[REL] Merchant Fleet Mod for Silent Hunter 3

[Walruss]

Neutrals for me? If they're running dark to or from a brittish port, they get sunk. If they're clearly carrying war supplies (tanks trucks, ect), they get sunk. If they're in a British convoy and a good shot? They get sunk.

If they're lit up like a Christmas tree, they move on. Or if they're running dark but in a neutralish area.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Damo

I also run the Community Units mod, which had some of IABL's ships in it. If that particular ship is listed in my englishnames.cfg it's because either it was listed in the MFM mods folders or it was already there in the IABL ships listing that Community Units already entered into Englishnames.cfg. As you say though, having it there even if it doesn't exist in game doesn't seem to cause issues so it's not an issue as far as I can see, I'm just covering all the bases.

Silly me. I use Community Units too, and I completely forgot that some of the ships have undergones some changes since he originally started the project.

As I said, I don't think having a ship on the list that isn't in the game will hurt anything. I was mostly just curious.

[Damo]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Silly me. I use Community Units too, and I completely forgot that some of the ships have undergones some changes since he originally started the project.

As I said, I don't think having a ship on the list that isn't in the game will hurt anything. I was mostly just curious.

Curiosity killed the cat....

[Robin40]

Let me put some considerations on the SH3Commander Patrol Log

1) SH3Folder/data/Sea/EnglishNames
This is a list that assigns a Name to a Ship Class
M27B=Medium Merchant 27

This is what you see in the Ship item of the scope “Medium Merchant 27” for the M27B Class
B British
A American
X Neutral

2) The EnglishNames list is not enough to get full info in the SH3Commander Patrol Log
To do this you must have that Class described in SH3Folder/SH3 Commander/Cfg/Ship names
In our example
[M27B]
CargoTyp=1,2,3,4,5,6,6,7,9,10,11,12,12,13,13,14,14 ,15,15,16,16,16,17,18,19,19,20,21,22,22,23,23,24,2 5
CrewRange=45|85
0001=SS Afghanistan
0002=SS Anglo African
0003=SS Arabistan
0004=SS Armanistan
…
If you sink an M27B ship you will get full info in the Patrol Log, say SS AngloAfrican Cargo Aircraft (if CargoTyp=6)
If you don’t have this reference you don’t have full Patrol Log
　
3) However you must have M27B in the SH3 world
So in SH3Folder/data/Sea there will be a M27B folder and in it an M27B cfg file like this
SH3Folder/data/Sea/M27B
[Unit]
ClassName=M27B
UnitType=102
MaxSpeed=14.5
Length=128
Width=15
Mast=19
Draft=9
Displacement=6300
RenownAwarded=210
[2DCompartments]
UnitPos=56,8,403,20
NbOfComp=4
Name1=Propulsion
Area1=58,5,30,18
Name2=Keel
Area2=164,2,187,10
Name3=Engines Room
Area3=207,13,52,18
Name4=Fuel Bunkers
Area4=261,13,30,18

You see
ClassName=M27B
This is the ClassName which SH3Commander points to
If you don’t have a folder M27B and an M27B cfg file no M27B cargo will sail in the SH3 sea
　
4) Anyway this not yet enough
You must have your ship in the Nation folder
SH3Folder/data/Roster/British/Sea/M27B

[UnitClass]
ClassName=M27B
UnitType=102
AppearanceDate=19380101
DisappearanceDate=19451201
DisplayName=Medium Merchant 27
[Unit 1]
Name=Medium Merchant 27
DOC=19380101
DOD=19451201

5) So if you want a neutral say a T01X you must have all references in
SH3Folder/data/Sea/EnglishNames
SH3Folder/SH3 Commander/Cfg/Ship names
SH3Folder/data/Sea/T01X
SH3Folder/data/Roster/Ireland/Sea/T01X (if you want for Ireland)
SH3Folder/data/Roster/Greece/Sea/T01X (if you want for Greece)
　
6) Please tell me if I am right

[Damo]

If you wanted the Neutrals to display a name, cargo types and crew as well as having the game interface display them correctly, i.e. Medium Merchant ##, then yes you are right. However, one thing that Steve has said regarding names is that there's no point in him adding names to neutrals as you shouldn't be sinking them. This is also hit on by him, Frau Kaleun and myself in his February Ship names thread as Frau and myself are looking to get some kind of entry added to acknowledge these ships.

As it stands, the MFM adds X type ships to the Allies roster folders, therefore making Neutral ships enemy vessels. The problem arises when SH3Commander wants to add the name, cargo and crew info in the log, in that it can't, because there are no references to X ships in Steve's lists. You can't alias the B or A type names to the X's either because then the neutral nations will be assigned British or US shipnames which kind of negates the point of Steve's sterling work.

I was hoping to add a generic class to the shipnames.cfg so a ship sunk entry may look something like this:

Ship Sunk!! Medium Merchant 13 ####tons Unidentified. Cargo: Unknown Crew: Unknown Crew Lost: Unknown.

My reasoning is that if the allies were disguising ships with neutral vessels' hull flags or just sailing them with no markings, it'd be against the war regulations and as such, the existence of that particular ship would be denied, although it would still be entered in a patrol log as that's the record of ships sunk by the sub captain, and BdU are more likely to believe his version of events.

But this is all stuff I've already gone through in Steve's thread and as yet I've not looked into how to achieve it or whether it's possible. Jaesen is the best person to ask as to how flexible the coding is in regards to creating a generic entry as above specifically for those neutrals. Or, you could just leave them as is, with my updated englishnames.cfg and you'd just get the type of ship sunk with no other info, guess it depends on how meticulous you are for detail.

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by Damo

Or, you could just leave them as is, with my updated englishnames.cfg and you'd just get the type of ship sunk with no other info, guess it depends on how meticulous you are for detail.

Yep...but after modding SH3 with full MFM....

...in the Roster neutral nations don't have any X ships, so you will never meet an X neutral ship

[Damo]

Originally Posted by Robin40

Yep...but after modding SH3 with full MFM....

...in the Roster neutral nations don't have any X ships, so you will never meet an X neutral ship

Yes they do, it's only the Interim version where there are no X neutrals. Open the full mod's data/roster folder and you'll see the roster folders for the nations that have X ships.

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by Damo

Yes they do, it's only the Interim version where there are no X neutrals. Open the full mod's data/roster folder and you'll see the roster folders for the nations that have X ships.

If I open the MFM (full) Roster I see no ships, say for Ireland

I see

American
Brasil
British
Canadian
Greece
Norway
Russia
Sweden

All Allied ones but Sweden

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Damo

Curiosity killed the cat....

General Topics thread.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Robin40

If I open the MFM (full) Roster I see no ships, say for Ireland

I see

American
Brasil
British
Canadian
Greece
Norway
Russia
Sweden

All Allied ones but Sweden

The MFM doesn't add its ships to all the rosters in the game - just the ones listed in the mod itself. No one is claiming otherwise.

But not all of the nations listed above are enemy nations for the duration of the war. Norway remains neutral for seven months, Greece for over a year, and Russia for almost two years; the US is neutral until Dec 1941 and Brazil until Aug 1942. Sweden is neutral throughout the entire conflict. So yes, putting X class ships in those nations' rosters does give you legitimately neutral ships depending on the in-game date. A ship in the American roster is not going to act like an enemy ship prior to Dec 11, 1941, and a ship in Sweden's roster never will. However a ship disguised as Swedish but spawned from the British roster will act like an enemy ship at any time after Britain declares war on Germany.

And AFAIK it may be possible for the individual player to add some of those ships to the rosters of other nations, although I could be wrong about that. And how that would play out in terms of historical accuracy and appearance (many of IABL's skins are nation-specific), I don't know.

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

The MFM doesn't add its ships to all the rosters in the game - just the ones listed in the mod itself. No one is claiming otherwise.

But not all of the nations listed above are enemy nations for the duration of the war. Norway remains neutral for seven months, Greece for over a year, and Russia for almost two years; the US is neutral until Dec 1941 and Brazil until Aug 1942. Sweden is neutral throughout the entire conflict. So yes, putting X class ships in those nations' rosters does give you legitimately neutral ships depending on the in-game date. A ship in the American roster is not going to act like an enemy ship prior to Dec 11, 1941, and a ship in Sweden's roster never will. However a ship disguised as Swedish but spawned from the British roster will act like an enemy ship at any time after Britain declares war on Germany.

And AFAIK it may be possible for the individual player to add some of those ships to the rosters of other nations, although I could be wrong about that. And how that would play out in terms of historical accuracy and appearance (many of IABL's skins are nation-specific), I don't know.

Yes....but why are there X ships in the British Roster?

[Damo]

Originally Posted by Robin40

If I open the MFM (full) Roster I see no ships, say for Ireland

I see

American
Brasil
British
Canadian
Greece
Norway
Russia
Sweden

All Allied ones but Sweden

The ships come with various different colorschemes and then there's the skinpacks that come separate. Although the Neutrals in the MFM are in a limited number of roster folders, given the randomness of which skin they have, there is no need to have the ships in all countries' rosters. Sweden roster folder for example will have ships that are either painted with an Irish flag by default or it may be given the skin of a neutral country. What this means is, that as the neutral countries are just that, neutral, they can have neutral painted ships from any neutral country in them, it doesn't matter.

What I think you expect is that every country in the game should have it's own neutral ships in their respective roster folder, but to do this the size of the download would increase ten-fold. To get around that, IABL has only added a couple of roster folders but arranged the ships and the skins so that countries that stay neutral for the duration of the war will only wear neutral colors. The countries that are neutral for part of the war before becoming enemy will only use neutral skins, but once they become enemy they then fall into the same category as the British ships, in that they may fly neutral flags or be painted in neutral schemes.

I'm hoping I got that right, that's how I see it anyway. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from adding X neutrals to every countries roster if you wish but expect to play the guessing game as to whether they are enemy or not a lot more. By limiting the roster folders, the 'disguised neutral' phenomenon is kept from getting unrealistically frequent.

Edit: The X ships are in the British roster to create the 'is it a neutral ship' question requiring you to investigate. I thought you got that part?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Robin40

Yes....but why are there X ships in the British Roster?

The reason to have X ships in the British (or any other "enemy") roster is that they will spawn from that enemy roster and therefore be enemy ships (according to the way the game reckons it) and behave as enemy ships when approached or attacked by your u-boat - but they may not look like enemy ships. They may not be flying an enemy flag, may not be flying any flag at all, may have no external markings to identify their nationality, or may even be "disguised" as ships from a different nation.

The point is, it won't be as obvious at first glance whether or not such a ship is legitimate target; sometimes a decision has to be made about that based on the ship's behavior, location and apparent destination, visible cargo, etc. So it becomes more complicated than just spotting a ship and IDing it as "enemy" or "neutral" based solely on its flag or markings. There may not be any flag or markings, or that ship that looks Swedish may be sailing into an English port with war materials strapped to its deck. The decision whether or not to attack is not always so simple any more.

Edit: it might be easier if we thought and spoke of the 'X' ships not as neutral ships, but as mystery ships where X = unknown. Because when they appear in the game they might be neutral or they might not be. There's no way to know because when one appears in the game you can't always tell which roster it spawned from based only on the usual criteria (flags and markings).

[Damo]

Lol, I'm gonna take a break. We're all posting on top of each other....

And my head hurts.

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by Damo

The ships come with various different colorschemes and then there's the skinpacks that come separate. Although the Neutrals in the MFM are in a limited number of roster folders, given the randomness of which skin they have, there is no need to have the ships in all countries' rosters. Sweden roster folder for example will have ships that are either painted with an Irish flag by default or it may be given the skin of a neutral country. What this means is, that as the neutral countries are just that, neutral, they can have neutral painted ships from any neutral country in them, it doesn't matter.

What I think you expect is that every country in the game should have it's own neutral ships in their respective roster folder, but to do this the size of the download would increase ten-fold. To get around that, IABL has only added a couple of roster folders but arranged the ships and the skins so that countries that stay neutral for the duration of the war will only wear neutral colors. The countries that are neutral for part of the war before becoming enemy will only use neutral skins, but once they become enemy they then fall into the same category as the British ships, in that they may fly neutral flags or be painted in neutral schemes.

I'm hoping I got that right, that's how I see it anyway. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from adding X neutrals to every countries roster if you wish but expect to play the guessing game as to whether they are enemy or not a lot more. By limiting the roster folders, the 'disguised neutral' phenomenon is kept from getting unrealistically frequent.

Edit: The X ships are in the British roster to create the 'is it a neutral ship' question requiring you to investigate. I thought you got that part?

roger