[WIP] Soviet Fairway Updated English Translation

[Sledgehammer427]

Hi everyone!


I haven't been super active in SH4 for a while now, my time and interests can often be pulled in heinous directions which keeps me from being active in playing or modding for lengths of time (I'm surprised it's not July or August, that's usually when the submarine kick happens)

Anyway, I picked up the Soviet Fairway mod recently, having tried it once in like 2011, and I was dismayed to find the English translation of the game's files was not only far behind the most recent version, (I suppose for the original modders it was easier to ship the mod localized in their native Russian than to try to back-translate the game to English after the fact)
but also woefully inadequate to actually help the player make informed choices about what they were operating, being ordered to do, and overall taking charge of whatever situation they may come across.

One mission, I was ordered to a place I couldn't find on a map with a name that didn't even match Soviet/Russian names of former SSR territories, told to "dosor" and that I had applied 24 hours! Not to mention I had no clue what submarine I had chosen to operate, and it was anyone's guess where I'd end up because I had no clue how the starting bases were written! It's not a bad thing, the game is playable in English and you get the gist of what you are supposed to do, but I am a perfectionist of the nth degree and I thought it could be better. So I put on my modding hat and started digging.

I learned that when the English translation mod was made, translation tools were still fairly "young." My assumption was that the person who took it unto themselves to change the text back to English just put all 540-some mission orders into the translator and pasted whatever came out the other side, there's a lot of them after all.

But this led to wonky translations. A spy drop mission briefing calls the spy a "scientist" and misses the point the briefing made of doing it quietly behind enemy lines. And include the "dosor" and other oddities here and there.

Nowadays, translation software is much better at picking up the nuances and quirks of Russian as a written language. It makes a difference, even a straight translation through the system reads more as orders given in terse writing as opposed to a drunk caveman issuing orders. Of course, I'm going a step further with these and also amending orders to specify locations and instructions a little better, and adjust certain terms which have no true equivalent in English (most notably as an example, fairway or фарватер is a term used to denote passable channels for ships.)

This will not be a short process. I've already translated almost all of the major .upcge files the mod uses to denote class names of submarines, career starts, flotillas, the roster files, and about 30 of the 500+ mission orders.

Once it's done, I will have to go through and verify they all (or almost all) work and don't blow up the game if they're wrong. Even at a pace of 30 a day (to preserve my fragile sanity) will take North of 2 weeks, close to 3.

This post will sit as a message of intent, and hopefully not too long now I will have a test build to distribute for those interested who may want to help beta-test the updated translation. Many hands make light work

Thanks for reading!

Sledge

[iambecomelife]

Great to see you posting again!

[Sledgehammer427]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Great to see you posting again!

Thank you! It's still good to see you around as well, and I look forward to getting my grubby hands on WoTK when it's time too

I just finished my 30 for today, here's an example of what one might expect in terms of the orders being given:

Originally Posted by Original English Translation

BATTLEING ORDER OF THE BALTIC FLEET STAFF. UNDER DIFFERENT CBF IN THE BALTIC SEA A SHOCK GROUPING OF THE OPPONENT'S WARSHIPS DETECTED. TO TAKE POSITION 6 FOR PATROLING THE AREA FOR 48 HOURS. ATTACKS ON SWEDISH VESSELS FORBIDDEN.

As I said, it's perfectly manageable, one can assume there's a group of warships out there somewhere you're to intercept, don't attack the swedes. Cool, ok.

Here's the updated translation, with adjustments and some grammatical errors fixed:

Originally Posted by Sledge's Updated Translation

BATTLE ORDER OF THE BALTIC FLEET HEADQUARTERS. ACCORDING TO INTELLIGENCE PROVIDED BY THE BRITISH ROYAL NAVY, A TASK FORCE OF ENEMY WARSHIPS HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE BALTIC SEA. TAKE POSITION 6 AND PATROL THE AREA FOR 48 HOURS. ATTACKS ON SWEDISH VESSELS ARE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.

It's not much, but having to go back through the original files for every mission, bring out the Cyrillic, and then translate that, then make certain adjustments to the terminology (Since the Russian version of "sea lines of communication" doesn't even translate correctly in the new models.) Notice the original translation didn't make any mention of the Royal Navy, according to the translator, that's what "different CBF" stands for apparently, so I went with it.
It's quite the process!

[propbeanie]

Sledge!!! Good to see you! Looking forward to the translation.

[Sledgehammer427]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Sledge!!! Good to see you! Looking forward to the translation.

Good to see you too PB!

I've reached the 20% point of re-translating the orders, roughly 120 done. It's difficult to not give into the laziness and find an easier route, but then I remember my dad saying "everyone wants handcrafted stuff until they have to learn how to do the handcrafting" so I'll just stick to it and try to put something out into the world I'd be happy to see. The devs of this mod did just as much, they deserve it.

Though I wouldn't complain if there was maybe a recurring set of orders so I can just copy my previous work straight over......
I'm essentially finished with the 1941 orders for all 3 theater's starting years, which feels nice. I realize if I was maybe a bit more targeted I would have done the orders for one theater at a time, Baltic, then Black Sea, then northern fleet, but oh well.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that some missions were incorrectly translated, there's been 4, so not many, but still, its interesting!
All of the 1941 missions are done. I wish I could stay up all night and smash energy drinks like I could when I first started modding SH4, I'd be done with this by tomorrow morning!

[Townshend]

Any news?

[Sledgehammer427]

Work is continuing, but slow!
My birthday was a little over a week ago and one of my close friends sent me an old VR headset so I could finally try it out and it has briefly taken over my life
But I'm getting back to it this week!

EDIT: I actually started up again last night and hammered a few more out!
So far, in total I've translated 243 out of 541 orders, for roughly 44% of all orders completed. I'm just about done with all orders for 1942, after which I'm going to take a break for the rest of the day and get back to it tomorrow after work