Prolong the Porpoise Class beyond 1942

[CaptainCox]

OK I made a fuke up. I posted something in the "normal" SH4 forum and I guess i will never get an answer there :p

Basically...where do you find the data to extend your career. I think its been discussed here in the beginning but can't find the post guys.

And just to justify this sort a double posting...how do you Prolong the Porpoise Class beyond 1942...not what I really need to know as it's probably not historically correct...nor is maybe the longer career, but at least that I could consider due to the game play factor.

[Beery]

There are three places where you can affect the length of service of any sub type:

1. Data\Roster\American\Submarine\SS*.cfg

Here you can adjust each individual sub's time spent in service and the overall time in service for the whole type. The info is in plain English and dates are in YYYYMMDD format.

2. Data\UPCData\UPCCampaignData\Flotillas.upc

Here you can adjust what dates a sub type is available for a particular unit. Here the availability dates are in YYYY-MM-DD (start), YYYY-MM-DD (end) format, with 'NULL' meaning both the start of the war and the end of the war depending on whether it's in the first date or the last date position.

Both 1 and 2 need to have overlapping dates in order for a sub type or individual sub to be available.

3. Data\UPCData\UPCCampaignData\CampaignStart.upc

This allows players to start on any sub type listed in the file for a particular start date. It is not dependent upon the other two files.

Regarding extending a career, I don't know about that. To be completely honest I've been more interested in further restricting career lengths.

[Beery]

By the way, the Porpoise class boat should be available until November 11th 1944. Porpoise boats were still patrolling out of Pearl Harbor until then.

[Jams79]

I still can't remember who suggested this but it seems to work:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=110833

Haven't really tested thoroughly though because I'm restarting too often whilst I'm tweaking stuff.

[CaptainCox]

By the way, the Porpoise class boat should be available until November 11th 1944. Porpoise boats were still patrolling out of Pearl Harbor until then.

Cheers guys will look in to it more today...Regarding the "Porpoise"..my fault I meant "Gato", had an honorable discharge due to that class being taken out of service, no chance to get reassigned to another class but sent home with honors of course, that's what started all this.

[Beery]

By the way, the Porpoise class boat should be available until November 11th 1944. Porpoise boats were still patrolling out of Pearl Harbor until then.

Cheers guys will look in to it more today...Regarding the "Porpoise"..my fault I meant "Gato", had an honorable discharge due to that class being taken out of service, no chance to get reassigned to another class but sent home with honors of course, that's what started all this.

The thing I don't understand is this: the stock game allows campaign starts on the Gato from June 10th 1942 and the Flotillas.upc file supports them in Pearl Harbor from before that time until the end of the war, so I don't see how they could ever be withdrawn from service.

I guess, if you were transferring to a base that doesn't have Gatos it might withdraw the boat from service in that base. That would make sense because only bases with Gatos have patrols for that boat type. In fact the Flotillas.upc file warns the programmer to add every type in case of transfers, but this was not done. I'm thinking that maybe this is the problem.

On the other hand, the transfer system seems to effectively bar transfers to bases that don't have the boat type the player is using, so again what's happening shouldn't be possible. Are you using any mods?

[CaptainCox]

Nope, not any that modifies the game play as such. Not when this happened anyway. I started at Surabaya and when Java fell I was transferred to Pearl. I did a pretty good patrol cause I got promoted and a new boat "the Drum" after 2 pats with the Drum it was goodbye "The type of Class you have will be withdrawn from service" or something along those lines. Got more medals and was sent home with honours to live a long life as some Industrial hot shot (roughly from the end text). That's is the sort a message I got. This happened around aug-sep 1942.

[Beery]

Nope, not any that modifies the game play as such. Not when this happened anyway. I started at Surabaya...

Okay, I'm going into Sherlock Holmes mode :hmm: . How did you start with a Gato at Surabaya? With the stock game Surabaya isn't a starting base and as far as I can see Gatos aren't available to any Asiatic fleet base (Manila, Surabaya, Fremantle) during the entire war.

I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. Watson! The game's afoot! Get my bags and a couple of gallons of opium. We're taking a sea voyage!

[CaptainCox]

Nope, as i said I was offered a "NEW" class boat at Pearl and took it, that was the "Drum" I can't remember what I had at JAVA i guess I could dig in my saved files...

"CurrentFlotilla=FremantleCommand
CurrentFlotillaBase=Surabaya
CurrentSDepartureDescription=1.3523e+007,-817381,358.44
CurrentUPCFlotillaUserPlayerUnitType=F2Sargo"

At Pearl
CurrentDate=1942-02-23 14:52:01
PlayerRankAchieved=LTCDR
PlayerCurrentLastPromotionDateTime=1941-12-08 13:00:00
CurrentFlotilla=PearlHarborCommand
CurrentFlotillaBase=PearlHarbor
CurrentSDepartureDescription=-1.89576e+007,2.54882e+006,242.189
CurrentUPCFlotillaUserPlayerUnitType=F1Gato

So put down that Cocaine syringe...no mystery i am afraid ;)

[CaptainCox]

I knew I had seen this somewhere....check this ;)
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=110807&highlight=Career

I have a suspicion that it has to do with the "DRUM" she was retired 42 or... Hang on...
1 November 1941; Decommissioned, 16 February 1946; Placed in service, 18 March 1947, as a Naval Reserve Training Vessel in the Potomac River Naval Command;

[Beery]

In the vanilla game Drum isn't retired until 1946. Anyway, the end dates for individual vessels aren't imposed on the vessel if the player is using it. Well, this is certainly a mystery. I'd assumed that it must be some stupid mistake that the devs had made with dates of service, but that doesn't seem to be the case.