[REL] rudewarrior's "Just Follow Orders!" Mod - NOW 2.0

[Hitman]

Good job again, thread title updated

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by Wreford-Brown

Thank you rudewarrior

Couldn't have done it without you!

You're welcome!

Originally Posted by Hitman

Good job again, thread title updated

Kewl, thanx! I wasn't sure about how to get that done.

[Robin40]

awesome mod

plz tell me whether th following procedure is correct


no copying all of the date folders from the appropriate Orders folder into the SH3 Commander Date folder
started new patrol via SH3Commander
save and exit
running JFO.exe
loaded the saved file via SH3Commander

moreover
1)anytime you load the saved file, do you have to run JFO.exe?

2) when you say
Copy the entries from the messages_en.txt file located in the Xtras folder into the file in your installation under the same file name (located in the data/Campaigns/Campaign directory).
do you mean to append the Xtras folder entries to the entries in our own installation?

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by Robin40

no copying all of the date folders from the appropriate Orders folder into the SH3 Commander Date folder
started new patrol via SH3Commander
save and exit
running JFO.exe
loaded the saved file via SH3Commander

moreover
1)anytime you load the saved file, do you have to run JFO.exe?

Let me try to address this from the beginning.

SH3 Commander will write the files in its Date folder into the SH3 installation based on the start date of your patrol. So if you start a patrol on 2 Nov 1939, and your most recently dated folder is for 1 Nov 1939, then the files from the 1 Nov 1939 folder are written in to SH3 regardless of what is already there.

This means that if you have the JFO! Mod files in the date folder for SH3 Commander, JFO! Mod.exe is essentially useless. If you use the .exe to write files into the SH3 installation based on your current save game, when you run SH3 Commander, it will then overwrite those files based on the first date of your patrol.

Using the example above:

If you start your patrol on 2 Nov 1939, then SH3 Commander will load the files from 1 Nov 1939. You then patrol for a several days and save the game on 10 Nov 1939 and exit. You then run JFO! Mod.exe. It will place the template files from 8 Nov 1939 into your installation. However, if you load the save game using SH3 Commander, it will write the files from 1 Nov 1939 back into the game, since it is running off the date of the start of your patrol.

Essentially, unless you are a seasoned modder, you either want to use SH3 Commander or use JFO! Mod.exe, not both.

However, if you want to go a more sophisticated (and/or anal ) route, then set up the files such that they can be enabled by JSGME into your SH3 Commander Date folder. Then do the following sequence:

1. When you start a new patrol, enable your JFO! Mod files into SH3 Commander using JSGME.
2. Start a new patrol.
3. Save and exit.
4. Disable the files from SH3 Commander using JSGME.
5. Run JFO! Mod.exe
6. Run the game. Save and exit. Repeat #5 and #6 until you return to port.
7. Once you have returned to port, see #1.

Hope this helps!

2) when you say
Copy the entries from the messages_en.txt file located in the Xtras folder into the file in your installation under the same file name (located in the data/Campaigns/Campaign directory).
do you mean to append the Xtras folder entries to the entries in our own installation?

Yes.

Or you can enable it by using JSGME as always.

[Robin40]

@rudewarrior

thx

OK...so I will use only JFO.exe

but
anytime you load the saved file, do you have to run JFO.exe?



however take care of

my sh3commander Date files are only MFM skins files, no JFO files in Date folder of sh3commander
so I don't think of any overwriting if I use both sh3commander and jfo.exe

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by Robin40

anytime you load the saved file, do you have to run JFO.exe?

Yes. This updates the orders templates as you see them in the game.

[LGN1]

Great work, rudewarrior

Just one suggestion: You can give the TII and TIII torpedo in torpedo.sim a second speed setting with the range and speed corresponding to a pre-heated torpedo. Thus, you can easily switch between non-heated and pre-heated torpedo settings.

Regards, LGN1

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by LGN1

Great work, rudewarrior

Just one suggestion: You can give the TII and TIII torpedo in torpedo.sim a second speed setting with the range and speed corresponding to a pre-heated torpedo. Thus, you can easily switch between non-heated and pre-heated torpedo settings.

Regards, LGN1

Hi LGN1,

Thanx for the suggestion, but I know ill just screw myself up doing that. That will mean that the one of the speed settings for the TII/TIII won't correspond to the speed settings for the TI, and that will confuse me.

Better for me to do it the other way. But I'll put your method in the readme for 2.1.

[Vermin]

If I sink a neutral ship in an area permitted by JFO, will BDU still string me up? (and I lose renown).

Thanks

Vermin

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by Vermin

If I sink a neutral ship in an area permitted by JFO, will BDU still string me up? (and I lose renown).

Thanks

Vermin

The "JFO!" Mod essentially has no effect on game play. So whatever happens when you sink a ship with or without the "JFO!" Mod remains unchanged.

[Vermin]

I'll just have to hope the firing squad misses!

Query re:

23 Nov 39: All tankers, other than [invalid targets] may be attacked in the American safety zone West of 2° E. When attacking neutral tankers, U-boats are to remain unobserved, e.g. do not engage with deck gun, and to use electric torpedoes, whenever possible, in order that the illusion of internal explosion may be created.

2 degrees East would be a line roughly just West of Paris?

Am I reading this right? All neutral tankers are fair game if West of the above line?

IIRC, the original Pan-American safety zone was 300 miles wide off the coast of the Americas.

I'm already in enough trouble with BdU - don't want to make it worse!

Thanks

Vermin

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by Vermin

I'll just have to hope the firing squad misses!

Query re:

23 Nov 39: All tankers, other than [invalid targets] may be attacked in the American safety zone West of 2° E. When attacking neutral tankers, U-boats are to remain unobserved, e.g. do not engage with deck gun, and to use electric torpedoes, whenever possible, in order that the illusion of internal explosion may be created.

2 degrees East would be a line roughly just West of Paris?

Am I reading this right? All neutral tankers are fair game if West of the above line?

IIRC, the original Pan-American safety zone was 300 miles wide off the coast of the Americas.

I'm already in enough trouble with BdU - don't want to make it worse!

Thanks

Vermin

Ok, so let me break this down step-by-step.

The bracketed statement, [invalid targets], is removing the references to American (see below), Japanese, Italian, Russian, and Spanish targets. There is a period of time when these ships "were not to be stopped." The reason I left this out is that Japanese are already allies, Italian ships are allies until late in the war (when this stuff no longer applies), and the Spanish were always "neutral" (air quotes really meaning sort-of allies).

The Russians are a special case being "allies" in the beginning and enemy after May '41. I left the references to all this out in order to simplify communication as this mod is complex enough. To make a long story short, scripting and ship configurations (even if using the MFM) resulted in a very low probability of you coming across one of these ships as a neutral that is eligible for attack. The only possibility with this combination is a Russian ship, and it is very rare indeed, so I left this out for simplification.

Also under the heading of [ineligible targets] are American ships.

So don't attack any [ineligible targets]. Simple, amirite?

I think you are beginning to appreciate the confusing orders that the u-boat commanders had to endure. To make the clarification as concise as possible, American shipping was being given extra privileges by German high command that effectively placed them in a separate category from neutral shipping as dictated by the Prize Rules. So they enjoyed a privileged status up until the German declaration of war on 9 Dec '41. Hitler believed the war with Russia was going to be quick ( ), and wanted to make every effort possible to keep the USA out of the war until a time of his choosing.

I may be wrong about this, but IIRC, the Pan-American safety zone and the American safety zone are two different things. I think the Pan-American safety zone was an invention by the USA to protect "their" waters (and interests). The American safety zone was terminology invented by the Germans to designate where American ships were safe from attack. At the beginning of the war this included all of Britain.

Now to clarify the statement. What I put in the actual orders is more or less an exact quote. However, based on the map included in the reference, reproduced as closely as possible in the Zones template, the actual western boundary was 20° W, the same as the western edge of the darkened ships boundary.

On 17 Aug 1940, the darkened ships area, more or less, essentially becomes a blockade and all shipping in the region becomes eligible for attack, including American shipping. It is then extended on 1 Apr 1941 to enclose Iceland, since it was realized that Greenland was being used as a staging area for US forces. However, by the time these blockades were put in force, pretty much all American shipping that was heading to war zones was under some sort of escort. I can't verify that this was absolutely the case, but it seems to be the logical progression. Germany was being very clear by going above and beyond the rules when it came to attacking American shipping so America would not have an excuse to enter the war. In addition, Britain (and America) wanted to do everything it could to ensure safe transit of American shipping as it lie in their collective best interests. I don't actually know how the game scripts it, but I find it very unlikely you will find unescorted American shipping heading to England around that area once you get fully into the "meat" of the war period. In addition, the blockaded area started being very heavily patrolled by British ASW units that were being manufactured as well as "lend-leased." Also, wolf-pack tactics started becoming more refined, so it was much more effective to concentrate attacks in the North Atlantic, where there were big juicy convoys with the lowest possible escort level, or in areas where shipping hadn't got to the "hot zone" yet, such as the Caribbean or the South Atlantic, e.g. Freetown or South Africa.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

[Vermin]

Thanks Rudewarrior,

I really appreciate the explanation and rationale. I pity the real life Kaleuns trying to make sense of the orders whilst also trying to identify the ships at night, in bad weather and without getting themselves killed!

You are of course correct, I was confusing the Pan-American and American safety zones.

There is a perverse satisfaction in locating and pursuing a ship only to discover it is not a valid target!

The mod is brilliant.

Thanks again.

Vermin

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by Vermin

You are of course correct, I was confusing the Pan-American and American safety zones.

No worries, this screwed me up, too. It's times like this that I am glad I am a scientist. I kept reading about the Pan-American safety zone and the American safety zone and I couldn't reconcile the two. Then my scientist brain clicked into gear and I actually said out loud, "Wait a minute! What evidence do I have that they are actually the same thing?" Then it all made sense. It was bolstered by the fact that the "American safety zone" is only referred to in my German sources. So that's the conclusion I have right now.

The mod is brilliant.

Thanks again.

You're welcome!

[sharkbit]

I've been away from Silent Hunter for almost a year now. The call of the cold, grey Atlantic has called me back.

I'm not sure this is the place to gripe about this since it is really a computer problem and not a mod problem, but....I've been dying to try this mod since it came out, so I downloaded it last week and started through the install instructions and ran into a problem.

For some reason, the .exe file doesn't work. It is like my computer doesn't even recognise the file. It is just a box. All the other files in the mod are there. I tried redownloading it and unzipping with the same result.

I downloaded it onto my laptop and the file is there with the little captain's hat logo on the .exe file and it opens fine so I put the file onto a flash drive and tried to load it onto my desktop computer with the same result. It doesn't even recognise it on the flash drive so I know it is a issue with my computer and not the mod or the download.

Judging from some of my google searches and limited computer knowledge, I thought it might be a registry problem. I tried a few things that I found during my searches with no luck.

The last thing I tried was a Windows Repair from the Windows XP disc where it reinstalls the Windows files but doesn't erase all of your files. No joy though. Plus it turned into a somewhat longer experience than what I had hoped when some of my drivers disappeared and I had to find them on the internet using my laptop, putting them on a flash drive, then loading them back onto my desktop.

The game runs fine otherwise and I have not noticed any other issues with other programs so I'm left wondering why my computer is having issues with this .exe file and no others, at least as far as I can tell.

My computer is getting up there in age and my wife is not buying into getting a new computer "...just so you can play that damn submarine game!!!"

Any ideas are appreciated. For now I am probably going to figure out how to use the orders manually. Either put them on a Word document and just follow them as they apply or try to come with some mini-mod that I can use. We'll see.

It looks like a great mod though. Thanks for the hard work you have put into it.