Stuck in Marshall Islands

[scar3tactics]

Greetings,

I started a campaign out of Pearl Harbor using TMO and RSRDC in March of 1943 (I tweaked campaign files to get the earliest start date with the late war conning tower) and was sent to the Marshall Islands. After completing my objective I radioed back in and was sent an assignment right back to the Marshall Islands. Completed that one and requested a third and got... you guessed it, Marshall Islands. I’ve been running RSRDC for a while now and never had back to back assignments when sending patrol reports. I’m assuming I buggered something by tweaking the start date, but I’m not sure what. I also haven’t started a second patrol so things may be back to normal once I dock. Any ideas what this may have screwed up and if it’s something I can fix?

Thanks

[propbeanie]

You may have tweaked something beyond the point of bending, but there are at least six missions that are coded as "MarshallGilbert" in TMO/RSRDC, and you still wouldn't have a "repeat" in the strictest sense of the word, just a repeat of the area. You also don't have to phone home each time you complete a mission, and even if you do and they assign you another mission, you don't have to do it since there is not penalty in the the game (unless you do a no-no and sink a friendly, neutral, or a hospital ship). Give your tweak a few more rounds and see how it does. If nothing else, you can just deactivate the mod and then reactivate, and that should blow away your edits. Or you could just open the mod in the MODS folder, go to the folder of your edits (UPCCampaignData), and edit the game files to match the mod's text... :salute:

[scar3tactics]

Yeah I normally don’t radio in but happened to this time and when it sent me to the same area it made my modding sense tingle as if I had done something to screw it up, so i kept trying and confirmed it was a little odd. And to your point, they’re all different assignments within the Marshall/Gilbert chain, so not exactly duplicated. Previous patrols have sent me to Palau, then Rabaul etc so I expected some more variation in patrol area.

I’ll finish out this patrol and see where I go. If it’s back to the marshalls I’ll undo the mod.

[propbeanie]

Early in the war, there are not too many places that a boat gets assigned to, other than Empire Waters and the Marshalls. The Marshalls are usually 'dead' as far as traffic goes, but in real life, the USN thought that the Japanese had based their Pearl Harbor attack from the Marshalls, when in actuality, only some of the submarines came from there. But once you get to mid-42, the game should use a more-varied set of choices. Look in a combination of the Flotillas file for the missions assigned, particularly to the "ObjectiveCode=" line in each assigned Objective - that will match corresponding "AllMatch=" lines in the PatrolObjectives.cfg file, which will have the path and file for that particular coded mission file. You can also tell from the dates of the assignment in Flotillas.upc as to when that particular sub will have the chance to be assigned that mission. Another thing about it is the listings go top to bottom of the assignment list, by date, hence with some of the boats, even though East China Sea is listed first, it doesn't "start" getting assigned until after January 1st, 1942, so the next assignment in line goes first, and that is for the Marshalls... :salute:

[scar3tactics]

Well this is March of 43, so not that early but you’re right. Looking at the Flotillas.upc for SubPac out of midway in March 43 the objective is Marshall/Gilbert so I’m not surprised I was sent there leaving base. I think my question is more “What determines the subsequent objectives you get when you send a patrol report?” I haven’t been able to figure that out in the code.

[propbeanie]

Logic?... ~logic~??... :har: Sorry... but seriously, the logic is one two three, if available by date, unless otherwise restricted, licensed or revoked... er, went back into it.

The Midway starts, being basically a copy of the Pearl starts, still go in the same basic order as Pearl, no matter the date - sort of. If you look in the Flotillas file again, and say you're in a Porpoise (Stock game as an example), "...UnitType 1", and for its assignments, you'll see "ObjectiveCode=" for Honshu (Obj 3) and Hokkaido (Obj 4) both have a date range of "NULL, NULL", meaning they go from beginning to end. The Marshall assignment (Obj 2) is "NULL, 1944-04-01". So on a December 1941 start, one of those three missions is chosen, with the Obj 2 having "preference", if you will. The "East China Sea" (Obj 1) and "Caroline Islands" (Obj 5) run "1942-01-01, NULL". The other objectives are similarly dated, some longer, some shorter duration. So the game in March of 1943, has available seven of the eight missions. Any one of those seven could be chosen, but it does (most times) seem to give "preference" for a "1, 2, 3, etc" progression, but remember that December 1941 start of using Marshalls first... Then there is that "random chance". The "random" generator used in the game, is an old one, and isn't really random, and does seem to have a propensity of getting "stuck", sort of like the weather does, and it's also supposedly "random"... :salute: