Missing medals in the barracks screen

[Paul Riley]

After a rather nasty crash tonight I was forced to begin patrol 3 again.The crash seems linked to saving my game last night submerged and in close proximity to a sinking ship.Anyway that aside I went into the barracks screen to check everyone was set up to my liking when I noticed all their u-boat clasps had disappeared.I distinctly remember after patrol 2 getting 6 uboat clasps,and had my watch and watch officer plus my chief recieve them.
My question is,have they gone for good,and why?,or has the game saved them for me for some reason ready to use after patrol 3?

Its not been a good night for me tonight has it.

:zzz:

[Damo]

Don't tell me you don't use SH3 Commander??!!! Use that to award the clasps, and anything else you fancy giving your long suffering crew.

:salute:

[Paul Riley]

I use commander Damo,I dont think the clasps are available to award.There is an IC second class and IC first class,which seems strange as they were never there when I finished patrol 2.Daft question but,dont tell me ALL the medals are there to award as YOU see fit?,and not having to wait until the game thinks its necessary? (I had to ask)
I think I need to read more about how commander assigns medals and such. *sigh*

[frau kaleun]

If you know what to change in your career cfg files and (I assume) your crew cfg files, you can award or take away medals as you see fit, outside both the game and Commander. Both programs will then read the edited cfg files and show your updated medals/badges accordingly.

I know this because the game has awarded me the front clasp after my last two completed patrols and I went into my kaleun's cfg files and removed it. Since I'm still playing in 1940 nobody on my boat should be getting it, lol. It didn't exist until 1944.

Sorry I can't remember offhand which line I edited. But there's a thread here somewhere or in the Mods forum where someone listed what line corresponds to which medal. When a medal is awarded the value on that line changes from -1 to a positive value. I just go in and change it back to -1 for the front clasp, and then reopen SH3 Commander and look at my personnel file to make sure it shows the right medals/badges.

If I live past May 15 1944 I'll happily accept the front clasp, but not until then. :D

[Paul Riley]

If you know what to change in your career cfg files and (I assume) your crew cfg files, you can award or take away medals as you see fit, outside both the game and Commander. Both programs will then read the edited cfg files and show your updated medals/badges accordingly.

I know this because the game has awarded me the front clasp after my last two completed patrols and I went into my kaleun's cfg files and removed it. Since I'm still playing in 1940 nobody on my boat should be getting it, lol. It didn't exist until 1944.

Sorry I can't remember offhand which line I edited. But there's a thread here somewhere or in the Mods forum where someone listed what line corresponds to which medal. When a medal is awarded the value on that line changes from -1 to a positive value. I just go in and change it back to -1 for the front clasp, and then reopen SH3 Commander and look at my personnel file to make sure it shows the right medals/badges.

If I live past May 15 1944 I'll happily accept the front clasp, but not until then. :D

I didnt know it was as late as 1944 for the UBoat clasp medal.
Anyway,thanks for that :yep:

[frau kaleun]

I didnt know it was as late as 1944 for the UBoat clasp medal.
Anyway,thanks for that :yep:

The info I have for the medals in the game other than the many variations of the Iron Cross is this:

U-Boat War Badge (est Oct 13 1939, usually awarded after 2 combat patrols or 1 very successful one)

U-Boat War Badge Front Clasp (est May 15 1944, usually awarded based on 3 criteria: number of sorties against the enemy, or the risk factor relative to the sortie number, or personal bravery)

German Cross in Gold (est Sep 28 1941, usually awarded after IC 1st Class for outstanding achievements and bravery in combat which were not quite worthy of Knight's Cross)

If there is some way of making it impossible for the game to award the last two before the dates they were historically established, I'd love to know so I can work that into my game files. Or even a way to make it award the War Badge after two combat patrols instead of in whatever haphazard way it does it now. (I'm using Commander to make sure my crewmen all get it after 2 patrols, and edited my career cfg files to make sure I got it after 2 patrols.)

But I think if that were possible somebody would've done it by now, lol. So I'm just looking at editing the game files to award the German Cross in between the IC1 and the KC, and then if the date it happens in-game is too early historically I'll edit my career files accordingly.

Hmm... now that I think about it, I wonder if it would be possible to use the Date folders in Commander to insert edited files into the game before/after certain dates that would make it impossible for the German Cross and Front Clasp to be awarded too early in a career.

[Damo]

At a guess I'd speculate that you could remove the medal references from the config file and have SH3Commander replace them on the dates they become available, that way they wouldn't be awarded in game and SH3 and Commander would be in synch.

On the other hand, there's a good chance that this would cause a crash of some sort as I'm sure Jaeson would have written Commander that way from the beginning, instead of having their systems independent.

It's not something I'm going to delve deeply into as I manage just using Commander for my crew awards, and edited my files to make my own awards a lot harder to come by.

[Paul Riley]

Tonight I assigned a few qualifications to my fairly green crew (3rd patrol) via commander yet they werent there within the game itself...weird :06:
If I AM doing something wrong be patient with me,I dont do that much editing in my games,for obvious reasons,unless TOTALLY confident I can do it with ease.

[frau kaleun]

At a guess I'd speculate that you could remove the medal references from the config file and have SH3Commander replace them on the dates they become available, that way they wouldn't be awarded in game and SH3 and Commander would be in synch.

On the other hand, there's a good chance that this would cause a crash of some sort as I'm sure Jaeson would have written Commander that way from the beginning, instead of having their systems independent.

It's not something I'm going to delve deeply into as I manage just using Commander for my crew awards, and edited my files to make my own awards a lot harder to come by.

I copypasted the sections of the basic.cfg file that deal with requirements for medals/badges into Notepad and did some editing, and then added several variations of those sections to Commander's static settings.cfg file with ApplyTo date ranges that may or may not prevent things being awarded prior to their historical introduction. (I found an old thread where someone had talked about doing this and that's what pointed me in that direction. I couldn't find where anyone had ever confirmed that it worked as hoped back then, however.)

It's a weird setup, in GWX (don't know about stock) it looks like player medals (for the commander) are given out based on renown, whereas with crew medals at least some of them are awarded based on tonnage. I increased the renown requirements for most of the player medals so that it's unlikely I'll be eligible for the date-specific ones before they would be historically available. I also increased the requirement values on a couple of the crew medals to keep them from being given out before the player's renown reaches what I hope will be a commensurate level.

I have no idea if it will work, but I've played since tinkering with the files and so far no crashes. If it does work, I should be eligible for the medals in the following order: IC2, IC1, German Cross, KC, and then all the upgrades to the KC, and finally the Front Clasp.

The line that seems to control the awarding of the War Badge to the commander I edited to make it highly unlikely that the game will ever award it at all, seeing as how it should be awarded primarily on # of combat patrols and I can't see any obvious (to me) way of tying it to that. I'll just give it to myself in my career.cfg after 2 combat patrols like I've been doing anyway.

There's a line that also appears to control when the game decides you can give out the War Badge to crewmembers, but I have no clue what the game is tying it to and anyway the same thing applies as with the commander, 2 combat patrols. I'll continue to award those with Commander when appropriate.

[frau kaleun]

Tonight I assigned a few qualifications to my fairly green crew (3rd patrol) via commander yet they werent there within the game itself...weird :06:
If I AM doing something wrong be patient with me,I dont do that much editing in my games,for obvious reasons,unless TOTALLY confident I can do it with ease.

There's some good info about this in the Commander manual. Not all qualifications awarded in Commander have an effect on the game, some are available in Commander just for your records in crew mgmt outside the game.

For instance, IIRC awarding a qualification to a sailor in Cmdr has no effect on the game, but you can use it to designate him as a torpedoman, gunner, etc. for easier crew mgmt in Cmdr itself.

[Paul Riley]

I see,so its main benefit is as you say,being able to pre-manage your crew in 'THEORY' before commiting to it in game.Actually,that IS quite useful,as then you can see how your tailored crew would look without making a permanent mess :cool:

[frau kaleun]

I see,so its main benefit is as you say,being able to pre-manage your crew in 'THEORY' before commiting to it in game.Actually,that IS quite useful,as then you can see how your tailored crew would look without making a permanent mess :cool:

That is one way to use it. However some of the qualifications assigned in Cmdr do show up in the game and are recognized there and affect gameplay, so it's not just a matter of "theoretically" awarding quals to keep crew assignments straight in your own head.

There is detailed info in the manual about what will affect the game and what won't, recommended reading before you start doling out quals with either expectation.