Understanding Medals/Renown/Badges in basic.cfg

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by RoaldLarsen

I should have made my question more specific.

Did you ever figure out the meaning of the SCORE lines in Basic.cfg that relate to promotion? You had determined that they did not correspond to current reknown.

Honestly, I never looked into it further, but I don't think it was promotion in rank that I was questioning but the awarding of medals. I was getting awarded stuff before my renown had reached the amount specified in the basic.cfg, so I wasn't sure how my SCORE was being calculated if indeed SCORE for those lines referred only to renown and not something else.

[danzig70]

Im trying to add a custom medal. If I find out the answer to the score question I'll post it here.

[ijnfleetadmiral]

My last patrol, my first in U-2503 (Type XXI), was...meh. Managed to get 28,696 tons, and that was only thanks to two or three Liberty ships. I don't usually bother with convoys; try and get ships sailing alone or in twos or threes.

I installed the various ocean liner mods, but haven't seen them in the game once! I'm thinking about trying for Liverpool in an effort to get Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth...scheiße, I haven't even sighted a light cruiser yet, and it's July 1944!

-Kommodore Kurt Hossel, U-2503
1,016,032 tons sunk
Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds
German Cross in Gold
U-Boat Badge with Diamonds
U-Boat Clasp in Bronze

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

As the thread title indicates I need a little help with understanding how some sections of the basic.cfg file work, in terms of how medals, badges, and promotions are awarded. F'rinstance:

[PLAYER_RENOWN]
AcademyBonus=1000
RankLevel0=0; SCORE
RankLevel1=1499; SCORE
RankLevel2=7999; SCORE
RankLevel3=14999; SCORE
MedalSettings0=0.25
MedalSettings1=0.5
MedalSettings2=1
MedalScore0=3000;2 class, SCORE
MedalScore1=7000;1 class, SCORE
MedalScore2=15000; knight, SCORE
MedalScore3=25000; oak leaves, SCORE
MedalScore4=37000;swords, SCORE
MedalScore5=50000;diamonds, SCORE
MedalScore6=80000;all, SCORE

In the MedalScore lines, I thought the number after = was how much renown you had to have to get that particular medal. When I finished my first combat patrol I know I had just over 3000 renown and I got the IC 2nd class. But I just finished another patrol with a renown of 4995 and got the IC 1st class... so what does the 7000 in MedalScore1=7000;1 class, SCORE refer to if not total renown earned so far in one's career?

Sorry Frau, I've been without a working computer for a few days and then you post a question on something I'm intimately familiar with. I've been working on publishing my mods for that (there is one posted in the mods section, though is only useful if you're using straight GWX (No SHC), and a second one with info on how what additional things you need to add in SHC so it makes the proper modifications.

I've racked my brain for hours over this section until I finally mastered its cryptic ways. I believe that part of this program was written in LISP, a specialized language used for certain types of AI programming. SH acts exactly like a LISP program does in regards to its setting (trying to duplicate these same functions in C or C++ is extremely difficult and messy; you have to use large arrays, linked lists and a lot of recursive conditional statements to accomplish what 3 lines in LISP does) though the game itself is probably largely in C.

Score refers to your total amount of renown that you have achieved in your career. So if you bought an upgrade that's why you would have gotten the EK1 early. Since you were only 5 short I think if you'd gotten the improved hydrophones or if your game is set to charge 100 renown for a tower emblem that's why it appears you got it early. With renown is double faced, you can get a medal seemingly early, but if your renown drops below a threshold for rank you get demoted; but you can't loose any of your medals once you've been awarded them even if you sink a convoy of hospital ships (score wise, in reality you'd have the Kriegsmarine after you as well as the allies hunting you down to sink you after doing something like that).

FYI, you're getting into stuff that can drive you crazy and while it works, frequently the changes aren't made until you complete the next patrol (bug I have no idea on what's going on there): you get into port with say 66,000 renown and just enough to get the Kapitan Z. s. promotion.

When you get into port your rank doesn't change, but when arrive back home from your next patrol it changes. It's easy to manually change it if you have a desire for precise documentation, otherwise the game's automic triggers are fubar'd; without the source code thers A LOT of cool stuff that could be fixed, added/removed and also make sure rank/awards get given at the correct times. I have personally collected original u-boat militaria at a very you age (I loved history and was facinated but submarines and airplanes) and have compiled quite a large collection, many of which are the same awards you get in game. As a collector and someone that appreciates the history behind them it burns me that thed did a half ass job on the implementation.

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Actually I think renown by itself is fine for awarding medals, since historically it was not necessary to complete X number of patrols to earn them if what you accomplished during your patrols (or even only one patrol) was deemed worthy of a decoration.

But I was just thinking today that using # of patrols completed (which would bring in more of a "passage of time" variable) in conjunction with renown for successes while on patrol would be a cool way of giving out promotions.

For the crew the formal criteria that Raeder put down was, "The badge can be presented to all officers, NCO's, and crew members who serve on submarine, and who prove themselves in two or more sorties against the enemy. In case of a wound sustained during a sortie, the number of sorties requirement is waved. The decision arriving at the determination for the award of the badge rests with the submarine commander."

In order to earn the badge with diamonds you needed a RK with Oak Leaves in order to be eligible.

P.S. To change the rate of the crew medals you need to modify the next section, which can make the crew awards a lot more realistic. When it says SCORE that refers to the renown you receive for that particular patrol. So if you wanted to make the submarine badge more prestigous change the value to something high like 400 or 500, that way you'll only get a couple or more per partol to hand out (and can use SHC to augment if you feel other's deserve an award but you didn't have enough in game).

To solve the problem of the front clasp getting awarded pre-1944 (it is bassed on tonnage sunk on patrol) to 250,000 to ensure that it never gets awarded. Likewise with the RK, only a handful of crewmen (maybe a dozen or so) were awarded it so I set it high to 100,000-125,000 (sinking a couple warships and some large merchants can easily get you over 100k, a patrol that most likely had an individual that performed to the level to earn one). Likewise you can change the values to whatever suits your needs. Finally there is the promotions, that is how much renown (on that patrol) that is needed to earn each promotion (up to 4). If you wanted to have the crew's ranks to increase slower raise that number to 650,750, or 1000 or more so that you only get 1 or 2 (occasionally more) promotions per patrol.

[frau kaleun]

Thanks, Tessa, for coming back to elaborate on this stuff. I will definitely be doing some additional editing to those sections of the .cfg when I finish this career.

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

AFAIK there is no way to add additional medals into the game, if anyone knows otherwise feel free to elaborate on how this is done.

Correct, I have spent more hours than I want to remember trying every single permutation to make changes to the awards. It might be possible (haven't had the time to try, would take a lot of photoshop work and subsequent pixel mapping) to remove an award and put something else in its place.

I've been wanting to expand the medal box so that it would include the Honor Roll, German Grand Order, Order of the Red Eagle, Grand Cross with Diamonds, and correct the close combat clasp to have bronze and silver (THERE WAS NO GOLD VERSION EVER AWARDED OR EVEN MADE! If pissed me off that when I look at places that sell reproductions that they all have the combat clasps in bronze, silver and gold (or sometimes just gold).

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

I can see why adding the U-Boat Front Clasp in silver would be an interesting idea, at least from what I know of it... even though very few men would've lasted long enough to merit getting it. In RL very few of them appear to have been awarded either version when compared to the number of ICs (and its various "upgrades") that were awarded. Just getting the bronze version probably took a lot - it seems to have been a decoration for extended or unusually exemplary performance in combat. It wasn't even introduced until 1944 (bronze in May, and silver in November).

According to uboat.net, the German Cross in silver was only awarded to non-combatants - combatants would receive it in gold if the award was merited at all. So adding that as a possible decoration for a combat commander would not be historically accurate anyway.

IIRC the only person awarded the Grand Cross after its reinstitution in 1939 was Herman Göring, in recognition (ostensibly) of the outstanding performance of the Luftwaffe during the German offensives up to and including the successful occupation of France. Considering that he was also awarded a special rank at that time, one created just for him so he could outrank pretty much everyone else in the Wehrmacht, it seems unlikely that a comparatively low-ranking u-boat commander would ever get his own Grand Cross. I think the award itself was originally intended only for the most successful generals (or high-ranking leaders) of the German military and its various branches.

According to Wikipedia, the Star was only awarded twice in its entire history - once to some guy who led German armies to victory over Napoleon, and then to Paul von Hindenburg in WWI. In other words: not an award that would be handed out for anything other than leadership, service, and/or success at the very highest level. When it was reinstituted in 1939, it was only to be awarded after Germany won the war and then to only one man, her most successful general of the entire conflict.

Obviously there was no victory and it was never awarded. In terms of historical accuracy, there would be zero chance of a u-boat commander ever getting this blingy pinned to his uniform.

Goering was a medal whore, he always insisted on getting any medal/badge (and made special for him usually in diamonds) even if he had absolutely nothing to do with it. He got a u-boat badge in diamonds despite having done absolutely nothing to warrant even consideration for the basic badge!

If the Medal triggers could be unlocked, or the SDK released there are a lot of cool things that could be added like the Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross, Order of the Red Eagle (have one of those (the imperial pre-WWI type) and its one of the most gorgeous Orders I've seen, the Honor Roll Clasp (was put on the uniform in place of the EK2, but was distinct as it had the clasp on the ribbon), Grand Cross with Diamonds, the Narvik shield and some others. Its easy to change the settings for the renown on when to award a medal but impossible to make other changes (like not allowing the Oak Leaves become available till 6/40).

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by RoaldLarsen

I should have made my question more specific.

Did you ever figure out the meaning of the SCORE lines in Basic.cfg that relate to promotion? You had determined that they did not correspond to current reknown.

The value you put in is the amount of renown required for an individual patrol needed to get a promotion, default it 500. Get 2000 renown and you get the max of 4, can always change that to something higher to slow the progress of your crews advancement. Here's a copy of the stuff in the basic.cfg and have commented on what each (relevant) thing means or how to change it:

[PLAYER_RENOWN]
AcademyBonus=1000
RankLevel0=500; SCORE
RankLevel1=1999; SCORE # minimum renown required for each promotional step
RankLevel2=3999; SCORE
RankLevel3=7999; SCORE
MedalScore0=2000;2 class, SCORE
MedalScore1=4000;1 class, SCORE
MedalScore2=10000; knight, SCORE
MedalScore3=25000; oak leaves, SCORE
MedalScore4=50000;swords, SCORE
MedalScore5=80000;diamonds, SCORE
MedalScore6=160000;all, SCORE #This was only awarded to 1 person ever (Hans Udel, Stuka Ace). If you look at his career and his accomplishments you'll quickly see that this medal really has no place in the game, or you need to have earned a extremely large amount of renown light years above and beyond the normal call of duty to get thi.

RankLevel4=15999; SCORE
RankLevel6=31999; SCORE #Need to make other mods for these next work, allows you to put in the correct rank progression instead of the games max default which is sorely wrong.

RankLevel7=63999; SCORE
RankLevel8=127999; SCORE
RankLevel9=255999; SCORE

[MEDALS_CREW]
RenownStep=250; RENOWN, u-boat badge how much renown you earn in a single partrol determines how many badges you can hand out.
SunkInPatrol=280000; TONNAGE, front clasp #if you want to make sure this doesn't come out before 44 put it at a high number, then manually change it to something like 60000-80000 when it actually became available
RenownStep2ndClass=20000; TONNAGE, IC 2nd
SunkInPatrol1stClass=30000; TONNAGE, IC 1st
SunkInPatrolGerman=60000; TONNAGE, GC
SunkInPatrolKnights=150000; TONNAGE, KC #Only a handful of crewmember ever earned a RK before becoming a captain, these shouldn't be handed out so easily. Personally I only use SHC when I feel that a crew member has done something to earn one rather than just being given one ingame.

[PROMOTIONS] #the amount of renown required for each patrol to earn a promotion
RenownStep0=500 #amount needed for the first promotion
RenownStep1=1000 #amount needed for the second
RenownStep2=1500
RenownStep3=2000 # if you prefer you can increase the amounts for each successive promotion such that you get promotions at a faster or slower rate.

If you wanted to be more martial you might have it look like such:
RenownStep0=500
RenownStep1=1500
RenownStep2=3000
RenownStep3=5000

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Tessa

Its easy to change the settings for the renown on when to award a medal but impossible to make other changes (like not allowing the Oak Leaves become available till 6/40).

AFAIK the only way around the issue of being awarded a medal/badge on a historically improbable or inaccurate date (for instance, before it existed to be awarded in RL) is to edit the requirements for it to such a high value during the relevant timespan that they are impossible to meet, or as close to impossible as one can get.

That's what I'm shooting for, anyway.

[frau kaleun]

Okay, I am working on revamping my settings for all of this before I start playing again, and I have a question.

I would like to award myself the u-boat badge at the appropriate time by editing the appropriate file for my kaleun rather than letting the game give it to me, which it always does before I've ever earned it according to historical standards.

So I'm thinking of setting the 'SCORE' required for it in PLAYER_RENOWN to something ridiculous, like 99999, to avoid having the game give it out too early for my liking.

What I'm wondering is, in the unlikely event that I ever reach a score of 99999, and my player data files show I already have the badge, will that mess things up somehow (with the game trying to give me something I've already got)?

Or does awarding a medal/badge by manually editing the relevant player file completely override any possibility of the game wanting to award it again when the 'score' has been reached at some future point in the career?

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Okay, I am working on revamping my settings for all of this before I start playing again, and I have a question.

I would like to award myself the u-boat badge at the appropriate time by editing the appropriate file for my kaleun rather than letting the game give it to me, which it always does before I've ever earned it according to historical standards.

So I'm thinking of setting the 'SCORE' required for it in PLAYER_RENOWN to something ridiculous, like 99999, to avoid having the game give it out too early for my liking.

What I'm wondering is, in the unlikely event that I ever reach a score of 99999, and my player data files show I already have the badge, will that mess things up somehow (with the game trying to give me something I've already got)?

Or does awarding a medal/badge by manually editing the relevant player file completely override any possibility of the game wanting to award it again when the 'score' has been reached at some future point in the career?

The way that one is awarded can't be manually set in the basic.cfg file. If the game awards it to you and want to remove it, open the Careers and Careers_0 file in your documents/SH3/data/cfg/Careers/player name/ folder and set Medal7=-1 When you are ready to award it change it to Medal7=1 on the last patrol you just completed.

Here's mine atm and what each is:

Medal0=4 EK2
Medal1=5 EK1
Medal2=6 RK
Medal3=7 RK w/Oak Leaves
Medal4=8 RK w/Swords
Medal5=9 RK w/Diamonds
Medal6=-1 RK w/Gold Diamonds
Medal7=1 U-boat Badge
Medal8=2 Close combat Clasp
Medal9=-1 German Cross

Sometimes the game tries to award me the RK Gold, which right now my renown is only 110,000 and have that medal set to 160,000. Just go into that file and change the value back to -1 and it will remove the award from your box and won't show up in SHC when you create a new report.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Tessa

The way that one is awarded can't be manually set in the basic.cfg file. If the game awards it to you and want to remove it, open the Careers and Careers_0 file in your documents/SH3/data/cfg/Careers/player name/ folder and set Medal7=-1 When you are ready to award it change it to Medal7=1 on the last patrol you just completed.

I'm already aware of this, editing the files in the Careers folder is how I already do it to override the game's tendency to give me the u-boat badge earlier than would be historically appropriate.

I have a line in my basic.cfg showing SCORE requirements for Medal7 (u-boat badge), I am inquiring about editing (or perhaps removing entirely) that line in order to prevent the game from ever awarding the badge at all.

[Tessa]

To my knowledge that particular medal (medal7) was never in the basic.cfg file, and even when I tried adding it the game ignored the settings. Unforunately the only variables regarding medals that you can modify are the ones that are already there from the original install. Adding the others has never yielded any kind of success, or changing the values in the medals.cfg file either.

[VONHARRIS]

Ok , I am sorry to say but I really can't make this thing with the additional ranks work.
I have downloaded the mod and enable it plus I changed the basic.cfg file.
Result : Game crashed completely. I had to reinstall it.

Could somebody please instruct me how to do it PLEASE?

Thank you in advance.

Edit : I think I found something in another thread here. I will try it.

[VONHARRIS]

Update.

I am posting here because I don't want to make a new thread about the same issue.

Now , after installing the extra ranks and editing the .cfg files I managed to get demoted from Kptltnt to Oberltnt z. S. and promoted bacK to Kptlnt again and then nothing.
Check the screenshot


Any help will be mostly welcome.
Thank you all.

[Sailor Steve]

[QUOTE=VONHARRIS;1586555]Update.

I am posting here because I don't want to make a new thread about the same issue.

Now , after installing the extra ranks and editing the .cfg files I managed to get demoted from Kptltnt to Oberltnt z. S. and promoted bacK to Kptlnt again and then nothing.[QUOTE]
The two may not be connected. Have you spent renown on anything lately? It is a well-known problem with the way SH3 works that a certain amount of renown is required to attain a rank and that renown must be retained to keep your rank.