Just FYI, i just noticed, it looks like i got carried away when i beefed up the tin cans. They have 400 hitpoints, which means it will take 3 torpedos to sink one. Less if you manage to destroy their keel. (edit: 1 if you hit the keel)

If this turns into a burning issue with folks ill patch it a little later.

edit: The primary reason for this change, was to remove any idea of dueling it out with a destroyer on the surface. I just experimented with 200 hp destroyers, and you could win against one. Given that, im not inclined to change their hps.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ducimus_Rapax,

Great work as always!!!!!! One question though?? Is the interior fix added as #4??

Ducimus, instead of making a new patch, why don't you write some quick instructions on how to fine tune DDs Hit Points, so everyone can tweak it without forcing you to release another version...?

Otherwise, should you release a new version/patch for every tweak we would like, you'll never manage to have some deserved rest!!!

quote:

Is the interior fix added as #4??

No, its intergrated into th TM 1.7.6

That interior fix as a seperate release is for other modders if they want to use those files. So they dont have to D/L the whole modpack, just to get at the interior files.

quote:

Originally posted by Sparhawk81:
Ducimus, instead of making a new patch, why don't you write some quick instructions on how to fine tune DDs Hit Points, so everyone can tweak it without forcing you to release another version...?

Otherwise, should you release a new version/patch for every tweak we would like, you'll never manage to have some deserved rest!!!

Good idea!

Couple of links to get you started on the supercool tool to use:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=119571
http://sh4.skwas.net/



Hitpoints are located in ZON files. Just get the tool, and start poking around in the files, i garuntee you'll be facinated. That tool is fun to use in its own right.

quote:

Hitpoints are located in ZON files. Just get the tool, and start poking around in the files, i garuntee you'll be facinated. That tool is fun to use in its own right.

I have done a little poking around in the .zon files and am a bit confused. I see where you changed the hit points to 400, but why does the same stock .zon file have the hitpoints at 20480? I looked at the Minekaze.zon. Are the last two digits ignored?

Dave

quote:

but why does the same stock .zon file have the hitpoints at 20480?

That can't be right. Theres plenty of plausible reasons for that.

-leftover file from NSM that stayed behind for some reason? Mods of this type, one of the things they do is jack up the HPs to 20K ish to ensure the ship sinks by flooding and not HP loss

- byte address not being read by the editor correctly? But if thats the case youll often get some weird alphanumeric number like "34599E+1"

- file coruupted somehow?

- Genuine stock bug? you never know....

Im opting its probably a leftover NSM file

Ok, heres a little gem for you gents before i make my made dash out of the door. As part of this release, i was going to mess with the interior lighting of the interiors. I opted not to because opinion about whats correct, or what people like is rather varied. So i left lighting alone.

Instead, ill tell you how to tweak it to your own personal taste.

Fire up S3D, and open up one of the interior dat files. I suggest backing this file up first before you do anythign to it. Personally, i just use the acutal mod as a backup (since deactiveating the mod restores the orginal), or just copy the dat straight to the desktop, and copy it back into the game directory later on in case i royaly screw up.

In this example, im opening up data/interior/NSS_Gato/NSS_Gato_CT.dat
This is for, as the name suggests, the conning tower.


Look where im navigating too. You can do this for daytime lights and nightime lights. if you press the button to the left of the little red arrow you'll get this popup box:


If you look at the previous screenshot, you'll see the default value for this is 235, for Red, green, and blue values, which is fairly bright. Im just going to make it darker. So lets save it, and fire up SH4. I use the bungo pete mission alot for testing since i can select any boat, and not have to start a new career game to do it. Plus the way i made the mission, your relatively unmolested at startup, so you have time to experiment and see what you did.

So, lets fire up the game, and run the bungo pete mission and go look in the conning tower.

While i kinda like the way the green lights stick out more, the lack of light bulbs sucks! EVerything went dark. How fun is that? Not very much in my opinion. Time to fix that.


Create yourself a little modlet to run in JSGME. The file your after is
Data\Shaders\InteriorIllumination\LightHalloPS.fx

Open this up in notepad, and you'll be looking at some bit of C code that will probably confuse the hell out of you if youve never done anything related before. Fear not. heres the bit, which probably wont format correct in the forum, but ill highlight the part you'll be changing.

quote:

float3 Color : register(c0);

struct PS_IN
{
float2 Tex0 : TEXCOORD0;
};

float4 main( PS_IN In ) : COLOR
{

float dist = saturate(1-length(2*In.Tex0));

dist = pow(dist, 3.0);
dist *= 0.5;

return float4(Color * dist, 1);
}

dist *= 0.5 is what you'll be changing, but more specifically, the 0.5 in this variable. The higher you make this number, the greater the intensity of the light halo. So in this example, ill substitue 0.5 with 2.5

dist *= 2.5;


Still with me? Save the file, enable it in JSGME, and go fire up the bungo pete mission, and go check out your new lighting.



Well, now thats better isn't it? heck ya!

Now, some things to note here. Your adjustments made to lighting halos on the interior are univseral. Remember the control room which we did NOT darken? It now looks like this:


Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick im going blind! Basically what you do for darkness levels in one room, you must also apply to the other room as well. They dont neccessarily have to be the same color, but the darkness level should be dark enough in both areas to offset the increased light halo intensity. Also, the darker you make a room, the greater the light intensity that will be required in order for the lightbulbs to show "hey , yes were on, and theres light coming out of here".


Anyway, you could make this, any color you wanted.

A shade of blue:


Or a shade of yellow



You can have your CT one color, and the CR another if you like. Each area has a daytime and night time light setting. If you dont think the redlights at night are bright enough, you can change that. You dont like redlights and prefer bluelights at night? you can change it.

Gotta love that tool.

have fun, its friday, and i gotta get to work.

quote:

Im opting its probably a leftover NSM file

Right you are!
Stock on the Minekaze is 400
Fubuki 120

I think I am begining to understand how all this works.

Thank for the tutorial.
Please check for a PM from me. Subject: Old Movie. Should be up in a few minutes.
Dave

Well, its not just about hit points, its also about armor. How armor factor works is one of those technical things i need to have written down in order for me to remember it if you want specific numbers. But the laymans version is this:

If a object( shell, or torpedo's) armor peircing rating doesnt exceed a certain value, no damage is applied. This certain value is derived from armor factor and some other variable whos name escapes me atm.

But in simpler terms, the more amor an object has, the less damage it takes. (yeah i know, Duh!) Compare armor values on cruisers, battleships, and destroyers.

Armor is the biggest reason why our subs in thsi game are so unrealistlcaly tough. By default, subs have an armor rating of 25, and 600 hps specified in thier zon file. Ive made them 15 armor and 300 hps. Allow yourself to be shelled by a destroyer with this two very different settings and watch how much damage you can absorb. But the summation is, in stock, subs had more armor and hitpoints specified then a destroyer!

You could theorticlaly up the armor rating of tin cans to be ... i dunno 50, and deck gun shells wont do much to it im guessing.

Just FYI, torpedos have an armor peircing value of 100. Also, the zon file your looking at, is fleshed out a bit more in the zones.cfg file. The zon file give overall values, but the zones.cfg specifies specific compartment zones within the zon file itself.

Guess ill explain that curve ball im throwing you a bit more.

A torpedo does a varaible amount of damage, up to 160 i think.

So assuming you had two fish doing max damage for 320, then our 400 hp ship should be still be afloat right? Nope!

As your probably aware, all ships have compartments. Engineroom, magazine, cargo hold, keel, etc. The zon file is a file which holds the 3d coordinates and dimensions for all of these areas, as well as for the overall object. These areas (zones), are defined by the zones.cfg.

Each of these areas has properites. How much boyancy the compartment gives, how long it takes to flood, how many hps, armor, etc, seperate from the overall object.

When one of these compartments starts flooding it will always flood to 100%. How fast it floods is dictated by how much damage has been applied to the compartment, and the flooding time specified. (100 damage will flood alot faster then 10 damage)


A damaged keel, is practically a garunteed sinking. Either instantly if its destroyed, or slowly if its just damaged. This is how you an still take out that 400 hp tin can with just one torpedo. Hit its keel zone, its going down.

This is more or less how NSM works. By reworking the "guts" of the ship and making the shell indescrutable. Its also why you can pound on a ship with NSM all day with a gun and it wont do anything. You must damage a compartment below the waterline for it to flood.

I didnt use NSM because i didn't think it neccessary. A ship destroyed by HP loss in SH3, would explode, break in 2, and sink rapdidly, every time. SH4 doesnt have this behavior. HP loss, or flooding, it goes down the same by appareances. The main bennfit is really nerfing the deck gun, which i think can be achieved by other means. Besides, to score hits below the waterline, means that most of the time you must do it yourself, the deck gun crew isnt accurate enough, and i dont feel like handholding the deck gun every time i want to use it." Your the crew, you manhandle it, ill sit up here and enjoy the show.! "

Assuming the object was to completely discourage gun battles with DDs and yet leave the DDs vulnerable to one or two torpedo strikes for a sinking. You would then want to?
Lower the DD hit points to 120 to 150 to rely on flooding and increase the DD armor, say to 40 or 50.

I just started playing with skwas. I am going to do some poking around and try to learn a little.

TKS
d

quote:

Lower the DD hit points to 120 to 150 to rely on flooding and increase the DD armor, say to 40 or 50.

Try it out. See what happends. Thats what modding is all about. Trial and error. Use the mission editor on the bungo pete mission. Make yourself at periscope depth -18 height. Park one tin can in front of you, showing his broadside. (make sure hes docked and turn off "delete at last waypoint).

Park another bows on, off your stern. Shoot fish and both and see what happends. DO this a couple times. When your done with that, remove the stern DD via mission editor, ( So you dont get pummeled) then run the same experiment again except surface, and slug it out with him with just the deck gun. You should lose. If you dont, somethings not right.

Wow, all very interesting, but I'll take a patch please.



Even more reason for my respect for those who have made SH4 the great sim it now is.

Meh, i dont think they'll be any more patch's. At least, not for the orginal game. Ill betcha my bottom dollar though that Ubi packages fixes that should have been in a patch, into the add-on as incentive for everyone to want to buy it. *shrug* can't say i really care, im not buying the expansion either way. Heck with it. ALl i know is this weekend, im cleaning up the house, changing the sparkplugs in my car, maybe go check out whats in a book store, drool at all the stuff i can't buy at best buy, etc. Anything but sit in front of a computer.

Could one just take the ZON files for destroyers from the previous release and drop them into 1.7.6.? If one knew which ones they were?

I can't, in good conscience, install and use your mod without thanking you for all that work. Thank you very much!!!

quote:

Originally posted by dgrayson:
I just started playing with skwas. I am going to do some poking around and try to learn a little.

Ehm, what??? You are going to do some poking with me? You may learn a few things, but I am a bit sour from Ducimus already. Please 'stick' with S3D...

quote:

Originally posted by skwasjer:

quote:

Originally posted by dgrayson:
I just started playing with skwas. I am going to do some poking around and try to learn a little.

Ehm, what??? You are going to do some poking with me? You may learn a few things, but I am a bit sour from Ducimus already. Please 'stick' with S3D...

Sorry about that. I meant S3D, but it installs itself in a folder named "skwas" and that is how I find it. Didn't mean to poke the bear.

Dave

quote:

Ehm, what??? You are going to do some poking with me? You may learn a few things, but I am a bit sour from Ducimus already. Please 'stick' with S3D...

Eh, this tongue in cheek, or did i do something to genuinly piss you off? If i did, i apologize, i love your work. If not for you, much of what i have done, would not be done.