[WIP] Temporary Duty

[Sockeye]

TDY Assignment simply adds three new flotillas to your SH4 install; namely Midway, Saipan, and Guam, all of which you will be able to operate out of if desired. The dates for these bases are approximately 10JUN42 for Midway, and 20AUG44 for both Guam and Saipan.

Historically, American submarines actually spent appreciable time in these ports, rather than the time required to blink an eye to refuel, rearm, etc, as seen in SH4. As well, CinCPac (Nimitz) established his headquarters at Fonte Plateau, Guam after the island's liberation from Japanese forces; the reason as I understand it was the feeling that Pearl Harbor was too far removed from the frontlines at this point in WWII.

Operating out of Guam or Saipan during the last months of the war should make you feel closer to the front too, and while I don't know the price of fuel in the 1940's, it should definitely save some gas money.

Also, included in this package are two optional lines for your Menu.txt in your Data/Menu folder, which I feel add a nicer touch to the initial briefing when recieving your initial command when starting a career.


Special thanks to Beery for his work on Real Fleet Boat, without which I wouldn't have been inspired to add these three operational flotillas. It is to be noted that the four files included in this package were editted using RFB as a base, and are used with permission. In keeping with this, staging out of Dutch Harbor as included in RFB will be available; as well, expanded campaign start dates as included in RFB are in this package.


Any bugs, comments, suggestions, or general feedback?
Feel free to voice, vent, etc.


Good huntin'!


Link:
http://files.filefront.com/TDY_Assignmentzip/;7755709;;/fileinfo.html
JSGME-Ready




http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2000/midwayes3.jpg

[tater]

Cool. I like it.

[the_belgian]

After 2 seconds for a refit i just stay at that harbour for 24/36 hours,solves the "blinck refit"-problem for me :smug:

[Stew U-582]

I think it sounds like a great idea.

If youve got the time to nut it out Im sure plenty of people will download the mod

[LukeFF]

In reality, a refit is long, time consuming process that takes more than a day or two. What the screen should say when docking in a port to replenish ammunition and fuel is "Refuel & Rearm" (which can be done with the menu.txt file).

[Sockeye]

I feel a bit re-energized about the project today, so I've been taking another look at things.

Still running into a couple problems, soooooo.... the troubleshooting begins.

I hope to have some good news soon though :up:

[Sailor Steve]

In reality, a refit is long, time consuming process that takes more than a day or two. What the screen should say when docking in a port to replenish ammunition and fuel is "Refuel & Rearm" (which can be done with the menu.txt file).
Good point. A refit involves drydocks and inspections, upgrades, more inspections and a new shakedown. Which is obviously not what it means in the game.

[panthercules]

Is there not a setting you can play with in SH4 like you could in SH3 to set the delay between patrols? I know SH3 Commander allowed you to do this easily, but it was presumably just tweaking something that could probably have been done manually - I used this to take a 6-month assignment as an instructor in the U-boat school before being brought back to a front flotilla to help Adm. Doenitz figure out why things had gone so terribly wrong in May 1943. Is there something similar in SH4 that we could tweak after saving in port to delay leaving on the next patrol for however long we want, so we could simulate this sort of temporary duty/delay that way?

[Sockeye]

Okay, I was able to add the flotillas I was looking for, so now I'm just waiting for a permission to launch.

Added Midway, Saipan, and Guam to flotillas and career start so that patrols can be launched from and ended at these bases. It's not a hard thing to do, but a bit tedious and it can be easy to make a mistake that has to be gone over again.

Right now I have the dates set at around June 10, 1942 for Midway; and late August '44 for Guam and Saipan, so this should make you feel a bit closer to the war during the last year. If I understand correctly, CinCPac was moved to Guam for these exact purposes, the feeling that Pearl was out in the back waters. But if these dates sound inaccurate, it's an easy thing to adjust.


*****

About expanding time spent in port, I don't know if there's a utility yet, but I know it's possible to change the dates in your desired save game in your My Documents folder. I toyed with this a bit to extend the time when I upgraded to a new boat in my last career, pushing the dates forward a year.

The saved game's current date, and next mission date would need to be modified for this, which isn't a problem. I'm not at my gaming rig at the moment, so I can't check the exact lines, but they're easy to identify.

Along similar lines, patrol objectives can be changed in a similar fashion: matching up the "PlayerCurrentObjectives=ID..." in the saved game with the desired line in the "PatrolObjective" file in the UPCCampaignData folder. Example, search for "Caroline Islands" or something similiar in the PatrolObjective, note the ID number, and copy this into your save, and bingo.

Hopefully SH4 Commander will have some options available to work with these lines.
:up:

[Sockeye]

Bumping for release (no sinuendo intended)

See first post.