[rik007]

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Regarding the weather transition, long ago H.sie posted how a simple time change amount to a game file would provide this. I'm to lazy to look it up, think it was a cloudlayer.tga or some such. Is that what you've done?

No: the 3d model is not correct in the scene.dat. I found that the original one had a second UV-channel in the clouds.obj. That one is missing so I restored it.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

I'm also confused by the phrase "enable night surface attacks", as they've always been very possible and very easy to do with every version of SH3, stock or modded.

You are correct! Sorry that I was not accurate on that one. In a dark night, without radar, the u-boot should have a huge advantage. So then you can come very close to the ships or make yourself invisible by adjusting the new light factors in a configuration file. So you can change them to the level you like.
The mod will change the light factor as stored in sim.cfg dynamically depending on the weather, moon etc. It is still arcade and a lot remains to be desired but we should cherish what we have not what we not have, right?

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Any plans to also correct the completely incorrect escort placements around the convoys? Even better, correct their silly ahistorical escort "tactics"? (different kettle of fish I know but one can dream )

No, I think it goes way above our capabilities. I worked for example on generating straddlers. In the picture you see that a straddler was generated nicely and once you attacked it even a destroyer detached from the convoy to attack you but it had side-effects so it failed. This took me around 8 weeks to get it working so I hope that manages a bit your expectation …. I want to finish the moon mod.

Little bit exaggerated but think of hardcode fixes as doing brain surgery with an anatomy picture from your schoolbooks as a reference. So you poke around in the brain where you assume motion is controlled and then the left arm suddenly raises. But that does not say we play some nice music on the piano. If we could have the original C++ source code this would be different. Then we could have effects like damp periscopes or periscope unusable in the night etc.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

I'm sure you realize this, but in the night attack by aircraft examples you list, a bright "night" north of the Shetlands is very different than a bright night further south. I.e, in the far northern latitudes, the "night" is more like daylight than it is a dark night.

Understood. It is not in SH-3. What do you suggest the effect should be?

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Great to see the reference to scope use at night as night scope attacks are another item on the ahistorical arcade side of things that SH3 has always allowed, modded or not.

I put that in the film as it was really new for me. We do not see that in the simulations. Also I did not understand for years what these commanders meant with seeing shadows until I read these U-boot logs.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Regarding the moon at your back, it should be the other way around. The moon at the back of the convoy. Then the convoy is illuminated against the moonlight background while the sub is better hidden in the "dark front".

You are correct as that is was so in reality I did some tests in Sh3 and saw that it was better to have the moon in your back as that decreases the odds of being detected. I think it looks at the illuminated front of the u-boot which is then towards the ships. So that gives the ships a slight advantage to detect you. In reality the illuminated front did not seem to be an issue and it was the other way around as you said. So that underlines that it was difficult to find a u-boot at night.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Regarding northern lights, I have seen them many times. They should only be a factor on clear nights, and a minor one even then. On anything other than a clear night, they are very rarely visible at all.

It will be only shown in clear nights and then randomly (configurable). It uses a particle engine which projects the northern lights before the clouds (whatever I tried) so it is better to have no clouds: so yes only in clear nights. The amount of impact on detectability is configurable. I think it is a nicety. I also considered phosphoric sees as some of the u-boot commanders complained about that and one was even detected.

As for the notifications in your other reply: I can send one notification per day with moon info. Not sure when. Noon? Sunset? Maybe I leave it out in the first version.