Mods, Units & IDs
 

During my time modding Silent Hunter 3 & 4, I have created many excel spreadsheets, recording different aspects of the units used in the game or mod I am working with.

As an example, please see the sample below...

https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/cc...s6gp4d117g.jpg

After working with VonDos recently, he suggested that I release my SH3 versions to the masses. As these would help other modders or players when making or introducing units to their games.

My friend & mentor Jeff-Groves, first introduced the importance of making sure we had no shared unit IDs, as we are working on SH4 - FotRSU. And over the years, I have lost soo much of my modding and game time in pursuit of this goal.

If any of you play FotRSU, you would see some of the work the team uses to narrow down the problems we face.
goto > Support > MissionEditing > FotRSU - Equipment & Unit list.xlsx
goto > Support > MissionEditing > FotRSU - Loadouts_Air list.xlsx
goto > Support > MissionEditing > FotRSU - Sensors.xlsx

These were created and grew as we faced different problems, and needed a record of the data for that area.

What does a shared ID mean? It can be a one way ticket to a CTD, during the loading of your game, the first time you introduce your new mod. And in my experience it will continue until the offending unit is either removed, or has it's top level ID remapped to a new unused number within your mod.

00_SH3 Rosters.xlsx > Download
01_SH3 with GWX 3.0 Rosters.xlsx > Download
02_bbw's GWX 3 Wilhemshafen,St Naz,Schluese and xtra ships V7 Rosters.xlsx > Download
03_WAC4.1 SubPen_animated_18.02.2010 > No Rosters
04_New Lorient v1 - GWX3+Wilhelmshafen_et_al_V7 > No Rosters
05_WB's USAM v69.61 Rosters.xlsx > Download
06_MFM-V3.3 Rosters.xlsx > Download

VonDos ShipYard Datasheet - WIP

My initial aim, was to combine all the above mods, together with:
WAC4.1 SubPen_animated_18.02.2010
New Lorient v1 - GWX3+Wilhelmshafen_et_al_V7

To enlarge my GWX3.0 experience, after many ID changes, model changes, it's now fully playable...
I seem to be waffling and going off course here..

Will I do more mod lists, perhaps... Lets see where I sail from next...
So, without further fanfare.

OUTSTANDING!!!
:salute:

Now. These are only the very top Parent ID's.
There's a WHOLE lot more ID's in every dat file and THOSE ID's can cause conflicts.

The information provided will come in handy though IF you use it properly.

GWX 3, Before install has 122,693 Unique ID's.
Some may be duplicated as calls to other objects in other files.
I'm currently scan ALL GWX files for duplicates.

s7rikeback's spreadsheets are a massive time saver, even for a campaign and single mission author - he is an XL wiz, I tell ya... It takes me two days to do half of what he does in one hour of building a spreadsheet... and then I have to re-do half of what I did because I used an incorrect data variable, such as an an unsigned integer, when it should have been a float... :roll: - as they used to say on Hee Haw here in the US: "SA-LUTE!!!" for s7rikeback! :salute:

Queue 'Ride of the Valkyries' by Wagner please. :yep:

Final scan of all GWX 3 files show 102,000+ Duplicate ID's.
I've narrowed the checks to 43,000+ to look at and eliminate.
Duplicate DOES NOT mean conflicting ID's.

A Duplicate ID means only that some files call or use the same ID.
Such as the Harbors and Cities, Shells, etc. to place or use something

Conflicting ID's means an ID assigned to one object is also assigned to a different object.

This is also a relatively "new" discipline, which helps immensely in making FotRSU more efficient with its resources - again, thanks to Jeff-Groves. Now if we could only get the Campaign guy to fix the layer files... :roll: :D

All the tools should be out there to scan the files for ID duplicates.
The problem is to take that information and figure out if a Duplicate is a Conflict. Thank SweetScape for a Tool that can do that!
I drop 10's of thousands in minutes!

Launched a new script for 010 hex editor that caught 15,000+ ID's
that can be removed from GWX3 given one does it right.
That does NOT mean they are bad ID's! Nor conflicting ID's!
You just have to know what to look for.
:03:

#Jeff-Groves
I encountered one error that no program known to me reveals. This applies to eqp.
For example, in .cfg there is an entry [Loadout 1]
Name = 2x250Kg Bombs
.eqp also has a record; 2x250Kg Bombs Loadout, but in one of [Equipment *]
Loadout = 2x250Kg Bomb (instead of Bombs) In this case, the equipment will not be assigned.

Hello Anvar1061

If I may offer some help.

The campaign / mission file will request a loadout that has been inserted into these files.

The campaign / mission file will then match this loadout request with the available loadouts available in the unit.cfg.

This then leaves the unit.cfg, to request the loadout from the unit.eqp.

If all these 3 elements matches, the unit will get it's loadout as declared above.

As you highlighted above, just one missing letter, wrong word or number, will stop your unit having the required loadout.

In FotRSU, I had to record all the loadout requests from the campaign / mission files, like above match them all up. This took nearly two weeks to do. We found many, many errors, in spelling, wrong nodes declared, sequancial date errors, number of bombs mismatch in the above files etc...

I hope that makes sense?

010 will expose that error IF one knows how to use it!
It's simple scripting in a C language if you want an automatic change.
And just from the base UI? You can tell it to Replace things.
I'd highly suggest you buy a copy of 010 from SweetScape.
Tell them I sent you.
:03:

You might want to ask your Buddy to fix this for you.
Blitzkrieg is a thief. He takes programs from other and proclaims to be God.
You should be ashamed to be a part of his deceptions!
You will no longer get answers from me.
I suspect you as a Spy for him and that will not go well for you!

I hope it sounds not much arrogant, for an SH3-install my v1.8 Tool will find some of these quirks within seconds. How do you "record" these loadout requests that it takes so long?


As an hunter-gatherer i have to say Thank You, not only for your excel spreadsheets but also for your Online-Collection.

Greetings.