Question RE: Sub Commander Randomization commands...

[Church SUBSIM]

Ok, now that I am completely sucked back into SHIII after taking a break, I have a few questions about tweaking. /evil grin.

First, in the Sub Commander Randomization file (which is an amazing tool btw)...
What I am trying to do is make the Message that I get when I send a Patrol report be random *and* relative to my U-Boat number. For example, in the NYGM 2.2 en_menu.txt the following line is called on when ever I receive a response to my patrol report when I have torpedos remaining:

4197=Acknowledged.

Now in the Randomization folder I should be able to add the following to make that line random each time I receive a message I get a diffrent response by doing the following (as per Gouldjg's Hollywood example):

[0_data\Menu\en_menu.txt]
ChooseFrom=13
RndMidPat=1

0_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Excellent Work.
1_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Increase Patrol One Grid NORTH.
2_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Increase Patrol One Grid SOUTH.
3_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Increase Patrol One Grid WEST.
4_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Increase Patrol One Grid EAST.
5_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. REPOSITION ONE GRID NORTH.
6_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. REPOSITION ONE GRID SOUTH.
7_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Good Hunting Kaleun!
8_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Keep up the good work Kaleun!
9_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Excellent Results.
10_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. REPOSITION ONE GRID EAST.
11_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. REPOSITION ONE GRID WEST.

What I would like to do is incorporate the U Boat Number I have been assigned so it would read like the following (using one line as an example):

0_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged U-97. Excellent Work. (but have the Uboat number match my boat each time it changes)

Is this possible?

Thanks in advance,
Church

[Samwolf]

Originally Posted by Church SUBSIM

Ok, now that I am completely sucked back into SHIII after taking a break, I have a few questions about tweaking. /evil grin.

First, in the Sub Commander Randomization file (which is an amazing tool btw)...
What I am trying to do is make the Message that I get when I send a Patrol report be random *and* relative to my U-Boat number. For example, in the NYGM 2.2 en_menu.txt the following line is called on when ever I receive a response to my patrol report when I have torpedos remaining:

4197=Acknowledged.

Now in the Randomization folder I should be able to add the following to make that line random each time I receive a message I get a diffrent response by doing the following (as per Gouldjg's Hollywood example):

[0_data\Menu\en_menu.txt]
ChooseFrom=13
RndMidPat=1

0_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Excellent Work.
1_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Increase Patrol One Grid NORTH.
2_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Increase Patrol One Grid SOUTH.
3_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Increase Patrol One Grid WEST.
4_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Increase Patrol One Grid EAST.
5_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. REPOSITION ONE GRID NORTH.
6_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. REPOSITION ONE GRID SOUTH.
7_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Good Hunting Kaleun!
8_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Keep up the good work Kaleun!
9_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Excellent Results.
10_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. REPOSITION ONE GRID EAST.
11_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. REPOSITION ONE GRID WEST.

What I would like to do is incorporate the U Boat Number I have been assigned so it would read like the following (using one line as an example):

0_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged U-97. Excellent Work. (but have the Uboat number match my boat each time it changes)

Is this possible?

Thanks in advance,
Church

Don't know for sure about the "personalized" U-boat number But you could try :

0_STRINGS|4197=Message Acknowledged. Excellent Work. %s and see what happens.

I used Gouldjg's Hollywood example also. I randomised my messages but I had a problem with it working, it finally worked when I changed

[0_data\Menu\en_menu.txt]

to

[MT0:data\Menu\en_menu.txt]

If the %s works let me know please.

Btw.

I believe 4197 is the response you get when you send a Patrol Report that does not include a new sinking.

4198 is the one you get when you report a new sinking.

[Church SUBSIM]

Thanks for the great response.

Like you, I was having problems getting the messages to work at all but have now incorporated you fix. I will see how it goes. I added the %s and will let you know if it works.

She is loading right now.

One thing that I wanted to ask you .... given the issues with the text in the Hollywood example needing tweaking, do I need to change the 0_ to MT:0 (as an example) for the sensors as well? Once I noticed the text was not working, I could not be sure the sensor randomization was working as well. Any feedback on that?

Thanks again,
Church

** UPDATE **

Ok, I managed to get the deck officers response to update but not the patrol report responses, so I suspect because they have the %s included in the line, they are defaulting to the original. Will advise once I tweak it again.

[Samwolf]

Originally Posted by Church SUBSIM

Thanks for the great response.

Like you, I was having problems getting the messages to work at all but have now incorporated you fix. I will see how it goes. I added the %s and will let you know if it works.

She is loading right now.

One thing that I wanted to ask you .... given the issues with the text in the Hollywood example needing tweaking, do I need to change the 0_ to MT:0 (as an example) for the sensors as well? Once I noticed the text was not working, I could not be sure the sensor randomization was working as well. Any feedback on that?

Thanks again,
Church

** UPDATE **

Ok, I managed to get the deck officers response to update but not the patrol report responses, so I suspect because they have the %s included in the line, they are defaulting to the original. Will advise once I tweak it again.

Not sure about the 0_, I think the problem was that the program was looking for the : I just changed the 0 to MT0 to ensure the entry was unique.

Sorry to hear that the %s didn't work, hopefully someone else knows the answer.

As for the sensors and effects all I did was make sure that the #_ at the beginning was changed to #: The effects seem to work but I haven't run into any DD's to know if the sensors work

I changed my Senors and effects to SE1: SE2: EF1: EF2: etc. The letters don't matter as long as they're unique for each section, I think the : is the important thing.

[Church SUBSIM]

Originally Posted by Samwolf

As for the sensors and effects all I did was make sure that the #_ at the beginning was changed to #: The effects seem to work but I haven't run into any DD's to know if the sensors work

I changed my Senors and effects to SE1: SE2: EF1: EF2: etc. The letters don't matter as long as they're unique for each section, I think the : is the important thing.

Good deal - I just went through and checked the file. I noticed that all the min height's (they end in 3's) had ; before the data. The first did not have that for the sensors, the remaining ones did. I corrected that as well.

Thanks again so much for the help. A perfect example of how great this community is here at Subsim!

Church

[Samwolf]

Originally Posted by Church SUBSIM

Thanks again so much for the help. A perfect example of how great this community is here at Subsim!

Church

No Problem. I like the idea of randomising the 4197 messages too. Never thought about that until you mentioned it.

[Church SUBSIM]

Hey could you check your Private messages - I sent you one.
Thanks,
Church

[Samwolf]

Originally Posted by Church SUBSIM

Hey could you check your Private messages - I sent you one.
Thanks,
Church

Got it. On the Way.

Wish there was a "notify" for PM's that was more prominent.

[JScones]

Great stuff guys.

To confirm, yes, SH3Cmdr only cares about the colon. What characters you use before the colon are really only for your benefit and to ensure that each section title is unique.

The confusion re the use of either underscore or colon as the "split" character is because the original implementation of the randomised events function used an underscore, but this was changed to a colon to avoid confusion with filenames that included underscore characters.

I would suggest that gouldjg's stuff hasn't been updated to the R2.6+ standard. If left as an underscore it won't work.

[Samwolf]

Originally Posted by JScones

Great stuff guys.

To confirm, yes, SH3Cmdr only cares about the colon. What characters you use before the colon are really only for your benefit and to ensure that each section title is unique.

The confusion re the use of either underscore or colon as the "split" character is because the original implementation of the randomised events function used an underscore, but this was changed to a colon to avoid confusion with filenames that included underscore characters.

I would suggest that gouldjg's stuff hasn't been updated to the R2.6+ standard. If left as an underscore it won't work.

Took me a while to figure out that gouldjg's example was out of date and the entries weren't being picked up, but comparing his entries to the ones you have in the randomised events files made it pretty obvious.

This is a great feature and I sure hope it becomes more used by modders.

[gouldjg]

Originally Posted by Samwolf

Took me a while to figure out that gouldjg's example was out of date and the entries weren't being picked up, but comparing his entries to the ones you have in the randomised events files made it pretty obvious.

This is a great feature and I sure hope it becomes more used by modders.

I am kinda busy and therefore sitting back and awaiting GWX like the rest of you guys. After that point, I think I will decide on what can/cannot be done in randomisation area.

I know that GWX team have worked for a very long time on certain aspects of the game and therefore I will be at least running one full campaign on GWX settings. I think GWX has probably provided a very good fix/version of certain aspects so we may not have to go over old ground here.

I also know that they have spent hell a lot of time almost completely recoding certain things so therefore it would be extremely difficult to randomise certain things as they will now have solid and very complicated codes in place to bring us the treats.

There are however lots of opportunities to mix other things up and I for one would prefer the historic radio messages to be logged in date related in randomisation rather than radio. That way I can still learn things but not have to go through the radio messages system.

As for game play radio messages, there are loads of things that can be done to just take the boredom out a little.

And if GWX has done what we discussed in the early days, we will have (sssshhhhhhhh) that will have to wait.

I think I will wait till GWX and then hope to join a consortium of modders whom want to get the best out of the game and randomise loads of things i.e. uniforms, etc etc.

I know a few folks are pretty damn good at this now and maybe we should all put in a one last haul of the randomisation features of SH3 commander once GWX has been released.

A possible start would be listing what is worth randomising

[Samwolf]

Originally Posted by gouldjg

I think I will wait till GWX and then hope to join a consortium of modders whom want to get the best out of the game and randomise loads of things i.e. uniforms, etc etc.

I know a few folks are pretty damn good at this now and maybe we should all put in a one last haul of the randomisation features of SH3 commander once GWX has been released.

A possible start would be listing what is worth randomising

I'm also waiting to see what GWX comes out with. I definately got tired of getting the same messages for the entire career and when I saw your template for randomising them I had to give it try. Great idea!

Since I like having a WO who actually does things I play with his input "on". I hope someone can find a way to Randomise his sighting reports. When I can barely see the masts at 15000M it takes away some from the experience when he can tell me what exactly what kind of ship it is. "Merchant" or "Warship" would be fine, at least until I got closer.

[Church SUBSIM]

Originally Posted by Samwolf

I'm also waiting to see what GWX comes out with. I definately got tired of getting the same messages for the entire career and when I saw your template for randomising them I had to give it try. Great idea!

Since I like having a WO who actually does things I play with his input "on". I hope someone can find a way to Randomise his sighting reports. When I can barely see the masts at 15000M it takes away some from the experience when he can tell me what exactly what kind of ship it is. "Merchant" or "Warship" would be fine, at least until I got closer.

Yes, I know what you mean. I think that is just a case where you have to use player defined rules. I only will ask for the range via the uzo when it's close or will ask for confirmation of my ship type after I have looked it up in the recognition manual. Sometime back I tried to tinker with the sonar operator and his range calls only to find out that there was a strict limit in the codes he can and will use, the rest is hardcoded. It's a shame in someways, given how modable this sim is, that certain things can't be altered.

Looking forward to the GMX mod as well as all others - never ceases to amaze me the brilliance of many here that mod. They don't just make red blue, they make the game unlike anything that was initially released. I am sure there have been times when the developers have read these boards, downloaded a mod and quietly had that look of, "Damn, I should have thought of that!" on their face

[Samwolf]

Yes, I know what you mean. I think that is just a case where you have to use player defined rules. I only will ask for the range via the uzo when it's close or will ask for confirmation of my ship type after I have looked it up in the recognition manual.

How do you do that???? I get the report as soon as I put my sight on the target. Let me guess, turn off the option for WO input on the options screen and then use the WO commands tabs? I thought turning the option off disabled any input from him. To me that'd be the best of both worlds, I already use "self discipline" for neutrals. I set off the -1 for sinking them and will break off an attack once I identify a single ship as neutral, any ship in a convoy is fair game to me though and I don't bother to check nationality.

[Church SUBSIM]

Originally Posted by Samwolf

How do you do that???? I get the report as soon as I put my sight on the target. Let me guess, turn off the option for WO input on the options screen and then use the WO commands tabs? I thought turning the option off disabled any input from him. To me that'd be the best of both worlds, I already use "self discipline" for neutrals. I set off the -1 for sinking them and will break off an attack once I identify a single ship as neutral, any ship in a convoy is fair game to me though and I don't bother to check nationality.

I am using the Complete Install of NYGM 2.2 and have it set to 100% (well I use the included Limited Contacts reporting) so I keep map updates on and then I have the weapon officer assistance on. Everything else is off.

When I lock a target with the scope I only get a lock, no information. I select the WO and he has three options (ID, Range, Fire). I basically try my damndest to do it all myself but I will call on him from time to time to confirm the range and type of ship once I have done it manually. I love the Map Updates feature they have blended in ... you will not see single merchants and when you do spot a convoy you get a rough block of it's location and then a time stamp. Slick .... gives you just enough to confirm your inital readings but then you need to hunker down and plot each ship, and if it's a convoy really tweak the paths of each row. A nice blend imo. I am sure that GW has a similar option as part of the mod or an included add on. LOL almost forgot the best part - the little red sunken ship Icon on the nav map. Love that.

Damn this game is fun.