Tmaru: Repeat patrol fix

[Ducimus]

Ok, in light of this thread:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=120577

and this thread:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=120398

I am at an impass with this. As ive stated previously, I am really sitting on the fence with that mod. On one hand, i question if its neccessary, on the otherhand, i question if i should just make it Tmarus default installation.

Since i can't make up my mind, i guess i'll put it to a vote :roll:

[Limerick]

AKA lane2512 at ubi/sh4 forum...

Default the patrol fix into the game.

[maerean_m]

Do you mean there is a fix for the bug that keeps giving the same objective in career mode? If it is the case, do you know how is the fix implemented?

[Ducimus]

Do you mean there is a fix for the bug that keeps giving the same objective in career mode? If it is the case, do you know how is the fix implemented?

Yeah i do, i made it. its sort of a fix, but its more like fancy scripting. As im sure you know, the game normally assigns around 5 (give or take) geographical regions. Each geographical region is supposed to be picked at random, and each region has a random set of missions assigned to it.

Honshu for instance has:
- 5 insert spy missions
- 8 patrol missions
- 5 photo missions
- 8 sink missions.

So again, out of 5 or so regions, the game is supposed to pick one, and once a region is chosen, its supposed to pick a mission of the subset of missions that exist for that region. So ideally, you have alot of replaybilty there. The trouble is, it doesnt always work that way. Instead you get honshu patrol, again and again, and again.

So what i did was, take all the missions assigned to geographical regions, and split them apart into two groups. I put all patrol and sink missions in one group, and all photo, spy, commando, etc into antoher group.

So where as before all missions were under the ID handle of "Honshu", i now have two groups, "Honshu" and "HonshuOPS".


I then went back into the flotilla files and did something like this:



[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 2]
ID= PH1Obj2
NameDisplayable= Empire Waters
AvailabilityInterval=1941-12-07, 1941-12-31
ObjectiveCode= Hokkaido

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 3]
ID= PH1Obj3
NameDisplayable= Empire Waters
AvailabilityInterval=1942-01-01, 1942-02-31
ObjectiveCode= HonshuOPS

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 4]
ID= PH1Obj4
NameDisplayable= East China Sea
AvailabilityInterval=1942-03-01, 1942-04-31
ObjectiveCode= East China Sea

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 5]
ID= PH1Obj5
NameDisplayable= Formosa
AvailabilityInterval=1942-05-01, 1942-06-31
ObjectiveCode= Formosa StraitOPS

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 6]
ID= PH1Obj6
NameDisplayable= Caroline Islands
AvailabilityInterval=1942-07-01, 1942-08-31
ObjectiveCode= Caroline Islands

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 7]
ID= PH1Obj7
NameDisplayable= Luzon Strait
AvailabilityInterval=1942-09-01, 1942-10-31
ObjectiveCode= Luzon StraitOPS

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 8]
ID= PH1Obj8
NameDisplayable= Palau Island
AvailabilityInterval=1942-11-01, 1942-12-31
ObjectiveCode= Palau IslandOPS

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 9]
ID= PH1Obj9
NameDisplayable= Empire Waters
AvailabilityInterval=1943-01-01, 1943-02-31
ObjectiveCode= Honshu

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 10]
ID= PH1Obj10
NameDisplayable= Yellow Sea
AvailabilityInterval=1943-03-01, 1943-04-31
ObjectiveCode= Yellow SeaOPS

[Flotilla 1.UserPlayerUnitType 1.Objective 11]
ID= PH1Obj11
NameDisplayable= Empire Waters
AvailabilityInterval=1943-05-01, 1943-06-31
ObjectiveCode= Hokkaido


What i did was force the game to pick a specific mission be making it the only available mission at the time. Where as stock, the orginal 5 geographical areas were always open, and the game tended to default to just one or two of them, and not use all of them enough. I made each mission have a 2 month time window, before i closed it, and opened the next one. As for mission types, i was careful to stagger them. Patrol, and then some sort of special operations to gain more variety. The above scripting exists for all flotillas and all boats except the S class and the alutians, for all years of the war. The normal flotilla file is about 37KB, my scripted one is about 85KB.

Thats the gist of how it works, group like missions together, stagger them to break up monotony, and the force the game to pick a mission, by making it the only one available. Most patrols plus time in port usualy run in the neighborhood of 2 months, so thats what i set the open and closure times for missions to.

[maerean_m]

Thanks, will look into it

[Rockin Robbins]

I just don't think the repeat missions bug exists. Other posters have convinced me that if you complete the mission and radio in you will have the same experience I have. I very seldom get a repeat mission. I have had six missions in my present career and probably eight in previous careers which were cut short by mod changes that I couldn't resist.

Do what you're told. Radio in when the star turns gray. Missions are truly random. Random choice guarantees some repeats. It works!:up:

[cdrsubron7]

Think it should be made a default installation, myself.




cdrsubron7 :up:

[ReallyDedPoet]

As is with the optional mod :yep:


RDP

[amurph182]

I just don't think the repeat missions bug exists. Other posters have convinced me that if you complete the mission and radio in you will have the same experience I have. I very seldom get a repeat mission. I have had six missions in my present career and probably eight in previous careers which were cut short by mod changes that I couldn't resist.

Do what you're told. Radio in when the star turns gray. Missions are truly random. Random choice guarantees some repeats. It works!:up:

Sure, and this works as far as the game is concerned. But in reality a boat would be assigned a patrol area, they would patrol and sink whatever they could, and then they would go home. Skippers weren't radioing in saying "I've patrolled of Honshu for two days and sunk a freighter, send me somewhere else." When they were assigned to drop off supplies or a coastwatcher or commandos or something they would also have a patrol area assigned ahead of time. Sometimes they would receive instruction while underway to go somewhere else or pursue a warship contact or take up a lifeguard station. But it's a far cry from how the game works now with the constant reassignments.

I'd rather the default be to have just one mission per patrol, to stick closer to realism. If it is possible, then have random things thrown in mid-patrol, such as a last second order to photograph a harbor, assume lifeguard duty, etc. But I don't know if you can do that without a lot of work if at all, and I know Ducimus would rather play than mod at this point so I'm happy using the "fix."

[Deepbluewolf]

well i'm pretty much for it being standard:up:

[mookiemookie]

From a mod compatibility standpoint, I don't want to enable any more mods than I have to. I'd rather it be optional as I've never run into this bug. It hurts no one to have it as an option.

[Marko_Ramius]

I second that. Better optional for me.

If you think you need the fix, you take it from optional folder, and enable it. Simple. Everybody's happy.

Just my 2cts

[Ducimus]

I had an idea that might be splitting the difference.

My assumption is that some folks don't like the "repeat patrol fix" because it forces special operations missions every other mission. Admittidly a little gamey.

What if the missions were scripted, but with no forcing of special missions. For instance Honshu, stays Honshu. No, seperation of "honshu" for patrol and sink missions, and "HonshuOPS" for special missions. Mission groupings stay stock, just the availbitly of missions becomes scripted. Im thinking of making that default, and then run two optional mods. The first one being current repeat patrol fix which becomes something like "More SpecOps" and then the second just stock flotilla assignments.

edit: while im yapping.
For those who encounter repeat patrol loopings. Are you leaving out of Pearl habor flotilla?

For those of you who don't want or don't use the repeat patrol fix, do you use primarly in the asiatic fleet? I could just script out the pearl harbor flotilla and leave the asiatic fleet alone. Reason is, it seems like most of the repeat patrol complaints come out of pearl harbor users, and not so much for Fremantle/brisbane users.

[stufer]

Hello to all

I've had this game for a couple of weeks now and found Subsim straight away - all the mods and great advice here has been a massive help to my enjoyment of this game.

I downloaded Trigger Maru 1.4 and am absolutely loving it! I was dubious about these "repeat patrols" at first as I wasn't getting any, but last night I definately ran into it.

I'm based at Fremantle and I started in June 1942 in a Gar Class sub. My first patrol took me to the Celebes Sea. I radioed in when I had completed the patrol - I had also run out of torpedoes - and got no reply so I returned home.

Second mission was to transport Lt. Freeland Heston and his 6 troops to near Surabaya. I got them there, radioed that I had done so, and was ordered to patrol the South China Sea. I did that and got a few ships, radioed in and was ordered to patrol the Java Sea. I did that and got a few more ships and ran out of torpedoes and radioed in. No reply so I returned home.

Third mission was to transport Lt. Freeland Heston and his 6 troops to near Surabaya. :roll: I got them there, radioed that I had done so, and was ordered to Patrol the Makasar Straits. I did so and got some really nice ships (one of those Huge Liner's), ran out of Torpedoes and started heading for home but quickly ran into a Task Force. I radioed the contact back and was told I had made a good find, that I should break contact and RTB. This I did. When we got back we were heroes - Medal of Honour for me, many medals and promotions for the chaps and command of a brand new Gato class sub, USS Drum. This was in October 1942, and taking that command meant going to Pearl Harbor.

You can imagine my suprise when I got to my new office in Pearl and sitting there waiting for me is Lt. Freeland Heston and his 6 troops wanting tranportation to near Surabaya.:o

I wanted to explain to him that the advantage of suprise was now lost - that the Japanese would be expecting him by now! Particularly as he seems to use solid metal rowboats that crash endlessly against my hull! To be honest I think the man's an embarrassment by now.

So I began the patrol and I started in Pearl Harbor itself. I started the engines and stopped them again - exasperated at having to get to Surabaya from Pearl, when the pop-up came up asking if I wanted to launch the boat. I clicked yes but nothing happened. I clicked on the port symbol and ended the patrol. When I got to the office Lt. Freeland Heston had gone and I was ordered to Honshu island to hit merchant ships.

That's the patrol I'm doing now so don't know if I'm passed the repeating missions for good yet.

Just to be clear, I completed all those extra missions I was given too - the stars turned grey.

So I would vote for a fix for this - as you can see, this happened in the Asiatic Fleet, so it's not just Pearl.

I have found this Lt. Heston thing quite amusing and it hasn't detracted from my enjoyment of the game or this great mod. Many thanks for it! :up:

Cheers
Stu.

[letterboy1]

With a tool like JSGME, optional is the way to go. In fact, I extract the parts I want from Maru and make them individually JSGME compatible.

[nomdeplume]

With a tool like JSGME, optional is the way to go.
Seconded. I don't experience the repeating missions bug, but having every second mission be a "specops" thing would be a little annoying.

OT: I'd also love it if the "pencil mark map contacts" was set up as an optional component of the mod, too. Mostly because it's the only part of TM I don't use.

[chopped50ford]

You can imagine my suprise when I got to my new office in Pearl and sitting there waiting for me is Lt. Freeland Heston and his 6 troops wanting tranportation to near Surabaya.:o

I wanted to explain to him that the advantage of suprise was now lost - that the Japanese would be expecting him by now! Particularly as he seems to use solid metal rowboats that crash endlessly against my hull! To be honest I think the man's an embarrassment by now.

Stu.

OMG...just reading this cracked me up. Awesome. :rotfl:

Maybe Lt. Freeland and Disdale should grab a rowboat and just head east...with one oar.

[Ducimus]

I have to admit that was a good read. :D

Voting aside, ive developed a new fix for repeat patrols, that isn't as hard scripted as previous versions that i'll be making as default instillation in TM 1.6.

In short, how it works, is that in a 3 month time span, two mission areas will be available for the game to pick from. Might be Area 1, or Area 2, which you get is up to the game. After 3 months, those areas are expired, and then the game has 2 more areas to pick from. then again, after 3 months, the current area assigments expire, and a new set of areas become available.

[-Pv-]

Clever solution Ducimus. You have attracted my interest. I'm one of those operating out of Pearl who hasn't had any repeat missions yet. I haven't put any mods at all into the game. I also haven't had any instance where HQ hasn't replied to my out of torpedoes radio call (if I wait long enough.)
-Pv-

[The_Pharoah]

looking forward to the repeat patrol fix. I am based out of Fremantle, WA and have been given the same 'drop spy off Singapore' mission 3 times! The 3rd time I just gave up and exited the game. I might try what Stufer suggested and get him to exit at Fremantle (he might live a little longer, cept for the crocs, great whites and bull sharks off the WA coast).

Any ETA on TM 1.6?

oh and btw, my radio doesn't work any more. I can't messages or contact reports.