[REL] Automated Campaign Editor v0.3

[mcoca]

This is the 0.3 release of the SH Batch Editor, a tool for making automated changes to the campaign files. Please consider it a beta release.

If you want to make some extensive changes to the SH4 campaign, but don't spend hours in the in-game editor, this is your tool. Just enter the values you want to set, and (if needed) the conditions a randomly generated group must fulfill to be modified, run the program, and the entire campaign will have been modified.

The changes to be made are specified as code snippets in the Python programming language (www.python.org), but the program has been designed to make it possible to use it with only a minimum of programming knowledge.

At the moment, the program only supports editing random generated groups (including contents and waypoints, so you can add or remove ships from them), but scripted elements, bases, etc, should not be affected in any way by running it. But, just in case, always make backups.

The program is available at:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/shb...editor-0.4.zip

It is written in the Java programming language so you will need the Java Virtual Machine (version 1.5 or later), available at http://java.sun.com/ (but likely to be already installed on your computer).

This program is released under the GNU General Public License, and the linked file includes full source code for the technically inclined.

The README.txt file includes all instructions for running simple changes. If you know some programming and want to try more complex changes, in the "samples" folder of the distribution you can find the script to reproduce the changes I'm currently using in my campaign.

Finally, I really don't know how much further I will be able to develop this. That's one of the reasons for releasing it as Free Software, so that everybody who is interested can continue developing it should I no longer have time or (let's face it) interest. If anybody wants to contribute, I sure could use some help.

Hope you enjoy this.

Changes in v 0.4

• Added option to run script directly from file.
• Added group cloning.
• Fixed cargoInt and cargoExt getters. Now it's internalCargo and externalCargo, as per the setters.
• Allow logging from scripts.
• Added Yanaran's fix to zig-zag code.
• Fixed dateline heading and offset bugs.

Changes in v0.3:

• Added "Output" field to GUI.
• Added init.py initialization file.
• Added waypoint length and heading read-only attributes.
• Changed Waypoint loop attribute to take a Waypoint object.
• Added sample zig-zag code to init.py

[Egan]

Very impressive looking. Thanks for this, it looks like it will come in very useful.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice effort

RDP

[Ducimus]

Very nice.

[mcoca]

Almost forgot! Please consider this an "undocumented feature" for the moment, but for those who are feeling brave, the distribution includes the entire python standard library, meaning you can do all types of nifty things, including (as per Jace11's suggestion):

from random import randint
group.speed = randint(5,9)
group.updateWaypointSpeed()

Which makes the group speed random between 5 and 9 knots. Obviously, all instances of the group will travel at the same random speed

You can use any of the functions described in the python documentation...

(edit to fix problem in example)

[Jace11]

Just re-stating my gratitude for this. It will speed things up for the people who are editing the campaign layers.

[akdavis]

This is superb, especially the random speed functionality.

[lurker_hlb3]

What would be the code to randomly change speed on each way point i.e pt1 is 5, pt 2 is 8 etc ???

[mcoca]

Thank you everybody for your support! Now, start using the thing so I can feel I haven't completely wasted my time :p

Originally Posted by lurker_hlb3

What would be the code to randomly change speed on each way point i.e pt1 is 5, pt 2 is 8 etc ???

I'm writing from memory, but it would be something along these lines:

from random import randint
for waypoint in group.waypoints:
    waypoint.speed = randint(2,8)

Obviously, change the numbers to the ones you want. The spaces at the beginning of the third line are important, since python uses indentation to control what's inside the loop and what isn't.

BTW, if you want to get cute, there are functions to provide randomness along a probability curve, so most of the time ships will be around the middle of the range, with the occasional fast or slow one. Check the docs if you are interested.

[lurker_hlb3]

Originally Posted by mcoca

Thank you everybody for your support! Now, start using the thing so I can feel I haven't completely wasted my time :p

I'm writing from memory, but it would be something along these lines:

from random import randint
for waypoint in group.waypoints:
    waypoint.speed = randint(2,8)

Obviously, change the numbers to the ones you want. The spaces at the beginning of the third line are important, since python uses indentation to control what's inside the loop and what isn't.

BTW, if you want to get cute, there are functions to provide randomness along a probability curve, so most of the time ships will be around the middle of the range, with the occasional fast or slow one. Check the docs if you are interested.

It worked perfectly, thanks very much

[Yanaran]

Thanks for this awesome tool. Now I can finally make some changes myself!

I have a few simple questions though. I want to reduce traffic similar to your example script, but I also want to make convoys smaller early in the war and have less escorts. Is it enough to just reduce the spawnprobability for every unit in a convoy to say half? Like this for example,

if unit.type == UnitType.DESTROYER:
unit.spawnProbability *= 0.25
else:
unit.spawnProbability *= 0.5

Also, I'd like to remove all gunboats from the subhunter groups, and maybe replace them with some other ships like subchaser or minesweepers. Can I replace the "type" of ship or do I need to remove the gunboat unit altogether and then add a subhunter unit? I want to keep all the stats for the unit the same (crew, spawnprobability etc).

[akdavis]

Best thing to do with gunboats would probably be to change their type so they aren't spawned as patrol vessels (or whatever type is drawn on for that group).

[U-Bones]

It would be nice to have both brown and blue water hunter/killer groups

Blue: DD/Subchaser/Minesweeper
Brown: Subchaser/Minesweeper/Gunboats

or similar.

Brown groups would also be common near smaller ports.

[mcoca]

Originally Posted by Yanaran

I have a few simple questions though. I want to reduce traffic similar to your example script, but I also want to make convoys smaller early in the war and have less escorts. Is it enough to just reduce the spawnprobability for every unit in a convoy to say half? Like this for example,

if unit.type == UnitType.DESTROYER:
unit.spawnProbability *= 0.25
else:
unit.spawnProbability *= 0.5

Yes, that should work... except that I'm not sure what happens if the lead unit in the group doesn't spawn? But the editor let's you enter such a group, so it's no big deal.

OTOH, you could remove half the entries using group.units.remove(unit) and some condition, but adding some kind of counter to how many there were and how many you removed.

Also, I'd like to remove all gunboats from the subhunter groups, and maybe replace them with some other ships like subchaser or minesweepers. Can I replace the "type" of ship or do I need to remove the gunboat unit altogether and then add a subhunter unit? I want to keep all the stats for the unit the same (crew, spawnprobability etc).

The best solution, as tater suggested in another thread, would be to move the subhunter and the minesweeper to the "corvette" category by editing the roster files and changing the type=0 to type=1. Then, switch all the patrol craft in the campaign to corvettes:

if unit.type==UnitType.PATROL_CRAFT:
    unit.type=UnitType.CORVETTE

And if you want to add some gunboats around coastal areas, do so manually with editor. Unless you are a really enterprising programmer and can figure out a way to tell coastal patrols apart based on long/lat

[Yanaran]

Well that seems a bit more complicated than I thought, what I'm trying right now instead is sort of reverse what you did for destroyers... In every SubHunter group I check if it's a patrol craft and then set that units shipclass to subchaser. I think that should turn all gunboats into subchasers, which is good enough for me until I learn more.

if group.groupName.find("SubHunter") != -1:
    if group.groupName.find("Jap") != -1:
        # less subhunter groups
        group.spawnProbability *= 0.5
        for unit in group.units:
            if unit.type == UnitType.PATROL_CRAFT:
                unit.shipClass="SCSubchaser"