Intro from new skipper & question about GWX

[Benzin1973]

Hello everyone! this is my first post here
Im new to posting but cerntainly not new to the forum, as i been lurking arround for a while. It has helped me a TON to learn the game basics, get mods, etc.
I recently bought SHIII and liked it so much i have allready put over 50 hours on it in the couple of weeks ibe had it.
I play with all "realism" settings on, except map contact updates, and i leave the event & free cameras on, not for cheating but to look at the pretty explosions.

I liked the game so much i went and bought SH4 and its UBM expansion, but i must say that even though it looks much nicer, to me at least somehow the gameplay is not as fun as SH3 (plus the target speed estimating is broken lol). But thats another story.

I have installed GWX3, and i really like almost every aspect of it compared to the vanilla game, except the greatly increased ability of every enemy thing out there to detect me. It seems one of my crewman farting can make a destroyer 10km away get a fix on me!

Yes, ibe read the countless debates on this issue here on the forum, on how its due to realism, historical accuracy (or not) and what not, but the point is im not training to get my own uboat in the atlantic i just want to play a reasonably accurate (but still fun) simulation.

So my question is, is there a way i can use GWX3 in all its glory, but keep the detection abilities of my enemies as they were in vanilla?

I assume there are some files somewhere on the game that dictate these parameters, and i could replace the relevant values (or the entire files) with vanilla ones, But i have no idea where to look.

Any guidance/help greatly appreciated!

P.S. One thing i really dint like about GWX is the bearings on my binoculars gone (yes, yes, i know in reality they dint have them), but to me this dint make the game harder, just tedious.
So i made a very simple mod to put those bearings back, its compatible with JSGME.
If anyone is interested in it, i would be happy to provide.

EDIT: reading my own post, my question might be misunderstood. I dont just want the sensors as they were in vanilla, i mean the whole AI. Wich of course include sensors.

[THEBERBSTER]

A Warm Welcome To The Subsim Community > Benzin1973
Subsim <> How To Donate <> See The Benefits <> Support The Community
Highly Recommended > LIVING SILENT HUNTER III EDITION 2015 Mega Mod

[u crank]

Welcome to SubSim Benzin1973.

[Mittelwaechter]

Hi Benzin1973, welcome aboard.

There is some data in your game intallation folder \data\cfg like airstrike, crewAI, sensors, sim propably changed by GWX. You may want to compare or replace them.
Plus there are two huge MIS data files in your campaign folder, where the general AI settings of the units are stored. GWX may have changed most rookie (1) and normal (2) settings to veteran (3) and expert (4).
You may want to start here (RND and SCR) and change all crew rating 3 and 4 down to 1 and 2.
(This will also change the late war behaviour of the units and you may stay the super hero you are in 1939 and 1940)

bacdafucup!

[Aktungbby]

Benzin1973!

[Benzin1973]

Thank you for the warm welcome guys!

Mittelwaechter: thanks for the tips on modding GWX. Ibe looked into it but it seems like a lot of work is needed.
After thinking about it more, i decided i dont want to get caught on the "mod more than i play" condition again! (it happened before with an RTS game called Blitzkrieg, i spend more time modding it than playing it).

So i guess im gonna play vanilla SH3 at least for a while.
Allready made a couple of small mods to correct things i dint like about vanilla, made deck guns being man-able in slightly agitated sea (but not if too agitated), and also moded the fatigue model a bit. But thats it! im gonna just play now.

I do like the improved visuals on GWX & LSH but i wish they had a visuals / extra content ONLY sub mod, that gave me the extra goodies but left my gameplay intact.

Thanks guys!

[Jimbuna]

Welcome to SubSim Benzin

[Mittelwaechter]

Originally Posted by Benzin1973

Thank you for the warm welcome guys!

Mittelwaechter: thanks for the tips on modding GWX. Ibe looked into it but it seems like a lot of work is needed.
After thinking about it more, i decided i dont want to get caught on the "mod more than i play" condition again! (it happened before with an RTS game called Blitzkrieg, i spend more time modding it than playing it).

Been there, done that...

The RND and SCR modifications are simlpe. Use the replace function of your notepad and replace all "crewrating=4" with "crewrating=2" and all "crewrating=3" with "crewrating=1". That's it. A job of 2 minutes and easily reversed by reinstalling the original unmodded files you have backed before.

Enjoy the game!

[Benzin1973]

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

Been there, done that...

The RND and SCR modifications are simlpe. Use the replace function of your notepad and replace all "crewrating=4" with "crewrating=2" and all "crewrating=3" with "crewrating=1". That's it. A job of 2 minutes and easily reversed by reinstalling the original unmodded files you have backed before.

Enjoy the game!

Yep, i tought about that, but the problem is that if i do that, then all the game (even the harder late years of the war) will be a very easy. Just like in 1939 Correct?
I dont want it to be a walk in the park either, just not as ridiculously (ok, ok, "realistically") hard as it is on GWX.

hmm, maybe there is something i can do with the other files under cfg...

[Mittelwaechter]

When it starts to get easy you may reinstall the backup original GWX files.

Or you just modify the expert settings down to veteran.

The other files will force you to engage in more modding.

[Benzin1973]

Bingo!
I think i found something quick & easy to do that might change the "whole" gameplay to near vanilla parameters...

Take a look at these parameters for vanilla in SIM.CFG:

[Hydrophone]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Noise factor=1.0 ;[>=0]

[Sonar]
Detection time=20 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.03 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.5 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=20 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=200 ;[m2]
Lose time=30 ;[s]

Now check out the same ones in GWX:

[Hydrophone]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.04 ;(0..1)
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.75 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=20 ;[kt]
Noise factor=0.5 ;[>=0]

[Sonar]
Detection time=10 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.6 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=100 ;[m2]
Lose time=30 ;[s]

They seem to be rather diferent! and i take it these are the main ones that govern how detection works in the entire game?

There are other sections on this file, like [MECH] but i have no idea of what it does.
Maybe changing the parameters on this file (or just replacing it) for a vanilla one would have a major effect in making the AI more like in vanilla?

[Mittelwaechter]

Well, give it a try - but don't forget to play the game.

[Benzin1973]

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

Well, give it a try - but don't forget to play the game.

hehe will do.
I modified the files Airstrike.cfg, sensors.cfg, and totally replaced sim.cfg.
These changes, along with the minor ones ibe done for GXW (bearings on my binoculars, slight changes to fatigue model, and the contact colors mod i got, should (hopefully) give me the experience i want.

In any case, this is all the modding im gonna do. If i dont like the results, i will just go back to vanilla.

thanks for your help!

[Benzin1973]

Just an update on what i ended up doing in regards to the "GWX is too hard" issue i talked about before.

I been playing & enjoying Vanilla, LSH3, and GWX in paralel, and i decided that the difficulty level that seems "right" to me, is that of vanilla, except for the aircraft. Aircraft in vanilla are a joke, nearly harmless.

Anyway, i decided that GWX would be my "main mod", and here is what i did to it:

1.- Modified sensors.cfg and sim.cfg so that all sensor parameters including visual, are those of vanilla. only excception is that i decided to keep the feature of GWX of perception depending on crew endurance (its off in vanilla).

2.- Modified GWXs ai_sensors.dat, ai_sensors_sb.dat and sensors.dat so that every detection device (sonar, hydro, etc) are the exact same of vanilla. For the sb file, i put reasonable values.
For visual, i made two versions, one for 8km GWX and one for 16km. For the 8km version i left the visual range to 8000m (as vanilla) in both files, and for the 16km version i left it at 16000m for both.
In vanilla both ai_sensors and sensors have the same value (8000). GWX has AI range at 30,000! no wonder they were "clarivoiant" hehe

Another feature i kept from GWX in regards to visual perception, is the minheight value, its 0 in vanilla, its 0.4 in GWX (iirc). This i think dictates if the enemy can see your periscope from 2000 meters or not. It makes sense that they dont, so i kept it.


3.- Completely replaced airstrike.cfg for that of vanilla. Im hoping this way aircraft will be harder than on vanilla, but not as hard as in GWX.

I played several hours of GWX with 16km ambience using my "vanilla sensors" mod, and so far i think the changes worked as expected.
So far it feels almost like vanilla, but with all the GWX goodies.

If anyone is interested in this small mod, i would be glad to upload it

[Aquelarrefox]

in my opinion, gwx has good values for detection, visual, and others. Mybe the only things i would change is the speed atenuation of destroyer wich i think i a pritty high.
The problem is not in deed the sound of itself, but in a convoy all hydrophones of destroyers sould be degraded by the amount of sound under convoy even earing outside the convoy. But could be interesting if some one know how much it affect the detection. im not absolutly sure about how the degradation is modeled for surface hydroplhones.