On reflection I realized that what Jaesen suggested is easier than I though, at least where the files themselves are concerned. IABL's Merchants are already divided, of course, and if they are done right the Americans should already not appear until 12/07/41, so there's nothing that needs to be done there.

As for the rest, I realize now that all it would involve is going through all the others, removing all the US ships and saving the new file with a different name. Some work there, but nothing to really worry about.

So if someone can figure out how to make it work automatically in Commander, I'm on it. :sunny:

:yep: That's what I noticed once I started digging into the different classes - the only ones that would have to be edited are the ones where the class includes ships from a mix of nations where some were still neutral for several years and the rest were in it early on. Like the Q-ships, where you wouldn't want to sink one in 1940 and have it turn up in your logs as one of the US ships that shouldn't have been out there at that time.

So far the closest I've come to "automatic" is to install JSGME in Commander and use that to enable one version of 'Ship Names.cfg' from the start of the war until Dec 9 1941 (I'm thinking I remember that Germany didn't declare war on the US until Dec 10) and another version of the file once you've completed a patrol on or around the switch-over date.

Make two folders - call them Ship Names 1 and Ship Names 2 (or whatever). The first one is for use through Dec 9 1941, the second one for use after that.

Inside each is another folder, Cfg, and in each Cfg folder goes the version of Ship Names.cfg to be used in the selected time period. So the structure would look like:

Ship Names 1\Cfg\Ship Names.cfg
(where Ship Names.cfg = the version edited to reflect early American neutrality)

and

Ship Names 2\Cfg\Ship Names.cfg
(where Ship Names.cfg = the unedited version including all American ships)

Copy both mods into the MODS folder of the SH3 Commander directory, open JSGME for Commander, enable/disable them when necessary dependng on your in-game date.

If there's a way to make Commander switch back and forth between two versions of the same file without modding it like that, I can't figure it out. Which doesn't mean much, lol, but that's where I'm at with it at the moment. :D

I'm thinking there should be a way to use Commander's 'Date' function to switch them out, but I'm not sure how.

SH4 is so much easier. *sigh*

But we're talking about switching files in and out of Commander itself, not using Commander to switch them in and out of the game. You can use the Date folders to mod SH3 for a given date range, but the Real Ships Names feature is not part of SH3. As far as I can tell any dates in those folders refer to an SH3 world where Ship Names.cfg doesn't exist and has no function. I don't think you can use them to make Commander mod itself. :cry:

And to that I have no clue. But you're right - with both files available it wouldn't be that hard to swap them out manually when December 1941 comes.