BuPers Mod Interest?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by ElCid97

Small update prior to posting a Mediafire link for beta. And when I mean beta, I mean BBBEETTTAAA (all I can promise is that it won't harm the computer).

So far I've been able to get most things worked out thanks to the help of MANY on this forum. THANK YOU!

The beta will just be what I've finished that I know won't really go farther. It will be the messages for the radio; the "menu.txt" that changes the rates and names for them as well as the medal citation wording; and finally the CrewManagement background based on Jimimadrid's work, with permission.

I'm still working on Ranks, Quals, the NSS_Tambor file, and the Special Abilities. These are the text files (upc's). The Tambor is the first of a few (understatement with sarcasm intended when I say "few").

I just have a few questions based on some observations regarding the Special Abilities, especially since I would like to use them as a way to help you decide who gets transferred/promoted off the ship.

Method #1
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I've managed to increase the max number of abilities for the player to 6 in order to match the number I was able to "save" by editing the names and percentages. These include the Cheif Engineer (default one given with the gas can thing), Torpedo Officer (the maintenance one that helps with duds), Gunnery Officer (the supposed sharpshooter thing), Diving Officer (the one that gets you under quicker), Training Officer (the one that helps with renown and crew morale), and Damage Control Officer (fixes destroyed items and flooding). My reasoning is that you're going to go to war with these people on board as part of the crew anyway, so why not have them from the get-go?

My question is now this: since you (the player) now has the ability, if a crew member gets the ability down the road does that multiply it's effect? So if you normally have a +2 of a "widget," for example, does it mean you now have a +4 if a single crew member gets that particular ability?

If so, then my whole approach to these things will have to change, especially since I'm using them to basically let you know who needs to get off the boat. Think of it as a "semi-auto" promote off/transfer off cue that lets you know it's time to part ways with John Doe.

That's why I'm not including the rank.upc changes, etc., just yet in the beta when it comes out. I'm just not sure this approach is going to work well.

Method #2
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Another approach which I've been kicking around: Would it be better to place the Special Abilities the same way as the way I did the Pharmacit's Mate (not releasing just yet, but it DOES work) so that you have them as individual crew members from the get-go?

In other words, the NSS file and the CrewMember files would have them as part of the crews like the default gas can thing now. This would mean no special abilities whatsoever for the player, though, just to keep things "fair" since I'm not sure about the whole "ability increase" thing yet.

If I did it this second way, I'm thinking I would have to play with the "chance" of getting the ability. Right now it's at 10% (0.1). I'm thinking it would probably be better to have it go up a little to maybe 0.25 or 0.3?

I was even thinking of doing a "50/50" chance. That way there's a good chance either way you would get another crew member with the same ability, so you would then know the "older" one on your crew would be the one that would have to transfer out, having been replaced by the new one.

I figured this would probably be a better way to do things, but it also means I'd have to try it out the Tambor first and then see about the other boats. Remember, once the rank file is done you'll be manually promoting only a few ranks since "BuPers" would automatically be promoting the rest while you're on patrol -- hence the "cue" that they'll be off the ship when you get back.

The only "off" thing would be if you ended up with a special ability in a crew member you just promoted in-base. Then you would just keep the new one and dismiss the other one right then and there.

If you think it's better the second way, would someone be willing to help with the coding of the other boats after I finish the Tambor? I'm almost done with the CrewMember file, so that wouldn't be an issue. I'd just post it with the Tambor file so you would have a "template" then be able to "have at it" until they were done.

Link will be up sometime tomorrow with, again, just the image and the two other files. At least it'll be something, right?

Regards,

ElCid97

too many questions.......

i'll share what i have experienced rather than attempt to answer each question. by blindly searching through the fog, we have learned many things in the last 15 years but there is much that remains hidden by the fog.

the skills are the things that give crewmembers the capabilities to do things better or worse than others.
IntelligenceCoef, LeadershipCoef, MechanicalCoef, ElectricsCoef, GunsCoef, WatchmanCoef
skills are assigned through the crewmembers.upc and are expressed as percentages between 0 and 1.0.
skills can be increased only by promotion (ranks.upc).
experience does not increase skill, which is not how it should work, but it does.
i have read somewhere in the SH4 archives that a skill should never be greater than 1.0 (or 100%).

special abilities are skill multipliers, except that it does not seem to be a 1:1 multiplier. by that i mean, i have not been able to figure out exactly, what effect any special ability value has on a skill except that it does have a positive effect.
for example, if you set the TorpedoDamage value to 10, does it increase the hit power by 10%? impossible to determine.
if you set the DarknessPenalty to -10 does the watchman have 10% more nighttime visibility, impossible to determine.

so, i hope this helps at least a little in your quest.

[ElCid97]

Thanks for the quick response, KaleunMarco, I really appreciate it!

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

the skills are the things that give crewmembers the capabilities to do things better or worse than others.

That's what I thought, so just wanted to be sure.

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

skills are assigned through the crewmembers.upc and are expressed as percentages between 0 and 1.0.

I was wondering about this -- especially since I've seen officers with values of 140+ in leadership. I need to pay attention to this to see if this is because of some special ability or just time. If it is because of time (i.e. the factor value for a skill, regardless of skill, that is affected by the compartment's respective value in the sub's NSS file), then you can probably reference this as a factor to decide when to "transfer" a crew member.

As of now, if I see any of these above 100 in the crew management, I just swap them out to the pool. Unfortunately, there aren't enough replacements of similar rank half the time. Either that, or I don't have enough renown to get the crew I need to replace him.

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

skills can be increased only by promotion (ranks.upc).

In "one shot"-style, yes. These are the +40 leadership, 20% guns, etc., that I've seen in the file which increase the crew members skill by the amount written when you promote them.

They can also increase (albeit slowly) through compartment factors in the NSS file for the sub, from what I've seen.

I'm still debating whether to keep the changes I've done here, or just stay with the "default" values from the FotRSU version (1.8) that I started from. I just don't know if getting a promotion should boost your leadership by 40%, or if it should be more along the lines of the rest of the stuff in there. I think it's more like 20% across the board for the other skills.

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

special abilities are skill multipliers, except that it does not seem to be a 1:1 multiplier. by that i mean, i have not been able to figure out exactly, what effect any special ability value has on a skill except that it does have a positive effect.

That's why I was thinking of using the special abilities more as "markers" to decide who goes and who stays. I'm just worried that if I have the values added to the player via the rank.upc file, then when a crew member gets the ability through promotion there will be a "superman" effect with the ability getting multiplied by some unknown factor that only UbiSoft could answer.

If I do it the second way (Method #2), then you don't have the multiplier when/if you loose the crew member as part of the crew. Which is why you wouldn't transfer that particular crew member until another one got the ability through promotion. That way, if there was a "superman" effect, it would only be for the remainder of the patrol.

If you keep an eye on them -- and an eye on those values for skills that go over 100% -- you should have a fairly good idea of what crew members to swap out when you get back to port.

That's what I was hoping to do with BuPers -- basically a way to somewhat help the player decide how to implement transfers and crew management since we don't have any way to actually do that right now.

There was a user that put out a way to do this with dice and a count, but that seems just TOO random.

The other stuff like better rank images, rates, messages, etc., was meant to be more of the "icing" to make it look nice.

Guess I'm going to send out the icing before the cake, sort of.

ElCid97

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by ElCid97

That's why I was thinking of using the special abilities more as "markers" to decide who goes and who stays. I'm just worried that if I have the values added to the player via the rank.upc file, then when a crew member gets the ability through promotion there will be a "superman" effect with the ability getting multiplied by some unknown factor that only UbiSoft could answer.

you can make this work by setting the values in Special Abilities to low integers.

not sure if you are on to this yet, but the value ranges in Special Abilities are positive integer, negative integer and on/off.

[ElCid97]

As promised, here's what I'm comfortable with releasing for now.

Here's my setup so you can compare:

1. Base version I'm working with is SH4: Gold (from CD installation) "patched" with FotRSU 1.8.

2. Here's my mod listing:

100_FalloftheRisingSun_Ultimate_v1.8
101_FotRSUv18_FixPak
Nippon_Maru_v1.9b_FotRSU
Nihon Kaigun v1.3_FotRSU
Combined Roster
399_NoScrollNavMap
451_TMOstyle_NavMapDots
451a_TMOstyle_NavMapDots_Nippon_Maru
451b_TMOstyle_NavMapDots_Nihon_Kaigun
452_TMOstyle_NavMapShipMarks
304_NoJapaneseAirRadar
901_Strategic_Map_Symbols
Fleetboat_Interior-Officers_Quarters_FOTRSU_v1.7_EN
FI-OQ_FotRSU_v1.8f_upcPatch
650_OriginalFOTRS_Dudz
454c_EasyAOB_InputTargetDistanceOnTBT
901a_LukeFF_Flags_final
909_Gramophone_LeadAngles
Jimimadrid SubManagement
Jimimadrid Optics
454c_EasyAOB_InputTargetDistanceOnTBT
... activate "900_Bupers_Mod_Beta_1" here

I've used a "sequence" from one of the posts I read on here somewhere as a base, but you get the idea. I think we're actually supposed to do the "400" series before the "600" series. I figured I'd try the way this one person had his setup done and it seemed to work well for me as well.

The Gramophone is something I did to have the lead angles in the gramophone instead of the speeds that are there now. The "909" is just something I came up with. No specific reasoning other than to try and keep things with the "series" numbers. I just need to change one formula on the image itself and I can release that one for testing as well.

Nothing to do with this mod, though.

Here's the BuPers Beta #1:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/bwr0o...Beta_1.7z/file

Still working on the "upc" files. I'm hoping to have them scubbed by the end of the weekend.

The only NSS file done right now will be the "NSS_Tambor.upc" file. It only has the PM3C, which in turn is based on the crew file. If I can do a quick edit of the other boats to just add the PM3C postition in there, I will. He's already in the crew file, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Also, for now the player will have all the special abilities once the "upc" files are scrubbed. I'll slowly convert things to the "Method #2" I described above, but for now it'll be "Method #1" since that's the simpler of the two.

These will all be "beta" until more testing gets done by the community.

Again, for now the only files are the image and the two text files.

Let me know how this is so far.

ElCid97

[ElCid97]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

you can make this work by setting the values in Special Abilities to low integers.

not sure if you are on to this yet, but the value ranges in Special Abilities are positive integer, negative integer and on/off.

Just saw this after I posted the link to the beta version.

I wasn't aware of a negative or an "ON/OFF" option. How would I go about doing this? I was actually just hoping to do a low number with Method #2.

Thanks!

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by ElCid97

Just saw this after I posted the link to the beta version.

I wasn't aware of a negative or an "ON/OFF" option. How would I go about doing this? I was actually just hoping to do a low number with Method #2.

Thanks!

i do not remember all of them so let me give you an example and you will have to dig up the remainder.

CanRepairDestroyedItems

this is one of the abilities that is either on or off.
to enable it, you must include it in the list of AbilityTypes and then insert a one in the appropriate value position within AbilityValues.

[ElCid97]

I've been reading the "rules" and was wondering if it would be fine to start another thread for "Beta" testing links, and leave this one for discussion.

I was thinking of editing the first page of this post since the things in there are not necessarily what the mod is going to include now. There are some changes from what I originally put there.

The link to the current "Beta_1" is somewhat farther down the page than the first entry because of this.

Can I modify the top/first post without any penalty, or should I just make a "Beta" thread?

Sorry if it's a dumb question. Just wanted to know before posting "Beta_2" soon. Didn't want to get on the naughty list for no reason.

I've already finished with the NSS files for the S-18, Porpoise, Tambor, Argonaut, Gato, and Salmon, as well as "tweaking" the special abilities, ranks, crewmember, and qualifications "upc" files and wanted to put it out there once I'm done with the next two or three subs. I may just keep pluggin away and wait until I'm done with all of them since it's not taking as long as I thought it would.

Thanks!

ElCid97

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by ElCid97

I've been reading the "rules" and was wondering if it would be fine to start another thread for "Beta" testing links, and leave this one for discussion.

I was thinking of editing the first page of this post since the things in there are not necessarily what the mod is going to include now. There are some changes from what I originally put there.

The link to the current "Beta_1" is somewhat farther down the page than the first entry because of this.

Can I modify the top/first post without any penalty, or should I just make a "Beta" thread?

Sorry if it's a dumb question. Just wanted to know before posting "Beta_2" soon. Didn't want to get on the naughty list for no reason.

I've already finished with the NSS files for the S-18, Porpoise, Tambor, Argonaut, Gato, and Salmon, as well as "tweaking" the special abilities, ranks, crewmember, and qualifications "upc" files and wanted to put it out there once I'm done with the next two or three subs. I may just keep pluggin away and wait until I'm done with all of them since it's not taking as long as I thought it would.

Thanks!

ElCid97

yes, since you created this thread, you can either rename this one or create a separate thread for the BETA.

good luck in your new venture!