How are Medals Awarded?

[lukterran]

One thing that I am completely clueless about is the medals awarded after a patrol is finished.

There are patrols that I feel like I should have been award the Medal of Honor for amount of tonnage sunk and I end up with a bronze star. Then there are times when I get do get a Medal of Honor and I might have only sunk 4 ships over the course of the patrol.

What does the game look at when awarding these honors? I thought it was tonnage but it doesn't seem like it from the results I get.

[flaminus]

I have to say that there numerous bugs in this game, don't be surprise when you encounter one of them.

I have played the game for nearly 4 years, but never finished a career with more than 9 patrols, even with some mega mods. I always got killed by some mysterious bugs. Actually, most of the time i spent on SH4 is doing research on "what" and "why" rather than "playing".

It's a great thing that so many hard working modders made various mods to improve the gaming experience. All these mods provide us the opportunity to more realistic things, like manual targeting, historical campaigns and so on. I really enjoyed them, and learned many skills of hunting, but as to a long career, there are still many "unknown dangers" .

For now, i recommend you to use the TMO+RSRDC+OTC+Ralles modsoup, you can get much better experience without most of the stock game bugs.
but honestly, the medal bug is still there sometimes, i just met one a few days ago when i received a bronze star after sinking 20+ ships, including 2 carriers and 3 CAs.

[CapnScurvy]

From a post a long time ago by elanaiba (an original Romanian developer of the game):

Originally Posted by elanaiba

Outta my docs - should be about the same in the code

Purple Heart: over 40% medium damage taken by the sub

Bronze Star: 3 ships sunk in one patrol or a DD, CL or larger combatant ship not worthy of a higher award

Silver Star: 6 ships sunk in one patrol or a CVE or CA sunk

Navy Cross: 8 ships sunk in one patrol or a BB or CV

CMOH: 6 ships sunk in the same engagement (checks for 24 h timeframe) or 2 of the following BB, CV, CVE

As he states, the above criteria should be in the hard coded files of the game (we can't change this).

Besides not using the true American medals as above (UbiSoft decided to change the look and names of the true medals due to the possibility of copy infringement !?!), it's also a known fact that the individual medals are displayed wrong (their switched with each other). Plus, the names are switched with each other, AND the ranking is switched again....compounding the errors even further! The stock game is really screwed up BIG TIME!

Although the criteria can't be modified, the images, names and their rank can be. "U.S. Medals Fix II_Stock" does this by correcting the images; their listed names; and their hierarchy in rank. The medals within the mod are in rank:

Purple Heart
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
Navy Commendation Medal
Bronze Star Medal
Silver Star
Navy Cross

However, I can say for sure that elanaiba's note's are not entirely correct......he's missing the stock games "Submarine Service Medal", which relates to the original "Distinguished Service Medal".....Where is its criteria?? Since we can't even open the code to see what's what.....we're really at a loss to know for sure what's going on with the medals. Even one of the developers can't give us the correct number of medals (six), which puts his recollection of the criteria into suspicion?!

None the less, I chose the above group of medals for a couple of reasons. The criteria for the "Distinguished Service Medal" was:

The Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) is a military award of the United States Navy that is presented to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the United States military, has distinguished himself or herself by exceptionally meritorious service to the Government in a duty of great responsibility.

The term "duty of great responsibility" was rarely given to a sub Captain. It was more likely given to senior Navy Flag Officers.

I also removed the CMOH medal due to the fact that it was never given for just numbers of ships or tonnage sunk. Takes more than that to win this award!

OTC uses the above fix.

Is it 100% accurate, or at least reasonable?? I hope so.

[lukterran]

I have OTC installed and much appreciate the medal fix.

However, I can tell you that numbers of ship sunk proved by elanaiba isn't exactly correct. Because I have just last night sunk 10 ships. 8 Merchants and 2 DDs and got a Bronze star for my effort (about 35k tonnage).

My guess is the key to getting the higher awards is based on the actual type and number of warships you kill.

[Barkerov]

I think it is related to the amount of renown each ship is worth.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by lukterran

I have OTC installed and much appreciate the medal fix.

However, I can tell you that numbers of ship sunk proved by elanaiba isn't exactly correct. Because I have just last night sunk 10 ships. 8 Merchants and 2 DDs and got a Bronze star for my effort (about 35k tonnage).

Well, that's about right. The Bronze Star Medal in OTC is the third tier medal (out of five), not counting the Purple Heart which is awarded for casualties to either yourself or the sub.

In the stock game the five awards for meritorious service are in order:

Campaign Star.... Relates to the Bronze Star....OTC has it as the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
Patrol Star.... Relates to the Silver Star....OTC has it as the Navy Commendation Medal
Submarine Service Medal...Relates to the Distinguished Service Medal....OTC has it as the Bronze Star
Victory Cross....Relates to the Navy Cross....OTC has it as the Silver Star
Medal of Valor....Relates to the Medal of Honor....OTC has it as the Navy Cross

Without knowing for sure what the coded files contain, we're just guessing at what criteria the five tiers of awards really are. Elanaiba might be right on the money with what he posted (with only four tiers listed), or he might be as screwed up as the stock files truly are?!

My guess is the key to getting the higher awards is based on the actual type and number of warships you kill.

AND, there's apparently a time restraint added in as well.....what you do within a single 24 hour period.