Medals

Jten · 02-08-10, 08:57 PM

Does that include the NUMBER of medals awarded to the crew at end of patrol?

I understand the inclusion of a Service Award (APCM) among the other Decorations and your use of it is not unhistorical since while the actual medal was not designed and issued till post war, the ribbon colors were created and ribbons for the APCM was issued during the war. (Most of the awards issued in WW2 for the US were in ribbon form. War metal shortages and all that.)

What I have been wanting to do is increase the number of the APCM given so everyone could have one by 2-3 patrols. 30 days in theater is all that was required and Hawaii was 'in theater' for the award. Most sailors would have qualified for it before leaving on patrol and would have received additional devices on it for each campaign.

I have considered testing a manually edited starting crew that had one on each crew member. In that case, additional awards would only be needed for 'new' crewmen and the current game issue quantities might suffice to have one on everyone by war's end.

Everybody has their own pet peeves and having an APCM on everybody is mine. That and Sampans.

BTW: Great medals mods. I was happy with stock SH4 except for the medals and it was the lure of your mod that made me go to 1.5 now I'm RFB+RSRD and your medals mod is still the 'cherry' on top of the 'whip cream'.

CapnScurvy · 02-09-10, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jten

Does that include the NUMBER of medals awarded to the crew at end of patrol?

Yes Jten it does. The crew medals are even more of a mystery than the Captain's. Again, their criteria is hard coded. Outside of calculating tonnage sunk and successful completion of tasks I haven't got a clue of what, how, or why an award is issued for a crewman. I have seen if some compartment catastrophe takes place you may see a dead crewman, or Purple Hearts are available for the crew when you reach port. The only parameter we can tinker with is the "who" (the actual award) part of the game not the what, how, or why.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jten

What I have been wanting to do is increase the number of the APCM given so everyone could have one by 2-3 patrols. 30 days in theater is all that was required and Hawaii was 'in theater' for the award. Most sailors would have qualified for it before leaving on patrol and would have received additional devices on it for each campaign.

At one time I had the Submarine Dolphins as the first tier award. But, without being able to change the criteria from "tonnage sunk and completion of tasks", the idea of a time in service award (or in the Dolphins case, a completion of knowledge tests) just couldn't be implimented correctly.

There are six levels of awards (tiers) even though I don't consider the Purple Heart a tier. The PH is correctly issued using the criteria of death or injury, although the stock award was the Submarine Service Medal (Distinguished Service Medal) and not the Wounded Medal!! The point is these six levels have a hard coded criteria which we don't have access to.

Jten · 02-10-10, 08:37 AM

Thanks, I'll have to put my thinking cap on.

CapnScurvy · 02-11-10, 09:13 AM

Jten, this is just a passing thought (like a fart) but, what about the "special abilities" part in the game? I've not spent time thinking about this aspect of the game. Maybe there's a way to manipulate their files to add a "service award" to the game?! I wouldn't know where to find the right files; perhaps the Captain's and Crewmen's .UPC files for starters. Perhaps those files aren’t as restricted to mod as the medal criteria. You would have to perhaps change some things in the [G61 Ixxx] menu_1024_768.ini file (I think this is the section for dealing with the crew regarding special abilities). I know that's where you mod the crews medals for display in the Crew Management screen.

It’s just a thought.

Jten · 02-13-10, 10:31 PM

Sorry for the delay responding. Wife's been at the hospital getting some cancer cut out.
Actually I modded the starting crew file last week. (Data>UPCData>UPCCrewData>Crewmembers)
I added the APCM to all crew except the Ensign and Seaman Apprentice entries (except the SA that starts with an Engineer skill)
I started a new game and everybody started with the award (except as noted above).
I sailed and put back into port. New available replacement crew also now had the award except as noted above.
I loaded a save game from before the modification. The crew's awards had not changed (everyone did not get one since the game only references the starting roster when the campaign starts) but I also DID NOT get a CTD so the 'tweak' seems to not be a conflict maker.
I'm currently playing both saves to see if an Ensign or Seaman Apprentice crewman magically gets the award when promoted at sea or if not. I am thinking they will not.
So far it seems to make me happy. New ensigns or SA will have to 'Earn' the APCM and the game levels of 2-3 APCM per 'good' patrol should suffice. Everyone else will start with one.

On another point, I have noticed the APCM small graphic (the one that gets added to the crew display) has a small drop out of color in the drape. (CrewSystemsManagement .DDS file) I'm a graphic designer so it caught my eye and popped it open in Photoshop and was going to correct it when I thought 'Hey, maybe there's a reason the Cap'n did that' so I held off.

I have also wondered about the 'renown' rating. Most mods did away with using that but since the game engine is set to use that variable I have been trying to see if i can reuse that for some other effect.

CapnScurvy · 02-14-10, 08:32 AM

First off Jten, I wish your wife the best in recovering from her surgery. Real life issues are always priority one!! She needs the attention; hey today is Valentine's Day so don't forget, I'm sure she won't (nor should she)!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jten

On another point, I have noticed the APCM small graphic (the one that gets added to the crew display) has a small drop out of color in the drape. (CrewSystemsManagement .DDS file) I'm a graphic designer so it caught my eye and popped it open in Photoshop and was going to correct it when I thought 'Hey, maybe there's a reason the Cap'n did that' so I held off.

Well it's not a good reason!! To say I'm an expert is a stretch when using graphics!! I know, every time I worked with the images I would lose clarity.
I suspect it has something to do with the particular file type I'm using or trying to save (either with the particular medal image or the way I'm saving the whole CrewSystemsManagement.dds image). I don't know if it's because the Image "mode" is set to "Indexed Color" or "RGB Color" and this makes a difference in keeping the images clarity? Or, is it the process of resizing the medal image (to get it down to the small size the CrewSystemsManagement.dds medals use)? I wish I knew because I've seen it too, I'm just not sure what to do (the only graphics work I've every done has been through game modding; to say the least, it's self taught and it shows). When I made the AOB Calculator mod I literally cut and pasted the dials bearing figures onto a circle, and then scanned the image which allowed me to use Photoshop to clean up the image. All without really knowing what the heck I'm doing. That's not exactly good graphic design techniques!! If you know a couple of techniques I should use please help. I'm like a "finish" carpenter using a 3 pound sledge for a hammer!!

Quote:

I have also wondered about the 'renown' rating. Most mods did away with using that but since the game engine is set to use that variable I have been trying to see if I can reuse that for some other effect.

That's a thought too!! Renown does indeed play a role in the overall ratings of individual crewmen, or the entire compartment as well. Putting higher ranked renowned crew into specific positions raises the bar for efficiency. Just what or how I don't know.

Best regards to your wife.

Jten · 02-14-10, 11:16 AM

Thank you for your kind thoughts, she's doing well. According to the doctor it appears to be the 'best' kind of cancer to have if one has to have it.
As far as keeping quality in Photoshop, every time you use a 'transform' effect it resamples a raster image (fancy word for any bitmap image...jpeg,gif,tiff...etc) and you lose data in the image. If you need to play with an image to get it 'just right' always make a layer copy, mess with that, then go back to the original and make all your transforms (scale,rotation,skew...etc) in one action for the least amount of resample. Jpeg files are very lossy. One should never resave a jpeg as a jpeg because you lose more info each time. Unfortunately computers love jpegs.
Indexed colors are reduced to 256 so if you have more than that in the image some will be 'thrown out'. For computer work try using the 'save for web and devices' save option. It gives you more options and previews it before you save.
The problem is worse if you make a small image (few pixels) by taking a large nice image(lots of pixels) and sizing it down. The resample keeps the color balance by retaining the predominate colors and throwing out the rest. A small image just needs to be recreated.

I'll pop open the dds file and see what I can do. Your large medal work is good. What dds export settings does the game want?

02-14-10, 11:16 AM	#7
Jten Mate Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Tennessee Posts: 55 Downloads: 102 Uploads: 0	Thank you for your kind thoughts, she's doing well. According to the doctor it appears to be the 'best' kind of cancer to have if one has to have it. As far as keeping quality in Photoshop, every time you use a 'transform' effect it resamples a raster image (fancy word for any bitmap image...jpeg,gif,tiff...etc) and you lose data in the image. If you need to play with an image to get it 'just right' always make a layer copy, mess with that, then go back to the original and make all your transforms (scale,rotation,skew...etc) in one action for the least amount of resample. Jpeg files are very lossy. One should never resave a jpeg as a jpeg because you lose more info each time. Unfortunately computers love jpegs. Indexed colors are reduced to 256 so if you have more than that in the image some will be 'thrown out'. For computer work try using the 'save for web and devices' save option. It gives you more options and previews it before you save. The problem is worse if you make a small image (few pixels) by taking a large nice image(lots of pixels) and sizing it down. The resample keeps the color balance by retaining the predominate colors and throwing out the rest. A small image just needs to be recreated. I'll pop open the dds file and see what I can do. Your large medal work is good. What dds export settings does the game want? Last edited by Jten; 02-14-10 at 05:46 PM.

02-08-10, 08:57 PM	#1
Jten Mate Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Tennessee Posts: 55 Downloads: 102 Uploads: 0	Does that include the NUMBER of medals awarded to the crew at end of patrol? I understand the inclusion of a Service Award (APCM) among the other Decorations and your use of it is not unhistorical since while the actual medal was not designed and issued till post war, the ribbon colors were created and ribbons for the APCM was issued during the war. (Most of the awards issued in WW2 for the US were in ribbon form. War metal shortages and all that.) What I have been wanting to do is increase the number of the APCM given so everyone could have one by 2-3 patrols. 30 days in theater is all that was required and Hawaii was 'in theater' for the award. Most sailors would have qualified for it before leaving on patrol and would have received additional devices on it for each campaign. I have considered testing a manually edited starting crew that had one on each crew member. In that case, additional awards would only be needed for 'new' crewmen and the current game issue quantities might suffice to have one on everyone by war's end. Everybody has their own pet peeves and having an APCM on everybody is mine. That and Sampans. BTW: Great medals mods. I was happy with stock SH4 except for the medals and it was the lure of your mod that made me go to 1.5 now I'm RFB+RSRD and your medals mod is still the 'cherry' on top of the 'whip cream'.

02-10-10, 08:37 AM	#3
Jten Mate Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Tennessee Posts: 55 Downloads: 102 Uploads: 0	Thanks, I'll have to put my thinking cap on.

02-13-10, 10:31 PM	#5
Jten Mate Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Tennessee Posts: 55 Downloads: 102 Uploads: 0	Sorry for the delay responding. Wife's been at the hospital getting some cancer cut out. Actually I modded the starting crew file last week. (Data>UPCData>UPCCrewData>Crewmembers) I added the APCM to all crew except the Ensign and Seaman Apprentice entries (except the SA that starts with an Engineer skill) I started a new game and everybody started with the award (except as noted above). I sailed and put back into port. New available replacement crew also now had the award except as noted above. I loaded a save game from before the modification. The crew's awards had not changed (everyone did not get one since the game only references the starting roster when the campaign starts) but I also DID NOT get a CTD so the 'tweak' seems to not be a conflict maker. I'm currently playing both saves to see if an Ensign or Seaman Apprentice crewman magically gets the award when promoted at sea or if not. I am thinking they will not. So far it seems to make me happy. New ensigns or SA will have to 'Earn' the APCM and the game levels of 2-3 APCM per 'good' patrol should suffice. Everyone else will start with one. On another point, I have noticed the APCM small graphic (the one that gets added to the crew display) has a small drop out of color in the drape. (CrewSystemsManagement .DDS file) I'm a graphic designer so it caught my eye and popped it open in Photoshop and was going to correct it when I thought 'Hey, maybe there's a reason the Cap'n did that' so I held off. I have also wondered about the 'renown' rating. Most mods did away with using that but since the game engine is set to use that variable I have been trying to see if i can reuse that for some other effect.