Newbie Help - A little overwhelmed

[JScones]

Unfortunately, SH3Cmdr is limited in how it can implement ship names because SH3 is so limited. When you sink a ship, SH3 records only the ship class and tonnage. SH3 does not record nationality nor does it record destination, meaning SH3Cmdr cannot make decisions based on those elements.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Of course changing it in Commander after the fact makes it go all wonky, but still...

Create a Personnel File. This allows SH3Cmdr to create the "framework" within each Log_*.cfg file in your career folder. Then do one of two things:

1. Use the Patrol Log Editor Plug-in (included automatically in SH3Cmdr R3.2), and/or
2. Manually edit each Log_*.cfg file to your liking.

Changing ship names, removing cargo details etc etc can all be easily done and will be picked up by both SH3Cmdr (when you next create a Personnel File) and SH3.

I use the Patrol Log Editor to record nationality (and other unique lines, as can be seen)...

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by JScones

I use the Patrol Log Editor to record nationality...

Okay, I totally want to do this now.

Steve, would it be possible to get a shipnames list like the one in the .cfg file you make, but with the nationalities of each ship noted?

Or even just a master list of all the ship names you've got, with nationalities. I don't mind doing the grunt work to sort them all out in whatever way makes it easier to implement them in my logs.

[JScones]

I'd recommend aiming for an automated solution that meets 80% of the need, leaving only 20% requiring manual intervention. To that end, you could:

1. Create an SH3Cmdr ship names.cfg file that just includes valid British ship names used between Sep39 and Dec41. It's a safe bet that most ships you'll sink during this time are British. This solution will easily meet 80% of your sinkings and will mean much less work for you to do manually. You could even go as far as changing the ship class names in Sea\EnglishNames.cfg to "British <class name>".

2. Create an SH3Cmdr ship names.cfg file that includes some Canadian, British, American (mix as determined by someone such as SS) to cover the rest of the war (or period as determined by someone such as SS). The odds are your sinkings will still get a correct "match", but there'll be more manual work to do here.

3. Repeat above for as many different lists as considered needed. Think laterally. If you are in an IXC Flotilla sailing over to the US all the time, use a list that is predominantly US ship names. If you are in a VIIB flotilla cruising around the UK, use a list that is predominantly UK ship names.

Use a copy of JSGME in your SH3Cmdr folder to swap them in and out as required.

You'll still have to edit in the nationality, but hopefully you won't have to play around as much with the ship names, remembering that SH3Cmdr also writes a "ship names used" log to avoid duplication, so if you modify manually and use a name that exists on the default list, you'll need to add that name to the already used.log file as well (this means that each ship list will have to be exclusive, to avoid name duplication after "crossover").

Make SH3Cmdr do as much of the grunt work as possible.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by JScones

I'd recommend aiming for an automated solution that meets 80% of the need, leaving only 20% requiring manual intervention. To that end, you could:

1. Create an SH3Cmdr ship names.cfg file that just includes valid British ship names used between Sep39 and Dec41

<snip>

Yep, this is exactly where I was thinking of going with it - making multiple versions of the shipnames file, each one to be used during a specific time period, and limited to ship names that would actually be appropriate for that time period. For me this would be ships actually considered enemy shipping, since I use the Contact Color mod and if something's not an enemy ship, I know it and leave it alone. In the unlikely event that I accidentally sank something that turned out to be neutral or friendly, that's where I'd have to sub in another ship name if I wanted to stay "honest."

Use a copy of JSGME in your SH3Cmdr folder to swap them in and out as required.

Holy moley hadn't even thought of that. Awesome idea.

You could even go as far as changing the ship class names in Sea\EnglishNames.cfg to "British <class name>".

It's like you're reading my mind!

I was sitting here looking through the game files for all the different ships, trying to figure out if it would be possible to add nationality in there somewhere so it shows up automatically... but I don't suppose it would be possible to differentiate between nationalities for classes of ships that are used in a lot of nation's rosters, by doing something with the files in the data/Roster/<nation> directories? I'm assuming that if you do it in the EnglishNames.cfg it's going to show whatever nationality that was edited in regardless of what flag the ship was flying when it was rendered in the game.

As you say though the likelihood of sinking ships from a wide variety of nations seems pretty small, so even there it would be less work to change "British" to something else when it happens, than to edit every single ship in the log after the fact.

One other thing I was looking at - adding ship names to the cfg files in the game's data/Roster directories. For instance, if I look at BBWarspite.cfg file in Roster/British/Sea, it's got 5 different named Units for that class. Could named units for other classes of ships be added in to their cfg files in the same fashion, or is that way too much data that would have to be loaded when the game is running?

While I'm looking at this I've also noted that the HMS Queen Elizabeth is one of the named units for the BBWarspite class, but she's already included as a separate ship as BBQueenElizabeth with her own cfg file and directory in the data/Sea folder. Is it safe to remove her from the BBWarspite.cfg file and have only the other four named units for that class? Just seems redundant to have her in there twice.

Or actually could you just remove the BBWarspite class entirely and put all five named units in the BBQueenElizabeth.cfg file? I think all those ships were considered QE-class battleships anyway and if so (and possible) that would remove the redundancy and be more accurate.

But that might mess up something with the campaign files, maybe they would have to be redone somehow to accomodate the change. I don't know how all that works. Yet.

Sorry to pepper you (and anyone else who cares to contribute) with so many questions... I just love the possibility of working out all these tweaks. I may end up cutting my current career short just to play around with using Commander to do as much of the tweaking as possible.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

I was sitting here looking through the game files for all the different ships, trying to figure out if it would be possible to add nationality in there somewhere so it shows up automatically... but I don't suppose it would be possible to differentiate between nationalities for classes of ships that are used in a lot of nation's rosters, by doing something with the files in the data/Roster/<nation> directories? I'm assuming that if you do it in the EnglishNames.cfg it's going to show whatever nationality that was edited in regardless of what flag the ship was flying when it was rendered in the game.

Correct. SH3 works off ship class id, so if ten nationalities have an NTS01 ship class in their roster, then whatever label that id is given in EnglishNames.cfg is what will be recorded in your log file. FWIW SH3Cmdr maps to ship class id as well.

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

As you say though the likelihood of sinking ships from a wide variety of nations seems pretty small, so even there it would be less work to change "British" to something else when it happens, than to edit every single ship in the log after the fact.

Exactly. And exclusive ships like German warships and such can be labelled "German <class name>", or "Australian Bathurst Class minesweeper" etc and so on.

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

One other thing I was looking at - adding ship names to the cfg files in the game's data/Roster directories. For instance, if I look at BBWarspite.cfg file in Roster/British/Sea, it's got 5 different named Units for that class. Could named units for other classes of ships be added in to their cfg files in the same fashion, or is that way too much data that would have to be loaded when the game is running?

Doesn't work. Seems an incomplete feature.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by JScones

Correct. SH3 works off ship class id, so if ten nationalities have an NTS01 ship class in their roster, then whatever label that id is given in EnglishNames.cfg is what will be recorded in your log file. FWIW SH3Cmdr maps to ship class id as well.

Exactly. And exclusive ships like German warships and such can be labelled "German <class name>", or "Australian Bathurst Class minesweeper" etc and so on.

Yep, was just looking at the file too and saw that quite a few are exclusive to one nation. Just picking the most likely nationality for all the others would certainly be the easiest tweak. I'm pretty sure that I've got mods running that overwrite the Sea/EnglishNames.cfg file so it's just a matter of working the tweak into the appropriate place to be added into the game when the time comes to tinker.

Doesn't work. Seems an incomplete feature.

Bummer. I kinda wondered how different names in the class cfg files would work, if the ID/name for the class is just going to be pulled from the EnglishNames.cfg and that limits it to one per class. Oh well. We work with what we got!

Thanks for all the input and info and great suggestions!

[JScones]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Yep, was just looking at the file too and saw that quite a few are exclusive to one nation. Just picking the most likely nationality for all the others would certainly be the easiest tweak. I'm pretty sure that I've got mods running that overwrite the Sea/EnglishNames.cfg file so it's just a matter of working the tweak into the appropriate place to be added into the game when the time comes to tinker.

Or use SH3Cmdr's "Static settings.cfg" file to apply the appropriate changes at the appropriate times, automatically.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by JScones

Or use SH3Cmdr's "Static settings.cfg" file to apply the appropriate changes at the appropriate times, automatically.

True, that file is AWESOME. I'm already using it for a few things and will probably use it to mod in even more stuff in my next career.

The only trick is that I'm pretty sure I've got a modded version of the EnglishNames.cfg file in there with the mods I'm using. So any changes written by 'Static settings' would have to work with that modded version, and be edited if I switched to another mod with a different version of it that included more or fewer or different classes of ships. I'm assuming that all the lines in EnglishNames.cfg have to correspond to a ship with a class cfg file in data/Sea, and vice versa. Is that correct or does it not matter?

[JScones]

Easy. Create one list of EVERY ship class that exists across all your modded versions of EnglishNames.cfg. Then add that list to Static Settings.cfg thus:

[0:data\Sea\EnglishNames.cfg]
ApplyToPeriod=19390101|19411231
NAMES|LSS=English Small Merchant
NAMES|etc for EVERY ship name you could possible have
 
[1:data\Sea\EnglishNames.cfg]
ApplyToPeriod=19420101|19451231
NAMES|LSS=American Small Merchant
NAMES|etc for EVERY ship name you could possible have

It doesn't matter if you write entries that don't exist in the game at that time; they'll simply be ignored (not seen) by the game. Creating one master list of all possible classes simply saves you the effort of having to tailor lists for each mod.

[Sailor Steve]

Okay, you've left me far behind on how this would actually work, since as we already know I'm kind of stupid when it comes to these things and don't always see the obvious.

@ Frau K: I could put up a copy of my working list, which includes the historic nationality and tonnage for each and every ship I've done. The only problem is I add several new names to it every day, so it's instantly obsolete. Also I would have to edit it first simply because I've found a lot of ships that don't come close to matching anything in the game, and it also includes a lot of notes to myself on names that don't actually match the class I have them with and why, plus lengthy footnotes on ships which don't match any class and are being held in reserve until a model comes along, if ever.

SH4 actually makes it easy to assign nationalities to models without significantly affecting framerates and loading times, or so I'm told.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Jim, your kindness never ceases to amaze me. That you would even offer to do such a thing for a fellow member goes so far above and beyond the call of duty. It makes me proud to call you friend.
(I'll expect my cut in due time)

The cheque is in the post

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by privateer

Um, You got your cut in Texas Mate.

It's called a Tee-shirt.
And not just any old Tee-shirt I might add!
Custom made and smuggled.....
I mean imported,
to the U.S. of A. just for you!
It was even given a ride in a Limo!
(Stolen or borrowed depending on how you look at the situation)
Now you want more?

ROFLMAO

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by JScones

It doesn't matter if you write entries that don't exist in the game at that time; they'll simply be ignored (not seen) by the game. Creating one master list of all possible classes simply saves you the effort of having to tailor lists for each mod.

Fantastic, thanks!

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

@ Frau K: I could put up a copy of my working list, which includes the historic nationality and tonnage for each and every ship I've done. The only problem is I add several new names to it every day, so it's instantly obsolete.

The only info I'd really be looking for is the correct nationality for each ship name that is used in your shipnames files for Commander. I don't mind if there's a ton of other stuff included (which I would probably find interesting anyway) and I'm perfectly willing to sort through it the way it is ATM to find what I'm looking for. I can make a "master list" of ship names by nationality from that for myself (and anyone else who's interested). So yes I would love a copy of the working list as it is, if you don't mind sharing it!

From there I think it would only be a matter of finding out nationalities of any ships that get added to new versions of the file as you make them available for download and use, and some of them I could prolly find on my own via Google and if not, I'd just be a pest and ask.