[WIP]Campaign 1943-1945
 

Hey All,

I'm going to try my hand at making my first ever mod, I know scary for some one that has never published a piece of art:D.

If I can get this to work my overall goals are to make three versions:
(with permissions granted, as I have not talked to these modders yet)

Lite Campaign compatible
Reduced Mission Tonnage compatible
A standalone version

Right now, until I can learn how to actually add a campaign to the actual game, my main goal is to make the Black May campaign extend to the end of the war.

Anyways, on a last note please understand this will be no fast process as I have to play through the already three month long Black May campaign just to see if the changes I already have done have worked and if they did I will most likely play until early-mid 44' to make sure everything is working.

The beginning of something great :rock:If it doesnt work out then no worries , i have failed modding on a daily basis . Hopefully this will work though .

Thank you sober for what you said, honestly, for a great modder as yourself to say that to a new modder gives me inspiration. :salute:

After digging into the campaign files deeper, To me it kinda looks like Ubi ran out of time and didn't get to finish the campaign the way they had wanted.

Ie. All port traffic and u-boats (the two properties I have looked at thus far) are set to all exit the game 1945 12 31.

Nice, I hope you pull it off. What i also would like to see is the possibility to continue campaigns. As of now, when you reach your goal the campaign quits auto. Same in historical mission.

But my biggest wish is an open campaign with selectable start dates/year aka SH3 and SH4 but i guess that would be asking to much. Would it be possible to import the SH3 campaign for instance and make the nescassary tweaks?
Sh5 contains tons of files from SH3 and 4. I would'nt be surprised if the old campaign stuff is in there somewhere :)
Anyways, looking forward to this one and kudos for taking on this project.

Good luck with this endeavor Wolfling04, I really hope that all goes well for you.:yeah:

Wishing you every success....this would have a major positive impact on gameplay http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

I want a Type XXI boat!:wah:

Good luck with the campaign.:yeah:

Ditto!:salute:
Either way, good luck!:yep:

Hope you succeed with it, that would certainly be another must have mod if you do. :salute:

Ragtag, If I understand correctly, when you reach the date of 6/1/1943 it just quits, no special message or anything?

edit: After sitting in port and docking a few times to speed up time I finally reached June 1st and I didn't like what I saw so back to the drawing board.

BY GEORGE, I think I got'er

The reason why the game would auto quit or stop your campaign is because there was no more patrols to complete, this is my guess so far. I need to do some more testing.

Anyways, Its currently like June 25th 1943 in my game, I just started a patrol (started the 11th of June)

Still need to sink the required amount of tonnage for the current patrol to make sure that the game will not stop after I complete the required amount of tonnage.

No promises yet, but it's looking up.

An Open Campaign will be my primary goal once I can get everything to work properly, (actually make it playable till the end) and get have the option to get rid of the first mission, (the tutorial mission).

As far as the SH3 campaign unfortunately will not work since that campaign is controlled by only a few files and not several to a lot like SH5 is.

I have modded (only a little) the u boat campaign in sh4, so it is surely possible to do the same in sh5. The problem is how to make a whole new dynamic campaign and add it to the game.. what do you have in mind?

Good luck mate ! :yeah:

:DL :woot: :yep: :rock:

Right now, just extend the Black May campaign until the end of the war. As long as I can still sink the amount of reqd. tonnage and still continue the campaign.

So far I have gotten past June 2nd 0000 1943 (that's when the campaign would just end).

First versions would be a very basic campaign enabling the player to continue past June 2nd 1943. With no additions to the campaign, meaning no "patrol area" to patrol and no required missions to complete IE. Sink 150,00 tons of enemy shipping here. Pretty much take your boat sail where ever you want and sink whatever you want.

Later versions, I have plans to go as far as adding historical missions, adding more missions and campaigns u-boat upgrades and torpedo upgrades if there are any that aren't in game. last but not least allow the player to start in any campaign.

As far as adding new missions/campaigns to SH5 I do not think it will be that hard. As the single traffic/convoys/taskforces are all campaign generated meaning, the campaign decides when/where to spawn them and where to send them (from what I have looked at thus far).

There is only one downside to modding the campaign in anyway in Sh5, new campaign mods MUST be installed before starting a campaign, they cannot simply be installed while in port as the changes WILL NOT take affect, I have learned this in my testing so far. (atleast with the changes I am making)

Also, I want to thank ALL of you for your support (even though I haven't even released anything yet lol), I have tried modding in the past but always got burned out or frustrated because I couldn't/didn't want to learn any of it. This time though I actually got this game early enough to learn the ins and outs of it and I just hate failure now days :D (guess I can thank my career for that)

edit: I just left Brest for my first patrol, its July 25th 1943 and I just got badly bombed thanks to IRAI, and on my map I also see lone ships being reported so I know the game is still producing ships/planes.

It's agood start!:arrgh!: Well done. The first step is complete..

Awesome:rock: This progress is very good news! Good job Wolfling04

An interesting bit about uboat upgrades such as: radars, sonars, anti-sonar coatings, etc. yes, there are several upgrades included in the game files which go completely un-utilized in stock. Before you start from scratch to get them to work properly though, you should check the work of TheBeast(just do a search on the modding forum). I believe that he was able to get all U-boat upgrades to work, but since the campaign was ending short, there was not much of a point to getting those upgrades.

Also, on a similar note. With some very simple hex editing, and some roster magic, I don't see why we could not get a type VIIC/42 in the game. We could basically just take the files for the VIIC/41(which looks identical anyway) and increase its stats to what the 42 should have had. It would not be a huge addition to the game, but if the campaign is going to be longer, I think it would be cool to be able to get the 42. I will look into it, but my skills with hexing are probably not good enough. Privateer or TDW may have to do it.

The VIIC/42, in my sources, never reached operational status, as the ordered boats were scrapped to free industrial capacity and resources to build the new XXI. Besides, the VIIC/42 should have been broader in beam than the VIIC 41, due to the fact it had a slightly larger pressure hull. Anyway, "clonig" an existing submarine to create a new variant should be very easy, provided that you are willing to use the same 3d model.

check this: http://www.uboat.net/types/

Cheers!

I know that none of them were ever completed. However, I did not realize that their beam was not the same as the 41.:hmmm: I just figured that it would be an interesting short term addition since we cannot add other boats right now.

Actually, it will not be too simple, even using the same 3D model. Because the existing GR2s have references to the specific .sim(and other controller files) for that boat. In other words, you will have to hex edit those references to new files in order to change the stats for the new boat independently of the original sub used.

Or at least I am pretty sure it will work like that.

Well that just sucks, I have zero experience modding those files to. Maybe I can sweet talk TDW or Privateer.

edit Just found this on wiki:

Dönitz government ordered dissolved by Eisenhower: Karl Dönitz continued to act as the German head of state, but his Flensburg government (so-called because it was based at Flensburg and controlled only a small area around the town) was given no regard after the surrender on May 8. On May 23, 1945 a British liaison officer was sent to Flensburg and read to the Flensburg government Eisenhower's order dissolving the government and ordering the arrest of its members. The Allies had a problem, because they realized that although the German armed forces had surrendered unconditionally, SHAEF had failed to use the document created by the "European Advisory Commission" (EAC) and so the civilian German government had not. This was considered a very important issue, because just as the civilian, but not military, surrender in 1918 had been used by Hitler to create the "stab in the back" argument, the Allies did not want to give a future hostile German regime a legal argument to resurrect an old quarrel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_...r_II_in_Europe

Once I get everything working May 8th is the date I have chosen to end the campaign as that is the day that Germany surrendered if I'm reading that web page correctly