No sub icon

[Pilot_76]

Hi,

Does anyone can point me out how to effectively remove the sub icon on the map? That is for DR and Celestial navigation. I know some mods do remove it but some only remove the circle around the sub. Removing the sub icon without the need for a mod would be enough. Also which mods have this feature?

I know this has to do with files tga or dds such as unitsub. Removing those shows up a message on the map "no icon or object or whatever"which reveals the sub position.



tks

[CapnScurvy]

The Navigation Map sub icon is found in the Data\Submarine\NSS_SUB NAME folders (each sub has the same icon, but they have a different file name for each sub) For example the Balao icon is found in Data\Submarine\NSS_Balao\NSS_Balao_shp.dds. The "NSS_SUB NAME_shp.dds" file is what you're looking for.

The .dds image is only 32x128 in size. The sub icon is found in the Alpha Channel of the .dds file. This means you need to have a special image viewer or paint app to work with and change the .dds image. A simple, yet effective app is the BXTBmp Bitmap Manipulator found HERE. The BXTBmp allows you to work either in the main image or the Alpha Channel image and "saves" your work in the original .dds format.

To make a blank Alpha Channel (which is what you want to do if you wish to remove the sub icon from the Nav Map), use the menu tools of BXTBmp and click on "Alpha", then "Send Alpha to editor" after you have the "NSS_SUB NAME_shp.dds" loaded in the app. Once the Alpha Channel appears, you will need to color the icon with the same black background color the image has. Once the icon is erased, "save" the Alpha Channel image by using the File\Save menu keys. Exit the Alpha Channel editor, then use the File\Save menu keys again to save the entire .dds image. The icon is removed for that particular sub. You'll need to do this with each sub, so copy and paste the new image file into each subs folder and change the specific name to match the sub your putting it in.

If you've done it right the Nav Map will not have a sub icon showing it's position.

[Pilot_76]

Hi CapnScurvy;

First of all thank you for the quick tutorial.

I've done everything as instructed and the sub icon is gone. One problem though is that when you zoom out, you can still see some sort of black mark or wave stream. Pic link: http://flic.kr/p/aAPseT

Sorry for the low quality I used an on-line BMP to JPG converter on the fly and unfortunately that was the final result. Anyway it doesn't change that much as you can see right on top of the mouse cursor there lies the sub's "mark". Bringing up my detective side I started to inspect all dds files in the SH4 folder but I was unable to identify which dds is that particular one.

I started looking at the small file size files but still no luck.

[Pilot_76]

I've done a research....
TMO handles this. !!

problemo solved. I