Has anyone manged to create a new flotilla?

[Ducimus]

Has anyone manged to create a new flotilla? I mean besides dutch harbor. One idea that ive toyed with in the past but couldnt get to work was that of a "new construction" flotilla where you have an excuse to get a balao or gato early, go through a series of "working out" mission assigments, and then transfer to pearl or whatever.

One small problem, whenever i create a new flotilla, the game crash's just before the missionbreifing room. I figure its either hardcoded to 3 (kinda like how Sh3 was hardcoded to 8), or im screwing up somewhere (which is likely).

Long story short, i have a sneaky suspicion that the floltilla ID and base ID's are defined in the data\UPCData\UPCCampaignData\fllotillas.upc file but are declared elsewhere. I just can't figure out where.

[THE_MASK]

What about the CareerStart upc file , in the same folder as the flotillas upc file .

[Ducimus]

I think that file acutally calls on (is dependant on) the flotilla.upc, i think the problem is elsewhere.

I know i could get Dutch harbor working if i wanted to . (acutally i had it working with patrol assigments but deleted the test files i was working on some months ago).

Here's what im talking about:


;[Flotilla 4]
;ID= AlaskaCommand
;NameDisplayable= Aleutians
;AvailabilityInterval=1942-02-15, 1943-11-31

;[Flotilla 4.Base 1]
;ID= DutchHarbor
;NameDisplayable= Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands
;ExternalBaseName= Dutch Harbor
;AvailabilityInterval= NULL, NULL
;DepartureDescription1= -19983220, 6466426, 89.99
;DepartureDescriptionOut1= -19978388, 6476620, 357.961212



Is this ID, a definition, or a declaration? or both? See, in SH3, when you created a new base (or flotilla), you had to assign it an ID number. This ID number was basically a handle to call upon a base or flotilla in the flolilla.cfg file, but it is initially declared in the Menu.txt file. If you did not declare and define the ID number in the menu.txt file, it didnt work in the flotilla.cfg file.

So where is this ID= coming from? Its not the menu.txt file, ive searched it a dozen times. Thats where im stuck. Create a new flotilla, and CTD :nope:

[elanaiba]

ID = This is the ID for the current entry that I'm writing.

IDLink is generally where you connect to this ID for some purpose.

There should be no problem in adding even 100 flotillas ;)

[Fearless]

I think that file acutally calls on (is dependant on) the flotilla.upc, i think the problem is elsewhere.



Having had a look at Beery's readme document, he added the Dutch Harbor as a port where campaigns could be started via

Data\UPCData\UPCCampaignData\ CareerStart.upc, Flotillas.upc

A mod done by Beery.

[Sockeye]

I was able to turn Guam, Saipan, and Midway into starting points on patrol that you could terminate your patrol at. Just rough copy and paste jobs that were editted to make it work.

There's entries in the Localization.tsr file for already existing ports, so I added the names there just to be safe, besides adding the entires into Flotillas and CareerStart.

I also think it might matter that the ID names are the same as what is displayed in the Campaign_LOC file, although I'm not all that sure; ie, when I ID'd "Midway Island" I would get a crash, but "Midway" was just fine. Overall, I found it's best to keep the names simple for this. When I just kept it all simple, everything started working out.

Just another note: say you're creating Flotilla8, in the Flotillas file this squadron's boats will be F8Gato, F8Balao, etc. When you're in the CareerStart file, remember to link the entries in the line IDLinkUserPlayerUnits=... to these F8Boats no matter how many existing flotillas are in this start slot. So if your Flotilla8 is the third flotilla in the start date, it's boats are still F8Boats, and not F3Boats. Just bringing that up because I bumped into that.

I found adding flotillas/squadrons is pretty easy once you've figured it out, but it's a fickle thing when you're first trying because those CTDs pop up alot during the trial-and-error phase.

If you want to take a look at the files I worked on the link's below. There's a 1.3 issue that I haven't worked on since the patch came out, but the files still work as far as I can tell. It's been a while since I did this, but hopefully you'll see some hints.

http://files.filefront.com/TDY_Assignmentzip/;7755709;;/fileinfo.html

[Ducimus]

Thanks all! I'll get this nailed down yet, i want a "new construction" flotilla in the worst way! Screw that submarine school, i want to incorporate it into the career game!

edit:
There's entries in the Localization.tsr file for already existing ports, so I added the names there just to be safe, besides adding the entires into Flotillas and CareerStart.

I just have to say, i sense an "Ah HAH!" coming out of my mouth when i get home to work on this.

[tater]

We need to make a panama canal, then OTW to PH they can run into that u-boat of yours!

Not to mention a not-so-friendly friendly aircraft or 2.

;)

tater

[Ducimus]

editng that terrain file is waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy beyond me. I have no idea how the modder (whoever it was) made the proper scapa flow, kiel canal, suez canal and panama canal. But i wonder if that sh3 modded version would work in SH4. :hmm:

edit: nahh, doubt it, i think theres some terrain differences, would throw bases all out of whack.

[lurker_hlb3]

Yes

I have created 2 new flotilla's for a major campaign rewrite that I'm working on. It's not to hard. It requires rework of both the CareerStart.upc and Flotillas.upc

[CaptainKobuk]

A fix for the huge travel times in and out of Pearl would help make the game just more fun. Right now it takes 20 minutes round trip to Japan using 3000x time compression. Which is all the faster my computer can deal with.

Midway would be the natural place to pick to solve the Pearl distance issue.

Maybe a base on Attu in Alaska that equips up to porpoise class would be a believable scenario. That would put the poiposes very close to Japan and enemy shipping, the way they are out of Manilla. For early game and later restocking of the bigger subs.

keep on thinking on this tack guys - the fun factor is really the gain with MODS like this