NAR Alpha 1 for UAD 1.7

[Maximus Tyberius]

@o Barão

Added  117 real Chilean ship names to the existing ones. how can I send you the file?

I think I could do a similar thing with the Argentinians.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Maximus Tyberius

[Maximus Tyberius]

.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Maximus Tyberius

[o Barão]

42 minutes ago, Maximus Tyberius said:

@o Barão

Added  117 real Chilean ship names to the existing ones. how can I send you the file?

I think I could do a similar thing with the Argentinians.

Upload the file to any cloud you like and share me the link. I will add in the next update

[Maximus Tyberius]

@o Barão here it is 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s9xL4bNuPQbEHIm0kph4hMCQZmLrEN-z/view?usp=sharing

Idk if the file is the same as the original was because I had to convert it from Text to columns to edit it. could you check it please?

[NathanKell]

On 10/20/2024 at 12:43 AM, o Barão said:

---mod status update---

• Added new AI sec lines for DDs. Didn't exist because there are no sec on DDs in vanilla. Now, if there is room, the AI can use those empty spaces for small guns if they are not near main guns or torpedoes. Also, it should be very rare if not almost impossible to see the AI using barbettes close to the bow or stern in DDs.
• Many small changes/improvements for some AI styles, as an example: to force the use of torpedoes only in the middle, a new barbette AI choice logic being used in late era light cruisers to promote the use of more guns.
• Most cruiser towers weight were already rebalanced. I am checking all the hulls to see if the AI can design them without any issues, and how to improve the design process to make it better ships.
• Some hulls and components were changed to improve the design language.

 

Some examples (AI designs).

China new torpedo battleship, now with torpedoes only in the middle to prevent spamming .

 

New design language for the traditional modern japanese heavy cruisers hull. No barbettes, main tower forward and torpedoes only in the middle. Unfortunately, I still didn't find a way to implement torpedoes in the below the deck hull mounts. I know the AI can do it with the 2" guns, so there is probably a solution somewhere.

Annoyingly, the type of thing a mount can hold is baked into the model. So I'd need to write code to clobber those mounts to accept torpedoes. Assuming I understand correctly what you're talking about.

Btw, was sick. What's the status of stuff you'd need me to fix at the moment? I think I remember there was an issue where the ship generator sometimes generates ships where parts are not positioned for where their mounts actually are? Like that cruiser with the casemate guns in the wrong place. That happened with no changes to the hull's model size, right?

[o Barão]

o7 @NathanKell!! I noticed that you were not active these days, and I was about to send you a message asking if was everything ok. I hope you are feeling much better now.

11 hours ago, NathanKell said:

What's the status of stuff you'd need me to fix at the moment? I think I remember there was an issue where the ship generator sometimes generates ships where parts are not positioned for where their mounts actually are? Like that cruiser with the casemate guns in the wrong place. That happened with no changes to the hull's model size, right?

Correct, but first, if possible there are other things that should be done first.

• Yesterday, I updated to the latest UAD version, and it seems to be working with your latest Taf, but if possible check if everything is alright with the code, because I noticed the devs added new features and I would like to be sure everything is working well.

About ship designs, three features:

• Add this new modifier: ai_min_caliber_main(?) so I can force all capital ships to have a minimum limit, so it will be impossible to see 9" capital ships.
• Remember you said to me that if there is available tonnage, Taf will let the AI go above the speed limit? I will need to ask to remove that freedom. It is not an issue if the AI build use around 80% to 95% of the total hull tonnage. It will help the AI not spending too much money, or fill the port capacity, but when it goes above the limit is only creating new issues with the AI generating ships going above the tonnage limit or too expensive because of this.
• If you can write a code to allow the torpedoes to be used on hull mounts below the deck, it would be amazing. And if possible, remove the possibility of the AI to use them to place 2" guns, so I can force the AI to only place torpedo mounts. This is special important for the Japanese modern cruisers.

 

As a side note from the latest UAD update:

"Fixed shared designs not having a working tonnage limit, fixing case when you loaded a shared design which had tonnage higher than allowed, it would reset to the maximum allowed tonnage and corrupting the save."

I always suspected to be a vanilla bug what was causing the issue, so maybe this is the solution.  I can use the ship generator later and try again if there is no more issues, but for the moment I am very busy in trying to understand how randparts file work. Sometimes I see good improvements, other times I simply can't understand why the AI doesn't do what I am asking. It is very frustrating and time-consuming.

Edited October 22, 2024 by o Barão

[NathanKell]

10 hours ago, o Barão said:

o7 @NathanKell!! I noticed that you were not active these days, and I was about to send you a message asking if was everything ok. I hope you are feeling much better now.

Thanks!

10 hours ago, o Barão said:

Correct, but first, if possible there are other things that should be done first.

• Yesterday, I updated to the latest UAD version, and it seems to be working with your latest Taf, but if possible check if everything is alright with the code, because I noticed the devs added new features and I would like to be sure everything is working well.

Yep I released a TAF last night updated to 1609x3, but Nick's been busy.  I'll update to 1.6.1.0 tonight but if you don't get a warning dialog on game start saying there is a version mismatch and forcing the game to quit, TAF should be fine. (I added warning dialogs a bit back.  )

 

10 hours ago, o Barão said:

About ship designs, three features:

• Add this new modifier: ai_min_caliber_main(?) so I can force all capital ships to have a minimum limit, so it will be impossible to see 9" capital ships.
• Remember you said to me that if there is available tonnage, Taf will let the AI go above the speed limit? I will need to ask to remove that freedom. It is not an issue if the AI build use around 80% to 95% of the total hull tonnage. It will help the AI not spending too much money, or fill the port capacity, but when it goes above the limit is only creating new issues with the AI generating ships going above the tonnage limit or too expensive because of this.

Yep, those are easy to do 👍

10 hours ago, o Barão said:

• If you can write a code to allow the torpedoes to be used on hull mounts below the deck, it would be amazing. And if possible, remove the possibility of the AI to use them to place 2" guns, so I can force the AI to only place torpedo mounts. This is special important for the Japanese modern cruisers.

To do this I need a list of the hulls you want changed, and a way to describe these mounts. If you have not yet played with UnityExplorer, that's how to find this out. Launch the game with UnityExplorer installed, go to the constructor and set to that hull. Hit F7. Change from Constructor to DontDestroyOnLoad, open ShipsActive -> your ship -> Container -> Hull -> your hull partname -> go through the hierarchy to find the mounts you care about and see what's unique about them.

10 hours ago, o Barão said:

 

As a side note from the latest UAD update:

"Fixed shared designs not having a working tonnage limit, fixing case when you loaded a shared design which had tonnage higher than allowed, it would reset to the maximum allowed tonnage and corrupting the save."

I always suspected to be a vanilla bug what was causing the issue, so maybe this is the solution.

It's possible that's what the issue was, but I'm doubtful, sorry! That sounds like something a user could do; the code generating the ship always picks a tonnage within the limit as far as I can tell. But it's very possible other changes in the last few updates fixed the issue you're seeing.

10 hours ago, o Barão said:

  I can use the ship generator later and try again if there is no more issues, but for the moment I am very busy in trying to understand how randparts file work. Sometimes I see good improvements, other times I simply can't understand why the AI doesn't do what I am asking. It is very frustrating and time-consuming.

Can you give me examples of things that don't work the way you expect?

Also I will add a feature to TAF that will output, for each hull, all the rules that apply to it. Hopefully that will help?

It will output more rules than will actually apply in practice, because often there are multiple rules doing the same thing, for example multiple rules that add a main tower, and only the first rule that succeeds will apply. Later rules may also fail if there is no longer space on the hull to mount what they call for (for example there could be 3 different funnel rules, but the by the third funnel rule, the remaining space has been filled by guns so no funnels can be mounted and the rule does nothing).

[Kiddorific_Yohan07]

How does one change the version to the one this mod is using which is UAD 1.6.0.6 opt x4. I cant seem to find it on the betas.

[Peksern]

1 hour ago, Kiddorific_Yohan07 said:

How does one change the version to the one this mod is using which is UAD 1.6.0.6 opt x4. I cant seem to find it on the betas.

@MDHansen did post a solution for this problem in a separate thread. Check it out.  Or wait until @o Barão has updated NAR, he's working on it.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2024 by Peksern

[o Barão]

13 hours ago, NathanKell said:

Yep I released a TAF last night updated to 1609x3, but Nick's been busy.  I'll update to 1.6.1.0 tonight but if you don't get a warning dialog on game start saying there is a version mismatch and forcing the game to quit, TAF should be fine. (I added warning dialogs a bit back.  )

Thanks!!

 

13 hours ago, NathanKell said:

To do this I need a list of the hulls you want changed, and a way to describe these mounts. If you have not yet played with UnityExplorer, that's how to find this out. Launch the game with UnityExplorer installed, go to the constructor and set to that hull. Hit F7. Change from Constructor to DontDestroyOnLoad, open ShipsActive -> your ship -> Container -> Hull -> your hull partname -> go through the hierarchy to find the mounts you care about and see what's unique about them.

Hulls list:

• moga_hull_a_var2
• moga_hull_a_var
• moga_hull_d
• moga_hull_a

I will try the unity explorer later today if I see I can find the mounts you are asking.

13 hours ago, NathanKell said:

Also I will add a feature to TAF that will output, for each hull, all the rules that apply to it. Hopefully that will help?

That would be interesting.

 

13 hours ago, NathanKell said:

It will output more rules than will actually apply in practice, because often there are multiple rules doing the same thing, for example multiple rules that add a main tower, and only the first rule that succeeds will apply. Later rules may also fail if there is no longer space on the hull to mount what they call for (for example there could be 3 different funnel rules, but the by the third funnel rule, the remaining space has been filled by guns so no funnels can be mounted and the rule does nothing).

Yes!! And from my testings the best way to help the AI on designing ships is to use only one global rule that works well for that hull. I am seeing many vanilla ships with 2 or 3 rules to follow, and the AI goes nuts trying to get a working design sometimes. Changing to only one, makes the life much easier for the AI.

Some examples:

if the hull have a limited front deck, then use "Tower_forward"

The towers need barbettes? "Barbette_need"

No need for barbettes? "No_barb"

 

I am mentioning these 3 variants because it is the ones I am focusing more on editing in the past week, mainly for light and heavy cruisers. I still didn't touch these variants for Battleships.

I am going to try to add  "and(!tag[g4])" to all funnels for all CL,CA,BC,BB. If it works it should help the AI a lot.

 

13 hours ago, NathanKell said:

Can you give me examples of things that don't work the way you expect?

Recent there was a modern spanish CL, that no matter what I did, the AI still refuses to place a main gun in the stern. Strange things like that.

Edited October 23, 2024 by o Barão

[o Barão]

On 10/22/2024 at 2:23 AM, Maximus Tyberius said:

@o Barão here it is 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s9xL4bNuPQbEHIm0kph4hMCQZmLrEN-z/view?usp=sharing

Idk if the file is the same as the original was because I had to convert it from Text to columns to edit it. could you check it please?

There are some writing errors with some names. I don't know if will cause issues in game, so I will apply only the new ones that don't have any problems. Thanks.

[mKopac]

Hi, in campaign almost all nations seem to only build submarines and no surface ships. How can I fix this?

Thanks for answer

[Maximus Tyberius]

8 hours ago, o Barão said:

There are some writing errors with some names. I don't know if will cause issues in game, so I will apply only the new ones that don't have any problems. Thanks.

They're not errors They're the accents like in Constitución  etc. What program are you using? Notepad++? Maybe I can correct them. Also, you need to replace the existing names, they're kind of wrong. Like TB names for BB or Cruiser names for BB.. While Having a Lot of TB and Many DD Chile didn't have a lot of Battleships, just some Ironclads, 2 pre-dreads, and 1 super dread. So I extrapolated the important names in history for the BB and BC's

Edited October 23, 2024 by Maximus Tyberius

[o Barão]

1 hour ago, Maximus Tyberius said:

They're not errors They're the accents like in Constitución  etc. What program are you using? Notepad++? Maybe I can correct them. Also, you need to replace the existing names, they're kind of wrong. Like TB names for BB or Cruiser names for BB.. While Having a Lot of TB and Many DD Chile didn't have a lot of Battleships, just some Ironclads, 2 pre-dreads, and 1 super dread. So I extrapolated the important names in history for the BB and BC's

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that are errors made by you, but instead errors due to different languages settings between the programs. 

 

If you are running the game on English you can in the shipyard click to create a new ship and the game will pick one from the list. Repeat the process until one name using accents appears. If showing correctly, then there is no problems and is only instead a limitation of the language I am using in notepad++

[DougToss]

I'm always really impressed with what you're doing here. 

How would you describe, as best as you can tell, how the AI tries to build ships here compared to RTW? I'm trying to wrap my head around the reason for the randomness in number of guns, arrangement, calibre, that you're working around. I appreciate your fixes, I'm just wondering why the AI tries to build ships where 9 inch guns would even be considered for a capital ship (absent a treaty). 

[DrWiFi]

There was talk about limiting what is allowed during refits like armor type and making engine refits take longer. Are those still on the table?

[Maximus Tyberius]

@o Barão Fixed it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iAMbHbfO1WajYYHTr7JX4WIDRTlKfEBP/view?usp=sharing

[o Barão]

5 hours ago, Maximus Tyberius said:

@o Barão Fixed it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iAMbHbfO1WajYYHTr7JX4WIDRTlKfEBP/view?usp=sharing

Great stuff! It will be added in the next update! Thanks!

[o Barão]

9 hours ago, DougToss said:

"...I'm just wondering why the AI tries to build ships where 9 inch guns would even be considered for a capital ship (absent a treaty)."

Historical reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittelsbach-class_battleship

There were a few BB that were armed with 9" guns, so I need to keep that option in game.

 

I don't know how the AI in RTW designs the ships. I remember, the only advantage RTW have is the fact that you can set the armor for the lower belt and the upper belt.

 

About how the AI designs ships in UAD, I need to make it short. It is possible to write a detailed guide about this and do lecture for students for a 2-month period. In essence, is the combination from 5 files:

params - some important global modifiers are located here about how much room is needed for the weapons and how big  the guns should be. The weight and hull instability modifiers are also located among others.

shipTypes - Per class min and maximum speed, armor, gun caliber and other things (note gun caliber can also be set individual per hull in the "parts" file, that is why you see 9" semi armored cruisers in NAR)

parts - hull stats, size, how many sections, speed, "styles" and components being used, minimal guns requirements, etc...

randparts - Is where "styles" are being created. I call it "styles" a combination of different parameters to tell the AI what to do when designing a ship. Note that a ship can have one or many different "styles" for the AI to follow.

partsModel - Is where you choose and edit the guns 3D models that are being used by each nation and ship class, and mark variant

Edited October 24, 2024 by o Barão

[Pappystein]

On 10/23/2024 at 6:36 PM, DougToss said:

I'm always really impressed with what you're doing here. 

How would you describe, as best as you can tell, how the AI tries to build ships here compared to RTW? I'm trying to wrap my head around the reason for the randomness in number of guns, arrangement, calibre, that you're working around. I appreciate your fixes, I'm just wondering why the AI tries to build ships where 9 inch guns would even be considered for a capital ship (absent a treaty). 

Just to add to what o Barão stated above:
 

Germany specifically had a pre and even early dreadnought design philosophy that smaller caliber rounds fired more often would provide a better damage potential.  

This concept quickly fell by the wayside as gunnery ranges increased with the advent of better powder and rangefinders.

[Peksern]

And another update... well, their output's kinda impressive. Will that be a problem to TAF and NAR? @o Barão @NathanKell

[overvaalmaaken]

Hello, the question is this. "Flush deck" destroyer hull has mounts on top of steel "barbettes". But only secondaries can be mounted, so is there any way to make it accept main guns, so 102mm can be placed?

[alphajedi16]

I don't know how others feel about this but one of my major grievances with the vanilla game is the shell magnetism that occurs when ships get too close to each other. To me, it seems that the problem is a more "recent" phenomenon since I don't remember it being prevalent in pre-steam release builds. But perhaps I have some rose-tinted glasses towards early builds of this game.

Anyway, is there a way to turn off or modify this "feature" in the files or is it hard-coded?

[overvaalmaaken]

4 hours ago, alphajedi16 said:

I don't know how others feel about this but one of my major grievances with the vanilla game is the shell magnetism that occurs when ships get too close to each other. To me, it seems that the problem is a more "recent" phenomenon since I don't remember it being prevalent in pre-steam release builds. But perhaps I have some rose-tinted glasses towards early builds of this game.

Anyway, is there a way to turn off or modify this "feature" in the files or is it hard-coded?

Devs changed accuracy system so that hit is predetermined before firing (flying shell is just a visual thing), as opposed to physical contact of shell with the target, so it's more likely hard-coded

[Fyredrake]

11 hours ago, alphajedi16 said:

I don't know how others feel about this but one of my major grievances with the vanilla game is the shell magnetism that occurs when ships get too close to each other. To me, it seems that the problem is a more "recent" phenomenon since I don't remember it being prevalent in pre-steam release builds. But perhaps I have some rose-tinted glasses towards early builds of this game.

Anyway, is there a way to turn off or modify this "feature" in the files or is it hard-coded?

Completely agree with this tbh, it feels unrealistic when the grouping of shells is in a completely different area and 1 shell departs that group to then hit the ship, instead of the group basically straddling the ship, or a turn of the enemy ship or my own throwing off the shells in a way.