[Ducimus]

what about 100% scripted traffic,

Scripted layer as opposed to a random layer? (Big difference here)

where you want to increase the number in a group that spawns 100% of the time, instead of say 4 escorts in the group, you have 6.

In a random layer this is easy. Just edit the random groups unit composition and place more units in it. In a scripted layer, you'll have to place the units individually, make sure the entry and exit dates match the group your trying to attach them to, and attach it to the group leader.

You can't increase escorts spawn rate if they don't exist in the group..right?

I'm assuming your talking about a random layer. Within a random group, you can make individual ships have a chance to spawn. For example, you can have a group randomly spawn every 5 days. Within that group you can have 4 ships that will spawn 100% of the time this random group appears, 3 ships that spawn 50% of the time this random group appears, and another 2 that only spawn 25% of the time this random group appears.

So the ships that appear when this random group does spawn, has a chance to have different numbers of ships every time. On that note, a "generic" entry randomizes the type of ship that appears there. Generic choices are Cargo, destroyer, tanker, etc.

The only problem with generic entries is the mission editor restricts the top speed of this "generic" unit to the slowest unit of that generic type. (for example generic cargo might be restricted to 10 knots even though some might be able to do 15)

When I open the data/campaign file, you find a notepad file named campaign with files listed as such, but these are the wrong files. I think in my other post you said these were config files, even though I see them as mission files.

Again, your looking at the campaign.cfg. Think of this as the file that holds everything together. To understand this file you have to look at SH3's campaign files. How it was in SH3, is you had several different types of traffic:

Convoys
single merchants
task forces
HK groups.

And you had these types of traffic for all years of the war. (1939 through 45)

ALL of these was in one big massive, ugly campaign layer. Tracking down traffic was difficult. What SH4 does, is divide all these traffic types into their own files, by year. What SH4 does with the campaign.cfg file is it compiles it, and loads the traffic needed for whatever year your playing. If its December 1941, then the game will load, just what it needs for that time period. This is why SH4 loads so much faster then SH3.

In the part you cited, your only looking at the japanese coastal traffic for the end up 1941. It's but one piece of the puzzle. If you want to look at mercants or convoys, you'll find a similarly named MIS file. It's the MIS file that holds the traffic. The campaign.cfg file only tells SH4 what files to load.

Didn't someone once create a program to write traffic outside of ME with instructions. Maybe that's even what lurker used.

Yes. I forget the exact name, Automated campaign scripter or something like that. I've used it myself. It's how i got the zig zags in TMO's convoy layers. A relatively simple thing for it. Lurker was doing more advanced stuff, and was running several scripts against the layers to do what he wanted. I don't think he used the Mission editor much. It was too confining, and inefficient given the scope of his work.