Disappearing Medals!
 

This has got me scratching my head in puzzlement and more than a little annoyed.

Two patrols back, I had awarded the German Cross In Gold to my Torpedo Officer and a U-boat Front Clasp to my Sonar/Hydrophone Operator.

I'm currently in base before my eighth patrol and noticed their medals are gone! I loaded up SH3 Commander to double-check this and sure enough their medals had disappeared in SH3 Commander as well.

Upon perusing my latest crew .cfg file, I've noticed some of the crew have multiple entries (such as the same guy occupying entries 09,23, and 59), and there are also several empty crew entries mixed in.

Would it hurt to delete these duplicate and empty slots to clean up my crew .cfg file? Also, which medal entries do I need to change to restore those lost medals and badges?

Noticed that too while was trying to solve other problem, deleted the multiplicated entries (carefully) and nothing changed.

Didn't you accidentaly press the "Update all" button in SH3 Commander? It would remove some medals if they were awarded before the real life date of their introduction, that especially applies to the two you mentioned: German Cross In Gold and U-boat Front Clasp.

You can use SH3 Commander to restore the medals. Select the crew member in the Crew Management section. Then, drag the medal from the "Available Medals, Badges, and Qualifications" box and drag it to the "Medals" box above.

These two are not going to be available if it's pretime for them to come in real life. :)

The same name does not mean a duplicate entry (ie the name is not the index). Look closer, you'll notice that only ONE of the entries has an NrComp value that does not equal -1. That's the active crewman. The other entries are merely left overs from earlier times when the crewman occupied those slots. They do not exist as far as SH3 is concerned.

Of course, one can have more than one crewman with the same name. ;)

Anyway, unless you understand the SH3 data file structure and how it works, it's best to leave it be and let SH3 manage it without manual intervention. Otherwise, you are just increasing the likelihood of CTD or other problems.

:yep: Pressing "Update All" in SH3Cmdr's Crew Manager and then pressing "Auto-Fix All" will certainly strip any medals and badges that the crew has that might not exist at that time.

Happened to me once. I guess I had accidently hit the "update" button. But I dont know why I would do a thing like that?:nope:

Thanks for all the advice and insights.

It is quite likely I did indeed press the "Update All" button and thus wiped out any historically incorrect medals.

Maybe the next release of SH3 Commander will include some duct tape to plaster over that pesky button for us ignoramuses that lack fine motor skills. :p

...or maybe a preferences menu that allows you to choose your "realism" settings.

Regardless, SH3 Commander is one of those items that is so indispensible I refuse to play SH3 without it! Excellent work, JScones!:rock:

Looks like my Sonarman and Torpedo officer will have to settle for some Iron Crosses, though I'm not sure how to handle awarding medals not actually given in-game as I'd be worried I might give a medal that isn't properly earned.

Life sure was simpler when the BdU handed out the medals.

P.S. Any info about the crew cfg files would be greatly appreciated. I'm beginning to discover that solid documentation for would-be modders to learn with is almost non-existent.

Bernard took them off you when you were asleep and put them on him so he can go to the bar and inpress the ladies:rotfl: :rotfl:

Agreed. I'm currently exploring all of the files that I can. Some of it makes sense, some needs a bit of explaining. It seems you can edit qualifications as well but I'm still trying to figure out the specific values for each. Should't be hard, just time consuming.

Also, similar to you (w/o SH3 Commander) I have had medals appear and dissapear. In my case it was a Wound Badge for one of the crew. Seems that he was only eligible while wounded and after he recovered, became disqualified? At any rate, I'm looking at restoring the award just to be fair, even though it's of little consequence to me.

I recommend you (and Graf Paper) search the forum and archives - these files have been explained in detail. :yep:

Correct. Another well-known SH3 "feature". ;)

I figured out the Qualification codes about an hour or two after I posted my last message. Wasn't hard to figure out at all once I took the time to go over all the crew career .cfg files.

Two hours? A search would have taken 2 seconds... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...w+config+files (post #8)

Search is your friend. :yep:

Here's an old post that exposes some of the crew config files (corrections and gaps have been filled in since)... http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=41286 There are many posts here which will assist you.

Ummm.. No, to actually figure out the codes on my own took me about 20 minutes. I didn't start on it immediately after I posted but soon after, about an hour or so later. That's what I meant. And yeah, I did locate the thread, "U-boat crew mods", In a search. I read through it too quickly and missed the little section explaining the the qualification codes specifically. So I ended up dealing with it on my own, doing it the hard way. As for the other thread you linked, "Do I have a problem with Commander or what is this?"; If I even saw it, I'd have missed it's relevance to me and skipped over it since I don't use SH3 Commander yet.

Frankly, I don't know why there isn't just a centralized sticky with all this kind of information on it. It would save a lot of time and effort to get these values than to sift through every thread the search pulls up. Both threads you linked are from 2005 and 2006 with alot of other threads in front.

Anyway, my point is that I did do a search. I didn't find what I needed to know right away. Look, I don't know how to say this any other way - It seems to me that your remarks come off as being somewhat condescending. Is there a reason for this? Obviously, you have more experience with the game's file structure and this Forum than I do. I'm familiar with your work. Is it necessary to rub it in, however subtle? :nope:

I have a lot of respect for what you and the others here have done to make SH3 what it has become. If it were up to me I'd see that Ubisoft rewarded all of you with some sort of gratutity for all the pro bono work that's been done to give thier less-than-perfect game not only longevity and salability, but entertainment value. I'm not looking to upset the apple cart, I'm not trying to steal anyone's thunder (nor work) here. I don't brag about how well I play the game at xxxx% "realism" settings. I'm not even trying to develop any kind of Mod - Just tweaking my game so it's playable and fun. The extent of my Modding thus far has only been to make my wife a set of custom emblems to encourage her to play.

Why-T-F do I even bother...