SH3 Commander Idea

[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

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

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 many coders here will attest, I have no problems providing code snippets when asked (I even translate my code into the coder's preferred programming language).

However, SH3Cmdr includes a number of functions that are commercial-in-confidence, with limitations imposed through professional development contracts. These functions go nowhere in raw form.

[Otto Heinzmeir]

Originally Posted by JScones

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.

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.

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

Perhaps a lite version of 10 variations could be done to keep things manegable. Not all the letters would have to tie in, since ones from distant relatives that only appear once could be thown in any where. I think I could manage a series of 50 letters that have a theme as long as I keep them to one or two small paragraphs. I wouldn't want to commit to anymore than that. I'm no help with German or French either.

What I don't understand is how to address the letters. I take it you can't use Fritz because its unlikely that the Kaluen would be Fritz. If these letters are from a wife or loved one, Dear sir doesn't seem to fit.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by 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

Read through this... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=92490 and this http://www.uboat.net/forums/read.php...5071#msg-65071

Do you hear crickets in response to VH's request for solid data?

With no conclusive data provided, my choice not to model any positive effects was really a no brainer, especially when, in the absence of proof, the arguments against any positive effects are so damning.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Otto Heinzmeir

Perhaps a lite version of 10 variations could be done to keep things manegable. Not all the letters would have to tie in, since ones from distant relatives that only appear once could be thown in any where. I think I could manage a series of 50 letters that have a theme as long as I keep them to one or two small paragraphs. I wouldn't want to commit to anymore than that. I'm no help with German or French either.

What I don't understand is how to address the letters. I take it you can't use Fritz because its unlikely that the Kaluen would be Fritz. If these letters are from a wife or loved one, Dear sir doesn't seem to fit.

Correct, not all letters would need to be connected, just ongoing ones from the same people.

Addressing wouldn't be a problem - SH3Cmdr knows the Kaleun's name. You'd just write "My dearest %s||Here is what I want to say. I blah blah blah.||Until next|Your darling wife". | means new line, || means new paragraph.

You'd need to create the base storyboards first, and they would have to cover the entire war (August 1939 through May 1945). For example, one storyboard might go like:

1. Context: Married. One child. Both parents alive. One sister.

• Wife main storyline covers pregnancy, birth, house bombing, death of child, move near sister-in-law.
• Parent main storyline covers general chit-chat, father's heart attack, mother moving in with Aunt.
• Sister main storyline covers marriage, pregnancy, birth, death of soldier husband, death of Kaleun's wife and child.

As life is linear, it doesn't matter when the Kaleun starts the career, but each subsequent letter might have to provide a bit more context than what would be required in RL so as not to confuse players too much (ie "Your wife Mary" rather than just "Yours Mary").

Intertwine the main storylines with general chatty letters (ie from mother "Your cousin Fritz just got a medal for whatever", from wife "How I enjoyed our time together last month" and so on like GoldenRivet suggests) and IMHO you have what I think is necessary to make the feature worthwhile.

But I don't think 10 storyboards will be enough. However, if creative people want to use this thread to post their ideas and you, perhaps with the help of others, can collate/build enough full stories (let's say 15 full storyboards), I will build the feature into SH3Cmdr. It would be a new action called "Read mail" and would open a list of all letters received up to the "current" date. As I said, 10 lines of code max.

[TheDudTorpedo]

Originally Posted by Otto Heinzmeir

What I don't understand is how to address the letters. I take it you can't use Fritz because its unlikely that the Kaluen would be Fritz. If these letters are from a wife or loved one, Dear sir doesn't seem to fit.

G'day. Thanks for the feedback JScones.

Otto: one way to tackle this would be to categorise the letters depending whom they are from. For example, we could have the following categories, which would allow a more generic address:

1. From parents - "Dear Son"
2. From siblings - "Dear Brother"
3. From wife/girlfriend - "Dear Love"
4. From friend - "Dear Friend"
5. From fellow comrade - "Dear Comrade"

However, JSCones code may actually be able to 'read' the first name (player name) you choose for the career, and substitue that into the letter, so a generic designation may not be required - the addresdee is simply a variable that can be populated by the career name.

The bigger problem is sending the right letter according to the correct date, and as JScones points out, with some 'connectivity'. For example, lets assume a Kaleun receives a letter from his parent/s informing him his brother was captured during the fall of Stalingrad. Well, that letter could only be received some date after the actual event. Im not sure how individual letters could be constructed such that the Commander code could ascribe them to the correct period...this sounds immensely difficult. The onus would be on individual letter writers to be factually correct with respect to historical events. Perhaps some form of letter template may assist here that "helps" Commander determine which letters can be sent on which dates, or not?

This sounds like a massive undertaking, but I think its worthy of some more thought. The level of immersion will dictate the effort required from the letters point of view. If we find a way to overcome the scale of the letters required, you can count me in to help.

This certainly is a very unique problem to overcome

*** Edit - just read your post JScones : mmm...I'm convined some form of template will help set up the storyboards. Do you agree? So...15 storyboards, each has what...say 3 letters a month (12 x 3 - 36), with an odd random letter thrown in for good measure (say 4 a year) which gives us 40 letters per year? From '39 to '45? 240 letters per storyboard? I think I could certainly do one storyboard...at a push 2. Who know, maybe more. Count me in.

[irish1958]

Originally Posted by JScones

Is this related to your medic idea?

JScones,
Yes. We have a prototype but we are not to the alpha stage yet.

[irish1958]

Originally Posted by TheDudTorpedo

5. From fellow comrade - "Dear Comrade"

The use of the term Comrade in the Third Reich would get you shot in a big hurry.

There is a random essay generator which writes nonsense essays that are in good English and have proper grammar. Perhaps something like this could be used and adapted to this project.

I think this idea is good, but the number of letters needed is a real problem.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by TheDudTorpedo

G'day. Thanks for the feedback JScones.

Otto: one way to tackle this would be to categorise the letters depending whom they are from. For example, we could have the following categories, which would allow a more generic address:

1. From parents - "Dear Son"
2. From siblings - "Dear Brother"
3. From wife/girlfriend - "Dear Love"
4. From friend - "Dear Friend"
5. From fellow comrade - "Dear Comrade"

However, JSCones code may actually be able to 'read' the first name (player name) you choose for the career, and substitue that into the letter, so a generic designation may not be required - the addresdee is simply a variable that can be populated by the career name.

As I posted - "Addressing wouldn't be a problem - SH3Cmdr knows the Kaleun's name. You'd just write "My dearest %s"". Basically SH3Cmdr would replace %s with the Kaleun's first name automatically.

Originally Posted by TheDudTorpedo

The bigger problem is sending the right letter according to the correct date, and as JScones points out, with some 'connectivity'. For example, lets assume a Kaleun receives a letter from his parent/s informing him his brother was captured during the fall of Stalingrad. Well, that letter could only be received some date after the actual event. Im not sure how individual letters could be constructed such that the Commander code could ascribe them to the correct period...this sounds immensely difficult. The onus would be on individual letter writers to be factually correct with respect to historical events. Perhaps some form of letter template may assist here that "helps" Commander determine which letters can be sent on which dates, or not?

This sounds like a massive undertaking, but I think its worty of some more thought. The level of immersion will dictate the effort required from the letters point of view. If we find a way to overcome the scale of the problem letters, you can count me in to help.

This certainly is a very unique problem to overcome

No problem. It's no different than the Nightclub feature that already exists. Just put time-based messages into the following month. So news of brother Fritz getting captured in Stalingrad would "appear" in the Kaleun's mail box in April 1943 (to take into account postal time).

To visualise the database, it would look something like:

[0];storyline assumes married, child, parents whatever
193909=19390812|My dearest %s||Here is what I want to write.||yours lovingly|Wifey
193909=19390818|My son||When will you be home?||Your annoyed father
194001=19391203|Honey, does wifey know about me yet?||Your vixen
194304=19430306|Bro, I just heard that Fritzy got captured by the Russkis.
etc etc

The first date (YYYYMM) is the date that the letter appears in the Kaleuns' "mail box" and the second date (YYYYMMDD) is the date that the letter was written.

It's as easy as that.

[TheDudTorpedo]

Originally Posted by irish1958

The use of the term Comrade in the Third Reich would get you shot in a big hurry.

Sure...but the censors would ensure it was changed to Kamerad (or whatever the correct German spelling is)

[TheDudTorpedo]

Originally Posted by JScones

To visualise the database, it would look something like:

[0];storyline assumes married, child, parents whatever
193909=19390812|My dearest %s||Here is what I want to write.||yours lovingly|Wifey
193909=19390818|My son||When will you be home?||Your annoyed father
194001=19391203|Honey, does wifey know about me yet?||Your vixen
194304=19430306|Bro, I just heard that Fritzy got captured by the Russkis.
etc etc

The first date (YYYYMM) is the date that the letter appears in the Kaleuns' "mail box" and the second date (YYYYMMDD) is the date that the letter was written.

It's as easy as that.

Ah, OK.....the solution is to think like a programmer, and in fact you have provided the template! Definately count me in.

GoldenRivet: Sounds like its your project mate. How do you want to tackle this?

Thanks JScones - some smart code you have there.

[JScones]

With some switch support it could be even fancier.

For example:
[0];storyline assumes married, child, parents whatever
193909=c|19390812|My dearest %s||Here is a handwritten letter.||yours lovingly|Wifey
193909=c|19390818|My son||When will you be home?||Your annoyed father
194001=c|19391203|Honey, does wifey know about me yet?||Your vixen
194304=c|19430306|Bro, I just heard that Fritzy got captured by the Russkis.
194401=t|19431214|Herr Kaleun,||The Fuhrer regrets to inform you that whatever...
etc etc

The c and t entries denote the font to use to display the letter. c=cursive and t=typed (or whatever, just an initial musing, might even allow full font table names to be used so you can choose fonts based on what you have installed). Thus you could have some letters display in handwriting font and some in typewriter font.

Anyway, over to you guys.

[TheDudTorpedo]

Great! That is fantastic. I already have 2 storylines in my head....nope, not telling...its a suprise! I'll spend tommorrow fleshing out some details.

I was thinking of using your template as shown above JScones (ie. with the %s, ¦ and the t and c to make it easier for you). Is it OK to do that and simply generate a .TXT file for each storyboard?

Time to catch up on some NRL now

[JScones]

Originally Posted by TheDudTorpedo

I was thinking of using your template as shown above JScones (ie. with the %s, ¦ and the t and c to make it easier for you). Is it OK to do that and simply generate a .TXT file for each storyboard?

Yeah, use it as your guide. Just change the YYYYMM= to YYYYMMDD=. The DD just provides more flexibility (I'm not sure how frequently mail was delivered).

You guys have fun and when you have about 15 full storyboards, let me know.

[Otto Heinzmeir]

This sounds like a lot of work to me. I feel a nap coming on.