More Capital Ships - Test Results on RND Layer

[Reece]

This is my first Patrol! :)
After sinking a couple of coastal Merchants I came accross an Auxiliary Cruiser & Sank that! Picture:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h244/Reecehk/AuxCruiser.jpg
Then after a while, on my return patrol, with 6 fish left, I came accross an unreported Task force. Picture:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h244/Reecehk/TaskForce.jpg
By the time I got into position it was too late to attack the Carrier, the group was doing around 21knots, I sent 4 torpedo's to the Battleship, Then a 90 degree turn heading for a depth of 100 meters, silent running. Picture:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h244/Reecehk/Battleshiphit.jpg
Was DC'd by 4 destroyers for about 30 mins then they gave up, whew!! That was a most satisfying patrol! :D
Probably a little more tweaking required to get a little less chance of capital ships showing up!
Thanks to Wulfmann, GlobalExplorer & Jaesen for their help! :up:

[Scorpius]

Cool.

[Eternal]

Very nice!

By the way, how exactly did you manage to make more capital ships spawn? I think I've read it somewhere here but I can't find it anymore.

[Myxale]

:rock:
Cool to see this commin' along nicely!

[Reece]

Just have to edit the Campaign_RND.mis file & change the relative respawning to what ever levels you think, read the English.cfg found in the data\Roster folder to get the ship/aircraft type. :up:
Each time you change this file you will have to restart a Career, not just a patrol, for the changes to take effect, beware it's a 6meg text file & 1 slip = CTD! :oops:
This file is different to each super mod, the one I am working with is not a Supermod but the Harbour Traffic 1.47 mod, So far the second patrol I came across no Capital ships, so looking good, I also lowered the respawn rate of Aircraft down a bit (rather heavy with this mod) and lowered their CrewRating. Another increase was with Passenger ships. :D Will keep in touch!
Also working on a SFX mod with a little more oomph! :)

[Eternal]

I see...

BTW, I have a couple of questions:

1. Can I edit the spawn probability of task forces alongside particular ship types?

2. If I edit the spawn probability of a particular ship (i.e. a BB) to 100 and kept the escorts = false, will it be sailing alone or will I find it docked at a port?

Forgive me for these very simplistic questions. I am quite new to SH3, you see...
:(

[Reece]

Yes you can, some are random ships & some are convoys & some are Task Forces! :D Backup your RND file first just in case you make a blunder, easy to do! :up: There are many occurances of a particular ship all random some are grouped, you will just have to feel your way, I am not an expert at this, have only been playing with a few days, you should contact either Wulfmann or GlobalExplorer for more help! :yep:

[Eternal]

Thanks for the quick reply! I'll be trying out the new settings later today.

[Eternal]

Thanks for the help! My settings seemed to have worked without a hitch... although altering the crew rating of the escort destroyers didn't seem to be a good idea.

After sinking a Nelson and Revenge BB, I immediately got DC'd by three destroyers... tough luck... :(

[Wulfmann]

The escort false or true has nothing to do with it showing up when the formation spawns. The initial info for each RND group dictates what percentage that group will show up on the day you near its position. The percentage for spawn probability of each ship dictates if that one ship will be in the formation. 100% means it will every time.
The big BB task force has 3 possible BBs. one is 100% so will always show up while the other two are something like 50% and 25%.
Escort false means it is not the antisubmarine ship in the group and will therefore be positioned inside the formation.
Escort true means it will be in the screen of the formation.
However, ships will always act their role.
If you make a carrier escort true in a convoy that does not mean it will attack you like an A/S ship. It just means it will be positioned in the screen and not inside the convoy.

I agree you should wait to edit the RND file with a new career but that is not always true. If you are changing crew rating or spawn percentage for a ship "in" a group or even changing a DE to frigate that is fine as long as you are not in a saved mission at sea.
I would not make radical changes but variations don't cause problems.
Still it might be a good rule to be safer than sorry.
One of the biggest possible problems is when you add an additional ship to a group, which adding many more escorts I have done a lot.
It is usually easier to copy one ship in that group and add it below the last ship.
(To avoid easy errors copy the same type of ship when adding a new one to a RND Group. Copy a warship to make a new warship, a new cargo to make a new cargo etc. There are more differences than just the ship)
The first thing to be sure of when adding a new addition to the RND Group is to change the number of the ship as each ship is assigned its place by number in the group. So if a group has 24 ships and you add a new one you need to change the unit number to 25 (in this case.)
The easiest way to check all the groups is to simply put something in the edit find window that would take you to where each of the possible changes are.
I do this for this case by putting; Waypoint 1] in that window and click the little direction “up” circle, place the mouse at the bottom of the RND file and click find next. This will always go to the next Waypoint 1] in the file and that will appear at the bottom of the big working window so you will see the last 4 or 5 ships of each RND Group.
A quick look and you will notice 2 ships numbered [RndGroup 90.RndUnit 24] then you can correct it [RndGroup 90.RndUnit 25] and save the CTD headache.
Utilizing the "find next" by putting whatever you have been working with can allow you to check a bunch of stuff in a systematic way.
If you do not understand any of this; ask.
Ignorance is cured with questions stupidity is not asking! You will notice I spend much more time asking questions than answering them. I admit ignorance gladly and seek what I do not know from others that do.

Wulfmann
Wulfmann