[GUIDE] Start from where you want, at any date

[XenonSurf]

*IMPORTANT*
All what I say below, the entire guide, is only true if you play TWoS or a mod WITHOUT TONNAGE BAR, for example a mod with OHII + the mod called 'No Stupid Tonnage Bar...'.
This is because when playing with the TB, some missions are connected in a way that you must succeed one before doing the next, and so, skipping time can cause the game to CTD. Game crashes (with active TB) can also happen if you use the mod 'Change days in Bunker', or if you change your bunker time with KSD Commander.
Hardcore modders can play with TB and advance time by editing the file Campaign.cfg in the precise savegame, changing all the triggers for the missions that happen before the player's date spawn in the campaign; all missions that happen before must be changed from

IsCompleted=false > IsCompleted=true

This will avoid CTD and has no effect on renown points etc.


Then, it must be noted that re-docking at a port when you have just started (or making a patrol with no tonnage sunk) will cost you 2 Rating points as a penalty (at least with OHII v.2.5 mod and TB loaded). So, if you re-dock because you want to advance time, then you may want to adjust the 2 files CarrerTrack.upc of your savegames, by editing the values

PlayerCurrentRating=....

--------------------------------------------------------------------


You have played a historical encounter in SH3 and want to know how it plays out in SH5? Or you want to create interesting Single Missions without complicated editors? Or you simply want to test your mods?
Now you can do all this, with the stock game and pretty any mod loaded. In my description I'll do it with TWoS loaded.

Audience:
What I describe here is for the 'impatient' player who wants to quickly get to a special place in the campaign, playing a specific historical operation without the need to travel around all the world, and who doesn't want to go through all the campaign just to play what he's interested in.
Modders can use this method to quickly see if their 'traffic' works as intended or if their changed ports look like for what they have changed, and whatnot else.
This document is quite long, but rest assured that all the steps are easy and quick to carry out, once you know you'll do it much faster than reading all this!

Contents:
- Start at any campaign chapter
- Start at any mission in a campaign chapter
- How you simply change your date in the bunker
- How you change your starting port
- All in One: How to travel to and meet a special historical operation

What you'll need: A decent text editor like Notepad++ (free) or UltraEdit.



1) Start at any campaign chapter

This is well known and easy: After chosing New Campaign you are presented with the campaign chapters. Only the first will be available, others must be 'unlocked' with successful missions. But we'll skip all that... Just keep your mouse visible on the screen and type 'silentotto'. All campaign chapters are now available.



2) Start at any mission in a campaign chapter

Example: You want to start chapter 3, Mare Nostrum, with the last mission called 'East Mediterranean Convoys'. Do the following:

a)
Do as explained in 1), chose the 3rd chapter, when in the bunker immediately save game and quit to main menu. ALT-TAB out to Windows.

Important:
When you save the game, don't overwrite other game slots (can spell trouble), save in a new slot and don't use spaces in the name. Names like camp_1_bunker, camp_2 etc. are right. Also never load any Autosaves.

b)
In Windows Explorer, navigate to your savegame folders. They are located in your Documents\SH5 folder. You should see something like that (just an example):

00000002
00000004
(...)
0000000f
0000000e

Click on 'Sort by date' in the Explorer tab. The first one is your last savegame. Double-click on it to open.
With a better text editor like Notepad++ (I use UltraEdit) we are going to quickly search/replace some values in 3 files, and that's it. We are going to change our starting date. In our example we need to know the time line for our mission that we want to start at. I'm giving you these timelines here for TWoS:

Many thanks to Trevally for this exhaustive list!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coastal Waters 31/08/39 - 01/06/40
Flotilla 2nd
Bases - Memel (31-08-1939 to 01-09-1939) Kiel (02-09-1939 to 31-09-1939) Wilhelmshaven (01-10-1939 to 31-06-1940)
Stock boat issue - VIIA

Baltic Operations
31/08/39 - 05/09/39

Eastern British Coastal Waters
04/09/39 - 01/12/39

Breaking The Fortress
10/09/39 - 15/10/39

North Western Approaches
21/09/39 - 01/04/40

South Western Approaches
01/01/40 - 01/06/40

Operation Wesserubung
20/03/40 - 11/04/40

Happy Times 15/06/40 - 01/03/41
Flotilla 2nd
Bases - Wilhelmshaven (01-10-1939 to 31-06-1940) Lorient (01-07-1940 to 31-08-1944)
Stock boat issue - VIIB

Atlantic Air Gap
15/06/40 - 31/01/41

Western Approaches
01/10/40 - 01/02/41

Strategic Supplies
01/11/40 - 01/03/41

Mare Nostrum 15/03/41 - 01/12/41
Flotilla 23rd
Transfer from 2nd flotilla Kiel 15-03-1941 with new boat.
Bases - La Spezia (15-03-1941 to 31-05-1941) Salamis/Piraeus (01-06-1941 to 01-12-1941)
Stock boat issue - VIIC

Breakthrough Gibraltar
01/03/41 - 01/09/41

Deliveries for Malta
01/03/41 - 01/09/41

Siege of Tobruk
01/04/41 - 01/12/41

Middle East Supplies
01/06/41 - 01/12/41

10th Flotilla
01/09/41 - 30/11/41

East Mediterranean Convoys
01/09/41 - 01/12/41

Western Approaches 20/03/41 - 01/12/41
Flotilla 6th
Transfer from 2nd flotilla Kiel 20-03-1941 with new boat.
Bases - St Nazaire (05-04-1941 to 31-08-1944)
Stock boat issue - VIIC


British Supplies
20/03/41 - 01/12/41

Gibraltar Supply Route
20/03/41 - 01/12/41

Winston's Special
20/03/41 - 01/12/41

CENTRAL ATLANTIC SUPPLIES (was South Atlantic Supplies)
01/04/41 - 30/11/41

South Atlantic Convoys
01/04/41 - 01/12/41

Battle of the Mediterranean 15/12/41 - 01/09/42
Flotilla 29th
Bases - La Spezia (15-12-1941 to 01-05-1942) Toulon (01-05-1942 to 31-12-1942)
Stock boat issue - VIIC

Siege of Malta
15/12/41 - 01/08/42

Fortress Gibraltar
15/12/41 - 01/09/42

Rommel's Supplies
15/12/41 - 01/09/42

Raid on Malta
01/01/42 - 01/06/42

Eastern Fleet
01/01/42 - 01/09/42

Operation Pedestal
07/06/42 - 20/08/42

Operation Drumbeat 12/12/41 - 01/09/42
Flotilla 2nd
Bases - Lorient (12-12-1941 to 31-08-1944)
Stock boat issue - VIIC

U-Boat Blitz
12/12/41 - 01/02/42

Second Happy Time
12/12/41 - 01/08/42

Tanker Alley
01/03/42 - 01/09/42

Arctic Convoys 19/12/41 - 19/09/42
Flotilla 11th
Bases - Bergen (19-12-1941 to 19-09-1942)
Stock boat issue - VIIC

PQ/QP Convoys
19/12/41 - 16/06/42

Soviet Waters
19/12/41 - 01/07/42

Arctic Blockade
01/01/42 - 19/09/42

Arctic Convoys
01/02/42 - 01/09/42

JW/RA Convoys
01/05/42 - 19/09/42

Distant Waters 15/09/42 - 15/02/43
Flotilla 3rd
Transfer from 29th flotilla Toulon 15-09-1942
Bases - La Pallice (16-09-1941 to 31-08-1944)
Stock boat issue - VIIC

South America Supplies
15/09/42 - 31/12/42

Caribbean Oil
15/09/42 - 31/12/42

CapeTown Supplies
01/10/42 - 15/02/43

War in Distant Waters
01/11/42 - 15/02/43

The Black Pit 20/09/42 - 15/02/43
Flotilla 9th
Bases - Brest (20-09-1942 to 20-02-1943)
Stock boat issue - VIIC

The Triumph of the Wolfpack
20/09/42 - 17/12/42

The Gap Closers
01/10/42 - 15/02/43

The Torch
20/10/42 - 15/02/43

Brittish Supplies
01/12/42 - 15/02/43

Turning Point 01/03/43 - 15/06/44
Flotilla 9th
Transfer from Kiel 15-03-1943 with new boat.
Bases - La Pallice (16-09-1943 to 30-05-1944) Wilhelmshaven (31-05-1944 to 30-09-1944)
Stock boat issue - VIIC41

TW Spring 43
01/03/43 - 31/05/43

TW Summer 43
01/06/43 - 31/08/43

TW Autumn 43
01/09/43 - 30/11/43

TW Winter 43
01/12/43 - 39/02/44

TW Spring 44
01/03/44 - 15/06/44

Invasion Iminent
01/05/44 - 07/06/44

Monsun Gruppe 01/03/43 - 15/06/44
Flotilla 7th
Transfer from La Pallice 02-03-1943
Bases - Penang (03-03-1943 to 01-08-1943) Singapur (02-08-1943 to 01-05-1944)
Transfer to La Pallice 02-05-1944
Stock boat issue - VIIC41

Passage into The Rising Sun *
01/03/43 - 23/07/43

The Monsun Boats **
20/04/43 - 01/11/43
(requires * pass/fail to activate)

The Riches of India ***
01/07/43 - 20/04/44
(requires ** pass/fail to activate)

Australia Isolation ***
01/10/43 - 20/04/44
(requires ** pass/fail to activate)

Evacuation
01/03/44 - 15/06/44
(requires *** pass/fail to activate)

The Final Years 01/07/44 - 09/05/45
Flotilla 9th
Bases - Wilhelmshaven (01-07-1944 to 30-09-1944) Bergen (01-10-1944 to 09-05-1945)
Transfer to Loch Ryan (Scotland - Operation Deadlight) 09-05-1945
Stock boat issue - VIIC41

Tonnage War 44
01/07/44 - 31/12/44

The North Sea
01/09/44 - 09/05/45

Tonnage War 45
01/01/45 - 09/05/45

Urgent Message
05/05/45 - 09/05/45
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Now, in our example, we look in Mare Nostrum at the last entry and we got our time line which is:
01/09/41 - 01/12/41
We decide to be 'born in the world' at 01/11/41. For our purpose, you can chose anything in this interval, but not outside of it please, and nothing too close to 01/12/41, else you won't have enough time to carry out your mission (you must also calculate your travel time to the operation area.)
Generally, whatever chapter you chose you must remain within the date interval of the chapter.

In our open savegame folder we open the folder with the name
Campaign-xxxx-xx-xx_xxxx
and open the file CampaignMission.mis with Notepad++

In the first lines we see the entries CurrentYear, CurrentMonth, CurrentDay. We change it to this:

CurrentYear=1941
CurrentMonth=11
CurrentDay=1

Save file and close.

We now go back to our main savegame folder, and open these 2 files in Notepad++ :

CareerTrack.upc, and ...\UPCInitial\CareerTrack.upc

In one of the files we are looking for this entry (in our example our chapter starts out at 15/3/1941, but in other chapters this will be different):

CurrentDate=1941-15-03 15:00:00

We are going to change all entries at once in the 2 files (Notepad++ I don't know, but UltraEdit can do that, else you must do manually, sorry.)
We enter this in the 'search' to replace:

1941-15-03 15:00:00

'Change to' in 'All open documents':

1941-01-11 15:00:00

18 entries have been changed. Ok, we Save All and close the files. We are almost done.

We switch back to the game, we load our last save, we go to the officer to show us our mission and we note on the map on the upper left that we are at our set time in the world.
We accept one of the missions and leave the map with ESC (doesn't matter you can do without a mission, but why not getting some extra points and promotions in case of success?)
Then, we click on the person next to the officer which can upgrade our sub.
Then, important: we hit ESC, go to Options and set our Gameplay Options.

Finally, we go again to the officer and chose 'Start Patrol'.

You will start on your sub at your set time ready to go. Good hunting, Captain

Notes:
With other choices from yours which differ from our example, it may happen that you are 'teleported' to another port to start your mission, that's ok, this is the port you would start anyway had you played through all the campaign until there...It has to do with the time intervals for the ports (see the chart above). So there's no mystery, our time machine works right...
In some cases you will NOT be able to re-dock at the base you start from (no docking icon appears), the reason is that you may be re-located to another base by BDU, but you are not supposed to know this yet...But you can know by taking a look in the timeline chart above.


3) How you simply change your date in the bunker

You could use KSDCommander or another tool, but this will require you to leave port, save, quit the game, make the changes in KSD and reload the entire game, then return to port...Stop it, stop it.... But we can use our time better than that, just read above in 2) where we change our date, this is much faster even if you don't like editing files that much, you'll get used to it, believe me...

KSDCommander is however very useful to randomize your time for staying in the bunker. The default of the stock game is 14 days, for TWoS it's 28 days. In KSDCommander you see the setting 'From 28 days To 28 days'.
Change it e.g. to 'From 6 days To 28 days' for more variety in your regular campaign. This will require that you start game from KSDCommander 1 time before re-entering bunker when you return from a patrol. After that you can start SH5 without KSD and these settings will remain as such until you change them again.



4) How you change your starting port

You can change to any allied port with a bunker by chosing one in the timeline chart above. The requisites for changing to a new port are these:

a)
The port must have a bunker compound similar of to the one in which you start everytime (you can see this compound when you zoom in on the map). In a port without bunker you cannot start or end the patrol at it, only refit, and even this is not always possible.

b)
The port must be allied at the time you want to start from it, and at the time you visit the officer's map in the bunker. This can change quickly and may not be visible on the officer's map or on your sub map.
The port of Lorient in France is an example of this, at the start of 'Happy days' this port is still an enemy one, so if you change to it this will crash the game. You need to advance time for 15 days or more to be able to switch there.

c)
Your Flotilla is linked to specific ports only, as seen in the timeline chart above, but my system below will change this.

I will describe a fast and easy procedure and also a complete one that gives you all the freedom to chose any port with a bunker.

Fast procedure for changing ports:

This procedure will work if you chose any port that is described in the timeline chart above for your selected chapter. In our changing date example above, this is the chapter Mare Nostrum with the ports Kiel, La Spezia, Salamis, Piraeus.
First thing to do is to check if a port change is necessary at all: Check with the timeline chart above in the starting chapter if your desired starting date does match the port you want, if yes then you only need to change the date as explained in 2) and you will be teleported automatically to that port when you start.
Instead, use this procedure if you want to start at a port (among those of your chapter) that is not available for your set timeline.
Let's say you want to start at La Spezia at the same time as in example 2) which is 1/11/1941. By looking at the chart you see that if you only change your date you will spawn at Piraeus in Greece instead. For spawning at La Spezia do this:

Do exactly like in 2), but do NOT edit the file CampaignMission.mis, leave it unchanged. Instead edit the other 2 files as explained, and additionally look for an entry like this:

CurrentFlotillaBase=F8Kiel (I still go as in our example, but this will be different with other initial choices).

We change the value 'F8Kiel' in our example into F8LaSpezia in all 2 files (6 changes).

Important:
You must be careful here with replacing the port names in the 2 files. If you see F8 or F6 or else before the name, just keep it in the name! the syntax is so that single names are written out with a big letter to start, like Wilhelmshaven (use W and not w!); so in the example above it would be .....=F8Wilhelmshaven
Then, 2-word names start with a big letter for both words, but without space like 'LaSpezia'. Same principle: keep F8, F6 or whatever and just add the name without spaces.

Now there are some problems: After doing all this, when you switch back to game and visit the officer for taking a mission, the date will be at chapter start, although you have edited the 2 files, but don't worry, you will start your patrol at the right set time. The problem is: if you take a mission, then you may not spawn at the port you want; if instead you don't take a mission you WILL for sure spawn at the right port. So it's your choice, it depends what your purpose is, if taking a mission is important for you, and it doesn't work, you can still do my 'complete method' here below. So you will either do:

a)
Don't take any mission, upgrade your sub, change your gameplay options (ESC, Option menu), tell the officer to start your patrol. Confirm with Yes. Hopefully you should now start at the port you want and at your set time. Note that this has NO influence on your possible encounters in the world afterwards, the traffic you encounter is purely DATE controlled, whether you take a mission or not.

b) Do like in a) but take a mission when it is not outdated. However, you may start out in Greece (Piraeus) which is the port planned by the game for your start date. If you don't like it, reload the save and don't take a mission, or see my 'complete method' below.



Complete procedure to change to ALL ports with bunkers:

Here you have total freedom, you can chose any port which is defined in the entire timeline chart above, all these ports have bunkers to start so you cannot be wrong by chosing them. However there is more preparation work to do here...
Let's say you want to start from Singapur at November 6th 1940. There is nothing special to be there at that time, but I take this example to show you that everything is possible. You could also actually start from an enemy port, but is this a good idea? Guess what, try it out...
In TWoS (and likely in the stock game too) the whole naval traffic in the world is purely based on the date, so if you want to meet special operations, just plan ahead and be there at the right time. Just chose a chapter having the right date intervall for your purpose.

For our purpose we'll chose the 'Happy Times' chapter to start, it has the right date interval, and we keep in mind that we are playing with the 2nd Flotilla.
These are the steps we carry out for starting at the harbour of Singapur:

First, be sure to quit SH5 if it's running.

Somewhere on your computer, create the folders
data\UPCDataGE\UPCCampaignData

Then navigate in your SH5 installed game folders at this location, copy the file Flotillas.upc and paste it in the last created folder above. Copy the file and rename the copy to Flotillas.upc.bak so you have something to start with other choices later.

Open Flotillas.upc with Notepad++. We are going to substitute the Lorient harbour with the one of Singapur for the 2nd Flotilla.

Search for 'singapur' and copy the the whole entry group of it.

Now, locate the entry start of the 2nd Flotilla, and paste the copy above the Lorient entries. It should look like that:

[Flotilla 5.Base 3]
ID= F6Singapur
NameDisplayable= Singapur-Base-Name
Info= Singapur-Base-Info
ExternalBaseName= Singapur
AvailabilityInterval= 1943-08-02, 1944-05-01
DepartureDescription1= 12464020.000000, 155811.000000, 140.000000
DepartureDescriptionOut1= 12447822, 155333, 320

[Flotilla 2.Base 4]
ID= F2Lorient
NameDisplayable= Lorient-Base-Name
Info= Lorient-Base-Info
ExternalBaseName= Lorient
AvailabilityInterval= 1940-07-01, 1944-08-31
DepartureDescription1= -399004.497429, 5730374.314606, 169.253159
DepartureDescriptionOut1= -403840, 5726020, 225

You now have to change the Singapur entries to match the Lorient ones, you also keep the Availability dates of Lorient, and of course you keep the Departure coordinates of Singapur.
After your changes in the Singapur entries, it will look like this:

[Flotilla 2.Base 4]
ID= F2Singapur
NameDisplayable= Singapur-Base-Name
Info= Singapur-Base-Info
ExternalBaseName= Singapur
AvailabilityInterval= 1940-07-01, 1944-08-31
DepartureDescription1= 12464020.000000, 155811.000000, 140.000000
DepartureDescriptionOut1= 12447822, 155333, 320

Now you delete the Lorient entries without keeping any extra carriage returns.
If later the game crashes when you start the chapter you'll know you did a mistake here, so be sure to change it right


Create a folder

Change_Base_2ndFlotilla_Singapur

and put your created data folder in it. Send this folder to JSGME and activate the mod. Be sure to always activate it LAST after everything else.

You can now start SH5 and do the steps 1) and 2) . In step 2 you change your starting date to 6/11/1940.

Once you start your patrol it can happen that you are not yet starting from your desired port, in this case re-dock, save the game, go to main menu, ALT-TAB out to Windows, reopen the files explained in 2), find the entries

PatrolStartDateTime=xxxxxxxxxx

and adjust them with your current date.
Repick a mission with the officer (optional), and start patrol again. You will now start from your desired port (Singapur in our example.)

Good patrol, Captain


Reverting the game to its default ports

At some point you have played your special game and will end it in 2 ways: Either you will just quit and start a new career, or you want to revert the game to 'normal' ports and continue with your recent savegames.
In both cases it's very important that you do these steps:

If you want to restart a new career, quit the game, and deactivate your created mod in JSGME. You can keep it and simply copy and modify it later when chosing other settings from within the file Flotiilas.upc.bak. That's it, you can restart SH5 and start a new career.

If instead you want to continue playing and switching back to the default ports, then dock at your nearest possible port, save and quit the game and deactivate your created mod in JSGME.
Additionally you must go to your last savegame, open the 2 files explained in 2) above and change the modified port back to a valid one for your chapter; consult the timeline chart above if you are in doubt.
In the 'Singapur' example above you would open the 2 files CareerTrack.upc and change F2Singapur into F2Lorient (or any other valid port in your chapter) after docking at Singapur. After that you can restart SH5 and load your savegame which will teleport you to Lorient when starting a new patrol.

Important:
Just deactivating your created mod in JSGME is NOT enough, you must do the additional steps. Failing to do so will cause SH5 to crash when loading a savegame with modified ports once you have deactivated your mod in JSGME!



5) All in One: How to travel to and meet a special historical operation

Chosing your chapter, chosing your mission, your date and starting port, all in one, as explained from 1) to 4) will allow you a couple of nice things. First, you can freely setup any situation where you go and meet storical situations very fast by chosing the shortest port to start from.
Then, once you are somewhere out at sea in a neutral stance, just save the game and guess what you have...A nice Single Mission game. Just be sure to save your savegame separately and you can replay it as often as you want by replacing it in the savegame folder. Making your single missions like that is much easier than using a complex mission editor, isn't it?

Ok, that's it, I hope this guide will be useful for you as it was my pleasure to write it down for us.
Good luck and good hunting Captain,

XenonS


--------------
Search terms:
changing port ; starting port ; new port ; changing date ; start at new date; starting campaign at ; start at mission ; start at chapter

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi XS
Added to my SH5 tutorials.
Peter

[XenonSurf]

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

Hi XS
Added to my SH5 tutorials.
Peter

Thank you Peter, I play the campaign in its whole lenght, but figuring out what you must do (and avoid) has brought up my little shortcuts
I hope this is useful for the community.

Cheers,

[XenonSurf]

Just added credits to Trevally for his exhaustive list of end dates that I'm using in my guide above.

Thank you Trevally

[XenonSurf]

I will have to add some notes to the 'Changing Port' section: I don't say that there are *limitations* of course when chosing to change your port. I'm currently replaying to see what's possible and what not.
Let's hope for the best.

As a quick provisory guide: you can only change to such ports:

- The port must have a bunker compound (you can see that when you zoom in); else you cannot start or end the patrol at it, only refit;
- The port must be allied at the time you want to start from it, and at the time you visit the officer's map (this can change quickly and may not be visible at the officer's map in the bunker, but it can be overcome easily by changing date and re-docking).
- Your Flotilla is linked to specific ports only, not sure, which would mean only ports defined in the chapter timeline are allowed anyway wihtout complex additional editing (let's see what I find out and hope...)

[fitzcarraldo]

Good job, Xenon! Thanks for the tutorial!

Best regards.

Fitzcarraldo

[XenonSurf]

My guide is updated now, maybe I'll do some 'readability' corrections.
All allied ports with a bunker can be chosen, or with a simple method or with a 'mini-mod' as I explain.
Works fine on my system, I'm having a nice time to go to some weird places...Changing ports and playing the Renegade Captain

[XenonSurf]

Nope, my guide is still not finished yet, I must publish the right 'F' codes for each flotilla in the 'Simple method for changing ports' and make some text corrections in it.
I hope this will be the last correction

[EDIT]
Done! changed 2) and 4) above.

[XenonSurf]

I have added an 'important' note at the start of this guide, telling that you should not play with a mod containing the Tonnage Bar if you are using this guide.

[Oby]

Nice job. Good for testing different game stuff.

[XenonSurf]

Originally Posted by Oby

Nice job. Good for testing different game stuff.

Thanks Oby, a big part of my knowledge about Tonnage Bar and its intricacies is due to your help in other recent threads and your kind feedback


I have adjusted the 'important' preface note even more giving some useful tips for players playing with Tonnage Bar. Most CTDs in the game can happen if you advance time with mods if you play with TB, so I explain how to avoid that.

[Herr Kaleun Suhren]

Good Work. Thaks