[WIP] Damage Control analyzer that factors crew experience into the damage report

[billko]

I wish I could edit the poll. What I meant by "1.4" is the pending 1.4 patch of course.

Although this application is similar to H. Gieseke's DA II, I purposely didn't even peek at his code because this was a project I made to familiarize myself with VB .NET. Any similarities, while not coincidental , were unintentional. After all, when two programs are written to do similar things, they're bound to have some similar code! That doesn't mean I don't give him credit, though. It was his program that inspired me to do this in the first place, especially because it seemed that development on that project had been frozen for some time.

Anyway, this application actually factors in the crew experience *by comparment* so that if the forward torpedo room gets damaged and it's the worst damage on the ship, you rely on the experience of the forward torpedo room when the damage estimate comes in. Any "Unmanned" compartments are covered by the damage control team - including the hull, which is almost always worst damaged - so now there's a reason to have experienced crew on the damage control team! Also, this application peeks at the submarine cfg file to get the crush depth and periscope depths, so it can report diving depth in feet instead of percentages.

If you have any questions, you can ask them here or contact me at: billko@worldnet.att.net. Anyone sending me email pertaining to the application will be added to my Damage Control mailing list for update notification.

Bill




Edit:
This file has a new home at http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=1156!!!

History:

Version 1.1.0.0
Fixes:
None

Bugs:
Medals shown do not match what is in the game. (SH4 1.3)
Changes:
Special Dedication to LeoVampire/Dave in help file credits
Title changed to "Damage Control - LeoVampire Edition."

Version 1.0.6.1
Fixes:
Fixed DC incompatibility with flotillas.upc. (In other words, added bases should *really* work now!)

Bugs:
Medals shown do not match what is in the game. (SH4 1.3)
Changes:
None

Version 1.0.6.0
Fixes:
Fixed in-game time and date to actually do something. (It reads from the command log, which has the time and date of the last command issued. If there is no command log (i.e., in port, it reverts to the old way of getting the date and time). Since DC reads from legacy files that have little, if anything, to do with gameplay, I totally agree with the Dev's and their decision not to fix this bug, since it has absolutely nothing to do with how the in-game time is kept.

Bugs:
Medals shown do not match what is in the game. (SH4 1.3)
Changes:
None

Version 1.0.5.3
Fixes:
Fixed embarrassing laziness bug where Bases/Flotillas were hard-coded so that added bases/flotillas were being flagged as "Unknown."

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game. (SH4 1.3)
Changes:
None

Version 1.0.5.2
Fixes:
None

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Hint: Dave, look in the credits, okay?

Version 1.0.5.1
Fixes:
Fixed a problem in the Tambor class (I believe Gar, Salmon and Sargo classes were also affected) where the application was incorrectly assuming that these sub classes had the option of having an aft AA gun, which screwed up how it was reporting AA Gun damage.

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
I *finally* understand all the silly things that happened to the US Navy's flag officer ranks, Rear Admiral Upper/Lower half, and the Commodores (pun intended). It turns out that for a while, the US Navy HAD no one-star flag officer equivalent. You went straight to Rear Admiral (two stars) from Captain. This was because the previous one-star designation, Commodore, confused everyone, since that was also the title for any Captain that commanded a small fleet of ships. As if they didn't have that problem with Captains being both a rank and a title for any officer that commanded a ship! Anyways, the other branches of the military got hurt feelings when their Brigadier Generals were getting outranked by Navy officers they considered junior to them, so the Navy re-introduced the Commodore rank for a few years, then decided that they would instead split the rank of Rear Admiral Lower and Upper half into distinct ranks (one and two star flag officers, respictively). Previously, it was a designation only of pay grade. Your tax dollars at work!!! Anyway, for a significant part of WWII, the US Navy had no one star Flag Officers, so that will be faithfully represented now.

Version 1.0.5.0
Fixes:
None.

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
User can now choose saved game folder path.
Help file updated to reflect changes.

Version 1.0.4.7
Fixes:
Fixed a bug where the "bronze stars" (for duplicate medals) weren't cleared when loading non-career saved games (how embarrassing).
Fixed a spelling error in "history.txt"

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Edited help file to inform the user that Player Info is not available for non-career saved games.
Bug fixes

Version 1.0.4.6
Fixes:
None.

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Made text box cursors default cursor instead of I-beam so user won't be mislead into believing the data can be changed.
Cleaned up some stuff in the help file.

Version 1.0.4.5
Fixes:
None.

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Optimized for memory.

Version 1.0.4.4
Fixes:
Fixed an annoying bug where there old tooltips were being displayed along with new ones (noticable when you loaded a game with a different amount of medals).

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Bug Fixes

Version 1.0.4.3
Fixes:
fixed unreported bug where crew damage report not updated if the user has overwritten the original latest saved game.
Efficiency mods to the program to reduce memory consumption.
Saved games with a long career can slow loading of the info to the point where it causes noticable lag while it is loading the info. Damage Control v 1.0 will now not load the saved game unless the files being loaded are actually different than those already loaded.

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Bug Fixes
Code optimization

Version 1.0.4.2
Fixes:
Okay someone actually had six bronze stars and crashed the application. Workaround in place - shows only up to four gold stars...
Fixed an unreported error where the purple heart stars would show the number of CMOH stars... that's what happens when you have lots of nearly identical code...

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Bug Fix

Version 1.0.4.1
Fixes:
Silly error where CMOH medal stars weren't working right - gave a purple heart star (even when no purple heart was awarded)

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Bug Fix

Version 1.0.4.0
Fixes:
None.

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Added gold stars for each duplicate medal! (SH4 keeps track of this, even if it doesn't show up in your medal case!) Tooltips show date received!
Tooltip on rank picture shows date promotion was received.
Updated Help File to reflect new features.
Updated readme.txt for installation instructions.
Bug Fix: My apologies to H. Gieseke for totally botching his name in the credits of the help file! It's fixed!

Version 1.0.3.1
Fixes:
Fixed a cosmetic bug where some file menus were accidentally enabled before their functionality was implemented. No crashes, just menu choices that don't do anything.

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Bug Fix

Version 1.0.3.0
Fixes:
None.

Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
An integrated help file was added!

Version 1.0.2.2
Fixes:
Fixed a bug involving the fact that subs come in different configurations.
Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Bug fix

Version 1.0.2.1
Fixes:
Fixed a small silliness where the Damage Control Team reports itself as being damaged, when in fact it's the compartment that is damaged! (But the compartment is actually named "Damage Control Team" in the game!)
Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Bugfix

Version 1.0.2.0
Fixes:
None
Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Finally made it so the application shows micro-damage. (Equipment/Weapon Damage disappears from the game, yet is still not performing to 100%)

Version 1.0.1.0
Fixes:
None
Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Added code so you get additional accuracy penalty for not having a compartment manned and no damage control team.

Version 1.0.0.1
Fixes:
None
Bugs:
In-Game time and date are not updated.
Medals shown do not match what is in the game.
Changes:
Now displays ranks above Captain as the natural progression, not as in game (you'll never be able to make Admiral)

Version 1.0.0.0
First Working version.
To do:
Add an index to the help file.
The bugs listed above are actually SH4 errors. The in-game time and date are never updated in any of the accessible saved game files and it is a problem with the game not awarding the correct medals. The displayed medals are the medals you *really* have!