[IDEA]: Reducing searchlights
 

Removing the searchlights from merchants, tankers and big battleships seems to be a great step into more realism. Schechter_Pfennig already did this in his mod:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=169499
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=169424

But now merchants + tankers NEVER have searchlights. What I want is a little bit of uncertainty - to be surprised if a merchant unexpectedly activates his searchlights. A probability of, let's say, 1% for a merchant to have and use his searchlight (maybe Bernard on board?) and 99% to stay dark.

So I had the idea to randomly change the availability of the searchlights using SH3-Commander, but as LGN1 (who also had that idea before me) reported, this causes CTDs when changing equipment during a patrol.

So the only possibility seems to be to restrict the availability time period to a very short time. For a propability of 1% a ship's searchlights must be available for about 2 or 3 weeks (this is 1% of the duration of the war.)

So for every ship and even every different searchlight of a ship I plan to restrict the availability time to a randomly chosen time period of 2-3 weeks.

The problem: This is static. A certain ship type e.g. will always use his front searchlight in May 1940 and his rear light in August 1943. Not nice. But I bet: A player who does not know this, will not discover it because of the multiplicity of different ships. You surely need to play more than 10 complete careers to discover the regularity.

It's a lot of work to make these changes.

What do you think: Is it worth the effort or should one be happy with the removed searchlights??

Constructive comments welcome....

h.sie

A lot of work...your right, but worth the effort if the community are positive/supportive towards the idea.

It is always another game option to consider http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

Hi h.sie,

nice idea. However, I guess it's much simpler to just have a small program that automatically chooses a random subset of Schechter_Pfennig's mod files. Then you can run the program before each patrol and activate the mod. I think this has a very similar effect and is much simpler. :06: What do you think?

Concerning the CTD: Changing the eqp file does not always lead to a CTD, but it can (my test was to save the game when a ship was close and then change the eqp file. Since you can never exclude the possibility that there is a ship close by when you save, I think one should not touch the eqp files).

Cheers, LGN1

Hi LGN1.

Thanks for your comment. I thought of that option, too, but then in one patrol one or more certain ship types always have searchlights, the other ships not. It's too obvious in my opinion.

And I don't like to change my mod configuration after each patrol.

I am thinking about to write a Java program which automatically randomizes the availability date.

h.sie

Hi h.sie,

I guess your method will also have the problem of predictability because the chances that the interval ends during one's patrol is rather small :06: (My feeling is that an interval of only 2-3 weeks (a chance of 1%) during the whole war is too small (several intervals would be very nice))

Maybe it's a good idea to see which ships you mainly encounter at sea. I guess not more than 10 different (without the Merchant Fleet Mod) So with 2-3 weeks intervals chances are very small that you will ever see a searchlight :hmmm:

Cheers, LGN1

This problem has always perplexed me. I would suspect that the searchlight problem would (in real life) not exist in 39 and perhaps 40, but would be almost universal after. From 1943 on I would be surprised if it ever happened.
As far as being blinded by the light, I suspect that this is 100% accurate.
If you are on the bridge of a ship and have become light adapted, and are hit with a search light, I suspect you wouldn't be able to see anything for quite some time. This is an individual thing, but it takes me about half an hour to become light adapted.
(before image-light amplification, we had to be light adapted to use the fluoroscopy machine so many older physicians are familiar with this problem.)

h.sie, could not the searchlight mod be randomized via SH3CMDR? I haven't looked into this.

^ yellow ^
Hmmmm I guess you mean mid patrol saves ?
As SH3commander only adds in changes when it loads

Hi BBW, yes I mean mid patrol saves. If you save a patrol, then apply changes to the .eqp files and then load the patrol again with modified .eqp files, then the changed equipment can lead to CTD. I think this is what LGN1 said, and it sounds logical.

@irish: because of this SH3-Cmdr's random funcion cannot be used, I fear, because it loads every time the game is started...

greetings,
h.sie

Hi LGN1,

serveral random intervals of availability could be done by expanding one single entry for a searchlight, e.g.:

[Equipment 30]
NodeName=L01
LinkName=REF_small
StartDate=19380101
EndDate=19451231

into a number of short intervals with random chosen times like e.g.:

[Equipment 30]
NodeName=L01
LinkName=NULL
StartDate=19380101
EndDate=19390101

[Equipment 31]
NodeName=L01
LinkName=REF_small
StartDate=19390102
EndDate=19390119

[Equipment 32]
NodeName=L01
LinkName=NULL
StartDate=19390120
EndDate=19400101

[Equipment 33]
NodeName=L01
LinkName=REF_small
StartDate=19400102
EndDate=19400115

and so on.

But this is risky because of possible typing errors and thus must be done by a program. And I don't know if it's worth the effort. So far, I also don't know what's the max. possible number of [Equipment] entries.

Greetings, h.sie

Does it load if you reload a mid-patrol game without using Commander?

no it doesn't, but then you cannot use the sh3-commander mid-patrol.

@LGN1: good idea to only manipulate the most frequently available ships..

If you can get this to work it sounds like it'd be pretty nifty.

maybe - but maybe not. perhaps the regularity is too obvious.

I'd like to hear some critical, pessimistic voices - they would prevent me from a lot of work.

It is possible to use SH3 Commander to randomise at the start of a patrol and not during a mid-patrol savegame. This should prevent any mid-patrol CTDs.

From randomised events.cfg:
There are two types of randomisation available:
1. A simple randomisation where a random value is selected from a set range.
2. A "ChooseFrom" randomisation where one set of values are chosen from any number of sets:
Set RndMidPat to 1 if you want randomisation to occur mid-patrol, 0 if not

It's also possible to set the randomisation to occur in any given date range, so you could have a 90% chance of the merchants using searchlights in 1939/40 reducing to a 5% chance in 1944/45:

Include ApplyToPeriod=<Start date as YYYYMMDD>|<End date as YYYYMMDD> as the first entry in the section to set the date range for settings to apply.

If you create a series of subsets (and randomise them as well?), you should be able to get a true randomisation of searchlights across years and ship types.

Let me think about this one :hmmm:

Hi WB,

this is very helpful, thanks! I did not know about the RndMidPatrol Variable. So there is a chance that SH3Cmdr can be used. Great.

But all these thoughts are useless if merchants in the war REALLY NEVER used their searchlights when in uboat alert state. Maybe it historically most accurate to completely remove the lights as schlechter_pfennig already did.

I dont know this.

h.sie

Hi all,

I tried to use SH3 Commander, but I am pretty sure it does not work (for my malfunction mod I tried to use it a lot). The comment in randomised events.cfg is missleading (at least my tests show different results). The problem is that each time you run SH3Commander the first thing is that it removes the old changes. Here is an old post from JScones:


When you press "Launch SH3!", SH3Cmdr performs the following steps in this order (for the sake of brevity, let's just assume that an existing career is being launched):

1. Removes previously installed files (color and bold made by me, LGN1)
2. Reads SH3Cmdr settings/options
3. Determines whether career will be retired (if option selected)
4. Determines next patrol start date
5. Copies into SH3 any Flotilla folder files
6. Copies into SH3 any U-boat folder files
7. Copies into SH3 any Date folder files
8. Copies into SH3 any Random folder files
9. Determines whether crewman will be retired (if option selected)
10. Writes Text Settings to **_menu.txt
11. Writes Menu variable text to **_menu.txt
12. Writes Days in Base value to Basic.cfg
13. Writes Crew fatigue model to Basic.cfg (if option selected)
14. Writes correct U-boat availability dates to Basic.cfg (if option selected)
15. Writes deck gun settings to GUNS_SUB.sim (if option selected)
16. Writes water density setting to scene.dat (if option selected)
17. Writes wave height setting to scene.dat (if option selected)
18. Writes random tonnage variations
19. Writes random crush depth
20. Writes random events
21. Writes static settings
22. Randomises Gramaphone tracks (if option selected)
23. Launches SH3!!!!

So, that's the problem. If the eqp file has been changed in port, the changes will be removed when you run SH3 Commander the second time during a patrol (eqp files will not be modified again during a patrol). Would be great if SH3 Commander would keep a log file with the changes that have RndMidPat=0 and reactivate the changes during a patrol. To summarize, the RndMidPat=0 means that you can GET the change only in port, but you LOOSE it at sea (if you run Commander again). At least, that's what my tests show.

The only solution via SH3 Commander would be not running it again during a patrol.

Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks for clarifying.

In general, I think the idea with different equipment entries with different dates is great (assuming you can add enough entries to the eqp files without performance problems)!

Probably it would be enough for the ten most used merchants and between 1940 and 1943/44 (or when people stop using the deck gun).

Cheers, LGN1

But if you use randomised events.cfg it writes it in as ser 20 and you only need to rewrite the exact line that you need to replace, so you may be able to add:
EQUIPMENT##|LinkName=NULL and it should get rid of the searchlight.

If you reverse engineer my mid-patrol radio orders mod you could give it a try.

Hi Wreford-Brown,

thanks for the comment. I took a look at your mid-patrol radio orders mod, but cannot see how it helps in the present situation :06: Could you please be a bit more specific?

I think the main problem is that SH3 Commander does not offer the option that some files are randomized/changed only in port AND kept in the same state over a patrol (while re-running SH3 Commander). In order to offer such a feature, it would need some kind of 'memory' (what I guess is difficult if you think of using SH3 Commander for different commanders/careers in parallel). Maybe JScones can comment on this.

Cheers, LGN1