Barge lights

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[WAG]

Has anyone noticed that the barge lights at night are lit until you attach a tow line from your tug at which time they turn off?? That makes no sense!  I've tried everything to get them to turn back on or stay on including the "State of ship lights" command and "set all ship lights".  I'm creating a nice complex mission that segways into darkness and the blacked-out barges just don't look right.

[Traddles]

Hi WAG,
http://forum.shipsim.com/index.php/topic,30557.msg398189.html#msg398189

Have you down loaded and installed the patch above? There are a number of changes to lights on various vessels which might solve your problem.  I should point out that barge lights are those prescribed by the European Inland Waterways Navigation Rules.

Regards,
Angus.

[WAG]

Hi Angus, Thanks for the suggestion but it still does the same thing.  I tried CP1.0 as well as the few other patches, I do see the improvement of the nav lights such as port and stb where there were none before but as soon as I either connect a tow line or get behind to push and secure a line to the barge all the lights go out.  Tow boat or pusher boat lights work fine.  I even tried connecting to a player ship and its lights went out as well.  Whatever it is it's in the base program and not the individual ship profiles themselves.  To be safe I uninstalled the whole program and re-installed with no change in behavior.  Can you tell me if your program does this as well?  You can test it in the mission creator, you don't even have to go into play.  Just pick two ships, set environment to dusk or dark, press "test" and drag the towboat over to another ship that's showing lights and attach a line to it.  You have to click out the remaining yellow balls showing the mooring points for the true test.  Hope to hear your results, thanks

[Traddles]

Hi WAG,
I have everything that it is possible to install in the game. However, I do not seem to have the problems you describe. I attach some screenshots to show that all lights are working correctly. The only thing I can think of is that your computer specs. are a little close to the mark for the game. This is quite possibly NOT the case, but I cannot think of anything else which might cause the problem, I am afraid.

Regards,
Angus.

[stormforce]

Hi WAG,

From the description of your issue I am assuming that you are either playing or creating a 'mission', but I may be wrong in that assumption. Personally I never use the 'mission' aspect of SSE, it is an online only game for me so I cannot comment on the 'mission' aspects.

In attempting to recreate your issue as far as I can, I created a multiplayer session which included the Inland dlc and used a separate pc to connect to the session.

The server, (the barge in these pictures) has:
   Intel i3 4170 cpu running at 4.0Ghz
   8Gb ram
   Nvidia GTX-650Ti
   Windows 7 Ultimate x64
   SSE 1.5.5
   Community patch 1.0

The player pc, (the Cratus in these pictures) has:
   Intel i7 3930K cpu running at 4.6Ghz
   16Gb ram
   Nvidia GTX-980Ti x 2 in sli
   Windows 7 Professional x64
   SSE 1.5.5
   Community patch 1.0
   Community patch 1.3 - all of the barges

Picture 1 shows both Cratus and the Coal Barge with navigation lights on before attempting to connect a line.

Picture 2 shows the two vessels connected with a tow line and the navigation lights are still on.

Picture 3 shows the active connection on the Cratus.

I appreciate that a multiplayer environment may not actually replicate your situation but it’s the best I can do, and as you can see I was unable to recreate your issue. My results corroborate those obtained by Traddles but I am uncertain if Traddles results were obtained in a 'mission' or multiplayer environment. Unfortunately this is ultimately immaterial as none of this would appear to help you at all. 

[Traddles]

Hi Stormforce,
In order to try to check WAG's problem as close as I could, I made a "dummy" mission with just the three player ships. That is, Cratus, HerculesAtlas & the sand barge.
I attach this dummy so that WAG can try  & see if his problem persists.

Regards,
Angus.

[WAG]

We must be getting close to a solution because the computer Gods are now kicking in!  I can't see the ship Cratus in my "select a ship" window, nor does the mission you sent me show up in "single mission".  Everything appears to be in the right place, your two mission files are right there along side the other custom missions I've created and I downloaded Cratus from CP1.2 and it and it's dynamics show up along with the other ships in the "Dynamics" folder and its seven files in the"ships" folder.  Any ideas? Regarding the lights, I was able to keep them on after downloading one of the drivable barges from CP1.4, it seems the ship must be designated as a "player" and not "static".  I wish this were the final solution but none of those barges work in my mission because they are not set up to tow.  If you use the tow command the line doesn't go to the centerline but rather to the port or stbd cleat.  And none of them are a single barge except for that very small one, I ended up pushing the coal barge that is two side by side with one being powered and compromised by saying the steering is out and it needs a second engine to make its destination!  I used the mooring command to tie the Herkules up to the STBD aft corner of the powered barge which is the command I was hoping to use anyway because i wanted the realism of selecting the best tie-off points while trying to hold the tug in position.  Thanks for your effort, I'll keep trying to get Cratus to appear.

[Traddles]

I am completely baffled WAG. I have put a static coal barge in my "dummy" mission. When I select the towing symbol on "Cratus" BOTH barges show their towing connections when I click on the central towing point on the tug. The player sand barge & the static coal barge too.
You can see from my picture that each barge has a central towing connection. If I select the Mooring symbol on "Cratus" then only the mooring connections show on the barges, there is no central mooring connection as it is not needed. This is probably a silly question, but you do have the Inland Shipping DLC installed don't you? That is the only way that I can see that "Cratus" does not show for you, if you have not installed the DLC. Were you using "Bugsier 2" as your tug in your mission? I am becoming convinced that your problem relates to the fact that you have downloaded from CP1,2 & CP1.4 which would give you the files you describe but NOT the tug and original barges from the Inland Shipping DLC. For example do you have "Deo Favente" & "Roier" in your select a ship window? If not then I am now getting down to the nitty gritty and you do NOT have the DLC installed..

Angus.

[WAG]

Update: I downloaded the covered barge from CP1.4 which is two barges in series and the "tow" command works fine for that one (centerline tow point).  So that's good at least since I can control the lighting on the barge by jumping in the pilothouse and turning them on!  I'm baffled as well why my static models don't behave with the same lights???  Strange I can't get the Cratus vessel to show up

[WAG]

You are correct, I purchased the Extremes Collection which has everything except inland shipping.  BTW, do the lights work on the barges after you connect? They are off in the picture you posted.  I'll grab the inland package as you suggest, thanks!

[WAG]

Hi Traddles, I downloaded the Inland DLC and your test mission showed up! Yea!!!  I tried attaching a tow line to the barge and that worked, I was also able to "jump ship" and turn the lights on.  But for the real test, I went back into mission editor and set the time to evening, then selected a static barge and dropped it next to the one you put in. When I opened the mission to play, the static barge had its lights showing, but once I hooked up with the tow line, they went out just like before!  Here's a pic

[Traddles]

Hello again WAG,
I have done as you suggested and made my mission dark. The static coal barge does show her steaming lights when opening the mission but, like you, the lights go out when connected to either tug (as a tow), or pusher (as a pushed vessel.) Possibly in the building of a mission, this could be altered, but in my ignorance I cannot work out how it could be done.
My picture shows the player sand barge in tow to "Cratus" when it is possible to set her lights to what ever you wish.
She is currently showing an all round mast head light and stern light as required by the European Inland regs. The only answer I can see is to build your mission with any barges as player ships, not static ones.

Angus.

[WAG]

Hi Traddles, I'm SO relieved its not just me!  I've tried everything in mission editor and the result is always the same.  You can command "all ships lighting state", "single ship light state", transfer command" (to try and bring up a lighting button).  Since it only happens when the line is attached to the barge I figured it was detecting a change of state or toggle so I used the command "all lights off" at the initiation of the mission figuring the toggle when the line gets attached would turn the lights on, didn't work.  I tried towing the barge "without connecting to its bollard" by mounting my own bollard to the barge the way you would do on a pier then attaching the bollard as a child entity to the parent barge, still didn't work.  The only thing that appears to work is if you do not use the "tow/push" command but rather "moore". The lights then stay on but you have a limited number of mooring locations as in not being able to grab a centerline but rather a port or starboard cleat for towing, and since you can't attach two lines to the same centerpoint of the pulling tug, you can create a Y harness.  So the answer is as you say, for night ops either use a player barge (which now is available with the inland DLC) or tow/push under the cover of darkness, stealth boat style!  Thanks for your help, I'll let everyone know if I ever find a solution.