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.