Single missions & unit types

[XenonSurf]

[Moderator please move this in the SH4 mod section, thanks very much !)



Hi,
what can cause a mod soup to cause CTD when hitting 'Single Missions' in the main menu?
Also is there are single cfg or tsr file in the game which lists all Type and Class ID's for sea units (and other units) ?


I'm currently trying to adapt a playable ship package to work with different mods, only clash possibilities I can see are badly referenced unit types which are different than those defined in the single mission *.mis files, for example if a single mission contains




(...)
[Group 1.Unit 1]
Name=_JP Fast Merchant#1
Class=NACA3
Type=102


I understand that the unit '_JP Fast Merchant#1' must be present in the Sea folder and exactly referenced as Type=102, if the number is different then it could crash the game. But what can cause a crash when hitting a menu section like 'Single Missions', I don't see the relation here ?

Problem is also I don't want to browse all unit cfg files to see if there are some 'doubles' that cause a crash (how could I do this anyway...) Is there a single file somewhere listing these ID's ?


Thanks,

[gap]

Hi XenoSurf,

in SH5 and SHIV you can find a list of all the stock ship types in data\Roster\Names.cfg. The same file also contains all the ship classes and their menu names and this information should be updated every time a new unit is added to the game.

If a megamod / ship mod causes any stock mission to crash, three pre-requisites must be checked.


All the ship classes called in that mission must be in the sea folder, they must be named with the exact same class ID names as in the mis file, and they must be available in the roster of the nation(s) specified in that file. If a mod removes one of the stock ships from the game, renames its ID name (the menu name is not relevant) or removes it from the roster of one nation, it will cause the game to crash if a mission calling for the same ship class is launched.


Ship classes are assigned to national rosters through cfg files in the Roster folder, where their availability for each nation are marked as game entry/exit dates. I am not 100% sure about what I am going to say, but if a mission with a certain date calls a ship of a given nation, but the mission date is outside the window of availability of that ship class for the specified nation, the mission might crash the game on loading, or the called ship might not spawn in game.


For any given ship class, there must be an exact match in its unit Type, as stated in sea folder's .cfg file, roster ship .cfg file and mission file. If a mod changes the unit type of a ship, and that ship is required by one of the stock missions, the game will crash before the mission ends loading.


In my text above I talked about ships, but the same applies to any unit category (Sea, Submarine, Air or Land). I hope that helps :salute:

[XenonSurf]

Thank you Gap, I appreciate your details, I will take a look in the names.cfg files, also your point 2 can be checked easily by modifying an entry date in a single mission to see if the game crashes or instead if the ship doens't spawn (which I remember was the case). An important trait in SH4 & SH5 is that single missions will *always* crash the game after 72 hours or so gameplay chrono time (I know this from SH5, but maybe not the case with SH4.)
As a last ressort I will have to go through all the unit files in Sea folder and the campaign mission files to see if these units are correctly referenced like in the names.cfg you mention, this is cumbersome but possible somehow. Normally I use to delete from a mod the Campaigns, the Sea, and Roster folders if I want to revert to stock campaign for testing and it 'generally' works but there are exceptions.

Have you ever seen or heard that it's possible to make any unit go along with a player's submarine in a mission/campaign ? I mean for example that a destroyer would always follow the waypoints of the submarine like in a defined convoy group? Of course such a 'player group' must be setup in a mission file.



Thanks very much :up:


XS