Ahoy Gap!
This requires a bit longer post so i better start...
I'll talk only about OH2 campaign files because default campaign is really nothing worth to talk about...
Trevally did a great job and that's the fact, OHII campaign is carefully tuned and it doesn't force player to chase tonnage like crazy in order to continue campaign. However, in order for player to be able to advance from one campaign to another, for example from the first opening campaign to Happy Times, player will need at least one
Value Point (AKA small iron cross in upper left corner of navigation map). The problem is, in order to earn that point player has to fulfill tonnage objective(or number of ships obj) at least once. And that is the problem...
So what will happen? The player will reach eventually final date of the last mission from certain campaign (for example South Western Approaches for the first campaign) with 0 value points/crosses and the game will just continue without any missions or objectives until end of the war.
I'm not really sure and this needs to be tested, but it seems that new sub offer is not related at all to campaign missions and value points. I think that this is exclusively related to overall player's tonnage, capital ships sinking, date and medals (which are again related to tonnage and capital ships sinking). I hope this is true...
There's one more problem with campaign files and it's not cause by tonnage bar bug.
The missions ARE date controlled and with OHII you really dont have to fulfill one mission's tonnage request in order to activate the next one but...
Take for example Eastern British Coastal Waters (EBCW) in the opening campaign. Deadline for EBCW is on 1st December 1939. In order for player to activate next mission he will need to gain achievement "
EBCW completed"for EBCW mission (this is defined in campaign cfg file). Now this achivement can be gained in two ways, to fulfill tonnage objectives for that particular mission or to wait 1st December in the patrol. Than, next mission will become "unlocked" and visible (Northern Patrol or something). If player decide to dock and end patrol on 25th November and tonnage objective from EBCW is not fulfilled , he will spent next two weeks in the bunker and game wont give you "
EBCW completed" achievement.
In that case, the player wont be able to see any more achievement activated missions until final campaign date. He will be able to see only "unlocked" missions which doesn't required some achievement like Scapa Flow mission or Invasion of Norway. That can be pretty boring because all that player will see until the end of the campaign is empty navigation without ability for player to select patrol grid and actual feel that you are really participating in something...
Now, my idea is simple...To "unlock" all the mission and to remove achievements request, to give a player that one required "Value point" (AKA cross) from the start, to remove goddamn tonnage bar (already done that
) so that player can face fully free, open and nonlinear gameplay with multiple area of operations visible almost all the time( with historically accurate date limits of course
).
Simple as that...
P.S. I've already prepared files for the first two campaigns and it would be really nice if there is someone with tonnage bar issue willing to test my idea.
I haven't contacted Trevally so far and I don't have an idea what will he says about all this but for players with this issue this is the only solution that I can think of... Really a LOT of work has been done on OHII and SH5 and it's really shame to be abandoned now just because of STUPID tonnage bar...Jeee, I hate that thing...