Is it possible to make a dynamic campaign using SH3 Comm. and this Campaign Editor?

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

To avoid encountering the "same" warship over and over again I use a combination of tweaks to the EnglishNames.cfg file in data\Sea and the Real Ship Names feature of Commander, along with a customized version of the ShipNames.cfg that Commander uses to assign names to the ships I sink.

For instance IIRC there are five King George V class RN ships in my game, each one has its own class folder in data\Sea and class designation, etc.

However in the EnglishNames.cfg file all of those classes = King George V class, meaning they are each assigned a display name stating just their class but not the specific name of an individual ship. If I encounter a KGV class ship in the game, it will be ID'd only by class but not by name.

All those classes are then mapped to one entry/list in the ShipNames.cfg file for the King George V class ships, which contains all possible names for ships of that class, and it's set up so that no name is reused until the entire list has been exhausted.

So if I encounter a KGV ship in the game and sink it, I won't know which one it was until my logs are updated after the patrol is completed and Commander assigns it a name from the list. Should I encounter another ship of the same class later on, it will not be ID'd by any name at all, only by class - so it can't appear as the "same" ship I already sank. If I sink that one too, Commander will assign it one of the other names from the list for that class. The only way I'd ever see or sink the same ship from that class twice would be if I sank all of them and Commander ran through the whole list of names and had to start reusing them - highly unlikely.

It doesn't really work for ships that were the only vessels of their class, but I can live with that. The only other drawback I can see so far is that for specific warships scripted into their historical locations, I might come across what in real life would have been, say, the HMS Warspite and sink it (having ID'd it by class only) and then have Commander assign it the name of another ship of her class that, historically, would not have been in that location at the time of the encounter. For me, personally, that's not a big issue, and it's far better IMO than actually sinking the Warspite in the Vestfjord in April 1940 only to have her turn up in the middle of a convoy a month later. Of course with my workaround "she" may still turn up again, but she won't be ID'd as the Warspite either in the game or in my logs if I sink her a second time - I'll just be credited with sinking a different ship of her class.

Ok, so I'm understanding you correctly, what do you do personally in modifying files when you sink say a merchant vessel, preventing that same name turning up again? Or does SH3 Commander do all the work and only uses the same ship name if all of the ship names in that class have already been used?

When you say you do a combination of "tweaks" what tweaks do you do yourself, so I'm understanding you correctly. What files do you personally modify?


As far as my suggestion of a dynamic campaign, and linking these the Campaign Editor with the patrol logs of Commander with a program, I am hoping to prevent the Warspite reshowing up, say it is the only name for that class, if you say sink it in April 40 in the fjord and I would like to prevent it reshowing up a year later in a convoy. But only for ships that have only one name for a class. So it would have to be mod specific, and depending on the ship models people have in their Sea Folder.

I would hate to see a capital ship reshow up in a campaign after I sank it, especially if it is a unique model and there were no other ships built like it IRL.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by pditty8811

Ok, so I'm understanding you correctly, what do you do personally in modifying files when you sink say a merchant vessel, preventing that same name turning up again? Or does SH3 Commander do all the work and only uses the same ship name if all of the ship names in that class have already been used?

Merchant ships are not really an issue as the ShipNames file generally provides enough names to account for far more merchants than one would ever encounter, much less sink. I've customized the file to some extent in that area, if only to avoid having sunk ships given US names prior to Dec 1941, but not because I'm concerned about sinking the "same" merchant twice or seeing it again in the game after I've already sunk it. Merchants are not ID'd by name in the game anyway, so the latter is not a problem.

As noted above, if the file/feature is set up correctly, Commander will not reuse the same names in any given class list until all possible names in the list have been exhausted.

When you say you do a combination of "tweaks" what tweaks do you do yourself, so I'm understanding you correctly. What files do you personally modify?

As already noted above, I have modified the EnglishNames.cfg so that each warship has a display name that identifies it in the game by historical class, not by an actual name, even if it exists in the game as a "class of one" with a specific name and its own data\Sea folder. And I have customized the ShipNames.cfg file, used by Commander in its "Real Ship Names" feature, so that - wherever possible - when I sink a warship in the game, Commander will assign it a historically accurate name for that class of ship, and will not reuse that name again until the entire list has been used and it has to start over.

So even if the game "knows" that the ship it just spawned is the HMS Warspite, I don't know that when I see it in the game. All I know is that it's a QE class battleship. If I sink it, Commander will assign it the name of a QE BB at random from the list of names provided in ShipNames.cfg for the QE class. It will not reuse one of those names until it has run through the entire list. Even if I somehow managed to sink every QE BB in existence, I would never be credited with sinking the same one twice unless I kept sinking more of them than there were names available and names got reused. I will never "see" one in the game that I already sank because they are not ID'd in the game by name to start with.

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Merchant ships are not really an issue as the ShipNames file generally provides enough names to account for far more merchants than one would ever encounter, much less sink. I've customized the file to some extent in that area, if only to avoid having sunk ships given US names prior to Dec 1941, but not because I'm concerned about sinking the "same" merchant twice or seeing it again in the game after I've already sunk it. Merchants are not ID'd by name in the game anyway, so the latter is not a problem.

As noted above, if the file/feature is set up correctly, Commander will not reuse the same names in any given class list until all possible names in the list have been exhausted.



As already noted above, I have modified the EnglishNames.cfg so that each warship has a display name that identifies it in the game by historical class, not by an actual name, even if it exists in the game as a "class of one" with a specific name and its own data\Sea folder. And I have customized the ShipNames.cfg file, used by Commander in its "Real Ship Names" feature, so that - wherever possible - when I sink a warship in the game, Commander will assign it a historically accurate name for that class of ship, and will not reuse that name again until the entire list has been used and it has to start over.

So even if the game "knows" that the ship it just spawned is the HMS Warspite, I don't know that when I see it in the game. All I know is that it's a QE class battleship. If I sink it, Commander will assign it the name of a QE BB at random from the list of names provided in ShipNames.cfg for the QE class. It will not reuse one of those names until it has run through the entire list. Even if I somehow managed to sink every QE BB in existence, I would never be credited with sinking the same one twice unless I kept sinking more of them than there were names available and names got reused. I will never "see" one in the game that I already sank because they are not ID'd in the game by name to start with.

I understand, so your EnglishNames.cfg is just ship class specific like for example "NBBElizabeth= Elizabeth Class Battleship".

I just PM'd the makers of Commander and this Campaign editor program.

Hopefully it wont be to hard to implement a button or something that uses the Campaign editor via Commander through a button or perhaps automatically firing the campaign editor after every patrol, to search Campaign_SCR via class, removing all ships of that class, then saving the Campaign_SCR.mis

Only for certain classes though of course.

Also, perhaps the creator of the Campaign Editor could add a "Name=" option to search the Campaign files. This way, mods like GWX when they place the Bismarck in the Campaign_SCR they actually use Name=Bismarck, so since the editor already searches via "Class=" entries I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to put in "Name=" entries also.

So say if you sink the Bismarck, not sure why you would do that, but if you did, this program could delete all "Name=Bismarck" units in the GWX Campaign_SCR. Thus getting rid of all the Bismarcks GWX purposely placed into the campaign.

[LGN1]

Hi,

I agree it would be nice to have some features of the campaign editor in SH3 Commander. However, as far as I know JScones has stopped all work on SH3 Commander so that this will never happen.

One problem I see is that there are many generic entries in the campaign layers that just call a battleship and the game chooses one. So it's not done by removing all the entries with the corresponding name. The ship can still show up via the generic entries. Removing also these entries would be too severe, I think.

Frau Kaleun's approach sounds for me the best you can achieve.

Cheers, LGN1

PS: I know that it's unrealistic that you can sink, e.g., the Nelson, many times in-game. However, removing it for the entire war if you sink it in '39 also seems unrealistic for me because I guess it would be just replaced in all operations by another battleship. It's not that in this case some operations had been carried out without any battleship support (what would happen if you remove the ship from the scr file).

Originally Posted by LGN1

Hi,

I agree it would be nice to have some features of the campaign editor in SH3 Commander. However, as far as I know JScones has stopped all work on SH3 Commander so that this will never happen.

One problem I see is that there are many generic entries in the campaign layers that just call a battleship and the game chooses one. So it's not done by removing all the entries with the corresponding name. The ship can still show up via the generic entries. Removing also these entries would be too severe, I think.

Frau Kaleun's approach sounds for me the best you can achieve.

Cheers, LGN1

PS: I know that it's unrealistic that you can sink, e.g., the Nelson, many times in-game. However, removing it for the entire war if you sink it in '39 also seems unrealistic for me because I guess it would be just replaced in all operations by another battleship. It's not that in this case some operations had been carried out without any battleship support (what would happen if you remove the ship from the scr file).

You make several good points. But does GWX put Battleships in the RND layer? That would be an intentional ahistorical mistake if they did.

As far as another battleship taking its place in operations, well if all battleships are assigned courses throughout the war, I wouldn't think there would be any Capital ships left to fill the spot. But I understand what your saying, but as the limitations we face at this present time I don't think we should be too pickey.

[TorpX]

Really, if you are playing in a realistic manner, and the game mechanics are realistic, you should not be sinking capitol ships that often (or even encountering them). I don't see any reason for this much fuss.