[REL] SHContacts11. Small but important change.

[Nicolas]

Hello all.

'SHContacts' now have this new function:
Choose change report probs. only to british groups or US or both or all countries
(this because GWX shows all contacts in black). I put it this two countries only because i like programming but not paperwork ;) .

This tool allows you to change the probability of getting radio reports in a random fashion. It can be adjusted to get more or less (altough less was not my idea) at the point you that simulation (the search part) and gameplay/action gets balanced to your taste. My personal liking is that some pain searching is necessary but not too much.
This program is small but it can change totally your sh3 :arrgh!: .

Sorry if my english is bad.

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EDIT Corrected little bug when selecting all countries.
http://hosted.filefront.com/Nicolas1979/ (http://hosted.filefront.com/Nicolas1979/)
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Suggestions:

- Make backup of the file before you run the tool for the first time to save the original campaign file!!. The tool can do this for you, but better if you can save manually a second copy. the file is named Campaign_RND.mis.

- It is better to run again the tool with your numbers (restoring to the original
first if not the numbers will not be good reference) between 1-3 patrols.

- Example numbers (to increase):
Percentage of each type of group: 30 to 70
Probabilities: min: 10 to 25 max: 50 to 70
The interval between 'try reporting' like min: 300 max: 1600.
Optional: 'Write new values for'
- Example numbers (to decrease):
Percentage of each type of group: 50 to 100
Probabilities: min: 10 to 15 max: 20 to 30
The interval between 'try reporting' like min: like 400 max: like 2000.
You need to write new values. Check all the 'Write new for' checkboxes.

- Check only british before 1941, both british and US after.

- If you are playing for the first times sh3, play a career or some patrols
with the original campaign files. Then you can decide better if you need to use the tool.

I want to hear your opinions or post bug report or example numbers. ok! ok ok, i want to hear if you like my little tool :yep: or not... :dead: .

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I notice that subsims comunities and people on sh3 multiplayer are the most 'good ambient gamers' i found. I wish you happy Christmas and God bless you.

[Dilust]

Oh, this is a great X-mas present. Thank you very much!
Only few questions:
1) As you said your application overworks the random mission file. What exactly mean the command lines named

SpawnProbability=
ReportPosMin=
ReportPosProbability=

and how they exactly works?

2) Other country ships will be affected by the overworking?

3) Your programm affect the report probability for task forces, but what's up for lone warship like submarines?

4) Airplanes reports?

5) What means "probablity of ships leave the port"?

6) It is necessary to re-generate the random file after each patrol and why? I don't have a powerfull PC, and the procedure take some minutes.

Thank you very much for your hard work and for your time. I wish you a Merry Christmas and an happy new year.

Regards,
Dilust

[irish1958]

Nicholas
Thanks for this wonderful tool. I won't have a lot of time to run tests over the holidays, but I will later and report back.:hmm:
On my one patrol with the SH3Contacts1.1, everything worked as advertised.:rock:
Merry Christmas and have a wonderful New Year!:sunny:

[Nicolas]

Thanks Dilust.

1) SpawnProbability= Is the probability if a group will appear; no contact report only going to sea (i think is that i never touched this) so if you increase more ships will be at sea.
ReportPosMin= Minutes will pass until the game try to report again...
ReportPosProbability=the probability of getting a report on each try.

2) When i made the program i was playing the original sh3 so if the game trhow me reports of neutral countries i dont care because they have color... but in gwx contacts appears black so i made this function to change only for british or american or both or All like before.

3) It is possible to add new entries for subs and airplanes.

5) Modifies SpawnProbability=

6) Each group can appear more than once, (they have entry and end dates) meaning that between patrols (specially if numbers are high) you may encounter reports on the same routes. Running the tool again (restoring original first) keeps random which routes will be reported. But if you not notice this behaviour there is no need.

I hope this can help. Greetings.

[bigboywooly]

SpawnProbability= Is the probability that a group will appear no contact report only going to sea (i think is that i never touched this) so if you increase more ships will be at sea.

Means % chance the group will actually sail\show ingame - make them all 100% and you can sit in one spot and wait
:nope:

ReportPosMin= Minutes will pass until the game try to report again...

Correct

ReportPosProbability=the probability of getting a report on each try.

Correct

When i made the program i was playing the original sh3 so if the game trhow me reports of neutral countries i dont care because they have color... but in gwx contacts appears black so i made this function to change only for british or american or both or All like before.

It is possible to add new entry for subs.

Answers in yellow

Interesting idea
Nice little program

Will appeal to those on limited time and the impatient players

[Nicolas]

Thanks Irish Happy Holidays. :D

[Nicolas]

I know is almost religion among a lot players the going alone at sea and search, i dont like to 'disturb' that, i wrote this:
"- If you are playing for the first times sh3, play a career or some patrols
with the original campaign files. Then you can decide better if you need to use the tool."

[CapitanPiluso]

Hola Nicolas, es bueno ver a alguien vecino por aca !!!

Feliz Navidad !!!

[CapZap1970]

De acuerdo capitán Piluso...:up:
Que gusto ver un vecino por estos lados, que tengas una muy Felíz Navidad. :rock:
CapZap

[Nicolas]

Feliz Navidad CapitanPiluso, Feliz Navidad CapZap :up:
Si es lindo, no saben que alivio es escribir en castellano :p .
Feliz año nuevo tambien!!

[majama]

thx, very interested

[difool2]

Somehow I completely missed this the first time (maybe the holidays distracted me). I've been tooling around in DW for the past week but this might warrant a look. Probably need to adjust (in contacts.cfg) the opportunity range to taste as well.

[Venatore]

Thank you very much for your mod :up:

[danurve]

This program looks interesting.

Downloaded it and fired it up. I'll admit to being a little confused about the paths it is looking for. Root of SHIII - data - cfg?

The readme does not detail what files it edits / for back-up.

[Melonfish]

Sorry to Necro, but does anyone have this mod backed up.
Flippin filefront eh?
:up:

[Sailor Steve]

I have a copy. I'll try to put it up tomorrow.

[irish1958]

File uploaded to SubSim downloads with Nicolas's permission.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=1402

[Deputy]

I have the same problem as others. The readme file is incomplete. It doesn't say which file to aim the program at. Can you post it here and maybe update the readme so that folks will know in the future?

Dep :)

[irish1958]

I think the file to point to is: ...../SilentHunterIII/data
And if you have more than one install, you have to rename all you have previously used SH3Contacts on, at least temporarily, or the program will seek out the same file, no matter where you place the SH3Contacts program.

[Deputy]

I think the file to point to is: ...../SilentHunterIII/data
And if you have more than one install, you have to rename all you have previously used SH3Contacts on, at least temporarily, or the program will seek out the same file, no matter where you place the SH3Contacts program.

Nope....that isn't the place. The backup button keeps saying wrong location. I'm really disappointed that I can't use this program. But without a better description of what path to use to make it work, it's useless. :cry:

[irish1958]

From the readme in v1.1: The file is SilentHunterIII/data

I will mess around with my installs and try to verify this, but I think it is correct.

On my install (windows7) the full path is C:/games/SilentHunterIII/data

[HW3]

I think it might be the SilentHunterIII/data/Campaigns/Campaign folder.

[Deputy]

From the readme in v1.1: The file is SilentHunterIII/data

I will mess around with my installs and try to verify this, but I think it is correct.

On my install (windows7) the full path is C:/games/SilentHunterIII/data

Ummm..."data" is not a file, it's a FOLDER.:)
I'm not gonna activate a program that does mods to something that can't be located or backed up BEFORE I mod it.

[irish1958]

I tested, and the programs requires you to point to the folder "data." and not to a file apparently. The program then makes a backup file in the campaign folder "campaign.RND.bak" and has a button to allow you to restore the orginal file.
The main problem is that you have to make sure that all your installs are given a temporary name so the program has to ask you to locate the file (folder) you want to change; otherwise it will always choose the last file modified.

[Deputy]

What??? And I don't have to pat my head and rub my belly at the same time too? :D

I tried pointing to the data folder and making a backup but all I got were error messages that I was pointing to the wrong location. Methinks the program needs a bit more work in the "user friendly" and descriptive areas before being useful.

[Deputy]

Okay....against my better judgement I'm gonna do as Irish instructs and install this mod and try it out. Why do I have the queasy feeling that I'm about to do a full re-install of the whole game? :(

[Deputy]

Ack! Can't do it. The reporting in minutes thing is just too unclear to comprehend. Oh well.

[Nicolas]

Hello Deputy.
About the backups. Before overwriting any file the program will do a backup.
Manual backup?:
copy ...\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Campaigns\Campaig n\Campaign_RND.mis
to another place. This way you have a backup just in case.

The 'thing' to select is:
...\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data
Go to the dialog, double clic that folder ("data"), and clic ok.

The parameters work this way.
Single ships %
Convoys %
Task Forces %

if you put 50% in Single Ships, then the program will modify the 50% of all single ships, if there is in the whola campaign (39-45), 1000 single ships routes for example, it will modify 500.

Then the next 3. the probability of getting a report:

Single ships % And %
Convoys % And %
Task Forces % And %

if you put 20 And 60, the program will assign to each route of those 500 (50% of 1000 single ships routes remember), a probability of getting a report between 20 and 60, can be 21, 30, 57... is random.

Then the other 3 fields, 'Try to report every'
Well, it is this way, if you put 200 and 1200, a random value between 200 and 1200 will be calculated for each 'route'.

The report system work this way:

There is a ship somewhere. The program assigns to that ship:
Probability of report = 20
Try Report = 300

Every 300 minutes (game time) is a chance of 20% (1 in 5) of that ship being reported (appears in the map).

Always tick the 3 checkboxs below 'Write new values'
because the program was made before a release of gwx that changed the value needed to know if a ship is not being reported.

I hope that cleared the doubts.

[irish1958]

Nicholas,
Thanks for this great tool. It has been a godsend for testing.
I actually like the way it reports. In heavy traffic areas there are a lot of ships, but they may be fishing boats, sailing vessels, tugs, etc. So getting a contact doesn't mean you are going to get a 12K ton ship. You may spend a couple of hours chasing a fishing boat before you can ID it. I suspect this happened to the U-boats all the time.

[dfscott]

I like this idea, but I'm not sure what reasonable values would be. That is, I want to double the number of contacts, not pump them up 100 times.

BTW, does this have to be run at the beginning of a patrol or can it be run mid-patrol?

Edit: Oops, didn't realize how old this thread was -- sorry for the necro!

[irish1958]

dfscott,
Thread may be old, but if you are using SH3, it is still useful.
As far as what is realistic or useful, that is a personal choice. I find that all campaign scenarios vastly under report the close ship traffic near land and busy ports, but are very good for task forces and convoys.
My personal style is to markedly increase contacts of ships only if I plan to patrol near shore, especially if around the Caribbean or near England. If I plan to patrol in the open ocean, I leave the campaign.RND file as the original for the Major mod I am using.
If I am testing, I crank up all contacts.

[dfscott]

Ok, thanks for the info. I was finding that when I chose the 7th Flotilla, the early career missions (i.e., late 1939), had hardly any targets at all, so I was trying to "spice things up" a bit at the cost of some historical realism.

Edit: Never mind, found another thread about this (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=166252) .I forgot that the war hasn't started yet!