Is there a way of getting more capital ships to appear?

[Reece]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to come accross a cruiser, battleship, carrier, troop transport more often.
I have been on 50+ patrols and only ever came accross a task force once, travelling at 25knots, by the time I got there a max speed they were long gone! and the only time I got a carrier is that it was at anchor in Scarpa Flow!
Is there a way of getting these to appear more often?
Reece.

[Ducimus]

Just edit the entries in the RND layer, its not hard.

Hell you can make a task force group of 12 battleships and carriers spawn every 6 hours anywhere you like on the map and have them put along at 4 knots if you wanted to.

[Reece]

Never done this before! The file is rather big therefore, I would think, rather complicated!

[GlobalExplorer]

I know where you're coming from.

I'd suggest you try out Sh3Gen, which gives you updates and directions how to find capital ships. On the more "unrealistic" settings, you can sink a battleship in no time.

Concerning editing the campaign files, it's not that hard if you learn how to use Ctrl-H.

[Reece]

Thanks, I may give it a go, but what I would prefer is to come accross them randomly, but more often!!

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by Reece

Thanks, I may give it a go, but what I would prefer is to come accross them randomly, but more often!!

In that case there is no other way than raising the SpawnProbability Value and/or adding new groups through the Mission Editor.

[Reece]

"raising the SpawnProbability Value " which file & how ?
Thanks!

[GlobalExplorer]

Campaign_RND.cfg
Campaign_SCR.cfg

contain:

[GroupXY]
..
SpawnProbability=value in percent
..

if you raise this value, the chance is higher that this group will get spawned.

You must of course, analyze and understand the structure of these files and become more proficient in recognizeing which are the groups representing warships.

I had once written a simple tool that can raise/lowe SpawnProbability and ReportPosProbability by a certain procentage, but it's not for release.

[Reece]

Ok I'll give it a go, I'm not too sure of the editorto use but I guess I'll find it!

[JScones]

Open them in Notepad or any text editor - they're just .ini files rebadged.

And just a minor correction, the file extentions are .mis, not .cfg.

[Reece]

That's handy to know Jaesen, I opened it with notepad, but 6 meg of text file --- Ahhhh!
Would take a month to read let alone understand it! :rotfl:
I'll give it a go! :rotfl:

[Wulfmann]

Reece, you should know that one mistake in editing the RND.mis file and it will cause a CTD when you start a patrol.
That is not meant to discourage you but is meant to suggest you make a back up copy of the RND.mis file before you start hacking away.
The RND.mis file is huge when you consider it is about 6MB of short text lines.
The easiest way to do things is with the edit/find window.
Click edit; scroll down to “find� click that and it opens a new box where you can put in any set of letters to look for things. Since you are looking for battleships you can write in Type=11 which when you click “find next� will take you to that line. Now scroll just above that to find the RndGroup main description where the SpawnProbability= line is and increase that up to 100 as you desire.
Do not take what you did for granted.
Look carefully to be sure you did not do something else inadvertently.
After you are done and clicked “save�(note what dates that group runs in) start the game with a career for that time period. If you made a mistake it will CTD, if you did not the patrol will start. (If you made a mistake outside the time of this patrol it may not show up now so be sure to check the different time areas with a start patrol test)
The key is to save (outside the game folder) a good copy of the RND (or SCR) before you do anything.
Wulfmann

[Reece]

Thanks for the hints Wulfmann, If Battleships=11 could you point to where you found this info, so as to know what to look for for what number Cruisers etc are represented, or is that info near the front of the file?
Thanks.

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by Reece

Thanks for the hints Wulfmann, If Battleships=11 could you point to where you found this info, so as to know what to look for for what number Cruisers etc are represented, or is that info near the front of the file?
Thanks.

You will need this:

Patrolboat=0,				                
Corvette=1,				
Frigate=2,			
EscortDestroyer=3,		
FleetDestroyer=4,		
LightCruiser=6,			
HeavyCruiser=7,			
EscortCarrier=8,		
Carrier=9,			
Battleship=11,			
AuxiliaryCruiser=13,	
Tanker=101,		
Merchant=102,	
Passenger=103,	
Coastal=104,	
Iceberg=105,	
Submarine=200,	
Minefield=500,
Subnet=501

The ship types can be found under Roster/Sea, this might need some time before one figures it out.

GE

[Wulfmann]

If you look in the rooster cfg file for each ship they have a different number according to the type.
Battleships are 11, light cruisers are 6, CV would be 9 and CVE 8 and heavy cruiser 7 with DD 4, DE 3, frigate 2, corvette 1, and trawler 0 etc etc. All ships have an assigned type number.

If you wanted to edit something like the crew rating of all escorts you could find an escort copy Escort=true to the window click find; edit the crew rating to what you want, click find next and go through the entire RND this way knowing you have seen everything that escorts something.

I have spent days editing the RND for each new RND I have built including for stock, RUB and GW.
You need to play with it and get use to its system so you are comfortable with its workings.
You can not make a mistake and everything you edit is a possible mistake.

As an example if you wanted to add more frigates (sloops in real life) to early convoys and changed the type=4 to type=2 but forgot to delete the Class=DDClemson then you screwed up because the DD is a 4 not a 2 and the DD name must also be changed to be a frigate name (or delete the line completely so the game chooses a different one each time)

Before you start a major project try it on the earliest convoys or groups so you can start a first year patrol to test. and see if it runs.

I do not recommend major RND edits in an on going career and certainly in a saved mission it is a no no.

However, this is the heart of everything in the game (with the SCR) and you can remake the entire game from the RND so it is worth learning and making your playground, IMO, more than anything else.

But, most people are more interested in skins and sounds so it also has the least amount of improvement in the game. Again, IMO!

I just made a complete remake of the way the game will play by reducing every escort to competent (from veteran) and then doubled the number of all the escorts. (Some convoys will have 15 escorts!!)
This will make the way SH3 plays totally different.
But, will it make it better?
I will run my first career patrol tonight and see. I have back up RNDs if not.

BTW I have added battleships to some early convoys as a rare spawn probability. Early 1941 when they escorted convoys.
Not right though as they actually covered convoys and had their own escort ring to keep U-Boats from them and that would require a new Rnd group.

To be absolutely sure you find what you are looking for I scroll down find one and copy that line, put that into the window and click find next. It must be exactly how it is listed in the file. It is not a google search engine.

Wulfmann