Life Boat Mod ???? | Forums

[Max_Schnell]

Greetings to All,

I was reading through the latest posts, when I saw Kaleun1961 mention Life Boat Mod.

I wanna life boat mod, how, where, gimme gimme, I want I want. Is this relatively new?

I will continue searching and reading. It sounds cool, and all the previous posts and conversation make sense now.

Thanks,
Max

[Kaleun1961]

Get it here!

[Max_Schnell]

Wow! Thank You. I went right away and downloaded it. Thank you again.

I did not mean to sound as whiney, but after watching the movie "What About Bob" starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss the behaviour was stuck in my head. A funny movie.

Thank You again. This Forum and its members never disappoint.

Schnell!!!

[VONHARRIS]

Thank you as well Kaluen 1961. I wanted that mod too.

[Kaleun1961]

Glad to be of service.

[VONHARRIS]

I have one question about this mod. I noticed it added life rafts to every boat even to small torpedo boats. What I have not seen is these rafts being launched. I sunk a Nelson class BB and not a single raft appeared on the water. The battleship took some 3 hours game time to sink. Are these rafts ever launched?
Thank you.

[Kaleun1961]

They are launched most of the time. You do not see them "launch" in the normal sense; they instantly spawn into existence much like convoys or other scripted events in the game. Last night I sunk a ship and watched it sink from the free roam view. A raft instantly appeared before me as I viewed the ship and the surrounding area. They float on the water but will magically sail right through solid objects. I once watched a sinking ship fall onto a raft and drop below the surface and the raft reappeared right where it was. I even had one move through my sub from left to right. As far as I know, you cannot gun them down, but I am not 100% sure of that. I have been known to gun down small craft but I would never turn my flak gun on men in the water, even in a game. I uphold the honour of the U-bootwaffe at all times.

Last night I sunk a ship and did not see any rafts spawn at all; other times I see many rafts launch. It seems to depend on the crew size of the sunken ship. As well, a raft or two may let down fairly quickly and the ship sails on. A couple of times I never saw the ship sink or get credit for it, but I did move out of the area and thus may have been outside of the 50 KM SH3 "world." The game only renders about 50 KMs of the world; if your boat sails outside of this area and the ship sinks you do not receive credit. You do not have to directly observe the sinking ship, merely remain within 50 KMs of it when it sinks. I watched one ship for 14.5 hours before it sank, probably the longest I have stuck around. I waited for the convoy to move on, moved to about 3 KMs directly in front of its bow [in order to avoid its stern mounted gun] with the plan to surface after dark and finish it off with my deck gun, but the weather changed and became too rough to use the gun. The weather seemed to contribute to its sinking but I still got credit for it.

I use SH3 Commander, which provides a name for the sunken vessel, its cargo, crew size and how many survived. Occasionally I sink a ship and it loses all hands. This may the reason why you do not see a raft, but I do recall seeing a raft and still all crew were lost. Perhaps Cmdr takes into account survivors who still perished at sea?

There is also the possibility that you messed something up when you installed it, but I would not reach that conclusion unless you never see any rafts after a goodly number of sinkings. Keep us posted. There are several options available when you install the mod: man standing in the raft, dead bodies in the water, etc. I always read carefully the instructions and examine the mod folder structure; as I am quite familiar with the game's folder structure I have a reasonable familiarity with how mods affect the game, but there are a few mods which seem beyond me. I'll have to get help myself for them. Subsim.com is a very active SH3 forum and has many capable members and a huge mod download section. Not that I am trying to recruit for them, but this forum is very slow nowadays. I still hang out here though as this is my first SH3 home on the net and I have made a few good friends here. Over at Subsim you will see some Ubi members as well.

[VONHARRIS]

I have no intention to shoot at a life raft. It is well known that Uboat commanders did not use that tactic. All but one: Herr Eck commanding U-862 IXD2 sunk the Greek steamer Peleus and he had the bright idea to gun down life rafts , he used from MG machine guns to small arms , the 20mm flak and grenades to erase all evidence of the sinking. He failed. He was the only Uboat commander to be sentenced to death for war crimes. So as I am Greek I am more sensitive on this subject.
As for the game , I have sunk some 25 ships since the last post - from coastal tankers to large merchants with various losses of life using every weapon available but still no rafts on the water.
I use GWX 3.0 and SH3 Commander 3.2. I loaded the mod through Generic mod enabler.

[Kaleun1961]

Then your installation didn't go like it should.

[VONHARRIS]

Kaleun1961: You were right. I renamed two files as instructed and it works just fine. I saw rafts and some debris on the water. Pity though that other ships or the escorts don't stop to pick up survivors. Could this be a suggestion for all these fine modders?