ship names?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Edit: hey Steve I wonder do you keep separate lists of which ships are Yanks and which are Tommies? I've considered actually creating two separate shipname files for myself, one that would include the US names and one that didn't. Then I'd just use the "no Yanks" file until after Dec 1941. Please note I'm NOT asking you to create two files for that purpose, I'm just curious if a list of US only ship names is readily available. OTOH I could just take out the ones that are *obviously* US or seem so to me, since if it doesn't seem bloody obvious I'm not gonna know the difference when it shows up in a patrol log.

Give me the name and I can tell you what country it was from, what the real tonnage was and when it entered the war. I have everything separated by country, including Latvian, Estonian and Russian. In the US files I have Chilean, Honduran, Panamanian, you name it.

As for the 'Empires', as IABL said, when the Ministry Of Transport became the Ministry Of War Transport they started purchasing ships, and the ones that they bought or siezed from other nations were all renamed 'Empire' something-or-other. I have a 400-ton tugboat listed that was called Empire Fred.

Ships purchased from the US were named after animals - Empire Ibix, Empire Jaguar, Empire Ocelot, or after weapons - Empire Battleaxe, Empire Mace, Empire Broadsword; except for the Liberties which for some reason were all named 'Sam' - Samcebu, Samcuba, Samtana...

The ships we call the 'Empire Ships' (M35B) were a British-built version of the Liberties, the main difference being the split superstructure. Ones built in Canada were called 'Forts' and 'Parks', depending on the shipyards that built them, and there were a bunch built in America called 'Oceans'. Also some were purchased by individual shipping companies, which is why that list has so many different varieties of names.

Also British home-grown tankers of the 8000-ton class were had interesting names. The diesel ships were named for things that come out of the ground - Empire Amethyst, Empire Gold, Empire Oil, and the steam-powered ones were named for 'peoples' - Empire Celt, Empire Yeoman, etc.

Ships with 'Empire' names numbered in the thousands and spanned every type of ship imaginable, except for warships, of course.

[frau kaleun]

The real "issue" for me is that I was assuming anything named "Empire <something>" was a British ship at the time I sank it and not a US one.

It's not really that big of an issue overall, since I'm only picking alternate names for my patrol logs to sub in for anything that is or appears to be a US ship at a time when they were still neutral and I *know* I'm not sinking US ships. I don't want to look in my log for July 1940 and see some ship named the "USS Thingamajig" when I know the ship I actually sank was an enemy vessel flying a British flag. There may very well be ships in my logs that were, historically, from still neutral countries on the date I sank them. But if they don't look obviously "wrong" to me, or have the name of a ship I already know belonged to a different country than the flag it was flying when I sank it, it's no biggie.

[Robin40]

Hey Sailor Steve,

where can I find the ShipNames updated list?

[CherryHarbey]

Robin40,
you will find it here.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=2746

Sweet! I'm grabbing it too!

[Sailor Steve]

After all the talk about me doing it monthly, it seems six months have gone by without a new update. Partly my fault for being lazy, and partly because I've also been quite busy.

I should be starting again soon.

Anything I can do to help??

[Sailor Steve]

Not really. I have a system, and it requires that I look into each and every ship I put into the file. It wouldn't be hard to teach it to someone else, but it would be near impossible to coordinate. thanks for the offer though.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

It would start over. That's a fault of the game, which is supposedly fixed in SH5. But there are enough in each category that you should be okay.

Only if the "RepeatWhenAllUsed" setting in Ship names.cfg is set to 1.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

When that happens I just open the shipnames.cfg file and choose a different name from the list of ships for that same class, and then go into my career folder and open the file for that patrol's log and sub in a name that at leasts *sounds* British (I figure "Empire something or other" is always a good bet, lol). Then I go into my Commander folder and open the file for used ship names and add the one I've chosen to it, and take out the one that I replaced with it.

My favorite so far though was this last patrol where the ship the game told me was the HMS Warspite when I was sinking it got renamed the HMS Queen Elizabeth in my Commander-generated log. I just named it back as noted above. I know they're the same class ship but I SANK THE WARSPITE DAMMIT.

The real kicker was that it had already shown up a second time later in that same patrol. Imagine my surprise to see her sailing with a convoy out of Freetown in May when I'd just sent her to the bottom somewhere west of Narvik in April.

Edit: hey Steve I wonder do you keep separate lists of which ships are Yanks and which are Tommies? I've considered actually creating two separate shipname files for myself, one that would include the US names and one that didn't. Then I'd just use the "no Yanks" file until after Dec 1941. Please note I'm NOT asking you to create two files for that purpose, I'm just curious if a list of US only ship names is readily available. OTOH I could just take out the ones that are *obviously* US or seem so to me, since if it doesn't seem bloody obvious I'm not gonna know the difference when it shows up in a patrol log.

It would be good if someone (suspiciously like Steve) could create "pre Dec 1941" and "post Dec 1941" versions of the file. Users (with the requisite skills) could then apply the pre file until the Yanks enter the war then replace it with the post file after. The pre file places emphasis on Cwlth names, the post includes Yank names. It doesn't matter how many ships are actually in the game, it just assumes that players (at least those who take the game relatively seriously) would not sink too many Yank ships prior to Dec 1941.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Badger Finn

SHC is a powerful add on that I still havnt figured out properly yet. I suspect if you use it properly you could change many things other than load screens and music such as uniforms etc etc..

.

You are 100% correct. And this is partly my fault. I built the tools but never really explained to the layman how they could exploit them. A few people have taken up the challenge with very effective results (sabotage and malfunctions are courtesy of Hemisent and WB has done some amazing things with some of his mods). There's still lots that SH3Cmdr can do that no-one has tapped. Unfortunately, I really no longer have the time or temperament to mention what could be done, and then go through it with everyone. So I just explain things when people approach me privately.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by JScones

It would be good if someone (suspiciously like Steve) could create "pre Dec 1941" and "post Dec 1941" versions of the file. Users (with the requisite skills) could then apply the pre file until the Yanks enter the war then replace it with the post file after. The pre file places emphasis on Cwlth names, the post includes Yank names. It doesn't matter how many ships are actually in the game, it just assumes that players (at least those who take the game relatively seriously) would not sink too many Yank ships prior to Dec 1941.

This is exactly what I'm working on for myself. Altho TBH I haven't been too persnickety about whether a ship name actually IS American, or just sounds American - in most cases I don't know the difference. So it's a question of whether I just want my logs to "look right" to my own eyes, or want the pinpoint accuracy of knowing exactly where each ship was from and thus removing it from the pre-12/41 list if needed.

Fortunately the more I look at it the more I see that for a lot of the classes in there now it doesn't matter, as the classes themselves are more or less "nation specific" (or at least specific to the Americas vs. Europe, close enough for gubmint work ).

Steve was kind enough to send me his "working file" as well so there's a lot of info in there re: nationalities of ships I would never have figured out on my own.

What I may end up doing is getting as far as I can on my own, and then if Steve doesn't mind, asking him about any specific ships that are "left over" and I'm unsure about.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by JScones

It would be good if someone (suspiciously like Steve) could create "pre Dec 1941" and "post Dec 1941" versions of the file. Users (with the requisite skills) could then apply the pre file until the Yanks enter the war then replace it with the post file after. The pre file places emphasis on Cwlth names, the post includes Yank names. It doesn't matter how many ships are actually in the game, it just assumes that players (at least those who take the game relatively seriously) would not sink too many Yank ships prior to Dec 1941.

Not only could I do that, but I would be glad to. The problem is I have no idea how the files should be named. If the Random or Date functions can be made to apply them properly it would be a great thing. Of course I don't know how to do that either.

@ NoGoodLandLubber: You asked if you could help. Are you any good at learning that kind of thing?

[frau kaleun]

What I'm thinking about the Random and Date folders in Commander (and Jaesen will correct me if I'm wrong ) is that they can only be used to insert/overwrite files in the game folder when Commander is used to launch SH3. I don't think they can be used to make Commander itself operate differently, or switch back and forth between two or more versions of one of its own .cfg files depending on the in-game date for whatever career you're updating/playing at the moment.

My idea was to create two mods, one for before Dec 10 1941 and another for that date and after. The first one would have the edited down version of whatever the current Shipnames.cfg file is, the other would have the full lists of ship names for use after the US enters the war. Then I would enable/disable them as needed depending on what date I was playing in-game.

But that wouldn't work as smoothly for someone who is playing more than one career using the same installation of Commander, they'd have to remember to switch back and forth more often depending on which career they were going to choose and what the current in-game date was for that particular kaleun.

If there were a way to make that "automatic" within Commander itself that would be very handy but if there is it's still a mystery to me.

Hmm...not sure...I can at least take a look at it if someone can point me in the right direction....