Null patrol

[Wicked Popsicle]

is there a mod to get rid of this when i want to resupply and go out and dish some hell on the johnnies?

[FIREWALL]

Hi WP If you already went to your patrol area and used up most if not all torps and fuel.

Go and refuel and supply and wreak havoc and don't worry about NULL.

[Sailor Steve]

If you're using GWX you don't get renown for going to your patrol grid anyway.

[RoaldLarsen]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

If you're using GWX you don't get renown for going to your patrol grid anyway.

So does GWX compensate for this by increasing the renown reward for sunken ships, or by reducing the renown cost of upgrades and special torpedoes?

[Sailor Steve]

Neither. The idea is that you don't get special recognition for just following orders. This doesn't bother me, because I hardly ever use it anyway.

You, on the other hand, can edit it in your 'Basic' file in the 'Cfg' folder, if that is your wish. I think the original values were 100 for showing up and 500 for patrolling 24 hours.

[mookiemookie]

SH3 Commander will allow you to assign a patrol grid while you're docked at the milk cow.

[RoaldLarsen]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Neither. The idea is that you don't get special recognition for just following orders. This doesn't bother me, because I hardly ever use it anyway.

Thanks for the info, Sailor Steve.

It seems to me that there are two questions here. Should one get recognition for just following orders, and should one get upgrades depending on one's recognition level? And since the stock game system assumes answers and an interaction between the two, any change by a mod has to consider both questions and this interaction.

I'm not so sure the answers are so cut-and-dried as GWX seems to make them. I would argue that superior officers do take notice of who successfully carries out assignments and who does not. Taking a u-boat out to sea, arriving on station and staying there as ordered is not an automatic operation, and it became less automatic as the war went on. I think the notion that

• commanders who successfully carried out orders and sank nothing

would be treated the same as

• commanders who disobeyed orders and also sank nothing

is less reasonable than the idea of getting recognition for successfully carrying out orders.

I don't have a problem with the idea that scarce, valuable resources would be put in the hands of those who would be most able to use them effectively. So tying upgrades to renown does make a certain amount of success. I just don't think that it took all that much reputation to get basic upgrades like radar warning or active sonar. Many of these things were standard issue, and were installed whenever the boat happened to be in port. Perhaps a better model would be to have one's reputation determine how long one waits for installation after an item first becomes available. That is not the same thing as spending renown points on an ungrade.

In the mid to late part of the war the upgrades start arriving in droves, and if a player is getting only historical amounts of tonnage, under GWX there is no way his boat will be upgraded fast enough to keep up with what really was done to upgrade boats at that time. For at least this reason, I think that if one is going to get rid of renown for arriving at patrol areas, then one should reduce the renown cost of upgrades. Perhaps, also, the cost of a given upgrade should decline over time.

One might argue that this is just a matter of personal taste, and that one's tastes can easily be accommodated because SHII is so easily modified. Furthermore, the renown system is just an abstraction that deals with an issue which in real life was not nearly so rigidly formulaic. To me, however, this is about good design. Some of the absolutes that GWX has adopted, often without appropriate compensation, are, IMO, non-optimal design decisions. Eliminating patrol renown without a corresponding reduction in renown cost of upgrades is one example. It's wrong because it leads to non-historic restrictions on upgrades. Increasing the effective competence of escorts without reducing their DC loadouts to historic levels is another. Eliminating AP and SS ammunition because certain references don't mention their use (and don't mention they were not used either), is a third and now we have seen references that show that SS and a form of AP were used by some u-boats on some patrols.

The way that the decision to eliminate renown for completing assigned patrols was apparently arrived at is an interesting case study in design. It begins with the question: "Why should I get renown merely for following orders, especially when I get renown for sinking ships?" No answer is immediately apparent, so the renown award is eliminated. Perhaps the term "renown" misled the GWX designers into thinking in terms of "fame" instead of "recognition of competence". Perhaps if the question had been rephrased a little bit a different answer may have been considered. Perhaps the question should have been: "What is the difference between following orders and not following orders?" or even "What is the difference between successfully completing an assignment and not completing an assignment?" And if the decision is made to reduce or eliminate renown for patrol assignments, then another question needs to be asked: "How will this reduction in accumulated renown affect game play?" Keeping in mind that other changes in GWX made it, on balance, more difficult to sink ships, the obvious answer should have been that it would reduce the ability to upgrade. In the absence of a clear case that upgrades were too easy to get, and even if they were, that the problem wouldn't be addressed by the increased difficulty in getting tonnage, an upgrade cost reduction should have resulted.

[/rant] and perhaps this would be better placed in the Mods Workshop forum. Don't get me wrong. I think GWX is a great mod. I just have a few issues with some individual design decisions. While these may have contributed to the reason why I don't use it, the main reasons are my ancient 128MB graphics card and my desire to complete my first 39-45 campaign without changing horses in mid-race.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

You, on the other hand, can edit it in your 'Basic' file in the 'Cfg' folder, if that is your wish. I think the original values were 100 for showing up and 500 for patrolling 24 hours.

I think it was actually 500 for arriving and 200 more for completing the 24 hours.

I already modify this, using the indispensible SH3 Commander, to reduce the amount early in the war and increase it later in the war. I deal in part with the renown cost of torpedos by using SH3 Commander to randomly load certain tubes (depending on date) with type IV or V and/or with FaT I or FaT II. So far I have resisted monkeying around with the various renown costs of individual upgrades, mostly due to laziness.

[Hitman]

I just have a few issues with some individual design decisions

Of course, and that's all right but as the saying goes "You can't please everyone, everytime"....GWX was a labour of love done by enthusiasts, and they had their own points of view on the matter (On all matters in fact ) same as NYGM or WAC have theirs. And this all is what has leaded to the current diversity of supermods and tweaks which enrichens a lot the community