[REL] Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate, full release

[SeniorCitizen]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

jumping in here....because i also responded to your post.

when you mentioned the Black Sea, i immediately connected your comment to the Dark Waters mega-mod in SH4, which is the only scenario of which i am aware where you would access the Black sea and be playing as a German Kaleun with a German U-boat.

if i mis-interpreted your post, please enlighten me.

Sorry KM; I obviously blew it with my attempt at current event humor. I was actually referencing the fact that Russia is currently having to send ships and supplies from their bases in the Far East to support their war in Ukraine and those ships were actually spotted transiting near Japan a couple of days ago. I was trying to be funny when I said I would sink any Russian ships I saw while on patrol because, of course, my patrol is going on in mid-1943 and we're actually living today in mid-2022. I think it was the time travel aspect of my joke that threw everyone off. The old saying comes to mind, "well, that went over everyone's head." Promise not to try again.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by SeniorCitizen

Sorry KM; I obviously blew it with my attempt at current event humor. I was actually referencing the fact that Russia is currently having to send ships and supplies from their bases in the Far East to support their war in Ukraine and those ships were actually spotted transiting near Japan a couple of days ago. I was trying to be funny when I said I would sink any Russian ships I saw while on patrol because, of course, my patrol is going on in mid-1943 and we're actually living today in mid-2022. I think it was the time travel aspect of my joke that threw everyone off. The old saying comes to mind, "well, that went over everyone's head." Promise not to try again.

you're ok with me, pal.
but you reminded me that i also need to watch my P's & Q's and properly frame my posts, lest i incur the wrath of others and get banned! (ooh, the worst thing)

[SeniorCitizen]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

you're ok with me, pal.
but you reminded me that i also need to watch my P's & Q's and properly frame my posts, lest i incur the wrath of others and get banned! (ooh, the worst thing)

New to the forums so I don't know what your history is with that type of stuff, but good luck.

Back on topic, I'm really enjoying FOTRS. Had never played SH4 until a couple of months ago and simultaneously bought SH4 from Steam (for $.98 IIRC), downloaded FOTRS from here, along with Nippon Maru and Nihon Kaigun. Loaded it all up and started playing. No idea how entertaining the vanilla SH4 is since I've never played it, but the FOTRS/NM/NK combo reminds me of why I fell in love with computer games back in the 1990s before life got in the way. I'm now on my 6th patrol (2 in S boat from Dutch, 3 in Gato from Brisbane, now in a brand new Balao out of Brisbane) and still enjoying the heck out of it. I've also been fortunate to not have any "war stopper" issues to this point. Many thanks to the creative team.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by SeniorCitizen

New to the forums so I don't know what your history is with that type of stuff, but good luck.

it's not so much my history but what is tolerated within the website.
in other forums at Subsim , one can express opinions but it is bad form to be insulting or to spew invective, or to make pejorative comments or to not respect others.
in the past some members have been suspended and/or banned for being personally insulting or nor respecting others' POV.
each forum has a moderator who monitors posts and then there is Onkel Neal who runs the website. Neal is a good guy and a straight-shooter.

[SeniorCitizen]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

it's not so much my history but what is tolerated within the website.
in other forums at Subsim , one can express opinions but it is bad form to be insulting or to spew invective, or to make pejorative comments or to not respect others.
in the past some members have been suspended and/or banned for being personally insulting or nor respecting others' POV.
each forum has a moderator who monitors posts and then there is Onkel Neal who runs the website. Neal is a good guy and a straight-shooter.

That makes sense. Anyone doing those types of things aren't healthy for a forum. Cheers.

[goldmastersims]

Hey guys. I wanna know if my save's still stable.

I started over because of stability issues with my previous career.

This new career has 7 patrols completed. Went from S-boat in Manila to Gar in Brisbane. Sometimes, when I'm using high time compression and then dive, the bow dive planes' animations don't finish.

Should I be worried?

I have multiple saves to backtrack in case things go south.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by goldmastersims

Hey guys. I wanna know if my save's still stable.

I started over because of stability issues with my previous career.

This new career has 7 patrols completed. Went from S-boat in Manila to Gar in Brisbane. Sometimes, when I'm using high time compression and then dive, the bow dive planes' animations don't finish.

Should I be worried?

I have multiple saves to backtrack in case things go south.

so, the animations are the only issue here?
your last save is playable except for the bow planes animation?

[goldmastersims]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

so, the animations are the only issue here?
your last save is playable except for the bow planes animation?

Yeah, right now.

I had a CO2 bug a few patrols back, but saving and reloading fixed it. It hasn't happened since.

[propbeanie]

Quit shelling-out to the Windows desktop, goldmastersims. That's what is causing the issue. Generally speaking, you notice that those graphic and functional anomalies will "disappear" when you reload your Saved game. Also, be sure you are starting with an emptied Save folder when first starting FotRSU, else you'll have info from a previous mod or install stuck in the folder, which will prevent a complete, proper mod activation.

[Gray Lensman]

Back into SH4 after a couple of years hiatus. This time I decided to go with the FotRSU mod. Previously, I was an avid fan of the Trigger Maru mod.

Anyhow, reinstallation went just fine into a C:/Steam installation (no /Program Files/ in the path obviously, clean install, clean new save folder. Large Address Aware setup, JSGME implemented okay.

only 3 Mods installed in this order:

Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate v1.7p
RWR_APR patch
Bigger Better Protractors

I generally like to play with almost all realism difficulties enabled except I enable map updates and stabilize view.

Some minor observations after a couple weeks of playing.

1. Even though Duds are enabled, I don't seem to get any at all... Zero, Zilch... Now of course, I know to offset the impact angle to reduce the chance of Duds, but there should still be a few random duds regardless when Duds are enabled... increases the immersion.

2. Weather and Sea state stay relatively the same for weeks play on end and no matter where you may transit to even if its another thousand miles away.

3. Sunrise, Sunset in FotRSU is totally screwed up. Doesn't affect the individual actions per se. BUT when the difference is sometimes over an hour or two just in a day's time something is obviously amiss.

For example: This affects timing when penetrating some harbors and you may be waiting for sunset to slip in closer and you find that the day before's sunset was 1000, so you wait for approx. 1000 to make your move and you wait and you wait and maybe sometime anywhere between 20 minutes to 2 hours later you might get a sunset.

Another example: I had to go back to a savegame which I had saved (by habit) as... "!942 03 10 1105 Sunrise" deliberately so as to have a reference to the exact time that the nav screen changed from dull pink to bright blue.

Less than an hour later, I had a Sunset occur... "1942 03 10 1201 Sunset" to be exact.

These LARGE Sunrise/Sunset discrepancies did not occur with the base game or with the TMO mod, so it pretty much narrows it down to FotRSU.




I'm having fun with FotRSU, but the above are some small annoyances that could stand some tweaking.

[propbeanie]

I will give a very similar reply to you, Gray Lensman

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Quit shelling-out to the Windows desktop, Gray Lensman (goldmastersims). That's what is causing the issue. Generally speaking, you notice that those graphic and functional anomalies will "disappear" when you reload your Saved game. Also, be sure you are starting with an emptied Save folder when first starting FotRSU, else you'll have info from a previous mod or install stuck in the folder, which will prevent a complete, proper mod activation.

After mod activation, be sure you have cleared the Save folder so that you get a complete mod activation. btw - Bigger Better Protractors is already in the mod. As for the duds, be sure you are differentiating between the "Main Menu" gameplay settings, and the Captain's Office in port gameplay settings. Click on the wooden radio console in the office, to the left of the desk, in order to access the career's Options settings. Each career can have a different set. Also, by default, FotRSU is using the Stock game's "duds" chances, which are quite low. For more aggravation, be sure and download the AddInModzPak_FotRSUv17, which has the original FOTRS settings, a Lotsa Dudz, and an More Dudz mods.

For the weather, and similarly for the repairs and other "timing" things in the game, each time you Save the game, the "timer" starts over. So the weather in FotRSU defaults to a chance of a change every five hours (of game time, not real time). If you shell-out to Windows, or if you Save and exit, that timer starts over again from "zero". You might have had 3 seconds left on the timer for a roll of the dice for a possible weather change, but it is now re-set to five hours. This also happens if your boat takes damage. The clock re-sets. It is a wonderful SH4 'feature' - NOT

The sunrise / sunset is not screwed-up in FotRSU. With the help of Front Runner a while back (Base Time 2018), we were able to nail it down as to how it was supposed to be. We have since revised the gameplay settings and no longer have the vsync enabled, but the game is an old DirectX v9.0c beast, and uses the DirectX library for its "timers", and is tied to the video card also. The "clock" stays almost exactly 'true' if you run the game at 30fps. Most modern video cards can no longer run that slow, and most of the modern games desire hundreds of fps, but NOT SH4. Time Compression also affects things. Too much TC, and the clock goes 'fast'. Too little, and it goes 'slow'. Nothing short of a re-write of the game's internals can change that. The closer you can get to 30fps, the better for clock 'accuracy' - to a point. A couple things about it though, if you start at Pearl on a patrol, and go west toward Tokyo, you cross the IDL, and you'll not see the date change. You should NOT see the clock change. You should ALWAYS be on Pearl (aka: Base) Time. If you do a Single Mission, you are on Game Time, aka: Local Time, which is dependent upon where the mission starts. Another contributing factor to the time going wonky is shelling out to Windows (see above)... Note also that there are vertical 'yellow' lines on the NavMap, and a purple IDL, seen at certain zoom levels. No labeling is included as of yet, but you can use those to judge what "local time" is where your boat is.

Also, when you do Saves, I would recommend NOT using a space in the name, but rather the underscore character, or using Caps to separate the names. I no longer trust the game and its "naming" conventions.

[Gray Lensman]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

I will give a very similar reply to you, Gray Lensman

After mod activation, be sure you have cleared the Save folder so that you get a complete mod activation. btw - Bigger Better Protractors is already in the mod. As for the duds, be sure you are differentiating between the "Main Menu" gameplay settings, and the Captain's Office in port gameplay settings. Click on the wooden radio console in the office, to the left of the desk, in order to access the career's Options settings. Each career can have a different set. Also, by default, FotRSU is using the Stock game's "duds" chances, which are quite low. For more aggravation, be sure and download the AddInModzPak_FotRSUv17, which has the original FOTRS settings, a Lotsa Dudz, and an More Dudz mods.

I always set the gameplay settings at the wooden radio console. Nice to know about the Stock game "duds" chances. That'll be a change that I'll have to make. Can you make a change to the Mod re: "Duds" mid-career?

For the weather, and similarly for the repairs and other "timing" things in the game, each time you Save the game, the "timer" starts over. So the weather in FotRSU defaults to a chance of a change every five hours (of game time, not real time). If you shell-out to Windows, or if you Save and exit, that timer starts over again from "zero". You might have had 3 seconds left on the timer for a roll of the dice for a possible weather change, but it is now re-set to five hours. This also happens if your boat takes damage. The clock re-sets. It is a wonderful SH4 'feature' - NOT

The sunrise / sunset is not screwed-up in FotRSU. With the help of Front Runner a while back (Base Time 2018), we were able to nail it down as to how it was supposed to be. We have since revised the gameplay settings and no longer have the vsync enabled, but the game is an old DirectX v9.0c beast, and uses the DirectX library for its "timers", and is tied to the video card also. The "clock" stays almost exactly 'true' if you run the game at 30fps. Most modern video cards can no longer run that slow, and most of the modern games desire hundreds of fps, but NOT SH4. Time Compression also affects things. Too much TC, and the clock goes 'fast'. Too little, and it goes 'slow'. Nothing short of a re-write of the game's internals can change that. The closer you can get to 30fps, the better for clock 'accuracy' - to a point. A couple things about it though, if you start at Pearl on a patrol, and go west toward Tokyo, you cross the IDL, and you'll not see the date change. You should NOT see the clock change. You should ALWAYS be on Pearl (aka: Base) Time. If you do a Single Mission, you are on Game Time, aka: Local Time, which is dependent upon where the mission starts. Another contributing factor to the time going wonky is shelling out to Windows (see above)... Note also that there are vertical 'yellow' lines on the NavMap, and a purple IDL, seen at certain zoom levels. No labeling is included as of yet, but you can use those to judge what "local time" is where your boat is.

I'm retired so quite often my gameplay goes on for 8 hours realtime total during the day. Generally, I play Sunset to Sunrise, then save the game for a play break/pause, then play Sunrise to Sunset and go for another play break/pause. In most cases that's two five hour gameplay periods NON-STOP before exiting the game. I have had 0 wind for multiple sessions in a row like this which is not real life so I'll have to reserve judgement on FotRSu's weather. It just doesn't behave the same as it did with TMO.

Also, when you do Saves, I would recommend NOT using a space in the name, but rather the underscore character, or using Caps to separate the names. I no longer trust the game and its "naming" conventions.

Never had a problem with spaces in my save game names, but I'll keep the underscore in mind. Thanks.

[Gray Lensman]

For What It's Worth...


After another 5 game days playing my normal Sunrise to Sunset then save, then Sunset to Sunrise, save again, rinse, repeat with no game exiting and no "shelling" out/Alt-Tab. blah blah, I still had a "becalmed" wind state of Zero (0) wind speed. Reminded me of playing the old low graphics flat sea Silent Service 3.


Re-Setup installation back to TMO update and played the same way as above. In five game days, I had 3 weather changes going from 5 wind speed to 15 wind speed to 8 wind speed with corresponding sea states.


This confirms my suspicions that something is amiss with the way FotRSU handles weather.


One of the pluses to FotRSU is that the sonar scan is twice as fast as TMO. How was that done?


edit> Silent Service 2 (not 3)

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by Gray Lensman

For What It's Worth...


After another 5 game days playing my normal Sunrise to Sunset then save, then Sunset to Sunrise, save again, rinse, repeat with no game exiting and no "shelling" out/Alt-Tab. blah blah, I still had a "becalmed" wind state of Zero (0) wind speed. Reminded me of playing the old low graphics flat sea Silent Service 3.


Re-Setup installation back to TMO update and played the same way as above. In five game days, I had 3 weather changes going from 5 wind speed to 15 wind speed to 8 wind speed with corresponding sea states.


This confirms my suspicions that something is amiss with the way FotRSU handles weather.


One of the pluses to FotRSU is that the sonar scan is twice as fast as TMO. How was that done?

Are you talking "original " TMO or my TMO Update I released in September? Just curious.

[Gray Lensman]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Are you talking "original " TMO or my TMO Update I released in September? Just curious.

The revised final released 9/28/2021.

Wish you could double the sonar scan rate like FotRSU... Gets rather monotonous/tedius waiting for such a slow 360 scan rate every time I do a sonar scan. My technique of playing at the start in 1941 once within a patrol area is to patrol at accelerated time speed to maybe x32 or x64 for 30 minutes advance then revert to x1 and do a sonar scan... rinse, repeat, until I find a sonar signal to home in on. Then make a bee line for it at full speed until I get an on-map sonar trace.

Once I find a viable target, I play out the battle almost full time x1. Some of my intercept battles take me 3 or 4 hours real time to resolve... Realism for the battles themselves. I'm retired so I can enjoy the process...