No Medals???

[ddiplock]

After 5 good patrols, a new boat and a couple of transfers and a year of war since December 8th 1941, I still don't have any medals to speak of.

Despite doing good patrols and racking up a good number of sinkings. My last patrol I returned with 4 ships sunk for a good 25,000 tons worth to my credit.

I'm dishing out promotions and medals to my crew like they're going out of style, but Phil W. Greene, commander of USS Drum is seeing little appreciation for his efforts!!! :(

I've had previous careers where I have gotten medals by the 3rd patrol, and despite my good record and achievements with USS Permit, and then the Drum, I'm getting nothing! :(

[magic452]

Be more aggressive. :D

The medals thing is not all that good, I gotten the MoH for mediocre patrols and nothing for good ones. I think that it takes 45 or 50,000 tons for most medals. It seems that the medals are set up for a shoot em up rather than a serious war game.

Magic

[TorpX]

I've had previous careers where I have gotten medals by the 3rd patrol, and despite my good record and achievements with USS Permit, and then the Drum, I'm getting nothing! :(

Perhaps the difficulty level you are using accounts for the difference?

In any case, I agree with magic. The way medals are awarded in the game don't make much sense. I look upon it as unabashed favoritism in the fleet. :DL

[Daniel Prates]

I would change all my medals for more renown, or other such advantages. The way they are depicted in the game, they become rather pointless.

Actually, there are some signs that the whole medal issue was not well thought-out by Ubisoft. Notice how you have a medal case with empty medal slots, which, I am guessing, were supposed to be filled up with such medals when you receive them (as it is the case in Ubisoft's Medal of Honor). Instead, you click on the box and an odd-looking screen appears. According to your performance, you can have several repeated medals, such as the silver or bronze stars, which as I recall, were awarded only once. So what gives? ....

[TorpX]

My understanding is that medals can be awarded more than once, but I've never been in the service, so maybe someone who has can clearify this.

[Daniel Prates]

I checked and, yes, I'm wrong here. Navy Crosses, Silver and Bronze stars, even a MOH can be awarded twice - though that's indeed rare.

[CapnScurvy]

The stock game has a big problem with the award and medal system. Some time ago Elanaiba (one of the Romanian game developers) wrote:


"In my documents - should be about the same in the code...."


CMOH: 6 ships sunk in the same engagement (checks for 24 hour time frame) or 2 of the following BB, CV, CVE.


Navy Cross: 8 ships sunk in one patrol or a BB or CV.


Silver Star: 6 ships sunk in one patrol or a CVE or CA sunk.


Bronze Star Medal: 3 ships sunk in one patrol or a DD, CL or larger combatant ship not worthy of a higher award.


Purple Heart: Over 40% medium damage taken by sub.


Non combatant ships should be 1000 tons or higher in weight.

==========

Least wise that's how it's supposed to work. The fact is the stock game awards the CMOH in place of the Bronze Star Medal, which has the picture of the Purple Heart!?! A long known bug with the images for all six awards (not just the CMOH). Does the game issue the awards as discribed? I'm not sure. I believe there are other factors that take effect as well.

Actually the stock medal award system is so screwed up it's hard to tell you in which direction to start first. The names are not in sync with the actual picture, plus the picture of the medal is not displayed correctly with the tier it should represent. There are six awards, and for the most part, the stock game has them jumbled up for both the Captain Awards and the Crew Management screen (where you award a crewman with an award when you are back at base).

The "U.S. Medals Fix II" mod thread is found HERE (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=142241). It's still useful for the stock game without other mega mods installed. It's already in the TMO 2.0 mod, or RFB 2.0.

[Daniel Prates]

Even with this medal mod, it still does not deliver. I don't know, I miss the medal system you would find in old games, where you would access a screen and see your uniform build up overtime with medals, ranks and etc. You had it in games as old as "x-wing" and "AOD", so why not here?

[CapnScurvy]

From a modding point of view, we can only work with what the game gives us. Believe me, there are issues that need changing, but we don't have access to everything we would like. The game publisher and the developers made certain of that. Like the list of criteria of what is supposed to be used for the issue of an award. We don't have access to it. As Elanaiba said, it's "in the code".

We can change the image of a medal; change/fix its specific "order" or "tier" compared to the other five medals; correct its name so the Silver Star is called the "Silver Star". But, we can't amend "how" an award is presented (for what set of events/actions warrant's the medal). Nor, can we change the fact that the medals appear only at the Captains Office through the Award Box sitting on the desk. It's what the game gives us, and it's what we have to work with.

This isn't an isolated issue with only the award system, other game features have the same problems. Back when the game was first released, version 1.0. The publisher told the devs to "give us what you got" and made good on their projected release date of March, 2007 for the U.S. The game was released with only the metric system for its unit of measurement. An American Fleet Boat simulation that uses the metric system!?! No, darn way!!! Yet, that's what they did.

SH4 depends heavily on it's older sister SHIII for its code. This imperial unit of measurement "oversight" was just one of those issues that was permitted to be "corrected" with it's first patch, which appeared within the first month of the March release. The only problem with the patch was the devs had converted the metric system to the option of "imperial" but when you used the metric system, it still read using the imperial system. Guys playing the metric system actually were reading the range and map measurements in yards not meters as they should have. This conversion issue is hard coded, there is no file of configuration page that allows us to change the math conversion equation from metric to imperial or back again. It's done behind the scenes in the code. Even though some of us saw this problem, we couldn't do a thing about it. The problem was finally corrected about the 3rd or 4th patch. It's obvious there won't be any other patches for the game. There's little we can do to fix issues that take more than an image change, or configuration file tweak that don't get in-depth enough to fix the root problems.

[Daniel Prates]

Yep, I should imagine there would be limitations... anyway, it's not that important. Medals. Humpf. Who needs them?