SH3 Commander Idea

[GoldenRivet]

Could SH3 commander be modified to include a function of "letters from home"

what i mean is.. we get pop ups in SH3 Commander detailing transferrs and reassignments... could we not also get a pop up or perhaps an option to check mail?

perhaps a short letter or a cable from parents or from the girlfriend?

the letters could contain more and more distressing news about air raids etc as the war rages onward to later years. eventually the letters might not come, or they might come from a distant relative informing you that your family has died in a great air raid, or that your family has evacuated the city and has not been seen nor heard from in some time

eventually the letter could be replaced by a message that "telegraph wires are down, no messages are getting through" or "regrettably, the convoy containing your mail has been sunk."

something to really put the pity of the war into perspective

[Sailor Steve]

Probably could.

Good luck talking JScones into it.

[Jimbuna]

You getting homesick already

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Probably could.

Good luck talking JScones into it.

Why is that?

[von Kinderei]

I love that idea ...

Would sure make things more emmersive huh

[andym]

It could make for some very interesting and comical downloads!

Liebe Adolf,the house had been bombed i am now living with with chap called Himmler,fuuny bloke,seems to know all about chickens.BTW your Mum wants to know if she can cash in your savings just in ceas you dont come back.

Liebe Annelise,

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Why is that?

Because he announce a very long time ago that he was done working on Commander. He only agreed to 3.2 because he liked some of IABL's ideas. The likelihood of him doing it again is fairly low.

You can try, though.

[Laufen zum Ziel]

Because he announce a very long time ago that he was done working on Commander. He only agreed to 3.2 because he liked some of IABL's ideas. The likelihood of him doing it again is fairly low.

Too bad. He has done some really great stuff & I don't think SHIII would be the same without his work. Wish him the best in his journey through life.

To you JS.

[TheDudTorpedo]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Because he announce a very long time ago that he was done working on Commander. He only agreed to 3.2 because he liked some of IABL's ideas. The likelihood of him doing it again is fairly low.

You can try, though.

Hi Steve,

Would Jscones ever consider leaving the SH3 Commander code to a trusted SUBSIM member/confidant to continue his good legacy? It would be great to see some of the ideas raised here incorporated into Commander in the future

Regards,
Dud

[irish1958]

There is a mod in development which could do this.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by TheDudTorpedo

Hi Steve,

Would Jscones ever consider leaving the SH3 Commander code to a trusted SUBSIM member/confidant to continue his good legacy? It would be great to see some of the ideas raised here incorporated into Commander in the future

Regards,
Dud

That has an even lower chance of happening. Jaesen is very protective of his work, and I doubt he would ever release the codes to anyone else.

As Irish1958 says, there have been others who talked of doing something similar for SH4, but so far talk is all we've seen. I'm not denigrating their ability to do it; they just have other things tying up their time for the present.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Probably could.

Good luck talking JScones into it.

Actually, fundamentally I don't have a problem with the idea. For me it's less than 10 lines of code (it would take longer to pack and distribute the end product). But my part's easy.

So let's think about it for a minute.

The people most likely to write to a Kaleun would be their parents, their wife and/or their girlfriend.

Remembering that the feature has to cover all Kaleuns across all careers, all possibilities have to be catered for. One of your Kaleuns may be married, so gets wifey letters, one may be single so gets girlfriend letters, one may get both.

So, considering a possibility of one letter per sender per month, there needs to be at least 210 letter variations (70 months x 3).

Now when I say per month, I mean on average. Unexpected delays will reduce the number of letters received per month...true, but a delay is just a delay, meaning that perhaps instead of one letter per month the Kaleun may get 3 letters per quarter instead.

Ship sunk so the letter didn't get through? Doesn't matter, the letter(s) was written and were it not for a random event the letter(s) would have made it (as far as SH3Cmdr would be concerned).

Now this doesn't mean that the Kaleun will get one/two/three letters every month (there would be random elements at play that ensured this didn't happen), it just means that they could get one/two/three letter per month.

But this lack of variation would see the novelty of the feature wear off very quickly, for unlike real life, you will be reliving the same months/years over and over again through different careers. So, at least one more variation of each letter would be required, so now we're looking at 420 unique letter variations. And even this is still limited because after two careers you'll start to see the same letters again.

So we've now (kinda) got parents, wives and/or girlfriends covered, what about everyone else? I'm sure Kaleuns received letters from other people - other relatives (uncles, sisters etc), friends serving in other arms of the Wehrmacht etc. So to avoid the letter always being from Mommy or Liebe, variations covering these "others" also need to be drafted. Let's say the potential for one "other" letter per month (yes, it will most likely be less, but remember the feature covers all your Kaleuns, not just one). And even this still assumes that every Kaleun has living parents (at some point at least).

We have now identified 490 potential letter variations minimum. So, we now see that my effort is nothing compared to GoldenRivet's, or whoever volunteers to write all these letter variations.

Originally Posted by irish1958

There is a mod in development which could do this.

Is this related to your medic idea?

[Otto Heinzmeir]

What do you need/. 492? I'll do one. If everybody does 1 or two we will be done in a week. How does one write to a generic Kaleun, hmm, for now I will call him Fritz.

Dearest Fritz,
I feel so horrible. While you were out to see, I had an affair with Wilhelm from across the street. I feel so awful, its just that I got so terribly lonely while you were at sea. I'm beside myself with anguish. Of course I didn't mean for it to happen. He was my old sweet heart from school days. We have broken it off and I hope you can forgive me.
Love,
Francesca

If you want a happier one I can try again.

Dear Gunter,
While you are on your fantastic mission to save the Fatherland, little Alfred fell off the backyard swing and bruised his elbow. He cried something awful. We took him to see the doctor but everything checked out alright. Just some scrapes and nothing broken. What a relief! Mum and I are very anxious about your adventures. Do you get to send mail at sea. If so please let us know how you are getting on. From everything we here the war should be over very soon. The radio constantly crackles with news of great victories by land, air and sea. Everyone here says hello. We all miss you dearly.
Your loving wife,
Heidi

[JScones]

490 is minimum. And that number just ensures a letter is received; it doesn't ensure a meaningful letter is received in an ongoing storyline.

To maintain a "story", you need LOTS more. I mean, you need to maintain an ongoing storyline for each scenario (ie wifey announces she's pregnant...9 months later wifey gives birth etc all has to be "remembered").

For example, with the minimum of 490 letters, you might get a letter this month saying "Dear love, You're dumped" and next month you might get one saying "Dear love, How I can't wait to see you next" and one the following month saying "This is to inform you that your wife died three months ago". Certainly nothing connected.

So, to make the feature worthwhile, someone would need to create many ongoing storylines that essentially have a list of pre-prepared and dated letters that make up the ongoing story.

This would mean that when the player starts a new career, SH3Cmdr would select a pre-prepared story and play it out throughout the life of the career (with certain random elements built in of course). So, for example, you start a new career today and SH3Cmdr picks the storyline that sees you married with three girls and with a father who writes often. Next career sees you as a loner with no living family or partner and only letters from your sister. And so on. SH3Cmdr kinda does this now in relation to generating your career history (ie post war summaries). For reference SH3Cmdr includes 54 post career variations and 51 post war variations. So imagine creating 50 storylines that must cover the entire war. Just one letter per month would mean 3500 letter variations need to be created.

In the end, it's very easy to generate any random letters from home; it's not as easy though to make it immersive and meaningful in the context of an ongoing life.

Oh, and don't forget the German and French translations.

[nikbear]

Sorry to be O/T but,Mr JScones would it be possible to have the remove deck gun feature actually benefit the U-boat with speed?As you know as it gets to 42/43' the chances of using the deck gun are few and far between so alot of U-boats had them removed to gain a little extra underwater speed,I think the figure mentioned in a book I read said it was between 1 to 1.5 Knots,Was wondering if that could be modeled in game via the 'remove' function in SH3CmdrJust a thought