Der Teddy Bar
01-14-06, 02:29 PM
New Campaign files by Stiebler and Teddy Bär. To be available 16/01/06
These campaign files (all found in data\campaigns\campaign\) were first adapted from the original SH3 files for RUb (‘Real U-boat’) by a variety of modders, see RUb’s original documentation.
Starting with the files provided with RUb version 1.45, I’ve made the following changes:
CAMPAIGN_LND.MIS.
*IMPORTANT NOTE*: sometimes, when dragging the map across the eastern Russian cities, a Crash-to-Desktop (CTD) occurs. This bug is a feature of the original SH3, and is not due to the new campaign_LND file. The CTD can occur at any time, but most frequently at high time compressions and/or when the U-boat is in port.
A. CORRECTIONS.
Many corrections to the cities and ports, including removal of some duplicates (eg Gibraltar had been entered twice for the same dates and side). Sides assigned correctly to many of those incorrectly handled, especially those affiliated to Vichy France such as Toulon. Colonies of France and Italy better handled. Dakar now made a French port instead of South African. Azores made neutral until October 1943. Some new additions, usually replacing existing not-very-useful ports; eg Reykavik (Iceland) and Takoradi (Gold Coast, Africa) added. ‘Lowestofte’ (England) renamed to give correct ‘Lowestoft’. Turkey and Argentina now enter the war in March 1945. Other changes, too numerous to list. File ‘data\roster\defside.cfg’ altered.
B. AIRBASES.
1. Azores air base now correctly enters the war in October 1943 (was January 1943).
2. Large air-base on St Helena moved to Ascension Island (south Atlantic, north of St Helena). This means that the map of air cover provided with the standard SH3 game no longer shows correct air cover for the south Atlantic. Imagine the circle of air cover currently shown around St Helena as having been moved upwards over Ascension Island.
3. Deadly new, elite, large British airbase ‘Biscay1’ now covers the Bay of Biscay and a small part of the Atlantic west of Spain, from August 1942 to August 1944 (the period of the great Coastal Command air offensive on U-boats crossing the Bay). It is no longer safe to sail casually on the surface from a Biscay port into the Atlantic.
C. NEW MINEFIELDS (already incorporated into RUb 1.45).
Teddy Bär’s ‘British East Coast Minefields’ incorporated. These stretch out to 100-150 km from the British East Coast (200 km in some places), see accompanying .jpg maps. The shallowest of these minefields is set to 8 metres deep, so the U-boat can sail across them surfaced in good weather. But NOT in stormy weather! Consequently, grid patrols once assigned next to the British east coast in ‘data\cfg\Flotilla.cfg’ have been re-assigned to the next square east.
[Signs of being sunk by a mine: There is no warning or audible explosion. Sudden massive damage and flooding to the U-boat, usually causing quick sinking. If you were travelling at high time compression, you are sunk instantly by ‘flooding’.]
D. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0” to “CrewRating=1” and (original) “CrewRating=1” to “CrewRating=2”. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)
CAMPAIGN_RND.MIS.
A. CONVOYS AND INDIVIDUAL UNITS IMPROVED.
1. Revised to remove all neutral ships from convoy, replacing with closest Commonwealth ships. So now you will not be penalised for sinking ‘neutral’ ships in convoy (which were legitimate targets). There may be a few omissions, with convoy passage times overlapping countries entering the war.
2. Alteration of convoy/unit speeds between waypoints (Teddy Bär’s original idea).
I have implemented this as follows:
Each convoy is classified according to its original starting speed (SLOW = 5-7 kts; FAST = 8-9 kts; VERY FAST = 12-14 kts). Starting and way-point speeds are then programmatically altered randomly by +/- 1 kt or +/- 2 kts (also possibility of +/- 4kts for VERY FAST convoys), but must not exceed limits (SLOW- min = 4 kts, max = 8 kts; FAST- min = 6 kts, max = 10 kts; VERY FAST- min = 8 kts, max = 15 kts.) No two waypoints can have the same speed - if this occurs, the new speed is adjusted randomly towards the mean speed and changes of 0.5 kt may rarely occur.
The speed of each individual unit (merchant or warship), not in a convoy, is altered as for the convoys, but without the convoy limits.
B. NEW OR CORRECTED SHIPS.
1. Tankers of type OTMST2 sometimes used before they were available (August 1942). These have been replaced with type OTSF.
2. A Hospital Ship is now running backwards and forwards from Liverpool (Britain) to Halifax (Canada). Ship has a British flag, but ranks as a Neutral (safe passage has been guaranteed by the German Government). It has dull red cross markings on the funnel and ship sides, and carries no guns. Don’t sink it, or you will lose 10000 in Renown! (Hospital ship files created by Iambecomelife and Sergbuto, requires the folder NHOS to be added to folder ‘data\sea’, and file NHOS.cfg to be added to ‘data\roster\british\sea’.)
3. Two merchants LagosTramp and LagosTramp2 have been added to the Gulf of Guinea sea area (west Africa, near Lagos).
C. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0” to “CrewRating=2”, and “CrewRating=1” to “CrewRating=2”. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)
CAMPAIGN_SCR.MIS.
A. CONVOYS AND INDIVIDUAL UNITS IMPROVED.
Altered original and waypoint speeds randomly for all non-Group units, as described for campaign_RND.mis (above). Also altered speeds for the Gibraltar patrol groups. Other groups and convoys not altered, since they must arrive at their destinations at exact times.
B. NEW OR CORRECTED SHIPS.
1. Added warship ‘LagosPatrol’ for Gulf of Guinea, west Africa.
2. Added my version of a Milk Cows mod, which supplies fuel to U-boats in the North Atlantic, west Atlantic, central Atlantic and Freetown areas, as well as providing the German tanker ‘Brake’ in the western Indian Ocean. Full details in Stiebler’s ‘MilkCows’ mod read-me file. Requires addition of the folder ‘NSS_UBoat9b14’ to folder ‘data\submarine’ and the file ‘U-Tanker.cfg’ to folder ‘data\roster\german\submarine’.
C. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0” to “CrewRating=1” and (original) “CrewRating=1” to “CrewRating=2”. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)
CONTINUITY CHECKS.
In addition, used self-penned program to check continuity of all data in all three campaign files (that they are consecutive and in the right order).
MESSAGES_EN.TXT (in same folder as campaign files).
The original English version found in RUb 1.45 was ‘Radiolog_lite.txt’, created by Irish Red and Sniper1. I have completely overhauled this, correcting many entry and spelling errors and making a few new entries at key dates of the U-boat war. It is not desirable to have an over-full list of radio messages, since the game keeps dropping to a time compression of 1x after each message. [The German and French versions corresponding to MESSAGES_EN.TXT have not been altered by me.]
All modifications described above (excepting Teddy Bär’s Minefields fix) carried out and tested in full campaign mode by:
Stiebler, January 2006.
These campaign files (all found in data\campaigns\campaign\) were first adapted from the original SH3 files for RUb (‘Real U-boat’) by a variety of modders, see RUb’s original documentation.
Starting with the files provided with RUb version 1.45, I’ve made the following changes:
CAMPAIGN_LND.MIS.
*IMPORTANT NOTE*: sometimes, when dragging the map across the eastern Russian cities, a Crash-to-Desktop (CTD) occurs. This bug is a feature of the original SH3, and is not due to the new campaign_LND file. The CTD can occur at any time, but most frequently at high time compressions and/or when the U-boat is in port.
A. CORRECTIONS.
Many corrections to the cities and ports, including removal of some duplicates (eg Gibraltar had been entered twice for the same dates and side). Sides assigned correctly to many of those incorrectly handled, especially those affiliated to Vichy France such as Toulon. Colonies of France and Italy better handled. Dakar now made a French port instead of South African. Azores made neutral until October 1943. Some new additions, usually replacing existing not-very-useful ports; eg Reykavik (Iceland) and Takoradi (Gold Coast, Africa) added. ‘Lowestofte’ (England) renamed to give correct ‘Lowestoft’. Turkey and Argentina now enter the war in March 1945. Other changes, too numerous to list. File ‘data\roster\defside.cfg’ altered.
B. AIRBASES.
1. Azores air base now correctly enters the war in October 1943 (was January 1943).
2. Large air-base on St Helena moved to Ascension Island (south Atlantic, north of St Helena). This means that the map of air cover provided with the standard SH3 game no longer shows correct air cover for the south Atlantic. Imagine the circle of air cover currently shown around St Helena as having been moved upwards over Ascension Island.
3. Deadly new, elite, large British airbase ‘Biscay1’ now covers the Bay of Biscay and a small part of the Atlantic west of Spain, from August 1942 to August 1944 (the period of the great Coastal Command air offensive on U-boats crossing the Bay). It is no longer safe to sail casually on the surface from a Biscay port into the Atlantic.
C. NEW MINEFIELDS (already incorporated into RUb 1.45).
Teddy Bär’s ‘British East Coast Minefields’ incorporated. These stretch out to 100-150 km from the British East Coast (200 km in some places), see accompanying .jpg maps. The shallowest of these minefields is set to 8 metres deep, so the U-boat can sail across them surfaced in good weather. But NOT in stormy weather! Consequently, grid patrols once assigned next to the British east coast in ‘data\cfg\Flotilla.cfg’ have been re-assigned to the next square east.
[Signs of being sunk by a mine: There is no warning or audible explosion. Sudden massive damage and flooding to the U-boat, usually causing quick sinking. If you were travelling at high time compression, you are sunk instantly by ‘flooding’.]
D. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0” to “CrewRating=1” and (original) “CrewRating=1” to “CrewRating=2”. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)
CAMPAIGN_RND.MIS.
A. CONVOYS AND INDIVIDUAL UNITS IMPROVED.
1. Revised to remove all neutral ships from convoy, replacing with closest Commonwealth ships. So now you will not be penalised for sinking ‘neutral’ ships in convoy (which were legitimate targets). There may be a few omissions, with convoy passage times overlapping countries entering the war.
2. Alteration of convoy/unit speeds between waypoints (Teddy Bär’s original idea).
I have implemented this as follows:
Each convoy is classified according to its original starting speed (SLOW = 5-7 kts; FAST = 8-9 kts; VERY FAST = 12-14 kts). Starting and way-point speeds are then programmatically altered randomly by +/- 1 kt or +/- 2 kts (also possibility of +/- 4kts for VERY FAST convoys), but must not exceed limits (SLOW- min = 4 kts, max = 8 kts; FAST- min = 6 kts, max = 10 kts; VERY FAST- min = 8 kts, max = 15 kts.) No two waypoints can have the same speed - if this occurs, the new speed is adjusted randomly towards the mean speed and changes of 0.5 kt may rarely occur.
The speed of each individual unit (merchant or warship), not in a convoy, is altered as for the convoys, but without the convoy limits.
B. NEW OR CORRECTED SHIPS.
1. Tankers of type OTMST2 sometimes used before they were available (August 1942). These have been replaced with type OTSF.
2. A Hospital Ship is now running backwards and forwards from Liverpool (Britain) to Halifax (Canada). Ship has a British flag, but ranks as a Neutral (safe passage has been guaranteed by the German Government). It has dull red cross markings on the funnel and ship sides, and carries no guns. Don’t sink it, or you will lose 10000 in Renown! (Hospital ship files created by Iambecomelife and Sergbuto, requires the folder NHOS to be added to folder ‘data\sea’, and file NHOS.cfg to be added to ‘data\roster\british\sea’.)
3. Two merchants LagosTramp and LagosTramp2 have been added to the Gulf of Guinea sea area (west Africa, near Lagos).
C. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0” to “CrewRating=2”, and “CrewRating=1” to “CrewRating=2”. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)
CAMPAIGN_SCR.MIS.
A. CONVOYS AND INDIVIDUAL UNITS IMPROVED.
Altered original and waypoint speeds randomly for all non-Group units, as described for campaign_RND.mis (above). Also altered speeds for the Gibraltar patrol groups. Other groups and convoys not altered, since they must arrive at their destinations at exact times.
B. NEW OR CORRECTED SHIPS.
1. Added warship ‘LagosPatrol’ for Gulf of Guinea, west Africa.
2. Added my version of a Milk Cows mod, which supplies fuel to U-boats in the North Atlantic, west Atlantic, central Atlantic and Freetown areas, as well as providing the German tanker ‘Brake’ in the western Indian Ocean. Full details in Stiebler’s ‘MilkCows’ mod read-me file. Requires addition of the folder ‘NSS_UBoat9b14’ to folder ‘data\submarine’ and the file ‘U-Tanker.cfg’ to folder ‘data\roster\german\submarine’.
C. CREW RATINGS.
Programmatically changed all values for “CrewRating=0” to “CrewRating=1” and (original) “CrewRating=1” to “CrewRating=2”. (Teddy Bär’s original idea.)
CONTINUITY CHECKS.
In addition, used self-penned program to check continuity of all data in all three campaign files (that they are consecutive and in the right order).
MESSAGES_EN.TXT (in same folder as campaign files).
The original English version found in RUb 1.45 was ‘Radiolog_lite.txt’, created by Irish Red and Sniper1. I have completely overhauled this, correcting many entry and spelling errors and making a few new entries at key dates of the U-boat war. It is not desirable to have an over-full list of radio messages, since the game keeps dropping to a time compression of 1x after each message. [The German and French versions corresponding to MESSAGES_EN.TXT have not been altered by me.]
All modifications described above (excepting Teddy Bär’s Minefields fix) carried out and tested in full campaign mode by:
Stiebler, January 2006.