading through the TMO 2.0 manual, it looks as if Ducimus added extra sensors to the Jap Aircraft to enable them to see subs underwater

FOTRSU is based on an earlier version of TMO (1.6 or 1.7??)
Which is before he added the extra sensor to the aircraft

So the underwater clarity should make no difference

Please see disclaimer below
This is just a wild assed guess
Actual mileage may vary

And Duci's Evil Airplanes will be a Certified FOTRSU Plugin Mod for those who enjoy dying horribly!

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by cdrsubron7

300FOTRSUAI_Levels

This has been uploaded to our storage area. There are five levels as requested bu our fearless leader. A brief description is below. The levels go from highest to lowest.

Level 5 - This is the highest level, only for the bravest of the brave, I call it IUBL level. IUBL translates into Impossible Ultra Brutal Level. Try it at your own risk. Not for the faint of heart.

Level 4 - This represents the AI levels you would find in TMO v2.5 created by Ducimus. Just below Level 5.

Level 3 - This will be for FOTRSU. It's middle of the road, but you still can't relax for a minute.

Level 2 - This will represent the Stock Level. Shouldn't present any problems for you pros out there.

Level 1 - This level would be equivalent to TMOwtw. The sonar operators on the Japanese DDs seem to be deaf.

These levels are not written in stone and can be changed without much difficulty.

Neglected to say that this file is in JSGME format also.

There's a HUGE step in the vision. Thank you cdrsubron7 and Florida Sailor! These plugin mods will be released along with the core mod as our flagship plugin mods!

They will be the reason we can say that FOTRS Ultimate is the finest supermod in the game. We're putting the player, not the modders, in charge.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

When you upgrade, you'll have this set of balls to play with:



No need to submerge with the upgrade. Again, it depends on the start year of your game, and the boat you're on that determines what hydrophone you'll have. One of the "ball" units is your passive Hydrophone reciever, the other is your active Sonar transmitter/reciever. The game can have both displayed on the hull, yet only the active Sonar works......the passive Hydrophone "ball" doesn't, as long as the game still has the older deckside unit in play. Just going down under to take a look isn't going to prove which unit you have. You need to look in the Weapons and System page of the sub to know what's installed. Devs were just too lazy to correct the modeling.

One very important addition. The deck mounted sonar is for the normal range of sounds the human ear hears. When you listen with that, you hear what things really sound like.

The balls under the forward torpedo room are supersonic equipment. They hear sounds too high frequency for the human ear to hear. Their electronics lower the sound enough octaves to be able to be heard. What you hear is NOT what those things really sound like.

Supersonic sound is very different from audible sound. Higher frequencies bounce off things that audible sound just goes right through. A thermal barrier is like a total brick wall to supersonic sound. Also supersonic sound is refracted to a much higher degree than audible sound. Something that sounds like it's on bearing 012 might really be coming from 90º away from that, reflected or refracted so it appears to be coming from somewhere quite different.

Therefore, supersonic sound equipment has a much lower range than audible sound equipment. It's directional capabilities are suspect. The operator must be very aware of factors that would reflect or bend those sound waves. These sounds are very different from what is heard on normal sonar receivers. It takes a lot of training and experience to make any sense of supersonic sounds at all. Screws don't sound like screws at all! Lots of marine life communicate by means of supersonic sounds, tremendously complicating the use of such equipment.

Unfortunately, none of this really interesting stuff is modeled in the game. It can't be modded, as most of the stuff is hard coded. Unless someone shows me language that says it is fine to patch the .exe I continue to believe that is strictly forbidden by the EULA, which I guarantee has prohibitions against decompiling or reverse engineering the game code. Both are necessary to patch it. We're not going there.

If we are to have moddable games in the future we must play by the rules the game companies establish.

[Jeffg]

Guys, this is looking great,hope that it will be out soon. I turn 62 next week and want to play this before I make the final dive.

JeffG

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

There's a HUGE step in the vision. Thank you cdrsubron7 and Florida Sailor! These plugin mods will be released along with the core mod as our flagship plugin mods!

They will be the reason we can say that FOTRS Ultimate is the finest supermod in the game. We're putting the player, not the modders, in charge.

My pleasure, boss.