Liberty Ships appearing too early with UC overlay for GW :(

[panthercules]

On my second patrol with GW, in July 1941. Just before leaving port this time I decided to try loading up the new UC campaign overlay for GW. I'm cruising off the NW coast of Africa in my Type IXB, when I stumble upon a lone merchant. While stalking it to get into firing position, I was puzzled to see a shape that looked about as big as a C2 or C3 but had masts that looked more like a small freighter, except too many of them - finally figured out that it was a Liberty ship - my first one sighted in three careers.

After sending it to the bottom, it struck me that it seemed to be a bit early for Liberty ships to be showing up out there. I just did some research and discovered that the first Liberty ship (SS Patrick Henry) wasn't actually launched until September 27, 1941 (and presumably took at least a few weeks after to be ready for sea duty).

Is there any simple setting that determines when the various ship types first appear? I wouldn't have thought it was like Rubini or the GW team to make a mistake like this and have these ships showing up too early, given the amount of attention to detail and historical accuracy that is evidenced by their great mod efforts, so I suspect that there may not be any good/easy way to set these start dates with more precision.

I don't know whether this is a GW or a UC thing, and it's obviously a minor point, but if it could be fixed easily it would be good.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by panthercules

On my second patrol with GW, in July 1941. Just before leaving port this time I decided to try loading up the new UC campaign overlay for GW. I'm cruising off the NW coast of Africa in my Type IXB, when I stumble upon a lone merchant. While stalking it to get into firing position, I was puzzled to see a shape that looked about as big as a C2 or C3 but had masts that looked more like a small freighter, except too many of them - finally figured out that it was a Liberty ship - my first one sighted in three careers.

After sending it to the bottom, it struck me that it seemed to be a bit early for Liberty ships to be showing up out there. I just did some research and discovered that the first Liberty ship (SS Patrick Henry) wasn't actually launched until September 27, 1941 (and presumably took at least a few weeks after to be ready for sea duty).

Is there any simple setting that determines when the various ship types first appear? I wouldn't have thought it was like Rubini or the GW team to make a mistake like this and have these ships showing up too early, given the amount of attention to detail and historical accuracy that is evidenced by their great mod efforts, so I suspect that there may not be any good/easy way to set these start dates with more precision.

I don't know whether this is a GW or a UC thing, and it's obviously a minor point, but if it could be fixed easily it would be good.

I'm still sorting out one or two unrelated kinks, but with a quick glance it appears that this will be fixed with the GW 1.1 update I hope to post late tonight. It contains quite a few date-based roster corrections for different ships including the Liberty which will now be set to spawn August 1941 or later.

[JCWolf]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

I'm still sorting out one or two unrelated kinks, but with a quick glance it appears that this will be fixed with the GW 1.1 update I hope to post late tonight. It contains quite a few date-based roster corrections for different ships including the Liberty which will now be set to spawn August 1941 or later.

Did i reed UPDATE TONIGHT!

Got to stay sharp ....
Not sleeping!
Got to stay on mi PC....got to...

[Kpt. Lehmann]

[panthercules]

Awesome news - Glad to know there'll be something special waiting for me when I get back to base (besides the ladies at the bordello in Lorient, that is )

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

I'm still sorting out one or two unrelated kinks, but with a quick glance it appears that this will be fixed with the GW 1.1 update I hope to post late tonight. It contains quite a few date-based roster corrections for different ships including the Liberty which will now be set to spawn August 1941 or later.

Not to quibble, but if the first one was launched in late September 1941 and it probably would have been at least several weeks/months later until it could have been made ready for sea and loaded up with cargo (the best info I could find on the web so far indicates the first Liberty ship was finally completed on Dec 31, 1941 and made her first voyage in January 1942), why set them to spawn as early as August 1941? Is it not possible to make them spawn starting in maybe December 1941 or January 1942 instead?

Oh, and by the way - when I went back in tonight I realized it was July when I left port but actually early August 1941 when I spotted and sank the Liberty - still early, but not quite as early as I thought.

Keep up the great work - really loving GW so far (even though I did just spend a day and a half tracking down what turned out to be a Brazilian coastal freighter - can't wait until next year when I can start sinking these clowns )

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by panthercules

(even though I did just spend a day and a half tracking down what turned out to be a Brazilian coastal freighter - can't wait until next year when I can start sinking these clowns )

Easy now.

Rubini comes from Brazil...

... LOL I wonder if he scripted the freighter you were stalking.

Regarding total exactness... well... there are thousands of other files to worry about too. Lets call this one finished. (re-to Liberty cargo)

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

[Easy now.

Rubini comes from Brazil...

Aha! - that explains a lot

In my last two patrols (GW and GW/UC) I have encountered about 7 or 8 Brazilian ships - my first in over a year of playing - all seemingly headed along the NW coast of Africa on up toward Spain. Seems like every time I waste a day or two backtracking the way I came tracking down a single ship contact or sometimes a pair of merchants, they turn out to be Brazilian.

Too bad Rubini couldn't have been from some Commonwealth country - my tonnage figures would have skyrocketed then :rotfl:

As for the Liberty ships, I can certainly live with it as is - just figured if you were going to mess with it at all, you might as well get it right instead of "fixing" it to the wrong date. Certainly if it's more than a simple date tweak there are plenty of other more important things to address than this.

Thanks again for all the great mod work

[Wulfmann]

I am working on a GW RND.mis file right now.
The Liberty may have been in the SCR.mis file, though.
The Liberty is not alone in inaccuracies for dates. All DD types use their launch dates to enter service and the Victory enters in 1943 which is wrong seeing the first one completed was in Feb 1944!!!
I am not redoing the SCR for this at this point.
Why??
The SCR calls for specific ships. To change those ships called for could cause serious problems. If you look in the roster you will see the named ships with a number. This named ship is asked for in the SCR where as the RND is a random generic type.
Many ships are wrong.
The Flower and Hunt classes begin the war yet were not in service until early summer 1940 while the Hunt II and III come about 6 months early for each ship.
The early convoy escorts were mostly Sloops (Frigates in SH3) and armed trawlers.
Other inaccuracies as well but there is a point where game play does not matter.

My solution is to edit all the convoys in the RND.mis file so they ask for only ships available at the first date of the convoy. So, In my RND the Corvette can not appear until mid 1940 etc.
This is not my personal RND.
It is the Grey Wolves RND that has all the convoys edited to have all 3 crew rated escorts and about twice the number of escorts to boot. A conciliation is the 4 rated crews are made into 3 rated for 1944 and 45 with only one 4 rated possible in any convoy.

This only changes the main convoys and not any of the other areas GW edited in the RND.mis file. This is their file but with convoys made more accurate and much more difficult
As difficult as my RND is I have found with 2 or more 4 rated escorts escape is impossible.
With one 4 and a couple 3s it is only 99% impossible.
I have had 4, 5 and even 6 DD types working on me. I am finally seeing why the ladder torpedo was invented!
I have not announce this (until this post) as I am testing it now (not a single problem ((yet?)
It will also reduce the distance for all ships in the convoy to be more realistic (Jason did this to fix the jam ups but 900 is way too far and not needed as 500 is closer to real and still prevents the jam ups). With 6 to 8 escorts and distances closed up your happy times of getting into and wrecking a convoy will be over. Even if you sneak in with all the escorts a quick set up shoot and dive is about all you will do (when you even crack the screen) If one plays this in light of books like Iron Coffins I am sure you will curse this RND but admit it plays like Iron Coffins reads,
It also adds the KGN to convoys and makes many of the 102 cargo ships no class so they can vary and be available for any new 102 instantly with no further modding. This means the convoy merchants and escorts will look different each time instead of the usual easily recognized set up time after time.
I will need a couple beta testers, ones that can play this now and report (openly and honestly is fine, I want it right) PM if you are interested.
Later I will edit this and make a lite version for the “Girly Men� that want to win more than sweat!

Wulfmann

[jasonb885]

Originally Posted by Wulfmann

...
It will also reduce the distance for all ships in the convoy to be more realistic (Jason did this to fix the jam ups but 900 is way too far and not needed as 500 is closer to real and still prevents the jam ups).

Actually, it's been 700m since my last update from 2005 and in all releases in 2006.

[Stiebler]

I've followed this thread with considerable interest, since I manage the campaign files for the NYGM Tonnage War mod.

I too had noted incorrect spawn dates for many ships, including the Liberty and, especially, the premature frigates guarding convoys. The problem is one of priorities and how high a priority that this issue is. All changes *should* be heavily tested. The NYGM campaign files receive at least one campaign-ful of testing; that is, I run 3-4 U-boats through it from 1939 to 1945. This ensures the NYGM output is stable, but obviously takes a certain amount of time.

Some time ago, I posted a thread called 'compensatory realism', arguing that it is the realism of the total experience that counts, not the accuracy of individual details. The concept attracted both support and criticism, but it remains my ideal. If we had just renamed the 'Liberty' ship to something else ('Armed Freighter'?) would anyone have noticed its premature arrival?

Stiebler.

[CWorth]

Originally Posted by Stiebler

If we had just renamed the 'Liberty' ship to something else ('Armed Freighter'?) would anyone have noticed its premature arrival?

Stiebler.

You know how these rivet counting grogs can be...everything must be 100% or they will moan about it.

They just can't understand that there comes a point were to much realism can kill the gameplay and make the game no longer "fun" to play.Beerys RUB deck gun issue comes to mind..he went overboard with it and look at the stir that caused.

I personally could not give a rats patoot whether or not a certain ship is showing up early..thats simply to minor of an issue to worry about...I think of this as a "what if" scenario in these cases.
I love realism as much as anyone else but for me I will not sacrifice the fun factor of the game just for an overdone batch of realism.

[jasonb885]

Originally Posted by Stiebler

...
Some time ago, I posted a thread called 'compensatory realism', arguing that it is the realism of the total experience that counts, not the accuracy of individual details. The concept attracted both support and criticism, but it remains my ideal. If we had just renamed the 'Liberty' ship to something else ('Armed Freighter'?) would anyone have noticed its premature arrival?

Stiebler.

Having signature ships -- not random filler ships like C2s or T2s -- appear so early seems like an obvious violation of realism and is simple to correct. What's more, the original game didn't even ship that way, so it takes manual effort to make it less realistic!

Fortunately I rarely see single merchants, so it isn't blatantly awful.

The Frigates are a more challenging issue, as UBI felt it necessary to exclude a poor subset of escorts from the war. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that I have Black Swans spawning sometimes in '39 as '39-'41 convoys, like OB, need some kind of escort. So Swans in '39 isn't the end of the world.

However, I think it's reasonable to reserve Liberty and Victory ships until much later in the war when most convoys were only composed of said ships as it should be a shock to the player to see so many identical ships, effectively signaling the war has taken a serious turn in favor of the Allies and that the tonnage war is lost.

That's just my presonal take on the psychological impact Liberty and Victory ships _ought_ to have on the player. By contrast, an escort is just an escort from a distance or from splashes.

[Wulfmann]

There is no question we should do what is reasonable to improve accuracy but reasonable is the word. If changing the paint is a hassle the wrong color will not alter the experience and that is where the effort should be made.
Too few escorts, too many escorts, the wrong type of escorts, the efficiency of the escorts all affect the convoy attack experience and all can be adjusted.

J, BTW, I guess GW did not use your updated to 700 as I modded their RND which they said used your convoys unaltered which were all 900. They are 500 now.

I also agree it is too much trouble to redo all the ships and reset the SCR entries. This would cause major hassles if you switched a few things.

However, without adjusting any ship files or the SCR one can make simple changes to the RND convoys to make them more accurate.
Like; not having any type 1 (Corvettes) until mid 1940.
Using type 2 (Black Swan Frigates are really sloops of which there are 3 similar classes built before the war, Bittern, Grimsby and Egret all solely built to escort convoys) for early convoys in place of type 1 and 4 and adding armed trawlers.
These would make the battle more real and do not require other changes to enact.
Changing the crew ratings so the escorts are not observers is also easy enough without doing anything else.
Later when virtually all convoy escorts were type 1,2 or 3 changing the type 4 (DD) to one of the others, mostly type 3 would also make things more real.
And since I am doing this you will only have to add the file. How hard can that be?
But, this will be much more difficult so Girly Men should not install this RND. :rotfl:

Wulfmann

[Kpt. Lehmann]

.... and to each his own.

As a whole things have been greatly improved over stock in countless areas.

Different elements of "realism" are important to different people and all are individuals with individual tastes.

No decision that I or any other modder makes will make everyone happy.

Any decision made at the top will alienate SOMEONE.

In the end the player must choose.

It is the "choice" itself though that is the important issue that MUST be preserved.