Neutral Shipping

[Telemon]

Greetings,
My new Kalun was on his first patrol off Gibraltar when he sighted a DARKENED ship. He closed and identified it as a troop transport. He stalked and sank it only to be credited with sinking a Hospital ship! I cashiered him and removed him from command. (can't live with -5000 renown)

My next Kalun is on his first patrol again near Gib when he too sighted a darkened ship, vis is 'poor' and flag not identifiable. Ship is med cargo so he sank it. It was Spanish! He too has been cashiered and removed from command.

I am now questioning how the two ships were sunk. As I understand it a hospital ship should be well lit up and show a white band and red crosses on the hull, neutral ships too should be identifiable as such, and show appropriate lights including navigation lights. Have the rules changed?

My new captain has been instructed to avoid ships at night and not attack unless it is in convoy or is escorted.

Comments please.

[VONHARRIS]

You are right.
According to war rules darkened ships were legitimate targets in some areas.
Hospital ships should be easile identified as such. (In game I have never seen a darkened hospital ship)

The game doesn't understand those things.
If you want you can edit the basic.cfg file like this :

[RENOWN]
RenownReachGridObjCompleted=100
RenownPatrolGridObjCompleted=500
CompletedPatrol=150
NEUTRAL=1 <-- this is normaly -1 which deducts renown.
ALLIED=1
AXIS=-10

Like this you can sink neutrals if they don't comply with the rules.

[Sailor Steve]

The first thing you need to understand is that in SH3 there are NO lighted ships! GWX lights up some neutrals, but hardly all. You need to check the flag of every ship you see, or use the mod that restores color codes on the map. You can find this in Jimbuna's link above his signature.

As VonHarris showed, you can edit renown awarded. I think it's wrong to gain renown for sinking a neutral so I have mine set for 0. I also set renown for friendlies to -1, because friendly ships were sunk, and though kaleuns were court-martialed for it they were all found not guilty.

[Missing Name]

Yeah, I do what Sailor Steve does. But then there's no way to penalize for sinking hospital ships. If I sink one (which I haven't), I manually end the career.

[VONHARRIS]

As VonHarris showed, you can edit renown awarded. I think it's wrong to gain renown for sinking a neutral so I have mine set for 0. I also set renown for friendlies to -1, because friendly ships were sunk, and though kaleuns were court-martialed for it they were all found not guilty.

1 . I didn't know that lightned ships were a feature of GWX.
2 . I have set NEUTRAL=1 for one reason : Suppose you find a darkened US tanker in November 1941 heading cleary for the UK. I would sink her no matter what, as she is carrying contraband for sure. I think I must be rewarded for destroying valuable - for the Allies - fuel.
Any comments are accepted.

[flag4]

2 . I have set NEUTRAL=1 for one reason : Suppose you find a darkened US tanker in November 1941 heading cleary for the UK. I would sink her no matter what, as she is carrying contraband for sure. I think I must be rewarded for destroying valuable - for the Allies - fuel.
Any comments are accepted.

i have toyed with this idea for a long time and now i would ask how do i change this to what you have VONHARRIS. i think it is a more realistic approach as the sneeky americans were nosing across the atlantic from quite early on - i mean, come on - fair is fair - give us a chance:woot:

[Osmium Steele]

2 . I have set NEUTRAL=1 for one reason : Suppose you find a darkened US tanker in November 1941 heading cleary for the UK. I would sink her no matter what, as she is carrying contraband for sure. I think I must be rewarded for destroying valuable - for the Allies - fuel.
Any comments are accepted.

Interesting, and when I ran into an undefended US tanker convoy off the coast of Africa in Oct. 1941 I was sorely tempted, but I realized I didn't want to be the man responsible for dragging the US into the war in earnest.

An easier 36k+ I haven't seen outside the Caribbean. :03:

[Herr-Berbunch]

Stay away from Gib?

And according to my current read American and Japanese supplies also got to Germany, via Russia whilst the treaty held. :DL

[VONHARRIS]

i have toyed with this idea for a long time and now i would ask how do i change this to what you have VONHARRIS. i think it is a more realistic approach as the sneeky americans were nosing across the atlantic from quite early on - i mean, come on - fair is fair - give us a chance:woot:

In the basic.cfg file:
[RENOWN]
RenownReachGridObjCompleted=100
RenownPatrolGridObjCompleted=500
CompletedPatrol=150
NEUTRAL=1 <-- this is normaly -1 which deducts renown.
ALLIED=1
AXIS=-10

and then it is up to me to decide what to do.
For example : I will not fire against a US C2 with all lights on even if she is heading straight at London.

[flag4]

...cheers VONHARRIS - i have done this now:up:

[Jimbuna]

BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[LGN1]

Hi,

my solution to this problem is to randomize the value for 'neutral' via SH3 Commander. So whenever possible I try to identify the ship to avoid sinking a neutral. However, if I'm not able to do this (e.g., long range shots when attacking a convoy) I have a fair chance that I will not be penalized (ships in a convoy were legitimate targets).

I think this is quite realistic because real commanders didn't know what would happen to them when sinking neutrals (legitimate targets or not).

Cheers, LGN1

[Gargamel]

I believe neutral vessels in a convoy mainly of non-neutrals give up their neutrality for the duration of the convoy. At least that's how I think they treated them IRL

[Sailor Steve]

Any comments are accepted.
Nothing to comment on, or at least argue with. Your reason is good to you, and mine is good to me. As I said, I also have AXIS set for -1 rather than -10. Several Axis ships were sunk by u-boats, and in every case it was determined that the target was in the wrong place or it was disguised as an Allied ship. I keep my NEUTRAL set at zero so I'm not tempted to just sink all the neutrals.

Hi,

my solution to this problem is to randomize the value for 'neutral' via SH3 Commander.
That is brilliant! How exactly did you set it to get that result?

[Missing Name]

I believe neutral vessels in a convoy mainly of non-neutrals give up their neutrality for the duration of the convoy. At least that's how I think they treated them IRL

This is how I play. I track all convoys - "enemy" or "neutral." Most times, a "neutral" convoy is guarded by enemy ships or has enemy targets. Although early war means you might wind up sinking an American destroyer...

[Gargamel]

wind up sinking an American destroyer...

Darn

I don't like destroyers, even friendly ones.

[LGN1]

That is brilliant! How exactly did you set it to get that result?

Hi Sailor Steve,

just add these lines to the 'Randomised events.cfg' file:

[0:data\Cfg\Basic.cfg]
ChooseFrom=2
RndMidPat=1

0_RENOWN|NEUTRAL=0
1_RENOWN|NEUTRAL=-1

Depending whether you already have entries that alter the Basic.cfg file, you will have to change the 0 to a different number.

The lines above will result in a 50% chance that you will get penalized when sinking neutrals. You can change the probability by adapting the ChooseFrom value and adding more entries, e.g.,

ChooseFrom=3
RndMidPat=1

0_RENOWN|NEUTRAL=0
1_RENOWN|NEUTRAL=-1
2_RENOWN|NEUTRAL=-1

--> 66% chance that you will get penalized....

Regards, LGN1

[VONHARRIS]

Thank you LGN1.

It will add to the game.

[Sailor Steve]

Pretty neat deal. Thanks.

[Captain Nemo]

My main problem with how SH3 handles neutrals is that when using TC the watchcrew never verbally shouts "ship spotted". TC drops to x1 but I know straight away I'm dealing with a neutral because there was no verbal annoucement to go with the drop in TC. You can also increase TC to whatever you want in the presence of a neutral which you can't do if an enemy ship is in range. Same applies to aircraft.:down:

Nemo

[RConch]

My main problem with how SH3 handles neutrals is that when using TC the watchcrew never verbally shouts "ship spotted". TC drops to x1 but I know straight away I'm dealing with a neutral because there was no verbal annoucement to go with the drop in TC. You can also increase TC to whatever you want in the presence of a neutral which you can't do if an enemy ship is in range. Same applies to aircraft.:down:

Nemo

My experience is if the TC doesn't go above 32 after it is spotted-it is an enemy.
Also if you hit one with a torpedo-the crew does not cheer. Dead silence on board.

[Captain Nemo]

My experience is if the TC doesn't go above 32 after it is spotted-it is an enemy.
Also if you hit one with a torpedo-the crew does not cheer. Dead silence on board.

Same here. No need to identify if the ship is neutral or not, the way it's handled in TC gives it away.

Nemo

[Missing Name]

Is that behavior hard coded? I think if we found a way to disable it, every encounter with a ship would be exciting. It would be easier to accidentally sink neutrals and friendlies... no more quick confirmation of nationality! Do research on each target you find, look up the flag...

[Captain Nemo]

Is that behavior hard coded? I think if we found a way to disable it, every encounter with a ship would be exciting. It would be easier to accidentally sink neutrals and friendlies... no more quick confirmation of nationality! Do research on each target you find, look up the flag...

Not sure if it's hard coded or not, perhaps others can comment, but it would be a major enhancement to the game for me if all ships and planes whatever nationality were treated exactly the same.

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

Really? One of the big complaints is that it's hard to get out of port because they shout "Ship Spotted" for friendlies. Why not for neutrals? I've been playing for seven years and I've never noticed anything like that.

[andwii]

I have noticed the problem with darkened neutral ships. This has caused me some problems in renown, but Ive never worried about killing off my career because of it. One thing though that really made me mad is I saw a darkened US large tanker after war was declared, I sank it and it was listed as a neutral. Also once I did see a darkened hospital ship. It was night in a fog, had for torpedoes ready for firing (was tracking by passive sonar (saw outline of ship, figured to be a passenger liner), and at the last minute I thought to look at the ship for identification purposes, and it was a blasted darkened red cross ship. Ugh I was I tempted to sink the ship.

[bigboywooly]

. One thing though that really made me mad is I saw a darkened US large tanker after war was declared, I sank it and it was listed as a neutral.

Depends how close to war declaration it was.
Ship may have started out when US neutral so from a game POV will show as such when sunk

[Boompus]

During my current patrol (1940) a Greek ship lighted up 2 spots on her flag. I gues they spotted me ... "Hi there... I'm neutral..." Smart move.

[LGN1]

Concerning the TC issue:

I think you can adapt it in the main.cfg file (not in the SH3 directory, but in the 'player directory'):

PrayState=8
HunterState=32

Just increase the values to whatever you want as a limit. :yep:

Regards, LGN1

[Captain Nemo]

Really? One of the big complaints is that it's hard to get out of port because they shout "Ship Spotted" for friendlies. Why not for neutrals? I've been playing for seven years and I've never noticed anything like that.

I'm not sure about friendlies I'll have to check that when I return from my current patrol. All I know is that in my install there is no verbal annoucement of "ship spotted" when my watchcrew spot a neutral when in TC. If I am already out of TC when they spot the neutral then I get a verbal "ship spotted". Before I altered the TC settings in SH Commander the TC also only dropped to x8 when a neutral was spotted.

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

Before I altered the TC settings in SH Commander the TC also only dropped to x8 when a neutral was spotted.
I thought you meant that you weren't dropping out of TC for neutrals, not that you just weren't hearing the announcement. No, I don't always hear the announcement for neutrals, friendlies or enemies, but the first thing I do is check the dialogue box. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I also changed mine to drop to 1x anytime anything is spotted.

[Captain Nemo]

Sorry for the misunderstandingNo problem. I also have my TC settings set to drop to x1 when something is spotted. Its just the lack of a verbal announcement when a neutral is spotted that is a spoiler for me.

Nemo