My discoveries about wrong appearance dates
 

So guys, you believed that when you set a second appearance date for an improved gun on the same node of a ship, it will appear at this same date ? Well, not at all !!!

Here are my results about some tests with the stock battleship King George V. I precise that the hour was always 12 o'clock :

When you open the .eqp file, you see that the AA guns are all improved on 1942.06.01 :

[Equipment 12]
NodeName=A05
LinkName=20mmGBDouble
StartDate=19380101
EndDate=19420601

[Equipment 13]
NodeName=A05
LinkName=40mmDouble
StartDate=19420601
EndDate=19451231

OK, but how is it in game ? Is the 20mm replaced by the 40mm on 1942.06.01 ? Not at all ! It will be replaced on ....... 1942.07.01 !!!

Now, let's change appearance date from 1942.06.01 to 1942.05.31. Well again, change is applied on 1942.07.01.

Now, if I change appearance date for 1942.07.01, will the 40mm appear on 1942.08.01 as expected ? Well, not at all ! It will appear on .... 1942.10.22 !!!

Now, the question is : from what appearance date the 40mm stops to appear on 1942.07.01 but on 1942.10.22 ? I didn't try to find this, as you have to restart the game in order the change in .eqp file is taken into account, and it's too time consuming

OK. Last test. What if the appearance date is not 1942.06.01, but 1943.06.01 ? Does the 40mm appear in 1943.07.01 as expected ? Well ..... again not at all !!!!!!!! It will appear on ...... 1943.09.03 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:har:

How puzzling this game is ...

So my conclusion is : a certain (unknown) in-game appearance date is set for one (unknown) period of time (in .eqp file), and this date is always older than the last day of the period. If the appearance date of a gun in the .eqp file is in a certain period, this gun will appear at the date corresponding to this period.

Now, what are the values ??????

:hmmm:

So, here is a table of what I've discovered. If you have some infos about the unknown values, please tell, the table will be updated.

Format of the date : year.month.day
Ex : 05/31 means 31 of May.

http://i.imgur.com/WWtmR5T.png

We have found in SH4 while doing Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate, that "fictitious" dates abound in the game. I'm sure those came from SH3, which probably got 'em from SH2...

You will find February 29th (not so often), April 31 (not so often) and June 31 (frequently). I'm sure there's some September 31 and November 31 dates, but I can't remember how many. CapnScurvy has been on a tear over there lately, and might have all of those eliminated from FotRS. Might not be in our next release, but maybe the one after that.

That said, I have no idea if that sort of stuff influences "Available" dates like you're seeing or not. We did have issues with skinning, but found date issues across the vessel's entire file set. In other words, the two cfg files didn't match, the skins didn't match, and something else didn't match... I'd have to ask s7rikeback to refresh my memory... Either that, or change my batteries out... :doh:

... another idea:

The appearance date could be just the earliest time the changes to take place. There might be some randomised delay

Yes, possibly. I will try another day to see if I get the same appearance dates in game.

OK. Tested today with the same appearance date. And this time, the first appearance day for the new 40mm gun was 21 July 1943.

Strangly, I got this date at the first time. When I tried 20 July, the gun was no more updated ... :hmmm:

Another discovery : I have set an appearance date for rockets on the Me 262 : 1945.03.01. Well, on April 1945, I created a mission with 6 Me-262, all loaded with rockets. In game, only one Me262 was carrying rockets ..

Good finding :up:
I, like the_frog, believe that the dates stored in eqp files are the earliest appearance/disappearance dates, which are randomized by the game every time a new unit comes within rendering radius, and all your tests seem to confirm it :yep: