Silent Hunter 1 Pack project

[welk2]

I plane to create a lerge pack that will contains all awailable files concerning Silent Hunter 1 (including Commander edition and patrol disks 1,2,3).


So, i search :

Tools and utilities
Patches
Mods
Scenarios
Manuels
Documentation, notices, readme files, etc
Map images chart
etc


If you have stuff files that are not uploaded on subsims, please : could you contact me, it would be usefull to collect all files and to upload them in a large pack on mediafire (where I have an account)


I would collect files and then upload them. At this time, I collected some files after reading threads of the present forum and using the "way back machine (web archives), but I think there are probably lot other files in "privates hands"



Thanks in advance if you have some stuff files, I would be vey interrested to get them.

[Andreas86]

A great idea welk2, such a collection would be very welcome!

Since you have used waybackmachine, I suppose you have this already: https://archive.org/details/wargamer...-silent-hunter

[welk2]

Thanks a lot Andreas, I downloaded your files

I had not found this specific page on way back machine ; some of content files = I had, but I had not not entire content, so it's a good treasure and if other users have other way back machine pages, it would be great to get the files.

Concerning scenarios, I know that some users have more 100 scenarios (I saw that on this thread forum)

I think it's difficult fore one user alone to found all files, lot are dispatched between users.




So, my goal is


1/ to collect all stuff of each member of community (all users have not same files, some are missing, etc) : scenarios, mods, utilities, documentations, readme files, manuels, patches, images charts, etc


2/ then to class all files to eliminate double files (files that are exactly identical)



3/ then to upload a large pack with this content for all players on mediafire (mediafire allows very large zip files to be uploaded and I have an account).


In addition of this "stuff pack" for SH, I plane also to create a future pack with a pre-installed automatic version (under dosbox). But I will wait to be sure that SH Commander edition is no more bought in any place.

I found some old CD SILENT HUNTER COMMANDER EDITION on Amazon (sold by users), but the problem is that these Amazon products are not allowing to shipping to Europe (sellers are in USA, not in Europe).

And GOG Game, at this time, does not sell Silent Hunter 1.31 CE
Same thing for Steam

This is eternal pb with old good dos games : no commercial shop sells them anymore and they are definitivly lost for players

EDIT :If someone knows a place where SH 1.31 Commander edition is sold, I would be interrested ! (a dos box version is cool, but a "modernized" version working without dosbox would be great)


EDIT : I have also found a little tool created by Fred Chandla, that allows to edit shp files in "ART" directory of SILENT HUNTER. It works fine with the "pal" files of the ART directory, and includes à SHP editor manuel" for users. But I do not know how to upload it on the "mods/utilities" section

[Andreas86]

Sounds good. I bought the Commander's edition back in the 90s, and still have it. Also, some of the art assets ingame are also quite moddable, like the control room and various screens.

[welk2]

The pb for shp files : it seems that the ART directory of SH does not contain all needed "pal" files (or perhaps, some shp files in Silent Hunter use the same "pal" file : in this case, pb would be to find the "pal" file used by each shp files => if you do not use the correct "pal" file, colors are false)

[Andreas86]

It is very likely as you say, that many assets share the same palette. As for the matching of palette, I haven't checked SH1, but in AOD we are lucky enough to have a tool called Engie File Converter. There you can load both pictures and select individual palette files to see what matches. It also works with standard .PAL files and normal .BMPs so if lucky one can do the same in SH1.

Edit: I see SH1 uses PCX files for its main screens, not BMP. These PCX files also have inbuilt palette of course. My bad.
I do see there are palette files for some of these screens, but I have a feeling that is because of overlays of assets that uses different palettes. These DOS games are often a mad juggling of different palette entries.

As for the .shp files, have you found a way to open them? It may be these have inbuilt palettes too.