[REL] Merchant Fleet Mod for Silent Hunter 3

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

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).

got it!

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Damo

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.

Based on the explanatory info at the top of the Ship Names config file, I'm thinking you could do this pretty easily.

Just create a list for your generic class, such as [MFMX].

Use the CLASSMAP to map each individual MFM 'X' class to [MFMX].

Add the list of "names" for [MFMX] to the file, as follows:

[MFMX]
0001=Unidentified

Now, if I'm right about how it works, you've got two choices.

1) You can leave it with just that one line, and under [Settings] at the top of the file, change

RepeatWhenAllUsed=0

to

RepeatWhenAllUsed=1

With only one name in the list for [MFMX], and every X class ship mapped to that list, the first time you sink one of those ships Commander will consult the list and name it Unidentified in your log since that's the only entry for the class. But since you've opted to repeat names when a class list is exhausted, every time you sink another one of those X ships it should go back to the list and reuse the same name again. So they would all show up in your logs as Unidentified.

Of course the "repeat when all used" will also apply to all the other classes in the list, but given the sheer number of ship names Steve has already provided, I don't think you're gonna run out of names for most of them.

-OR-

2) You can add additional entries to the list for [MFMX] as follows:

[MFMX]
0001=Unidentified
0002=Unidentified
0003=Unidentified
0004=Unidentified

and so on, up to a maximum of 3000 entries. Then you can leave RepeatWhenAllUsed=0 the way it is if you want, and as long as you don't sink more X ships than you've made entries in that list, Commander should give them all the "name" Unidentified in your logs.

[Damo]

Yes Frau, I get how to do the names fine, but the real thing I wondered about, and asked originally in Steve's shipnames thread was whether I can add Unknown to the cargolist and whether the crew entry is only read as nemerical or whether I could put unknown / unknown in the crew variable. However, on reflection, it is kind of making a mountain out of a molehill when just having Unidentified with no further info would perfectly suffice.

As far as the names being used more than once for the other classes, you are right, there are so many it's doubtful that it would be an issue. I can't see the same name coming up more than once in a single career so it's fine. Besides, would I see a name on patrol 7 and think 'I know that name, I already sunk that on patrol 3, ship number 4'. No, I'd never even notice.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Damo

Yes Frau, I get how to do the names fine, but the real thing I wondered about, and asked originally in Steve's shipnames thread was whether I can add Unknown to the cargolist and whether the crew entry is only read as nemerical or whether I could put unknown / unknown in the crew variable.

I haven't looked at the 'cargo' part of the Ship Names file enough to have a clear idea how it works, altho I do have a hunch. I know IABL mentioned in another thread that he'd made some adjustments to cargo for some of his ships, but I'm not sure if that was in ShipNames.cfg or in the config files for the ships themselves in the game folders.

You're right about the crew entries, though, probably only Jaesen can answer that. Or maybe just try something and test it. If you were only using one generic class that had all the X ships mapped to it, it probably wouldn't take long to find one and sink it and see what happens when you update the logs in Commander.

As far as the names being used more than once for the other classes, you are right, there are so many it's doubtful that it would be an issue. I can't see the same name coming up more than once in a single career so it's fine. Besides, would I see a name on patrol 7 and think 'I know that name, I already sunk that on patrol 3, ship number 4'. No, I'd never even notice.

With merchants I can't see it ever being an issue, it's not like there was ever only one ship in the world with a particular name.

The real killer is when you sink a battleship in the spring only to find the same one sailing in convoy the following summer.

[Sailor Steve]

Cargo types are drawn from the list at the bottome of the second block from the top: [TEXT]. The last three lines are CargoTypes_eng and its German and French counterparts. I took the _eng list and created a separate notepad file, listed vertically and numbered them from 1 to 30. That way I could compare them to the numbers in each Ship Names listing and know exactly what is what.

The fact is that if you were a Kaleun and sank a ship, unless you could actually interrogate one of the officers you probably wouldn't know anything about ship, crew or cargo beyond what you thought you saw in the ID book. Information on the name might be forthcoming through intelligence, as they could probably find out what ships went missing in the right place. Other than that you might not know anything until the war was over and reports could be compared.

That's why rather than "Ship Sunk!", my patrol logs tend to look something like this:

7.9.39.

1638 Spotted ship - first since war declared.

1643 Small freighter - 2000 tons.

1706 Hailed them to stop.

1708 Identified as British.

1715 Crew abandoning ship.

1733 Crew well away. Fired torpedo.

1734 Torpedo failed to explode.

1741 Fired second torpedo. This one good.

1805 Talked to captain. Said his ship is SS Goulburn, 2367 GRT, carrying a cargo of iron ore, crew 35, all present.


Or less information:

14.9.39.

0311 Arrived BF1911.

0700 Encountering heavy seas.

1611 Ship spotted - freighter, about 4000 tons. Will conduct surface attack.

1643 Fired two torpedoes, range 650 metres. #1 missed. #2 hit aft of funnel.

1646 Fired another eel. Dud!

1650 Fired #4. Hit near bow!

1658 Target down by stern.

1703 Target stopped. Crew lowering lifeboats.


And at the end:

12.10.39.

0203 First friendly ship spotted. Raised flag.

0257 Entered Jade.

0423 Passed locks into harbor.

0458 Tied up at Wilhemlshaven. Patrol over.

Patrol results
Crew losses: 0
Ships sunk:
SS Goulburn, 2367 tons. Cargo: Iron Ore. Crew: 35. Crew lost: 0.
SS Umlazi, 8229 tons. Cargo: Scrap Metal. Crew: 96. Crew lost: 0
SS Baron Renfrew, 3635 tons. Cargo: Tobacco. Crew: 44. Crew lost: 6
SS Fanny Brunner, 2366 tons. Cargo: Coal. Crew: 20. Crew lost: 5
Aircraft destroyed: 0
Patrol tonnage: 16597 tons

The game actually awarded me 20109 tons for the patrol, but I revised it downward based on my knowledge of the real tonnage for the ships. Unfortunately changing it after the fact in Commander doesn't change what the game actually gave you.

[Damo]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

The real killer is when you sink a battleship in the spring only to find the same one sailing in convoy the following summer.

Yep that had occurred to me too, which is why I've had a rethink and come to the conclusion it would be better to go into the englishnames.cfg and change the neutral entries to:

M07X=Medium Merchant 07 (Unidentified)

Therefore, you don't have to edit shipnames.cfg or change the way it assigns names, the patrol log would just say:

'Ship Sunk! Medium Merchant 07 (Unidentified) ####tons'.

Seems the all-round best option to me.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

1706 Hailed them to stop.

1708 Identified as British.

1715 Crew abandoning ship.

1733 Crew well away. Fired torpedo.

1734 Torpedo failed to explode.

Oh, how those Brits must have laughed at you.....

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The game actually awarded me 20109 tons for the patrol, but I revised it downward based on my knowledge of the real tonnage for the ships. Unfortunately changing it after the fact in Commander doesn't change what the game actually gave you.

Randomize ship tonnage option, right?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Damo

Yep that had occurred to me too, which is why I've had a rethink and come to the conclusion it would be better to go into the englishnames.cfg and change the neutral entries to:

M07X=Medium Merchant 07 (Unidentified)

Therefore, you don't have to edit shipnames.cfg or change the way it assigns names, the patrol log would just say:

'Ship Sunk! Medium Merchant 07 (Unidentified) ####tons'.

Seems the all-round best option to me.

That's an idea worth considering.

[Gryffon300]

I am having no problems getting ship names and data for 'neutrals' e.g. Norwegians transporting military vehicles to Southend. Don't know about true neutrals - haven't sunk any yet.

To Robin40, I do have a bit of a problem with you old son that smiley faces don't fix.

First, you mildly put down anyone who targets a neutral as being "ugly".

I use MFM Interim Beta and MFMBetaEnglishNames with no problem, also with neutral ships if you are so ugly to sink them

This, even after it has been repeatedly explained to you that they are NOT in fact neutral, but effectively enemy ships.

When it is AGAIN explained to you that the neutrals in question are NOT neutral, you claim YOUR only 'duty' is to high-score on renown.

My only duty is to get positive renown points...so I don't sink neutral vessels

Now, I have no problem at all with you wishing to play SH3 as a game and go for the high score as your only 'duty', a bit like an arcade game. You yourself say people can play how they like. It is certainly risk-free to make the decision to never target a neutral. But, it is NOT realistic, and that is the objective for many people. War was and is, 'ugly'. That doesn't make PEOPLE who wish to pit their judgement and skills aginst the random and challenging aspects of this SIMULATION, "ugly".

It surprises me that you do not appear to yet get this, especially as you have spent so much time chasing the question of realistic ship names.

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by Gryffon300

I am having no problems getting ship names and data for 'neutrals' e.g. Norwegians transporting military vehicles to Southend. Don't know about true neutrals - haven't sunk any yet.

To Robin40, I do have a bit of a problem with you old son that smiley faces don't fix.

First, you mildly put down anyone who targets a neutral as being "ugly".
This, even after it has been repeatedly explained to you that they are NOT in fact neutral, but effectively enemy ships.

When it is AGAIN explained to you that the neutrals in question are NOT neutral, you claim YOUR only 'duty' is to high-score on renown.


Now, I have no problem at all with you wishing to play SH3 as a game and go for the high score as your only 'duty', a bit like an arcade game. You yourself say people can play how they like. It is certainly risk-free to make the decision to never target a neutral. But, it is NOT realistic, and that is the objective for many people. War was and is, 'ugly'. That doesn't make PEOPLE who wish to pit their judgement and skills aginst the random and challenging aspects of this SIMULATION, "ugly".

It surprises me that you do not appear to yet get this, especially as you have spent so much time chasing the question of realistic ship names.

yes mate,

this world is nice because men are not the same

[Damo]

Gryffon, we need to remember one thing here, the language barrier. By saying 'ugly' it's probably not how you translate it as a personal attack, rather he means it's not nice to risk sinking a neutral on the hunch that it is coercing with the allies but as you say, war is not nice, however if he wishes to err on the side of caution then fine, he'll justy never be the next Prien. Also, the language barrier works both ways, in that he may not have fully understood our explanations the first time around. I really don't think there is any malice, backed up by the fact that with both items you quoted he added a smiley face, probably because he knew it may be interpreted wrongly. I mean talking about this confuses me to hell sometimes and both me and I speak English!!

Lack of body language and voicetone on the interwebs is the sole cause of flame wars 85.7% of the time. And don't quote me, I made that percentage up....

Oh and true neutrals will not show any info other than the game's assigned name, so either M07X if you didn't follow my instructions above for englishnames.cfg or Medium Merchant 07 if you did. No cargo or crew details will be assigned for any X ships in neutral or allied countries roster folders. Hence why we are trying to find a solution for those in the enemy roster folders. The ones you have sunk are probably M07B's with neutral skins, hence the addition of the extra info (M07B/X as just an example).

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by Damo

Gryffon, we need to remember one thing here, the language barrier. By saying 'ugly' it's probably not how you translate it as a personal attack, rather he means it's not nice to risk sinking a neutral on the hunch that it is coercing with the allies but as you say, war is not nice, however if he wishes to err on the side of caution then fine, he'll justy never be the next Prien. Also, the language barrier works both ways, in that he may not have fully understood our explanations the first time around. I really don't think there is any malice, backed up by the fact that with both items you quoted he added a smiley face, probably because he knew it may be interpreted wrongly. I mean talking about this confuses me to hell sometimes and both me and I speak English!!

Lack of body language and voicetone on the interwebs is the sole cause of flame wars 85.7% of the time. And don't quote me, I made that percentage up....

Oh and true neutrals will not show any info other than the game's assigned name, so either M07X if you didn't follow my instructions above for englishnames.cfg or Medium Merchant 07 if you did. No cargo or crew details will be assigned for any X ships in neutral or allied countries roster folders. Hence why we are trying to find a solution for those in the enemy roster folders. The ones you have sunk are probably M07B's with neutral skins, hence the addition of the extra info (M07B/X as just an example).

well...it's a game, not a war

[Gryffon300]

Thanks, Damo, re the neutral. Damn, those British were quick to paint neutral colours on some of their ships! (as of 05/09/39). (Don't worry, I get that the cfg would start dumping British 'neutrals' in straight away.) However, what I don't get is what mechanism is used to apply a neutral skin, like the Norwegians that I encountered, to a BRITISH ship eg M07B. I had believed, till your post, that neutrals, eg M07X, were assigned to the British Roster, not that British ships were re-skinned. And, if that is the case, then they could not have been neutrals, otherwise they would not have been named & shamed in my patrol log...

Re scope descriptions etc, in fact, I don't get any designation with a numerical suffix in my reports or scope ID as I ammended the list some time ago to delete the '07' in 'Medium Merchant 07', from iambl's original englishnames.cfg, to better match the additions coming through that contained no such suffixes. So now, all I get in the scope is "Medium Merchant", where appropriate. I made the decision to harmonise the list so that there was nothing to differentiate the list's original contents from the additions required to give class names to new classes added later. (Of course, had I not done this, I would be able to say definitively whether or not the 'Norwegians' were re-skinned British or re-rostered neutrals, because I could have had Medium Merchant 07B or Medium Merchant 07X.)

Finally, I hate it when people like you cherry pick data. Your pathetic attempt to blame 85.7% of interweb flamewars on lack of eyeball to eyeball egregiously omits the figures for Twitter, Facebook & SMS. Had you done your homework, you would KNOW that the true figure, once these omitted classes are included, jumps to 94.6%! Pax vorbiscum.

Indeed, Robin40, the world would be a terrible place if everyone was just like me.

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by Gryffon300

Thanks, Damo, re the neutral. Damn, those British were quick to paint neutral colours on some of their ships! (as of 05/09/39). (Don't worry, I get that the cfg would start dumping British 'neutrals' in straight away.) However, what I don't get is what mechanism is used to apply a neutral skin, like the Norwegians that I encountered, to a BRITISH ship eg M07B. I had believed, till your post, that neutrals, eg M07X, were assigned to the British Roster, not that British ships were re-skinned. And, if that is the case, then they could not have been neutrals, otherwise they would not have been named & shamed in my patrol log...

Re scope descriptions etc, in fact, I don't get any designation with a numerical suffix in my reports or scope ID as I ammended the list some time ago to delete the '07' in 'Medium Merchant 07', from iambl's original englishnames.cfg, to better match the additions coming through that contained no such suffixes. So now, all I get in the scope is "Medium Merchant", where appropriate. I made the decision to harmonise the list so that there was nothing to differentiate the list's original contents from the additions required to give class names to new classes added later. (Of course, had I not done this, I would be able to say definitively whether or not the 'Norwegians' were re-skinned British or re-rostered neutrals, because I could have had Medium Merchant 07B or Medium Merchant 07X.)

Finally, I hate it when people like you cherry pick data. Your pathetic attempt to blame 85.7% of interweb flamewars on lack of eyeball to eyeball egregiously omits the figures for Twitter, Facebook & SMS. Had you done your homework, you would KNOW that the true figure, once these omitted classes are included, jumps to 94.6%! Pax vorbiscum.

Indeed, Robin40, the world would be a terrible place if everyone was just like me.

maybe my post #574 could help you

[Gryffon300]

Not really, Robin40. You see, as explained above, I have ammended my Englishnames.cfg file so that it does NOT display in the scope, or the log as 'Blah Blah 07', or even 'Blah Blah 07X (or A or B)', as I edited the ORIGINAL Englishnames.cfg file when adding the new classes as per, say FK's ammended list.

The original file had the numerical suffixes, whereas the more recent add-ons to the list does not. It seemed natural, therefore to remove all suffixes so that the display & log would ONLY show 'Medium Merchant', NOT 'Medium Merchant 07', especially as some of the classes were simply the addition of , for example, American or Neutral versions of already existing British classes, in which case the 'new' classes would display without the '07', whereas the original British equivalent would.

On the other hand, as you yourself point out, in your post #574, details are held also in the cfg files in Roster/xyz (nation)/Sea, and include display names & start/finish dates. I presume that the 'display names' are referring to the Museum or something, because they certainly do not show up as such in 'scope or log as such.

Finally, it is intersting to note, in regard to my comments to Damo, re my doubts about the the re-skinning of British ships, that 'X' ship config files appear in the Sea Rosters of both the American and British fleets (possibly others - haven't bothered to check.) This would seem to lend credence to my belief that British ships were NOT being re-skinned, but that rather netral 'X's' were showing up in their roster (and hence legitimate targets).

Your thoughts?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Gryffon300

Finally, it is intersting to note, in regard to my comments to Damo, re my doubts about the the re-skinning of British ships, that 'X' ship config files appear in the Sea Rosters of both the American and British fleets (possibly others - haven't bothered to check.) This would seem to lend credence to my belief that British ships were NOT being re-skinned, but that rather netral 'X's' were showing up in their roster (and hence legitimate targets).

This is correct, the MFM mod deliberately adds some of the X-class ships to the rosters of enemy (as well as neutral) nations. When they appear in the game they may still look neutral, but if spawned from an enemy's roster they will behave like any other enemy ship and be counted as such by the game if sunk.

I did a test patrol (for another reason entirely) with an EnglishNames.cfg edited to show me the class of the ship when I saw it in the game, as well as the Contact Colors mod to show whether the game considered each ship to be Allied, Axis, or neutral. The results for the X-class ships were as follows:

M03X
neutral
no flags or markings

M07X
Allied
no flags or markings

M14X
Allied
British flag

M01X
Allied
no flags or markings

M34X
Allied
Swedish flag and markings

So of the 5 X classes I encountered, I had 1 that was actually a true neutral, 2 that were completely unmarked enemy ships, 1 that was actually flying an enemy flag, and 1 that looked Swedish but was counted as Allied.