[WIP] Wolves of the Kaiser:1914-1918 Mod

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

Hmm. let's see, rivet counts....starboard or port side?

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by Admiral Von Gerlach

Hmm. let's see, rivet counts....starboard or port side?

Aww, you took the joke I was going to make.

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

Well you could still take "Fore or Aft"

[Ekaton]

Would you include german coastal defence ships?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfri...l_defense_ship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin-cl...l_defense_ship


I know that they were considered useless even before the war and were withdrawn from active service as soon as 1915 but since then they were used in ports - mainly as barracks ships. They are pretty unique among the german ships and could add some ambience to the ports.


EDIT:

Also, how about creating a special program like SH3 Commander which could maybe allow player to get many awards from many countries and other things (like banner from a sunken ship maybe) based on your savegame, manage your crew more easily or even interact with them? This would help overcome some hardcoded limitations perhaps.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Ekaton

Would you include german coastal defence ships?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfri...l_defense_ship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin-cl...l_defense_ship


I know that they were considered useless even before the war and were withdrawn from active service as soon as 1915 but since then they were used in ports - mainly as barracks ships. They are pretty unique among the german ships and could add some ambience to the ports.


EDIT:

Also, how about creating a special program like SH3 Commander which could maybe allow player to get many awards from many countries and other things (like banner from a sunken ship maybe) based on your savegame, manage your crew more easily or even interact with them? This would help overcome some hardcoded limitations perhaps.

I would like to have those ships ingame, but honestly I don't think I will be able to. It takes a long time to do a single capital ship, so unless I can recruit several more people to help with ship modeling it will be difficult. And I don't know much about programming so I would not be able to implement your suggestions without help. Appreciate the ideas though.



Here is progress on the Kaiser Class battleship. There will also be another variant without the large admiral's bridge forward or the parade deck aft.

Still working on anchors, the tertiary 88mm armament, torpedo net booms, and more detailed main gun turrets.







EDIT: I need help with another detail: What were the bow crests for ships of this class? I believe they would have each carried some kind of emblem on the bow, but I have not been able to find good pictures of them. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ekaton]

Kaiser had Prussian crest I think but I am not sure. Prinzregent Luitpold beared bavarian CoA I think, but also not sure.

Friedrich der Grosse had German CoA:



Others I have no idea.

This is supposed to be depicting SMS Kaiser but I think that this might be another one, maybe Kaiserin.



EDIT:

This is supposed to be Friedrich der Grosse:



Here I found sth that might have been Konig Albert's crest:






EDIT 2:

SMS Kaiser in closeup:




EDIT 3:

According to this (http://www.forum-marinearchiv.de/smf...?topic=9097.60 ) site crests are like this:
SMS Kaiser - http://images.zeno.org/Meyers-1905/I/big/Wm04798a.jpg
SMS Prinzregent Luitpold - http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FJIwg2jbUP...Grosses%29.jpg
SMS Kaiserin - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...e_Victoria.png

[iambecomelife]

Thanks! Very nice emblems, and they add quite a splash of color to the ships' bows. Incidentally, those pictures offer some excellent views of the ships' rigging - I will be adding more of it as I put on the finishing touches. It fascinates me how intricate the wires were.

[Ekaton]

It's been a while, more than a year now, since I followed this mod regurarly so I have a question - is the prize system going to be implemented in this mod? I think I remember mentioning that this was possible to do in SH4 and that systems of launching boats from a ship was being developed.

[Sailor Steve]

Please remember that every request you have means extra weeks or even months of work for IABL, and he is working absolutely alone on all this. Also is it possible to reduce the size of that one picture? It is too large to look at comfortably.

[Admiral Halsey]

I've been dabbling with the Op Monsun files trying to fix that conning tower upgrade bug.(No luck with that sadly.) I'll admit i'm no expert but if you need any help with this mod IABL i'll be glad to offer my services.(Just don't ask me to model any of the ships. Even my stick figures look horrible.)

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Ekaton

It's been a while, more than a year now, since I followed this mod regurarly so I have a question - is the prize system going to be implemented in this mod? I think I remember mentioning that this was possible to do in SH4 and that systems of launching boats from a ship was being developed.

The prize warfare system will be included. However, you will not be able to take ships prisoner and return them to port; there is simply no way to implement this within SH4's hard coded restrictions.

To have prize warfare I will clone the different merchant ships and each will have several versions:

-Friendly
-Neutral, No Contraband
-Neutral, With Contraband
-Enemy, No Contraband
-Enemy, With Contraband
-Enemy, Q-Ship Variant

However, most ships will display a manifest when you get close to them. Early in the war, if a ship is not carrying contraband you must leave it alone - otherwise you will lose renown for sinking it. Between 1914 - 1916 it will be possible to encounter Allied ships that you may not sink.

Later in the war (Spring 1917 - 1918) unrestricted warfare will exist, and you will be able to torpedo British/French ships without warning if you wish. You will still need to approach ships from neutral countries to find out if they have contraband.

There will always be the chance that a "Neutral" is actually a British Q-ship, so the whole process will be like a game of Russian Roulette. Should you sink a ship without warning and risk a renown hit? Or do you close to examine the manifest and risk having your submarine sunk if it's a disguised decoy ship? These were real problems for U-Boat commanders, and they will be in this game.

[Ekaton]

Thanks for your reply! It's really amazing that you were actually able to represent the system of ship manifestos in SH4, would never guessed that it's possible. Anyway, great job and keep up the good work!


EDIT:
Do you need any help with Q-Boats? I have a polish book about them and I can provide some information you may need. Also it provides an interesting info which may be of use to you when creating them - there were about 150 fights between Q-Boats and U-Boats and they managed to sink only 14 subs and damaging 60. Amazingly more Qs were lost then subs - 27 out of about 200 used during the war.

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

I see you got the crest info you needed, yes they had them and those are good sources for the images.

Heraldry was very important in all of the military services at that time as it was very much part of the ethos of life for the aristocracy and the officer corrps of all of the main national serivces other than the US were often considered "upper Class" and were expected to act as Gentlemen of honour because of that. Ships had the same ethos esp captial ones.

the rigging was essential for ship operations, esp the flag hoists on both masts, often hoists were duplicated fore and aft due to being obscured by funnel smoke as commands were passed "down the line" when the fleet was underway in line ahead...amazing work on that ship, the textures are superb! well done.

[auricom]

hey just want to chime in with some words of support. Long time SH4 player and I wish you the best of luck completing this mod. Very much looking forward to playing it some day.

[Lindley]

Two excellent WW1 documentaries told from the German Naval perspective:





Also a great book German view
WW1 U-boat :http://www.amazon.co.uk/Raiders-Deep...thomas+raiders