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Quote:

Originally Posted by Marka Ragnos (Post 1251840)

Hi all,

A big newbie question

I'm trying to create a custom mission and while understand most of it the entry dates are confusing.

Is there a way to ignore the entry dates? Just a map and place ships/subs without having to worry about the entry date?

Thanks

The entry date is usually the date a ship is available, so as long as you want it to start when the mission starts just leave the entry date alone, but if the entry date for a ship is after the mission start date, it will not be there when your mission starts. For example the Iowa has an entry date in 1943, so if you try to put it into a 1942 mission, it will not work because it is not available.

But you can change the entry date if you do not want a ship available at the start of the mission. (usually the missions are short and this does not happen, but it happens a lot when writing campaigns.) Or if you want ships to appear at different times during the mission. For example, if the entry date is 1938, the ships will start as soon as the mission starts. But if you have a mission that starts on Jan 1, 1942 and you want some ships to start on that date leave the entry date alone, but if you want some other ships to start 3 days later, change the entry date to Jan 4, 1942 and they will not start until that date.

The players sub can NOT start AFTER the start of the mission, it must be there at the start.

Another item that can make things different if "Evolve from Entry Date". That means the ship basically ignores the "Mission Start Date" and actually starts on the "Entry Date" set for the ship. This is one way to keep a mission that you have written a surprise even to you.
Example: You write a mission for Jan 1 1942 and a convoy leaves Tokyo harbor. It will normally leave the harbor at the start of the mission. BUT if you set the "Entry Date" for the convoy to Dec 29, 1941 and select "Evolve from entry date" it should leave Tokyo on Dec 29, 1941. So when you enter the mission on Jan 1, 1942, you will not know where it is. Just make sure if you do this, you do not leave the entry date at 1938 because by the time you enter the mission it will have already traveled to its destination and been deleted, so it will never appear in the mission.

So a simple answer, in most cases the "entry date" can be ignored if it is before the start of the mission.

Peabody