Trying to understand how SH3 Commander's "Date" folder system works....

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by pditty8811

I have the latest SH3 Commander, my question is this.

If I start a campaign through Commander on say..... March 4, 1941, will Commander load all the "Date" folder files up to March 4, 1941 like Sept 39, Oct. 39' exc....?

Or just the March 4, 1941 folder?

TY in advance

Pditty

My understanding of how it works is that Commander will load only the files from the folder with the most recent date that is equal to or prior to whatever your current in-game date is.

So if you have date folders for 19390901 and 19391101, anytime you start playing with an in-game date of Sept 01 1939 through Oct 31 1939, it will load the stuff in the 19390901 folder. It will continue loading those files until your in-game date gets to Nov 1 1939, and then it will start loading the stuff from the 19391101 folder instead, until the date of the next folder is reached, and so on.

Originally Posted by pditty8811

Also....

Does SH3 Commander overwrite the files in SH3/data folder? and puts them in the Backup folder?

Or does it just use the Commander files not touching what is in the SH3/data folder?

It has to overwrite or add to some of the files/folders in the data directory in order to activate some of the options you have selected. And features like the Date, Uboat, and Flotilla folders exist specifically so that Commander can mod the game according to your preferences but only under certain conditions... for instance the flotilla you are currently in, which u-boat you've got, or - as noted above - what the in-game date is.

One example would be the use of different u-boat skins - say I have skins I like for each type of boat, but I don't want to enable all of them at the same time in JSGME (or can't because of file conflicts), and I don't want to worry about switching them in and out depending on which boat I choose to play. So I use the Uboat folders in Commander to do it for me. The files for each skin can go in the appropriate Uboat folder and Commander will enable them for me in much the same way JSGME would do - but it only enables the one I need for whichever boat I'm in. If I'm playing a VIIB, it sticks the VIIB skin in the game for me, and with Auto Rollback, it takes it out again when I exit the game. The next time I play I could start a new career in a IIA and it would enable the skin in that folder instead.

If you have selected the Auto Rollback option, any changes Commander makes to the game's files will be undone (and the files returned to their original state) as soon as you exit the game. Commander will then "mod" the game again, depending on what you've set it up to do, the next time you use it to launch a session. I strongly recommend using Auto Rollback as it eliminates many potential problems that can be caused by NOT undoing the changes Commander makes and then tinkering with the game files in between sessions either manually or by adding/removing mods with JSGME.