[tbarak]

Anyone interested in maybe working together on a map or small campaign? Mappers, modders and skinners are all welcome. Also if you already have a map, and don't mind, maybe we could put our maps together into a campaign? Just some ideas.

A little about me:

I am a mature gamer with about three years of level-making experience, including mapping, modding and scripting. I've published stuff for Age of Mythology and The Titans, Doom 3, and Age of Empires 3. The AOM projects have over 10,000 DLs world-wide - not bad for realtively small community like that. I've also published quite a few tutorials. My most recent work (which will be published any day now) comes with a web site walk through that's found here:

http://www.thegameexchange.org/TrialsWT.php

Needless to say I have a lot of web space and could support a SH3 project with a web site.

I also had the amazing experience of being short-listed for a cinematic-maker job by a very large and well-known game developer. I mention this stuff so you guys know that I am pretty serious about this game design hobby. I do it for the pleasure and creative outlet, but also to keep building my portfolio.

Anyway hopefully there's someone (or somebodies) with similar interests and maybe we could have some fun and make a coop project? Post here or email me at tbarak@mts.net.

[sergbuto]

What kind of campaign do you have in mind?

[tbarak]

Hi,

Thanks for posting and for your interest.

I kind of thought it may be hard to find people to work with and for fear of turning people off I didn't want to lock in the campaign too much in case people didn't like it. I honestly think it would be best to find the people first and maybe work together to define a campaign - if indeed making a campaign is what we'll do. I would be satisfied with making just one or two missions instead if that would work better. Just looking to have some fun, learn a bit, and enjoy a very relaxed group effort experience.

The reason the campaign is appealing is that the Naval Academy entry on the menu could modded, to say be called "Mission Black", and each training mission could be replaced by a combat mission. That would be a nice way to package the campaign and indicate if each mission was accomplished. Lots of room for text there too, like for mission descriptions and background information.

I really wanted to integrate one of the enigma simulators into the game, and give the player a few coded messages to decipher which would provide objectives. The mission I was thinking about making would start by the player having to finding a 10-part quadgram (10 groups of 4 letters). The letters would be printed on various things in the game, like for example inside the sub interior so the player has to hunt for them. I'm trying to put some of the letters on ships (a saboteur has painted them below the water line on a particular ship for the u-boat to see). The player has to sneak by some enemy ships and get close to it to read the letters. Stuff like to find the codes.

Once they have all the letters they de-cypher the code and get their objective. The mission is to save the German weather ship Lauenburg (which was captured by the British where they discovered the Enigma code books and the machine). In other words, the player can change history and maybe help Germany win the war. Kind of quasi-history with a twist. Would love the campaign to end (if the player wins) by having them sail into New York harbour which has been taken over by the Germans.

Anyway the story of the Lauenburg can be found here:

http://home6.inet.tele.dk/ron/greenland/wbs3_1.htm

So, instead of spending hours writing a story and campaign that possibly no one wants to help with maybe it's best to wait to get input from others. Besides the campaign could also be five unrelated missions too. Well those are my preliminary ideas anyway. I am going to keep working out some of the technical details and solve some problems first, then work on one mission. Once it's done, if I make more, then I can always release the campaign later. Otherwise, if I can find a couple more interested people, we could all contribute one mission and build a campaign out of them.

Well if you care to, maybe talk a little about what interests you, the kinds of things you're working on, and what your skills are. I know it seems the mission-making and modding glory days of this game are kind of over, but I still think there's lots of time to have fun with the game, meet others with similar interests, and maybe work together on a co-operative project.

[tbarak]

Okay not all once please, we're going to break the dbase, LOL.

Well it's been fun exploring the moddability of the game anyway. I did manage to put letters on a T3 but the textures are really wrapped and repeat so below the waterline didn't work. There was just one place that worked. Unfortunately the pattern is repeated on the other side but that's good since it doesn't matter which way the player approaches it. Have to be really close to see it on 100% realism through the scope. Want to test it at night too. Well I keep slowly working, maybe one day I find someone as crazy...er...interested in editing for this game.

[Gizzmoe]

I´m moving this to the Mods forum, it´s probably a better place for this thread.

[booger2005]

tbarak:

First of all, you are more or less posting in the wrong forum. If you're interested in making a mod , try the mod section. If you're interested in making a campaign, try also the mod section. This forum is (so far) mainly for building single misions via the traditional method (mission builder), although I am not a moderator.

Your idea to mod the Training missions into a scripted mini-campaign is interesting but probably too complicated for what its worth. The excitement of this game is its fully random campaign and the focus of late has been adding historic scripted elements on top of it, and very recently several new and competing campaigns have emerged and absorbed people's interest. I just can't imagine that a fantasy scripted campaign will garnish enough interest to justify the time it will take to reork the training missions. Plus, if your mini-campaign mod conflicts with one of the new supermods (or any other mod) which is a very real possibility, that's going to cause problems and no one will want it anyway.

Your idea of an enigma message is very interesting, but the only problem is that SHIII is a strain on performance as it is, and running another application on the side, I fear, will be a serious FPS hit on all but the best spec machines. Perhaps suggest that they save the mission, exit, decode, and come back when they are done? Hiding a message in textures though, IMHO, is a bad idea. Besides being a pain in the butt, it is unrealistic and in addition will confict with a slew of popular texture mods. There are a lot of people running a mod that makes the merchant ships show up in civilian corporate markings, etc. as well as ones with all kinds of different camo schemes, etc. Modding interior textures- well whatevere can be done has in other mods, again setting you up for potential mod conflicts. You are aware that you can recieve scripted radio messages? That would be a much better, more logical, and more realistic way to recieve an enegma code.

I've myself been working on a two mission "mini-campaign" I guess although I haven't called it that untill now. It's simply two single (single player) missions. The last objective of mission 1 is to get to point A. Mission 2 starts at point A... If the briefings are carefully written, a mission set can be designed so that they player can choose to play the missions in order, or individually without having too many secrets from the other missions revealed. Such an arrangement is simple and versatile enough to work with any mods, since it uses existing abilities. I might be interested in working with somebody on something like this especially incorporating the enigma thing.

Anyway, I have a feeling that you want to work on something much more substantial. I would suggest posting in the mods forum. They can give you a much better idea of what is feasable, what has been done already, what conflicts with what mod, etc. Good Luck, I hope whatever you work on turn out well!

[booger2005]

[tbarak]

Thanks for the great write-up Booger (LOL nick) and I appreciate you taking the time to explain things to me. Well the mods conflict I am aware about and to be honest it's making my head spin. I mean, for someone new to the game the myriad of mods available - and many of them competing for space in people's folders - is just plain confusing to deal with. To try to compete with them is a waste of time - being new and all - and it would have to be something really special for people to want it. I have the skills but the time required I can't justify because of the issues of a new job starting soon (gaming job btw, yay!!!)

Being new I realize people won't probably care about my project and that's okay. Also dealing with the incredibly focused interest of most hard-core sim fans, I'm a little unaccustomed to the strict rigidity of the appetite for historical accuracy. I love realistic games too, but I also like some fun elements as a change of pace. I know there are others like me too. So like they say in marketing, find a niche and explore it. I'd be crazy to try to add yet another historically accurate mod to the pile since the pile stretches into the clouds already.

For me I want to have some fun, maybe meet others with similar interests, and maybe have a go at completing something. I can host it on my site once complete so nothing lost. Even if no one plays it that's fine too. Again I like the game a lot and I want to keep working in game design to keep my skills sharp and learn as many engines/game styles as I can. When interviewing for gigs the first question is, "What have you done?" Well I want to be able to add a SH3 project in the portfolio to show them. I know you are trying to save me grief and I appreciate that, it shows you're a considerate person willing to help newbies. You're project sounds interesting and I'll have to read a bit more about it.

Not sure how laggy the Enigma addition would be. I mean, I run a clunker rig with only 500 Megs of RAM and an 800 Pro card. No problem with minimizing the game and even working in Photoshop at the same time. After a lot of processing I do get vitrual memory warnings but the game has never frozen. I'd love to code it into the game but that's way too much work. I plan to use all the kinds of commands available in the game, including radio commands, but messing around with the codes and de-cyphering the messages has been a lot of fun.

[Mick520]

I'd be interested in helping.

What sort of things would you like your team members to do?

[sober]

Please dont put the anchor down!!!!!!!!!!
Full steam ahead

[tbarak]

Ahead flank! Thanks Sober.

@Nick:

Depends on what your skills and interests are. I think it's safe to say most people are probably already working on their own stuff so trying to create a large team of specialists won't probably work. We have to decide on a story, see what assets each one of us can bring to the party, get a sense of our interest and time allowances, and commit to some ideas.

We keep it simple but I want to try to make it unique in some ways. I think the little Enigma side line is along the right way of thinking. Maybe a mission or two at first, a few little simple mods for variety and to address technical issues, and we're set. No pressure, just realistic goals and the preface is we have fun.

But an exchange of ideas and enthusiam may be a good way to get the ball rolling. Tell me more about yourself and your interests and skills. You can post here or we hook up on Messenger. Just need to know your nick and a general day and time since I don't go on it regularly.

[tbarak]

I think this is why I avoided putting my thread in the mod forums. It is now low on the list and lost in the cacophony of the mod buzz. Oh well thread, good-bye as you fade into history and no one notices it anymore.

Sort of symbolic, the reason I avoided making a history mod to try to compete with the very talented and smart people around here. Oh well, I keep plugging away hoping some lost, wayward soul reads my thread and hopefully has similar interests and wants to work together. My project isn't a mod, it's a single mission or campaign that happens to use mods to help the story and to solve technical issues. In retrospect it should have been left in the scenario design section, where people would actually have a chance to see it.