[TEC] Torpedo Avilability

[tater]

What file(s) determine the dates and numbers of torpedos available in port?

Does the same file determine what you get when you "refit" without docking?

I ask because the port is always full of torpedos.

When torpedos were in short supply, sometimes fleet boats had to take MkX fish, and when given a special op, they frequently only carried the fish that were in the tubes, no reloads.

Other times boats were sent on mining missions for lack of torpedos. Sometimes just fewer reloads than they were capable of holding.

Might be interesting to limit the torpedos from time to time and force the boat to even put to sea with less than a full load.

[Bando]

This is interesting. I have just read something on the internet (I believe it was a letter from CINCPAC to the white house/pentagon) about this matter. It sais that at times there were no torpedoes in Pearl and there was a bitter competition going on between the pac commander and the asian fleet commander, basicaly trying to "steal" eachothers torpedoes from the factories.

Offcourse you would have to make refitting a bit more challenging too.

I agree with your post

[tater]

Yeah, the whole point of picking torpedos, and using your "pull" (renown) to "buy" them is that they should be LIMITED. In game, there are always enough. Always.

I'd like to see fewer than 24 torpedos available, or maybe just 24, and you must pay renown to buy them. A skipper who doesn't get the goods, doesn't get the fish.

[Sockeye]

I think the Ammunition.Upc file in the UPCData\UPCUnitsData folder may be part of the answer. A snippet:

[Ammunition 11]
ID=Mk18Torpedo
NameDisplayable= Mark 18 Torpedo
Type= AmmoTorpedo
Subtype=Mk18TorpUS
AmmunitionIntervalOptionCurrent= NULL, NULL, 0
AmmunitionIntervalOptions1= 1943-07-12, 1944-01-15, 500
AmmunitionIntervalOptions2= 1944-01-16, 1944-08-31, 200
AmmunitionIntervalOptions3= 1944-09-01, 1950-05-31, 0
Volume= 1
PackSize=1


I just browsed it briefly, and am not sure if you can limit the amount of fish available.

[tater]

The list certainly looks like it has fewer than 200 or 500 weapons. Wonder what those options mean.

[Sockeye]

Yeah, I thought the IntervalOptions would be of interest, but my guess is the last number in those lines are renown costs.

Beyond that, at the moment I'm not quite sure what can be done with this file other than setting availibility dates. I imagine time gaps could be input, but I don't know if the total number of available fish could be lessened--I mean, whether full-stock or only six to choose from in the menu. You could of course create a gap for ALL fish.

I know it would certainly be a pain to come back to port to so NO fish in inventory :D

[tater]

When new types are introduced, are the total torpedos always equal?

Say there are 40 in the list (I never counted), would there be 20/20 Mk10/Mk14 early war, then when Mk 23 is out 10/10/10? Curious.

The system they have is seriously broken, seems like it's unfinished. The entire point of renown buying torps should be to mimic the profound shortages early war, right?

[Sockeye]

That's what I'm thinking, Tater: either full stock or nothing at all. It may be just a matter of poking around the files, or it could be hardcoded.

To limit the number of available torpedoes that can be taken on, it may be an option to limit the number of slots in the actual submarine files, say instead of 24 slots, only twelve; something date-based with a randomizer. A last-ditch type of thing.

[tater]

It'd suck if it was hard-coded.

That's a possible work around, but perhaps not worth it. An alternative would be to hugely increase the cost of torpedos in renown based on date... Such that ALL cost enough that you can only afford to buy a limited number. Obviously this would only work in an RFB type situation where 50k+ patrols are not the norm. Of course the only players wanting such a mod are they types already playing RFB, lol.

Can a specific mission result or trigger change the chances of getting a certain mission for your next patrol?

tater

[Sockeye]

I'm not too sure about triggers at the moment, but I know you can change your patrol objective manually by looking at the PatrolObjective file in UPCData\UPCCampaignData, and changing the "PlayerCurrentObjective=ID..." in your saved game.


I like your idea about the increased renown to simulate the shortages. I think that would be the most effective way to go about this, and it should just be a matter of creating more IntervalOptions in the Ammunition.upc :up:

[tater]

I just did that (made a mod changing renown cost). It works as expected.

The number of torpedos available is the next issue. It puts an equal number of each type. I made the cutie available in 1941, and sure enough, there was the cutie in the list. It alternated mk14, mk10, cutie, mk14, mk10, cutie, and so forth. Hard to count the total since it moves 4 down with each turn, no page down.

I wonder where you would add a new torpedo type instead of altering an existing one...

One thought for early war, which would look crappy but work:

Add in a late war torpedo for that date, but at HUGE cost. Impossible cost. 10,000 renown, 20,000 renown, whatever. Adding one would make the list 1/3 mk14, 1/3 mk10, and 1/3 impossible to buy. That would force you to take some old mk 10s.

I also noticed something by accident. I set up the interval options, and typoed a date. I used "6" for june instead of "06" on the mk14. NO mk14s were available.

Wonder if you could use that.

On the S-boats, you don't see the mk14s, right? Wonder if the array at port is linked to the boat type...