Higher Ranks, Tested and Party Approved

[Tessa]

After doing some testing and fiddling around finally found out how to successfully add extra ranks and get SHC and SHIII to accept them. With the stock (even GWX) promotion of ranks there's very little incentive to amass renknown other than to use it to buy upgrades or new ships. With the currently (screwed up) system of awarding commendations, hopefully this will spark some interest to actually try and create your career and retire as "The Man" i.e. Admiral (though sadly you don't get command of the flottille, but you would have the satisfaction of knowing you would have and give Bernard a proper court-martial ). Rather than include copies of the entire basic.cfg and en_menu files here are the parts that need to be changed:

In the basic.cfg, replace this text over what is currently there:

[PLAYER_RENOWN]
AcademyBonus=1000
RankLevel0=0; SCORE
RankLevel1=1499; SCORE
RankLevel2=7999; SCORE
RankLevel3=14999; SCORE
RankLevel4=21999; SCORE
RankLevel6=34999; SCORE
RankLevel7=54999; SCORE
RankLevel8=89999; SCORE
RankLevel9=143999; SCORE

The stock version only goes up to RankLevel3, so all the rest have been ammended. Because 175 was already in use there's no way of making Grossadmiral.

In the en_menu file replace the existing lines with the following:

170=Oberleutnant z. S.; Kapitänleutnant
171=Kapitänleutnant; Korvettenkapitän
172=Korvettenkapitän; Fregattenkapitän
173=Fregattenkapitän; Kapitän z. S.
174=Kapitän z. S.; Kommodore

175=Exit To Menu

176=Kommodore; Konteradmiral
177=Konteradmiral; Vizeadmiral
178=Vizeadmiral; Admiral
179=Admiral; Grossadmiral

Even with the barebone stock vanilla/GWX the program can be screwy in terms of awarding you higher ranks as you earn them. There's a few different ways of dealing with them if they come up; hopefully they won't. While I was testing these out everything went smooth; hopefully it'll be the same for everyone else once the changes are in their proper places.

Happy hunting

[bigboywooly]

Interesting

[Tessa]

I kept the stock GWX rank values for levels 0-3; after that I used a simple fibonacci sequence to set the higher ranks. Unless the academy bonus is removed (which I believe is the plan for 2.1) and start with 0 reknown raising the first two ranks will be necessary. Otherwise you automatically skip rank 0 without even going out on patrol, and you'll gain almost enough reknown from the 1st patrol even if you don't sink anything from completing the patrol assignment to get promoted. Something to think about possibly changing to make the first few steps a bit more worthwhile in leiu of the nealry complete officer ranks availability.

[Avatar]

Tessa,
Have you found a way to give your player commander medals? I'm on patrol 24 and I still have yet to be offered the Uboat War Badge.
Thanks for your great work on ranks, I am hoping to find a way to award a medal that I believe should have been awarded after the first patrol.
Again thanks for the work!
cheers!

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by Avatar

Tessa,
Have you found a way to give your player commander medals? I'm on patrol 24 and I still have yet to be offered the Uboat War Badge.
Thanks for your great work on ranks, I am hoping to find a way to award a medal that I believe should have been awarded after the first patrol.
Again thanks for the work!
cheers!

Thanks Reworking the whole medal box, awarding criteria and what not is a project I've been working on alongside 2 others. As I've finished 1 and nearly finished with the 2nd I'll be able to disect this one and hopefully fix it for good. The medals are a particularly hard one given the way that the game implements them (just the medals themselves). Even with what is already in there; there should be a bronze and silver combat clasp instead of the gold one (which never existed) and wasn't available till 44 anyway. The German cross also came in two versions, silver and gold and the sub badge also came in two versions, one plain and the other with diamonds. There's a lot to do with fixing this particular aspect, getting all the medals is one project in itself, and getting the game to correct award them is equally as tough; especially since it seems to break its own parameters - as a test I started a patrol, then docked and finished the patrol without even moving an inch. For my valiant efforts of having a cup of coffee with my crew while still in the dock I was given the German Cross in gold for my exceptional valor for resolving the regular/decaff brawl in the aft torpedo room.

[Graf Paper]

Bless you, Tessa! This is a mod that should have been done from day one.

I've never quite understood why, but past discussions of this usually ended with some long-time modder or member stating that ranks were hard-coded and messing with the configs would cause CTDs or corrupted career saves. Hence, no way to "climb the ladder" as a measure of your skills rather than merely "hot-rodding" your boat and/or surviving the war.

I belive I am not alone in greatly anticipating your reworking of the awards.

It would be wonderful if you and Jaesen could get together and have him help you to intergrate the new ranks and awards into his SH3 Commander.

This would also add realism by using his "random crew transfers" feature to reflect that your WO or CE got promoted to command their own u-boat, if possible.

Too bad there's currently no known way to promote ordinary crew and petty officers to officer ranks for replacing any officers that get transferred or promoted out. Then again, higher ranks for your u-boat commander wasn't supposed to work, either, according to common wisdom.

Keep up the great work, Tessa!

P.S. Wouldn't this technically be more suitable for posting in the SH3Mods Workshop section?

[Sandman_28054]

Originally Posted by Tessa

The stock version only goes up to RankLevel3, so all the rest have been ammended. Because 175 was already in use there's no way of making Grossadmiral.

In the en_menu file replace the existing lines with the following:

170=Oberleutnant z. S.; Kapitänleutnant
171=Kapitänleutnant; Korvettenkapitän
172=Korvettenkapitän; Fregattenkapitän
173=Fregattenkapitän; Kapitän z. S.
174=Kapitän z. S.; Kommodore

175=Exit To Menu

176=Kommodore; Konteradmiral
177=Konteradmiral; Vizeadmiral
178=Vizeadmiral; Admiral
179=Admiral; Grossadmiral

Will this work in the English version?

I see you've listed the terms in German.

My en_menu has these in English, will that affect anything?

[melnibonian]

Originally Posted by Sandman_28054

Will this work in the English version?

I see you've listed the terms in German.

My en_menu has these in English, will that affect anything?

I'm not 100% sure but I think it should work in the English Menu as well without any problems

[Graf Paper]

Thanks for your insights, Jaesen.

I'm nowhere near being an expert on SH3 or history but it seemed like a good idea at the time, minus having an ocean of admirals cruising around.

I know there were at least a handful of Korvettenkapitans that remained in frontboot service but, in the game, the renown earned to achieve that rank ought to be fairly high. Any rank above this ought to be assigned "post-career" to reflect your transfer out of combat service to a command or training post onshore.

I'd rather stick with matters as they are now than mess about with SH3 Cmdr. That little gem is just too valuable to recut!

Sometimes the way features are implemented in SH3 seems downright puzzling!

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by Sandman_28054

Will this work in the English version?

I see you've listed the terms in German.

My en_menu has these in English, will that affect anything?

I just put the German rank names in the en_menu file as I have everything else in English but prefer the ranks to be in German. Translatting them to the corresponding English ranks will work fine. I'll post those too along with all the other info relating to this mod in the SHIII Mod section (probably tomorrow) so that you can use english or german ranks and all the other main permutations (to indulge those that want Gross Admiral to be available as well as the more traditional as Jaesun points out as having the starting be a Lt.).

[Graf Paper]

I truly do hope you get this ironed out, Tessa. This seems like an excellent mod for those who want to attempt making rank above Kapitanleutnant.

I find it's a rather dubious choice that the devs decided you only got promoted according to the renown you've saved up ( instead of spending it on new u-boats and upgrades ) rather than the career total renown you've earned. I believe medals awarded are tied to this rule as well.

If rank earned was truly reflective of renown accrued, then sinking massive amounts if tonnage would surely lead to promotion. I've got over 280,000 tons to my credit, yet I'm still just an Obltn. z.S. while real-life "u-boat aces" made ranks of Korvettenkapitan and Fregattenkapitan with far less, albeit their task was far more difficult than our virtual careers.

I also hope Jaesen can be of help to you in making this work with SH3 Cmdr as smoothly as possible. I know I'd like a shot at Korvkpt. but not if it means throwing SH3 Cmdr out of kilter.

Keep at it, Tessa!