[TEC] Question for the modders

[TDK1044]

Is it possible via a mod to allow a player to play from December 41 through to the end of the war without being forced into a desk job after five or six missions?

I understand the historical accuracy element here and why the Devs built the game this way, but having come from Silent Hunter 3 where your career could take you from 1939 to 1945, if you were good enough to survive, I miss that journey in Silent Hunter 4.

:D

[Ducimus]

I dunno yet. My theory is there's some renown variables in some backend file somewhere that dictate what, and when of happenings in career games. But ive yet to find it, admittdly i havent been looking very hard for it either. Still scrapping around the edges. Im sure someone else may have foudn something, i seriously doubt its hardcoded.

[Jams79]

Somebody in an earlier post found that there is a "PlayerCurrentRating" in the save file which can be lowered (it increases throughout career) which should lower the chance of receiveing the boot but you might want to leave it above 3.0 as I've noticed a lot of missions have a min rating requirement.

I can't find where the game sets the requirements for the process yet though.

edit: Another good reason to find it is to change the fact that when you sink you still get courtmartialed(sp?) or even reinstated.

[Egan]

I dunno yet. My theory is there's some renown variables in some backend file somewhere that dictate what, and when of happenings in career games. But ive yet to find it, admittdly i havent been looking very hard for it either. Still scrapping around the edges. Im sure someone else may have foudn something, i seriously doubt its hardcoded.

I don't think it is harcoded although I do think it is strange this was supposed to be an realism option that was chopped out for some reason.

Possibly renown linked? Not sure as I haven't really looked either. It ought to be possible (famous last words!) but we shall see.

[Beery]

Somebody in an earlier post found that there is a "PlayerCurrentRating" in the save file which can be lowered (it increases throughout career) which should lower the chance of receiveing the boot but you might want to leave it above 3.0 as I've noticed a lot of missions have a min rating requirement.

I'll bet this is how the game decides whether you get the boot or not: if it can't find an upcoming mission you're rated for it will fire you.

If I'm right it means we could lower all the mission ratings in PatrolObjectives.cfg so that it was a lot more difficult to fail the ratings check. This should be a matter of a few seconds work using Wordpad's 'replace text' function to replace the MinimumPlayerRating=-3 (they're all -3) with something like MinimumPlayerRating=-9. I bet that'll do it.

[Jams79]

Possibly but rating starts at zero and in one career when I got booted the rating was at 14 which makes me think there are more factors involved like possibly:
rating / #patrols

[CCIP]

In all honesty, I think this should be a question/request to the devs as well. While I love this feature myself, I think this needs to be a realism option, and I'm sure it wouldn't take much to have it selectable in a patch.

Haven't run across any specific references to it in the data myself yet.

[Beery]

Possibly but rating starts at zero and in one career when I got booted the rating was at 14 which makes me think there are more factors involved like possibly:
rating / #patrols

I just tested it and you're right - it has nothing to do with that rating. Even with -9 for all patrols I still got fired after three uncompleted missions.

Could it be as simple as that - fail your third mission and your career is over?

[Beery]

I think this needs to be a realism option, and I'm sure it wouldn't take much to have it selectable in a patch...

I won't mind if it's offered as an option - the more options the better. What I'm afraid of though, is that the devs will just rip a potentially great feature out of the game based on a few complaints at a time when none of us know enough about the feature to really judge it fairly. Alternatively they'll offer the option but then (because it's optional) they won't bother to fix it.

In short I'd prefer them to fix it. I certainly don't want the option between a broken feature or nothing. In my view that's the same as removing it altogether.

[Jams79]

I think it's more likely fail (or get severe damage) on any mission after second. With the requirements, like damage sustained and low tonnage, getting tougher to pass till you hit the watermark; 8ish patrols. Of course this is total guesswork on my part.

Even if the dev's don't fix it I'd love for them to just point us at the right files, I've been looking for this for days with no luck.

[Tigrone]

I don't think the short careers are historically accurate, and they are definitely not fun. I really don't like the early termination feature. I feel it's based on an arbitrary average that is not realistic, irregardless of whether or not many Captains did have short careers. I take my namesake's boat skipper, Hi Cassedy, as an example. He was in command at the beginning of the war and was at sea in command at the end of the war. He spent at least 28 months in theater in command and made a total of 11 patrols in 2 boats. He was not one of the stars; he was a competent skilled skipper, and he served the whole war.

This 5 patrols, and start over from scratch, is not fun.

We poke the frog long enough, we'll figure out how to make it jump.

[Beery]

Hiram Cassedy did six patrols in USS Searaven from April 1942 until November 1943, then he left that boat and went to other duties for over a year before taking over command of USS Tigrone from March 1945 until July 1945. He commanded a sub in only eight patrols in total - yet that was one of the most patrols done by any US sub commander - eight patrols was the upper limit without a rest. Only one commander - Chappell - did eight in a row. I don't believe any US commander ever did more patrols in WW2 without being rested. Henry Munson was, I believe, the skipper who did the most patrols, but even he was rested after doing six in USS S-38. He then did four more patrols (three in USS Crevalle and one in USS Rasher) before being retired from front line duty. In WW2 even six patrols was unusually high for a US sub commander. Going back to Cassedy, he neither started the war nor finished it in command of an active duty submarine. In his last sub command he did only two patrols before moving on to other duties.

SH4 models this sort of career - you join up, do 6 patrols, retire, then you start another career, do two patrols and retire again. Actually SH4 won't let you do only two patrols - you have to do at least three before being retired.

Short careers are perfectly accurate. The early termination feature is not based on an average - it's based on the entire range of career lengths that were available to US sub commanders and it's based on your performance (tonnage and mission success). Actually the game allows players to do more patrols than any historical commander did, but there's an element of luck in it, as there was in WW2.

This is a game of WW2 US submarine combat and that fact imposes a certain number of realistic restrictions on play: just as your torpedoes are not guided and do not have nuclear warheads, so your career is restricted to the limits that were in effect for US sub commanders. If you want careers that last longer than real WW2 US sub careers you should join the Kriegsmarine. The Germans did up to 16 patrols before being retired - but even the Germans didn't let commanders serve throughout the war.

If it's not fun to have realistic limitations on your career then it's you who's making it not fun, not the game. We signed up for a game of WW2 submarine duty, and that's what SH4 has given us. Those who don't like the US Navy's rules for retiring sub commanders in WW2 need to complain to the Navy.:D

[Egan]

How long are people patrolling for, by the way? Mine last a long time - far, far longer than when commanding a type 7 in SH3. If people are going out and whizzing around, completing a patrol in a couple of weeks I'm not suprised the career lengths seem short. Given the length of time of a standard patrol + refit time etc your career could easily last a substantial amount of time.

And three patrols is two patrols more than a lot of the early skippers made. I like the new system a lot. reminds me of both SH1 and AOD which had the same feature. Ah, accepting command of a training flot in AOD - the pride!