Quote:
Originally Posted by Immelmann
"- it cost me renown to stay at sea."........I never knew that was a possibility. Is the renown automatically deducted? I can't imagine that it would be purchased like crew members of renown or new equipment. I can't even imagine what that screen would look like. Look, if it costs me renown to stay at sea then leave me on shore. 
Is there a list somewhere of the items can and cannot be altered by SH4 modders? I see a bunch of different things and I'm sure that many of them are hard coded into the game core engine. I would love to have a list to check before posting a bug to this forum that nothing can be done about.  |
When I was doing my testing, done similarly to Ducimus', I did not track the "renown" path. We were more after the upgrade paths of the submarines under certain configurations. The renown though does appear to be a moving target. You get so much renown for sinking a ship, so much renown for completing mission objectives, etc., all of which are easy to follow. But then I would get back in from patrol, expecting to have say 1200 renown points, but I would find that I had 1254 instead??? So there is apparently a "bonus" given for a patrol rating, I guess. This makes it next to impossible to determine how much renown it does cost to stay at sea if you get "promoted" to Sub School Instructor. It also makes it difficult to determine how much renown it costs, or is given to you for a new boat or conning tower, because you don't get to see your "score", or renown total until you are back in the Captain's Office. Would you find any accurate information on this subject in the SH4 owner's manual?... ~no~... but it does cost a LOT of renown to stay at sea. Since I'm guessing that the first boat upgrade is with 5000 renown and at least a good skipper rating, I'd say the "cost" would be in the neighborhood of that. I will revisit this subject at a later date, and try to update everybody, but it is very boring to do - besides frustrating...
As for a list of items we cannot alter... The Save system is one. The way the game uses the Save folder, etc. Those are areas that cause all sorts of grief. As RR mentions, invalid data will often cause a CTD, and there is no error-checking to catch bad data. Also, we are stuck with all sorts of default behavior, such as with the insertion missions, the photo missions, etc., but we can alter the parameters surrounding them. It is taking a while, but we will have new SpecOps missions, and unfortunately, without the help of SpyRon. However, the 'modern' researcher does have more info at-hand. This is not to say that things will not be "wrong"... We suspect that we can change the "craft" used to launch the insertion missions, and have made progress, but thus far, it's still a rubber raft. Things like that. A lot of the game does have parameters that can be adjusted, but it's like a symbiotic relationship in the game, and you tweak the sub's dive speed, and now the thing won't hold depth, or whatever. I have noticed now that the lifeboats seem to be different (again). They have been tweaked about every other release, but who know what happens there?... I don't think anyone has attempted to compile a "list" of known issues with no known fix, but as has been mentioned by a certain modder I know, "If you say it can't be done, you've already defeated yourself..." - or something to that effect (sorry Jeff).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Wood
Just tested.
1) Reinstalled SH4 at E:\Silent Hunter 4 and applied patches 1.4 and 1.5.
2) Installed FOTRS.
3) Ran LAA.
4) Started application.
5) Exited application and deleted SH4 folder.
6) Reran LAA.
7) Restarted application.
8) Began career at Pearl Harbor in the Skipjack, with 500 renown and left on December 8,1941.
9) Was told to goto Convoy College and await orders.
10) Ignored this and sailed 75 miles directly south of Pearl Harbor.
11) Sat there until February 8,1942
12) Returned to Pearl Harbor.
13 Checked and found I still had 500 renown
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I would go to the "Star" location for the mission first. In most cases, that will get you 150 renown points for the completed mission orders. Some are worth 200, some 300, and if you go into the Great North, some are 400, but you are at the limits of a boat's endurance up there, and need to be mindful of the fuel situation. Also, if you encounter anything enroute, and it looks safe to attack, do so, because you get points for the sinking of the ship(s), whether assigned yet or not. They would not count toward any objective you haven't reached and been assigned yet. The game has a provision for a player to call in a "Contact Report", but we've reduced the points you get from that down to 50 or less. You of course, won't get renown points if you don't sink something, or complete an assigned mission, either assigned at the start of the patrol, or given after a Status Update. The Status Update is not supposed to (though it is known to mess up) assign a new objective until the first is complete. You coming back in with a "zero" renown increase, according to the Ducimus formula, puts you into the "Poor" column for that particular patrol, earning you a -1 for a campaign rating. It will take a lot of work to get your "score" in that category back up and qualify for a new boat after four or five patrols, and might put you in line for the Sub School Instructor's position... If it's just an experiment, I'd start anew, else see what you can do with the next three or four patrols. Thanks