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

[iambecomelife]

Sorry to flood the thread, but very pleased to see the model of "Leon Gambetta"! She is one of my favorite French WWI cruisers - truly a forgotten tragedy of WWI. Such a disaster truly deserves to be commemorated - with our mutual efforts, Leadtail, I would love to do this through the mod.





100th Anniversary Ceremony for the "Leon Gambetta":

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Admiral Von Gerlach

Hi there
good luck with your trip. looks very good all of the developments i have been very busy with work of my own but wanted to keep in touch. Drop me a line when you have time to chat about possible future plans. I caution agaisnt over expansion some mod makers and amateur developers get grand ideas that can kill a wonderful solid project like this..so be cautious. they will be happy to give lots of advice and jump on board of your effort but often bring more problems than you can ever anticipate. You have done so well I believe because you patiently did top quality work and step by step kept it real.

Not trying to denigrate possible plans that I am not aware of..I get very cautious when I see someone like you giving precedence to others when you have clearly earned to the right be one of the most remarkable mod makers I have ever seen in 20 years of work in the field.

Keep command of your own ship and your own course plotted and you will bring her into port. I am sure of this.

Thank you for your words. But rest assured that I am retaining overall control over the mod - the assistance I speak of is about purely technical issues, and not creative direction.

You make good points about overreach; this is a crucial issue with a project like WOTK. In fact, overreach/practicality are on my mind every day! I want the mod to be transformative, but I also want to avoid "mission creep" and a dead mod that withers bc of unrealistic goals. "Avoid overreach" is like a voice in the back of my head...lol..in fact, I have been analyzing the failures of a professional game in progress "Star Citizen" and taking it as a warning lesson. I sincerely feel I have an advantage over "Star Citizen" (and other failed professional projects). Consider the following:

-I do not have to build a game engine myself. The developers of SH4 already took care of that for me.

-All software tools needed to implement my goals already exist. S3ditor, pack3d, and wings3d are well-enough developed for me to do what I want. Thanks to their creators who came before me!

-Several crucial components of the project are already done or well advanced. RMS Lusitania is complete; all interface artwork has been collected; uniforms are approximately 90% complete; 3d modeling of playable units roughly 35% complete.

-The mod is subdivided into "Core Goals" vs "Reach Goals" to prevent overreach.

Core Goals:

1) North Atlantic/North Sea Dynamic Campaign
2) Mediterranean Dynamic Campaign
3) 10-15 Historical Single Missions
4) Reasonable roster of WWI player and NPC units
5) WWI Uniforms for Crew (again-90% achieved)
6) WWI Decorations
7) WWI interface and movies
8) Basic changes to submarine interior
9) Basic destructible shore targets
10) Basic revamp to plants, plus few biological units
11) Essential scripted events in dynamic campaign (Lusitania's May 1915 voyage, Jutland, etc)

Reach Goals:

1) Austrian Campaign
2) British North Atlantic/North Sea Campaign, with medals etc
3) Interiors for Mittel-U and small (UB-I) boats
4) Animations for Germaniawerft and MAN Diesel Engines
5) New crew animations
6) American Campaign (based on the attacks off US East Coast in 1917-1918)
7) Playable Surface Units
8) Unique Ship Names
9) Role-playing elements/backstory for crew (within SH4 limits)
10) Extensive destructible land areas, with many cities
11) Substantial plant/animal life throughout oceans, with ship/ocean life interaction
12) Numerous historical events scripted into dynamic campaigns
13) Extensive ship and shore human characters, with new animations and behaviors

By the way - to any lurking SC fanatics who disagree with me, & still believe Star Citizen is coming out as planned, please do not discuss it here. If you attempt to divert the discussion, I WILL ask a mod to delete posts.

[Admiral Halsey]

#7 in those reach goal is the one i'm most interested in. Especially if you can get damage to work right with playable surface ships.

[Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt]

IABL One question, but in The mediterranean campaign is included the black sea and marmara Sea operations With the bulgarian campaing in the reach goals? And the baltic theatre?

[iambecomelife]

Hi; just got back from vacation! Hence the lack of updates here or on the Facebook page.

Yes, Oliver; I will attempt to include the Black and Baltic Seas, because several interesting events took place there.

However, I would categorize them as "reach" goals. They (along with the 1917-1918 United States Coastal U-Cruiser Campaign) will be done after the core North Atlantic/Mediterranean campaign. Based on tonnage sunk, the Atlantic/North Sea + Med get priority.

[Admiral Halsey]

Hey IABL out of curiosity are you going for RSRDC levels of accuracy when it comes to the naval battles that take place? For example if I watch the Jutland battle will the same number of ships that historically were in the fleets be there or less?

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

Hey IABL out of curiosity are you going for RSRDC levels of accuracy when it comes to the naval battles that take place? For example if I watch the Jutland battle will the same number of ships that historically were in the fleets be there or less?

Hmmm.....How to handle Jutland? The $64 million question.....

All I can say is, Jutland will be there and there will be MAJOR compromises. Do not expect every ship class to be there. And do not expect every individual ship to be there.

Some ships are low priority for modeling. Common ships like the "M" class destroyers (over 100 units built, and also useful for random encounter spawnings) are a much higher priority; whenever possible, "M" class ships like "Mary Rose" that were at Jutland will be in their historical positions.

And IIRC there were well over 200 ships involved - to avoid crashes and freezing, I will eliminate ships that were on the unengaged wings of the battle and fired few or no shots.

For instance, the 2nd Cruiser Squadron will probably not be modeled in Jutland because it was screening Jellicoe's unengaged side, and neither lost nor sank any ships.....That way I don't have to include "Shannon", "Hampshire", "Minotaur", "Cochrane", etc. I know it means fewer targets for the player, but WOTK's main goal is simulating the tonnage war. Not letting you "camp" famous surface actions.

You WILL probably see major events take place:

1) -Battlecruiser duel ("Mary" & "Indy" R.I.P. )

2) -Jellicoe deploys; main fleet action begins

3) -1st Cruiser Squadron destroyed ("Defence" explodes, "Warrior" & "Black Prince" crippled)

4) -Scheer turns away from the Brits; Jellicoe evades torpedo attack

5) -Night action ("Pommern", "Tipperary" sunk, German fleet escapes)


I am thinking about "scripting in" special models of destroyed ships, such as "Queen Mary", etc exploding for the early phase of the battle. It's all simple; just attaching particle effects in S3editor using the same principle as for funnel smoke....except instead, the particles will represent a battlecruiser blowing up.



("Queen Mary" explodes, killing over 1,200 men)

[Jeff-Groves]

Nice brilliant thinking Mate.
Build the temp model already exploding and script it in.
I like that idea!!

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

Nice brilliant thinking Mate.
Build the temp model already exploding and script it in.
I like that idea!!

I got the idea from the destroyed battleships you see at Pearl Harbor in stock SH4 (good move by the devs IMO).

If I have the time, I will also add derelict merchant ships with fire damage, broken lifeboats & other gruesome surprises....! They will spawn as random vessels - especially in 1917, when merchant losses were very heavy. This was already done for one of the SH3 mods, (War Ace??) and I thought it was a nice touch...made for a creepy ambience.

The renown value will be very low, because I assume the first Kaleun to damage the ship would get the sinking credit.

Imagine a burned, seaweed-covered hulk drifting towards your sub at dusk, out of the North Atlantic gloom.... lifeboats trailing behind, and no crew on board. No LIVING crew, that is....

[Jeff-Groves]

If I can get all the SH4 animations work re-built?
(Windows 10 whacked years of work!)
I think I'll have some really killer stuff for you.

It's pretty easy to play with the basic animations in SH4 using a good hex editor like 010.
Look for a simple release of a basic example soon.

[Admiral Halsey]

You know some of the things I want the most are just really small details. Like if a ship splits in half one side going down and the other potentially staying afloat a bit like in SH3 would be nice. Don't know if anyone's noticed but in SH4 if a ship splits in half both sides always sink at the same time.

[Ludwig van Hursh]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

You know some of the things I want the most are just really small details. Like if a ship splits in half one side going down and the other potentially staying afloat a bit like in SH3 would be nice. Don't know if anyone's noticed but in SH4 if a ship splits in half both sides always sink at the same time.

I don't know if anybody has noticed but in SH4 the ships tend to sink too fast and evenly in general

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by Ludwig van Hursh

I don't know if anybody has noticed but in SH4 the ships tend to sink too fast and evenly in general

Heh i've found even the more realistic sinking times they always seem to go down way to fast. Real Fleet Boat is the only one that I like with the speed of the sinking for ships.(though it could be a wee bit faster)

[Ludwig van Hursh]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

Heh i've found even the more realistic sinking times they always seem to go down way to fast. Real Fleet Boat is the only one that I like with the speed of the sinking for ships.(though it could be a wee bit faster)

True. I don't think it is so much the speed, well it is a little, but the fact that you can generally guess which ship can take which amount of damage before it sinks i.e. one torpedo for the little ships, three for the big ones. More realistic damage would be better.

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by Ludwig van Hursh

True. I don't think it is so much the speed, well it is a little, but the fact that you can generally guess which ship can take which amount of damage before it sinks i.e. one torpedo for the little ships, three for the big ones. More realistic damage would be better.

Hell after awhile one knows the weak spots on every ship and once the torp issues are fixed in 43 every ship is a sitting duck. Little tip for BB's BTW, always aim just behind the second turret and you can one shot them every time.