Editing the Ship Identification Guide?

[Otto Heinzmeir]

I installed the NYGM3.2 mod and added in the IABL Ships for it. Looking good so far.

My question is there are now a number of double and triple entries for ships. They have the same silohette, draft and mast height. The only difference being the tonnage. For the sake of identification though, As long as the draft and mast are the same, I want to remove the 2nd or 3rd entry so I don't have to flip as many pages when I am looking up a ship type.

Can this be done easily?

[Sailor Steve]

Those pages are controlled by the 'xxxSilhouette.tga' found in each ship folder in the Sea folder. Each one is made for a specific entry, and I think you can only remove the page by removing that entry from the sea folder. I don't know if that screws up the game any, and I don't want to be the one to experiment with it.

If you're playing at 100%, you have to turn the pages. If not, have your Weapons Officer identify the target, then click 'Ship' at the top of the notepad and the page will come up automatically.

[Hitman]

Steve that is quiet interesting....

As you might know, I discarded the recognition manual long ago because it is impractical to use with so many new ships already available, and hence my optics mod do no use it. But I would gladly leave the stadimeter in the attack scope if I could edit the recognition manual in a way that it just shows 15 custom ships, for the sole purpose of sending mast heigths of 15 to 30 metres to the stadimeter. It is absurd that the game forces you to have a positive ID of a ship before allowing you to use the stadimeter, but this could prove to be a good workaround....see the ship, estimate mast heigth and then simply open the recognition manual to pick that mast heigth from a list of them, not of vessels :hmmm:

[Sailor Steve]

That would be a cool idea.:rock:

[Otto Heinzmeir]

@Steve Thanks for the info. I have 3 separate installs of this game, and back ups on a different partition so I shall have a go and if it knackers things I'll just restore. I like to do the ship ID myself, but with so many its gotten mind boggling.

I never knew the Weapon officer did that. I thought all he was good for was to see how many minutes my torp reloads would take:O:

@Hitman I use your optics, great stuff. I am sure some might like the notepad. Always good to have more than 1 way to do things.

[coronas]

@Otto: There are identical ships; American and British have identical .sils but diferent tonnages. Look at the names in .sils, there are M10a&M10B, T=01A&T01B, ...Don´t delete.
@Hitman: There was a mod for a simple ID, Merchant, Tanker, Destroyer, etc. Do anybody remember?
:salute:

[Otto Heinzmeir]

Yea the identical ships all show up in the identification charts. I don't want to delete them from game. But only need 1 instance in the merchant section of the manual so I don't have to turn 50 pages to verify what ship is my target.

The different tonnages don't serve any purpose for targeting so wouldn't be missed from the ID manual.

What I discovered so far. Renaming the sil file to silORI so the game won't read it only eliminates the photo but not the page from the ID manual. I then tried renaming the cfg file related to the ship but that causes a CTD. It looks as though it may be hardcoded that as soon as a ship folder has a cfg file the game auto generates a corresponded page for it in the ID manual.

In the Sea folder is a file EnglishNames.cfg I believe that the pages in the maual show up in the order that the ships are listed in this file by class type and country assigned to. I may at least be able to put all the duplicate merchant ships, ie when there are 3 medium cargoes all with same mast and depth) at the end of the manual.
This way perhaps I can just refer to say the first 15 pages instead of flipped through several dozen.

I really want to get it organized because I like to ID myself but often first see a ship in fog at short range when there isnt time to flip through 40 cargo ships.

If I can get this to work at some level, I'll post my findings.

[RoaldLarsen]

@Otto: There are identical ships; American and British have identical .sils but diferent tonnages. Look at the names in .sils, there are M10a&M10B, T=01A&T01B, ...Don´t delete.


What was the point of doing that?

Is there a simple way of removing the duplicates?

[coronas]

What I discovered so far. Renaming the sil file to silORI so the game won't read it only eliminates the photo but not the page from the ID manual
Every ship must have her sil for ID purpouses
Otto, there is a trick. Once AO id the target, click on "SHIP" in the stadimeter notepad. ID book open in the correct ID page.

[Otto Heinzmeir]

Every ship must have her sil for ID purpouses
Otto, there is a trick. Once AO id the target, click on "SHIP" in the stadimeter notepad. ID book open in the correct ID page.

Thanks, looks like that's what I'll have to do. I prefer doing everything myself though as its more fun:up: I could always print out the most common merchants on some card stock.

[coronas]

Enjoy! :03:

http://files.filefront.com/ID+Book+Prereleasepdf/;8777155;/fileinfo.html

It´s a fab work by Iambecomelife

[Otto Heinzmeir]

Nice, thank you! I have all the merchants printed out with the draft and mast as they pertain to the mod I have installed. Each ship is on a 4 and 1/2" by 8 and 1/2" card. Sorted by tanker, cargo, transport, and coastal vessel. Just haven't decided yet if I will bind them somehow. Maybe two holes along the left side and string some leather cord through. Don't want it to look to modern.

[coronas]

Do anything like this?

http://www.rubylane.com/shops/prairieland/item/5030

[Otto Heinzmeir]

Nice! I could do up a cover something like that in German. :yeah: