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The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 2:14 pm
by blackcloud6
I tried to place a ship in Lake Erie and also in Lake St. Clair in the shipping channel and I get an error that says you cannot place a ship in land. So CMO considers the Great Lakes as land? Can this be fixed?

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 3:21 pm
by Dimitris
Sorry, you'll need to use a different game for that.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 4:23 pm
by Nikel
There is a community scenario called Caspian Darts by Kevin Kin with ships in the interior Caspian Sea, what is the difference with the Great Lakes?


Edit: oh, I see that the Aral Sea is also unavailable, which is more correct because it is mainly dried.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2022 3:29 am
by KnightHawk75
Nikel wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 4:23 pm There is a community scenario called Caspian Darts by Kevin Kin with ships in the interior Caspian Sea, what is the difference with the Great Lakes?


Edit: oh, I see that the Aral Sea is also unavailable, which is more correct because it is mainly dried.
The elevation data is the difference. You can't by default place ships at positive elevations, or for that matter facilities in negative elevations even though there are many places around the globe where both are valid (but the game doesn't have a way to know that). There are a few areas in the global where this is overridden - suez+panama as I recall but beyond that you will run into this issue, as you also will with basic navigation of units that in encounter invalid terrain for themselves even when it's not in real life).

That said you can actually overcome this if you truly desire by using lua to place them, and lua to move them (by constantly overriding the default navigation logic and having it follow your own course, it's not for the faint of heart though). Another way you used to be able to over-ride this regarding ships is placement of lots of ports and having their access-arcs all overlap slightly, that used to work for example to let something navigate down the St.Lawrence river or say to clear up navigation problem with elevation data around pearl harbor or other similar places.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2022 4:51 pm
by BDukes
Muck. Was going to take my Habs and Bruins conflict to a whole new level.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 12:33 am
by Rob322
blackcloud6 wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 2:14 pm I tried to place a ship in Lake Erie and also in Lake St. Clair in the shipping channel and I get an error that says you cannot place a ship in land. So CMO considers the Great Lakes as land? Can this be fixed?
You can place them in a few spots I believe where the depth is below sea level but that wouldn't be Lake St. Clair obviously. That said, you could put a vessel in California's Salton Sea (or sail it over the land in the Imperial Valley!) since it qualifies as being under sea level.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 12:40 pm
by Nikel
KnightHawk75 wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 3:29 am
The elevation data is the difference. You can't by default place ships at positive elevations, or for that matter facilities in negative elevations even though there are many places around the globe where both are valid (but the game doesn't have a way to know that). There are a few areas in the global where this is overridden - suez+panama as I recall but beyond that you will run into this issue, as you also will with basic navigation of units that in encounter invalid terrain for themselves even when it's not in real life).

That said you can actually overcome this if you truly desire by using lua to place them, and lua to move them (by constantly overriding the default navigation logic and having it follow your own course, it's not for the faint of heart though). Another way you used to be able to over-ride this regarding ships is placement of lots of ports and having their access-arcs all overlap slightly, that used to work for example to let something navigate down the St.Lawrence river or say to clear up navigation problem with elevation data around pearl harbor or other similar places.
OK, thanks.

According to the wikipedia, the Great Lakes elevation is between 75 and 183 m above the sea level.

The Caspian Sea 28 m below. And the Aral Sea 30-40 m above.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2022 12:51 am
by Rob322
Nikel wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 12:40 pm
KnightHawk75 wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 3:29 am
The elevation data is the difference. You can't by default place ships at positive elevations, or for that matter facilities in negative elevations even though there are many places around the globe where both are valid (but the game doesn't have a way to know that). There are a few areas in the global where this is overridden - suez+panama as I recall but beyond that you will run into this issue, as you also will with basic navigation of units that in encounter invalid terrain for themselves even when it's not in real life).

That said you can actually overcome this if you truly desire by using lua to place them, and lua to move them (by constantly overriding the default navigation logic and having it follow your own course, it's not for the faint of heart though). Another way you used to be able to over-ride this regarding ships is placement of lots of ports and having their access-arcs all overlap slightly, that used to work for example to let something navigate down the St.Lawrence river or say to clear up navigation problem with elevation data around pearl harbor or other similar places.
OK, thanks.

According to the wikipedia, the Great Lakes elevation is between 75 and 183 m above the sea level.

The Caspian Sea 28 m below. And the Aral Sea 30-40 m above.
I believe though the game let's you place them if the under water elevation is below sea level. I believe Lake Superior has depths that extend below sea level, as does Lake Michigan (and possibly parts of Huron). I don't think Lake Ontario or Erie have anything that qualifies.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2022 2:45 am
by cdnice
There is a work around I used on the St. Lawrence to get to Quebec City. I just placed piers along the way and had the cones overlap the river to make it traversable. I then grouped them all together and voila, river sailing!

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2022 1:20 pm
by stilesw
Clever!

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2022 2:21 pm
by KnightHawk75
I believe Lake Superior has depths that extend below sea level, as does Lake Michigan (and possibly parts of Huron). I don't think Lake Ontario or Erie have anything that qualifies.
---
The evevation data in use by the game is legit (https://topex.ucsd.edu/WWW_html/srtm30_plus.html).

Yes as I said you can place some where there is a negative elevation, land vs sea in CMO is based on elevation data for that purposes.

There is a work around I used on the St. Lawrence to get to Quebec City. I just placed piers along the way and had the cones overlap the river to make it traversable. I then grouped them all together and voila, river sailing!
and up it was very clever. ;)

Yup, in fact sounds like exactly the scene I was thinking of when I mentioned it:
Another way you used to be able to over-ride this regarding ships is placement of lots of ports and having their access-arcs all overlap slightly, that used to work for example to let something navigate down the St.Lawrence river or say to clear up navigation problem with elevation data around pearl harbor or other similar places.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:58 am
by SunlitZelkova
Do underwater weapons work with the "using ports" technique though? I tried to do this in a test at Pearl Harbor, but the Type 91 torpedoes would not work.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:48 pm
by BDukes
Well, there goes my hunt for the Edmund Fitzgerald scenario idea. Thanks a lot guys!

M

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:00 pm
by thewood1
And church bell rang til it rang 29 times

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:01 pm
by Nikel
Found this from the depths of the Internet, cited in the wikipedia article. Sunk in a storm. Which is your idea for a scenario?



Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:51 pm
by BDukes
Nikel wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:01 pm Found this from the depths of the Internet, cited in the wikipedia article. Sunk in a storm. Which is your idea for a scenario?



The-cruelest-month-edmund-fitzgerald-newsweek-november-24-1975.pdf
Gordo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzTkGyxkYI

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:28 am
by Gunner98
Great tune. Remember seeing Lightfoot sing it live once

Lived in Thunder Bay until about 72 and remember some of those storms, you don't mess with ol' Gitche Gumee

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:53 am
by KnightHawk75
SunlitZelkova wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:58 am Do underwater weapons work with the "using ports" technique though? I tried to do this in a test at Pearl Harbor, but the Type 91 torpedoes would not work.
Very likely not, could have air defense stuff also not work when placed in negative elevations unless the munitions engine has entries for negative and positive altitude entries, etc. So it's something to watch out for and test if trying to build real scene.

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2025 2:11 pm
by blackcloud6
I just had this discussion on Steam about making inland water ways usable for ships. This can now be done by using the Custom Environmental Zone (CEZ) feature. I was able to create such a zone around the coast of Lake Huron and by making it "water." Ships will now follow plotted courses and otherwise act normally within the zone you create. However, in order to place ships in such a zone, you have to insert them into the scenario on a normal game body of water and then move them into the CEZ with the "M" command.

Make the Great Lakes great again!

Re: The Great Lakes inaccessible to ships?

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2025 9:27 pm
by Mgellis
I agree. Now that [my opinion has been deleted so I don't offend anyone] has decided Canada is our natural enemy, I suppose we should prepare for dueling coast guards. 🤦🏻‍♂️

blackcloud6 wrote: Thu Apr 03, 2025 2:11 pm
Make the Great Lakes great again!