Originally Posted by propbeanie

Possible Deck Gun Fix For Failed Balao Boat Upgrade:

OK, this will be similar to the Coletrains’ method, as documented elsewhere on SubSim, and also in the “ColetraiinsAndOthersDGfix.pdf” file in the FotRSU Support folder, under the heading at the top of the file “Possible Deck Gun Repairs – Old Way, no positions with gun”. What happens in FotRSU though, is that you have no crew, no gun, and no UpgradePack, so they all have to be re-built. There is more than one way to skin this cat though. The easy way is if you have a previous Saved game that has a boat with the same gun, you can just copy appropriate sections. If not, you can base what you need off of one of those copies, or copy and paste from this text, and edit as necessary.

First of all, this situation does not happen except under certain circumstances, of which more digging is required to ascertain what those situations are. As WK4K and propbeanie have both found in their instances was that they started their careers in a Narwhal, were upgraded to a new boat class, and then transferred to Midway. Propbeanie moved the deck gun on his 2nd boat. His third boat, the Gato seemed to be fine. In both instances, the upgrade to a Balao resulted in the loss of the deck gun – complete loss, not just the crew slots.

If you encounter this situation and you have a Saved game prior to being awarded the Balao, you could roll-back to the previous Save and hope that the gun comes properly later. Do not count on that though… Once you are awarded the Balao that does not have a deck gun, you need to Save the game while in the office. Use a new named Save slot, such as NewBalaoNoGun, or some such, so that you know beyond a doubt that is the correct Save. Notate the time and date you make the Save. This will be important. You then have to completely Exit the game back to Windows, and navigate into the proper Save folder. If you use MultiSH4, run it from the game folder, and look and see what you named the Save folder. If you did not use MultiSH4, then it should be in the “C:\Users \UserName \Documents \SH4” folder, with “UserName” being what you log into Windows with, and “Documents” being dependent upon your version of Windows. It might be “My Documents”, etc…

Thankfully, you will only have to edit one file, but there will most probably be some more, extensive edits. Navigate into the Save folder, such that you go inside the “data” folder, then inside the “cfg” folder, and then inside the “SaveGames” folder. In my particular case, it is “F:\Users \propbeanie \Documents \FRE \data \cfg \SaveGames \”. Once inside that folder, you should find numbered folders. Choose the folder that corresponds the closest to the time & date you notated earlier. In my case, that was folder “00000012” Date Modified of “10/19/2020 4:37 PM”. Navigate into that folder and find the file “ActiveUserPlayerUnits.upc”. Open the file in a plain text editor, such as Notepad, or Notrpad++. Wordpad and Word, along with other text editors will function for this purpose, but you do have to be careful and “Save As...” instead of a plain Save, else you will add unwanted data to the file.

Once you have the file open in your text editor, you need to ‘find’ “UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 7” (Stern Gun Mount specific) with the “Search” function of your text editor. The 2nd line of that section should say “ID=BalaoGunS”. If that is not the 2nd line, then you would have a different problem, and should seek help with a description of what you have. Notice that line four of this section says “NameDisplayable=Aft Deck Gun”, which is the default location of the Balao boat’s deck gun, if all had gone well with your upgrade. The Coletrains’ and the wolfeinsamer methods both have you search on and find “UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 7.CrewMemberSlotAdditionalRepository x”, with the "X" corresponding to the member number, and then you remove the “AdditionalRepository” text for the four crewmember slots in FotRSU. Thus far, this is the same as all previous methods of restoring the deck gun. However, you might notice not just discombobulated entries for the gun, but their missing altogether. So you will need to copy the following text, and insert it between the “[UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 7.WeaponSlot 1]” headings last line of text, and the “[UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 7.CrewMemberSlot 1]” section heading:

[UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 7.WeaponSlot 1.Weapon]
ID=4in50calUS
NameDisplayable=4inch .50 Caliber Cannon
WeaponInterval=1900-01-01, 1999-12-31
WeaponSlotType=NULL
AmmoTypesAccepted=4inAPUS,4inHEUS
AmmoTypeLoaded=NULL
AmmoMagazineSize=1
AmmoMagazineRemaining=0
WeaponCrewMembersSlots=4
ExternalLinkName3D=4_50_soclu
FunctionalType=WpCannon
Hitpoints=100.000000
EfficiencyHumanFactor=0.000000
EfficiencyMechanicFactor=1.000000
Efficiency=0.000000
Damage=0.000000
DamageHitpointsConsumed=0.000000
RemainingRepairTime=0000-00-00 00:00:00
DamageDescription1=NULL,0,0.2,0,1,1,Jam,0,0,NULL,1 ,0.3,0.149237
DamageDescription2=NULL,0,1,0,0.5,1,Chamber Explosion,50,5,NULL,1,2,9.87833

This is if you are in a time period where the boat would be using the 4inch deck gun. If instead, you are after 1944-01-01, then you would change the “ID=” line, and the “NameDisplayable=” line to reflect the proper gun “ID=5in25calUS” and “NambeDisplayable=5inch .25 Caliber Cannon”, which are derived from the Weapons.upc file in the game’s “UPCData \UPCUnitsData” folder.

Next, you need to actually have the weapon in the UpgradePackSlot on the boat. Search on “UserPlayerUnit 1.UpgradePackSlot 2”, which in FotRSU is the “ID=UpgAirSearchRadar” section. (UpgradePackSlot 1 should be the “ID=UpgSurfaceSearchRadar”.) You most likely do NOT have an “[UserPlayerUnit 1.UpgradePackSlot 3]” section, which is the “ID=UpgDeckGun” section. The next section after that should be the “[UserPlayerUnit 1.FunctionalSubsystem 1]”. You will have to copy and paste this section between the last line of the “[UserPlayerUnit 1.UpgradePackSlot 2]” section and the “[UserPlayerUnit 1.FunctionalSubsystem 1]” section:

[UserPlayerUnit 1.UpgradePackSlot 3]
ID=UpgDeckGun
NameDisplayable=Deck Gun
Type=NULL
AcceptedTypes=USDeckGunBow,USDeckGunStern,USDeckGu nImpBow,USDeckGunImpStern,USDeckGunHvyBow,USDeckGu nHvyStern,USDeckGunHvyDbl
UserCustomizable=Yes
IDLinkUpgradePackSlots=BowDeckGun,SternDeckGun
CurrentUpgradePack=4inch .50cal Stern Mount
IDLinkUpgradePackSlotsLoaded=NULL

Save the file, making certain that it remains named “ActiveUserPlayerUnits.upc”, as a plain text file, and no extra data or file extensions added. Then try that “ NewBalaoNoGun” Save again, and see what happens...

It is assumed that it is the Narwhal that knocks things out of kilter, but it might also be the fact that a previous boat had its deck gun moved. The Tambor is also a stern mount, and it was moved to the bow, so it might be that when the Balao come along, and it is another stern mount, that the gun crew was already "moved", so no crew, you get no gun... we don't know yet. It might be one or the other, or maybe the combination. We hope to find out later.