Do you know what you can do with RSRDC?

[I'm goin' down]

You can participate in historically accurate campaigns in RSRDC by creating single missions and positioning your boat in the middle of the action. It is not hard to do, but there are several steps involved. If this interests you, read on.

I just discovered with Peabody's help that you can copy a campaign mission from lurker's RSRDC mod and convert it to a single, historically accurate mission. You have to copy the mis. file for the campaign which you want to convert to a single mission. The mis. files are located in the RSRDC data folder. You locate the campaign folder and open it, showing all of the campaign files. Find the file you wish to convert to a single mission, copy the mis. file, and insert the copied mis. file into the a newly created folder bearing the exact same name (you have to create a new folder to do this), and move the folder to the Single Missions folder. Then you must supply an object for the mission (such as sink the carriers), activate your boat in the mission, plus a few other things. You are finished when you sucessfully activate the mission. Their are several steps to activating a mission, such as taking human control of the sub, supplying a way point for the sub, figuring out and inputting when you want to enter the campaign, dragging the sub to where you want to enter the campaign, and supplying a mission objective. There is a tutorial in the Designers Forum in the Mods section -http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/clear.gif SH4 Mission Designers' Forum. (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=222) Also, it is clear to me that Peabody understands how to do this from his recent posts in the RSRDC thread where he gave me a mini tutorial on the subject.

Here is why RSRDC is unique. I created a single mission out of the RSRDC mis. file entitled CoralSeaBattle. I did some online research and found a site that had a layout of the locations where fighting took place in the battle, and showed the courses of the various forces involved, as well as key dates and positions of the ships. Rather than starting from Pearl, the single mission I created using the CoralSeaBattle.mis file starts on May 3rd or 4th in the Coral Sea, which is historically accurate. And you can position your sub right near the particular forces you wish to attack. Lurker's CoralSeaBattle campaign file as viewed on the Mission Ediitor appears to track the same locations and courses, and the dates were input accurately, based upon what I learned from my limited online research. By converting the campaign mis. file to a single mission, you can put your boat right in the middle of whatever action in the Battle of the Coral Sea that you want to participate in or observe (presumbably, if you observe it, you boat will be at periscope depth so it will not be attacked by enemy warships), and the ships will be there at the time designated in the history books pretty much. RSRDC campaign missions appear very complete and highly accurate based upon lurker's Readme's discussing the movement of Jap convoys and task forces in the war.

A further demonstration of the capabilities of "borrowing" the RSRDC campaign files involves the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor. I created a single mission from the PearlHarborAttack.mis file located in the RSRDC campaign folder. I labeled the objective as "Stop the Jap Fleet on 12/7/41." I positioned my boat at the point near the Hawaiian Islands just short of the location where the attack planes were launched. You do this by looking at the attacking forces' course way points for the campaign, which can be observed in the mis file using the Mission Editor. The Jap fleet showed up on time, but it was 0400 hours and I could not get a visual on any targets sufficient to take a shot. It was pretty damn dark. The Jap fleet sailed by my boat again when they fled the scene, but it was still to dark to do a proper set up using the periscope. I may need to position my boat along the way point where the Jap fleet will be situated at 0600. Again, Lurker looks like he accurately plotted the Jap fleet's course, its start date and location in Japan, and end date, etc. I haven't figured out yet whether the campaign mis. file shows the invading forces launching an air strike, but the mission editor can add one (maybe two) air strikes at Pearl if it is not already programed in that campaign mis. file, plus you can probably put ships at Pearl Harbor to be attacked. Setting up the ships and their locations at Pearl is too much work for me! Presumably, you could also place your boat near Pearl on December 7 to watch the action though the periscope or external game cam if it is capable of being activated.

There are a few tricks, such as not insert your sub into the mission if that sub did not enter the war until a later date, but you can figure all of that out based upon infomation provided in the Mission Editor.

If you take time to learn your way around the mission editor, you can really see some accurate, historical events using the RSRDC mod if you covert a campaign file into a single mission.

[peabody]

You can participate in historically accurate campaigns in RSRDC by creating single missions and positioning your boat in the middle of the action. It is not hard to do, but there are several steps involved. If this interests you, read on.

I just discovered with Peabody's help that you can copy a campaign mission from lurker's RSRDC mod and convert it to a single mission. You have to copy of mis. file for the campaign which you want to convert to a single mission. The mis. files are located in the RSRDC data folder. You locate the campaign folder and open it, showing all of the campaign files. Find the file you wish to convert to a single mission, copy the mis. file, and insert the copied mis. file into the a newly created folder bearing the exact same name (you have to create a new folder to do this) and move the folder to the Single Missions folder. Then you must supply an object for the mission (such as sink the carriers), activate your boat in the mission, plus a few other things. You are finished when you sucessfully activate the mission. Their are several steps to activating a mission, such as taking human control of the sub, supplying a way point for the sub, figuring out and inputting when you want to enter the campaign, dragging the sub to where you want to enter the campaign, and supplying a mission objective. There is a tutorial in the Designers Forum in the Mods section -http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/clear.gif SH4 Mission Designers' Forum. (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=222) Also, it is clear to me that Peabody understands how to do this from his recent posts in the RSRDC thread where he gave me a mini tutorial on the subject.

Here is why RSRDC is unique. I created a single mission out of the RSRDC mis. file entitled CoralSeaBattle. I did some online research and found a site that had and a layout of the locations where fighting took place in the battle, and showed the courses of the various forces involved, as well as key dates and positions of the ships. Rather than starting from Pearl, the single mission I created using the CoralSeaBattle.mis file starts on May 3rd or 4th in the Coral Sea, which is historically accurate. And you can position your sub right near the particular forces you wish to attack. Lurker's CoralSeaBattle campaign file as viewed on the Mission Ediitor appears to track the same locations and courses, and had the dates input accurately, based upon what I learned from my limited online research. By converting the campaign mission file into a single mission, you can put your boat right in the middle of whatever action in the Battle of the Coral Sea that you want, and the ships will be there at the time designated in the history books pretty much. RSRDC campaign missions appear very complete and highly accurate based upon lurker's readme's discussing the movement of Jap convoys and task forces in the war.

Just to show you how amazing RSRDC campaign files are, I also created a single mission from the PearlHarborAttack.mis file located in the RSRDC campaign folder. I labeled the objective to Stop the Jap Fleet on 12/7/41. I positioned my boat at the point near the Hawaiin Islands just short of the where the attack planes were launched. You do this by looking at the Attacking forces' course way points for the campaign, which can be observed in the mis file using the Mission Editor. The Jap fleet showed up on time, but it was 0500 hours and I could not get a visual on any ships sufficient to take a shot. The Jap fleet sailed by my boat again when they fled the scene, but it was still to dark to do a proper set up using the periscope. Once again, Lurker looks like he accurately plotted the Jap fleet's course, its start date and end date, etc. I haven't figured out yet whether the campaign mis file show the invading forces launching aircraft, but the mission editor can probably do that, plus you can probably put ships at Pearl Harbor to be attacked. Presumably, you could also place your boat near Pearl on December 7 to watch the action though the periscope of external game cam if it is activated.

If you take time to learn your way around the mission editor, you can really see some accurate, historical events using the RSRDC mod if you covert a campaign file into a single mission.

Well, you may not know it, but you also just learned the basics of beginning to write a Campaign. You write a bunch of mission with ships and planes but no player sub. You write a bunch of missions with objectives and no player's subs. They you link them together in a file so they will load on certain dates. Put the mission in the Flotilla files for what base and what sub you want to do the mission and you have a campaign. (It's a lot of work, but you now know the basics of how it is done.) That is the reason you can make single missions out of campaing mission, because they are basically the same thing except for the sub.
Peabody

[tater]

You can also create a single mission that just contains the submarine, placed in the action on the right date, then have the single mission also load the campaign files.

[I'm goin' down]

Good advice. Personally, creating a mission from scratch is a lot of work, too much for me.

Tater's suggestion may be a shortcut.

What I like is the fact that RSRDC has a lot of historical accuracy, such at BattleCoralSea.mis. In that mission Lurker has apparently duplicated the various fleets and major air attacks (I think it has air attacks because there are aircraft all over the place it seems.) So it offers an additional sense of realism that may appeal to some. For those who do not care, they can go wild and create their own campaign, and even have the Jap Navy confront Allied Forces in the Great Lakes, San Francisco Bay, the Greek Islands, etc.