[REL]The Wolves of Steel - SH5 Megamod - Page 851

vdr1981 · 12-08-19, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

Okay, as you know adding new meshes to a GR2 file is not possible with GR2 editor. I am now looking for a stock file with five meshes (respectively for: the nacelle case, the glass dome, the reflector yoke, the reflector itself and the light beam).

If I don't find an appropriate GR2 file, I will import my model in a dat file instead.

One more question, is SH5's dumbed-down aircraft AI handling correctly RADAR data? For a perfect functionality, the Leigh Light should be coupled with a radar sensor, and their sim settings should be fine-tuned to work well with each other

I'm not really an expert on airplanes AI but I do know that it's quite limited (A.K.A. stupid). As far as I know planes with radar work pretty much the same like ships with radar, detect a target and head for it...

gap · 12-08-19, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vdr1981

I'm not really an expert on airplanes AI but I do know that it's quite limited (A.K.A. stupid). As far as I know planes with radar work pretty much the same like ships with radar, detect a target and head for it...

Okay, the main point of the Leigh lights was that early British airborne radars, ASV Mk I and Mk II, had a minimum detection range of ca. 1,000 yards (914 m), which meant that at night, when darkness hid the silhouette of surfaced U-boats, ASW aircrews had to guess the exact position of their targets, having to perform semi-blind attacks. This is where our lights come into the picture: as early as March 1941, RAF started trials with few Leigh light protypes fitted aboard Wellington bombers. Tests were satisfactory, but then Air Ministry turned to the older (and not nearly as powerful) Turbinlite lights which were already available in some numbers. Results were poor, but it took some time before the Ministry admitted the error, and reverted to the Leigh lights previously tested.

The first front-line Coastal Command bombers started being equipped with Leigh lights in early summer 1942. On detecting a radar contact, aircrews were instructed to drop their height from 1,500-2,500 to 500 ft (152 m) before they attained a range of 1 mile from their potential target, and to switch on their light at a range of three quarters of mile (ca. 1,400 m), just before loosing their radar signal.

It would be nice if, within the restrictions given by SH5's aircraft AI, we could (more or less) simulate those tactics and the inherent sensor limitations.

Other useful figures that might come in handy while setting up our lights:

On-line resources that the info above is based on:

https://uboat.net/allies/technical/uk_radars.htm
https://uboat.net/allies/technical/leigh_light.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASV_Mark_II_radar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Light

...and by the way, this is the drawing that my model is based on:

Kallale · 12-09-19, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vdr1981

You are correct. As you can see, with your rating type VIIB will be offered to you most likely at the beginning of Happy Times campaign chapter...If you maintain your positive rating, Type VIIC is scheduled for third campaign chapter (WA/MN). If your rating goes negative until then, you probably won't receive new sub.

Thanks for the response!

gap · 12-09-19, 04:58 PM

@ Vecko

My Leigh light model is now a GR2 equipment (almost) ready for entering service in TWoS. Can you please send me the following files from the last TWoS release?

Zones.cfg
files of the aircraft standing in for Catalina and Liberator
aircraft sensor files (if modified from stock game)

Thank you

vdr1981 · 12-10-19, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

@ Vecko

My Leigh light model is now a GR2 equipment (almost) ready for entering service in TWoS. Can you please send me the following files from the last TWoS release?

Zones.cfg
files of the aircraft standing in for Catalina and Liberator
aircraft sensor files (if modified from stock game)

Thank you

Sorry for late reply gap. These would be the files I think...http://www.mediafire.com/file/6q82u3.../data.rar/file

gap · 12-10-19, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vdr1981

Sorry for late reply gap. These would be the files I think...http://www.mediafire.com/file/6q82u3.../data.rar/file

No problem mate,

out of curiosity, what are those "Bomb_cluster" and "DC_cluster" in the eqp files of the air units you sent me? I don't think they are in stock game?

And one last question: in TWoS, are British bombers equipped with Leigh lights from the beginning of the war, and do you think date settings would be applied in aircraft equipment files?

vdr1981 · 12-10-19, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

out of curiosity, what are those "Bomb_cluster" and "DC_cluster" in the eqp files of the air units you sent me? I don't think they are in stock game?

I'm not sure. I didn't really edited much airplane files. Those are coming from IRAI or who knows which mod or modder...

Quote:

And one last question: in TWoS, are British bombers equipped with Leigh lights from the beginning of the war, and do you think date settings would be applied in aircraft equipment files?

In eqp files all planes which have Leigh lights are equipped with it from 06/42.

gap · 12-12-19, 04:21 PM

I hope I didn't forget anything, I horrible at packing stuff before release:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/6mjpm..._TWoS.rar/file

@ Vecko please check in game my addon before merging it to TWoS.

The Catalina was missing its light node, so no matter the date it never had any Leigh light. That little blunder is fixed now.

Adjusting beam's parameters and testing their effect in game took to me quite a lot of time:

The HaloSize in Skybaron's mod seemed to me a bit excessive. I reduced it by a considerable amount. When the light is pointing straight to the camera it still blinds the observer, hiding the aircraft behind it, but now the glare is better proportionate relative to the small reflector producing it. A welcome side effect of this resizing is that now the halo is not as 'pixelish' as before, though I will admit that the effect could be further improved if only I could located the texture it uses...
The Angle parameter is only affecting the size of the light projected on the sea surface, not the width of the visual beam, so I edited both this setting and the beam model to be compatible with a 10-deg spread angle.
For Color I used a set of RGB values corresponding to a color temperature of 5200K, typical of carbon arc lamps (but their spectrum is so similar to the one of direct sunlight that I could have used as well plain white 255, 255, 255).
Range and Atenuation parameters seem to only affect the luminosity of the area enlightened by the reflector. This is a feature that is neglected in stock game (you can barely see the projection of searchlight's beam on the sea surface), I hope I made a good use of it, without overdoing the effect.

I hoped I could make the light beam more faint and to have a better transition from full light to darkness, but neither the above parameters, nor material's opacity settings, nor texture's alpha channel seemed to affect beam's length and look, so that is possibly an hardcoded feature.

Finally I wanted planes to switch on their lights at a range of 914 m from their target as historically correct, but no matter how high or low I set the range parameter, during my tests the Catalina has always fired its light at a range of ca. 800 m (not too dissimilar from the desired range), obtaining a bonus in visual range of ca. 6.5 km. At the end I decided to set this parameter to ca. 3200 m, i.e. the declared effective range of Leigh Lights, (though, measured on the TAI map, the in-game range is twice as long).

My traverse/elevation settings are based on historical specifications and require no further comment.

Before you check my work directly in game, I have just a couple of general remarks:

For testing purposes, I commented out leight ligt's start/end date settings in Catalina's eqp file (with those parameters the light didn't show up in game); you should remove the comment marks before merging the mod in TWoS.
The main texture I have added to the package is 256x256 pixels. Considered Leigh Light's small size, this should be enough, but should you think that the texture resolution is too poor, the original texture is 2048x2048 pixels.

And finally a few screenshots I took this evening (beware: large image size):

Well, that should be all for now

P.S: I didn't perform any ballistic test (getting a round to hit that light would be a matter of luck even for a seasoned gunner), but in theory with a well aimed burst of the 2cm Flak, or with a single round of the 3,7cm SK C/30, one might disable the reflector turning its light off, or rip the whole nacelle away from the attacking aircraft

Tonci87 · 12-12-19, 06:02 PM

Great work gap!

Can someone please help me with this question?

Currently magnetic detonator torpedoes need to pass very close under their target to detonate, I think minimum 2meters.

However, they should be much more sensitive. I want to increase that range to 4 meters, but I do not know in which file to look for the sensitivity of the magnetic detonator.

Can somebody please point me in the right direction?

gap · 12-12-19, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tonci87

Great work gap!

Thank you mate, I am glad you like my work

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tonci87

Can someone please help me with this question?

Currently magnetic detonator torpedoes need to pass very close under their target to detonate, I think minimum 2meters.

However, they should be much more sensitive. I want to increase that range to 4 meters, but I do not know in which file to look for the sensitivity of the magnetic detonator.

Can somebody please point me in the right direction?

Sure! The file you want to edit is called torpedoes_g7a-e.sim (path: data\Library). This file contains controllers for all the torpedoes that can be used by the player; the ones you need to edit are named amun_*Torpedo (there are 10 of them). If you open any of them you will see that under the path amun_Torpedo\Pistols, there are several 'entries'. You should expand all of them, and if their 'magnetic' property is set to 'yes' you should adjust the corresponding 'mag_detonation_range' parameter to 4 meters, or any figure you think is more accurate.

When you have finished with all the pistol of one controller (1 controller = 1 torpedo with all the possible pistols), repeat the same steps with the next controller. Once finished with all the controllers don't forget to save your changes (right click on torpedoes_g7a-e.sim in the project tree and choose 'save').

That's it; probably easier done than said

kapuhy · 12-13-19, 03:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

Not do detract from the work of other modders, but I think I have created a more realistic and better looking Leigh Light model (the nacelle type used under the right wing of Catalinas and Liberators) than the one currently used in TWoS.

Great work

vdr1981 · 12-13-19, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gap

I hope I didn't forget anything, I horrible at packing stuff before release:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/6mjpm..._TWoS.rar/file

@ Vecko please check in game my addon before merging it to TWoS.

Thanks gap, I'll test the mod these days...

And it looks great indeed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tonci87

Great work gap!

Can someone please help me with this question?

Currently magnetic detonator torpedoes need to pass very close under their target to detonate, I think minimum 2meters.

However, they should be much more sensitive. I want to increase that range to 4 meters, but I do not know in which file to look for the sensitivity of the magnetic detonator.

Can somebody please point me in the right direction?

Just be careful regarding premature detonations. I think that editing torp magnetic properties can significantly effect this issue, especially in choppy seas...

gap · 12-13-19, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Great work

Thank you kapuhy, next will be the Y-gun for your motor lauch

Do you prefer having it in dat or gr2 format? As I understand, you are converting your model to the granny format.

On a side note, if you do so she will be the first scratch-made Gr2 unit ever added to SH5 (after about nine years from the release of the game and eight from the first release of Gr2Editor lol). You can't forego this record

Quote:

Originally Posted by vdr1981

Thanks gap, I'll test the mod these days...

And it looks great indeed.

Thank you Vecko, take your time on it, and after testing let me know if you think that something can be improved

gap · 12-13-19, 09:30 AM

Before the introduction of the Leigh light:

Quote:

Originally Posted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Light#Development

Early air-to-surface radar sets, namely the SV Mk. II, had an inconveniently long minimum detection range. [...] At first, aircraft solved this problem by dropping flares to light up the area [...]

...and after its introduction:

Quote:

Originally Posted by https://i.imgur.com/DMSo26k.jpg

[...] Immediately the target is lit up the aircraft should reduce height to 50 or 100 feet and the normal depth charge attack made, dropping flame floats at the same time.

I think both excerpts are referring to this:

http://michaelhiske.de/Allierte/USA/.../Figure091.htm

This is how it works and how its flame should look (more or less):

What do you guys think? Should we add that in game?

fitzcarraldo · 12-13-19, 12:15 PM

Great work Gap.. And yes, I would the dropping flares in TWoS! These little details make the game more immersive. Superbe job.

Many thanks and best regards.

Fitzcarraldo

12-09-19, 04:58 PM	#12754
gap Navy Seal Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: CJ8937 Posts: 8,215 Downloads: 793 Uploads: 10	@ Vecko My Leigh light model is now a GR2 equipment (almost) ready for entering service in TWoS. Can you please send me the following files from the last TWoS release? Zones.cfg files of the aircraft standing in for Catalina and Liberator aircraft sensor files (if modified from stock game) Thank you __________________ _____________________ \|May the Force be with you!\| ...\/

12-12-19, 04:21 PM	#12758
gap Navy Seal Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: CJ8937 Posts: 8,215 Downloads: 793 Uploads: 10	New Leigh light I hope I didn't forget anything, I horrible at packing stuff before release: https://www.mediafire.com/file/6mjpm..._TWoS.rar/file @ Vecko please check in game my addon before merging it to TWoS. The Catalina was missing its light node, so no matter the date it never had any Leigh light. That little blunder is fixed now. Adjusting beam's parameters and testing their effect in game took to me quite a lot of time: The HaloSize in Skybaron's mod seemed to me a bit excessive. I reduced it by a considerable amount. When the light is pointing straight to the camera it still blinds the observer, hiding the aircraft behind it, but now the glare is better proportionate relative to the small reflector producing it. A welcome side effect of this resizing is that now the halo is not as 'pixelish' as before, though I will admit that the effect could be further improved if only I could located the texture it uses... The Angle parameter is only affecting the size of the light projected on the sea surface, not the width of the visual beam, so I edited both this setting and the beam model to be compatible with a 10-deg spread angle. For Color I used a set of RGB values corresponding to a color temperature of 5200K, typical of carbon arc lamps (but their spectrum is so similar to the one of direct sunlight that I could have used as well plain white 255, 255, 255). Range and Atenuation parameters seem to only affect the luminosity of the area enlightened by the reflector. This is a feature that is neglected in stock game (you can barely see the projection of searchlight's beam on the sea surface), I hope I made a good use of it, without overdoing the effect. I hoped I could make the light beam more faint and to have a better transition from full light to darkness, but neither the above parameters, nor material's opacity settings, nor texture's alpha channel seemed to affect beam's length and look, so that is possibly an hardcoded feature. Finally I wanted planes to switch on their lights at a range of 914 m from their target as historically correct, but no matter how high or low I set the range parameter, during my tests the Catalina has always fired its light at a range of ca. 800 m (not too dissimilar from the desired range), obtaining a bonus in visual range of ca. 6.5 km. At the end I decided to set this parameter to ca. 3200 m, i.e. the declared effective range of Leigh Lights, (though, measured on the TAI map, the in-game range is twice as long). My traverse/elevation settings are based on historical specifications and require no further comment. Before you check my work directly in game, I have just a couple of general remarks: For testing purposes, I commented out leight ligt's start/end date settings in Catalina's eqp file (with those parameters the light didn't show up in game); you should remove the comment marks before merging the mod in TWoS. The main texture I have added to the package is 256x256 pixels. Considered Leigh Light's small size, this should be enough, but should you think that the texture resolution is too poor, the original texture is 2048x2048 pixels. And finally a few screenshots I took this evening (beware: large image size): Well, that should be all for now P.S: I didn't perform any ballistic test (getting a round to hit that light would be a matter of luck even for a seasoned gunner), but in theory with a well aimed burst of the 2cm Flak, or with a single round of the 3,7cm SK C/30, one might disable the reflector turning its light off, or rip the whole nacelle away from the attacking aircraft __________________ _____________________ \|May the Force be with you!\| ...\/ Last edited by gap; 12-13-19 at 08:56 AM.

12-12-19, 06:02 PM	#12759
Tonci87 Samurai Navy Join Date: Jun 2012 Posts: 562 Downloads: 116 Uploads: 0	Great work gap! Can someone please help me with this question? Currently magnetic detonator torpedoes need to pass very close under their target to detonate, I think minimum 2meters. However, they should be much more sensitive. I want to increase that range to 4 meters, but I do not know in which file to look for the sensitivity of the magnetic detonator. Can somebody please point me in the right direction? __________________ How to use the RAOBF to measure speed, range and AOB, and then use the Attack Disc to set up a perfect 90° attack. Your diveplane controllers are killing you! Das Brot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irs1NOMJVfg

12-13-19, 12:15 PM	#12765
fitzcarraldo Argentinian Skipper Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Somewhere between Buenos Aires and the Bungo Suido Posts: 5,250 Downloads: 3313 Uploads: 0	Great work Gap.. And yes, I would the dropping flares in TWoS! These little details make the game more immersive. Superbe job. Many thanks and best regards. Fitzcarraldo __________________ *My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity - Wilfred Owen.*