Ship Names February 2011

[Damo]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Ya, really odd. And I know several of the names came from the list for M01A. The ships in question were all Medium Merchants, but unless there's some game file where I can find what class I actually sank, I don't know which list (if any) their names should've come from.

I do know for sure they were not American ships, lol.

As a test you could try doing a test patrol in the same period but this time remove the M##B / A / X=Medium Merchant ## entries from the englishnames.cfg. Then the patrol log will list them, and the game will display them with their folder names. Then do a comparison afterwards.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Damo

As a test you could try doing a test patrol in the same period but this time remove the M##B / A / X=Medium Merchant ## entries from the englishnames.cfg. Then the patrol log will list them, and the game will display them with their folder names. Then do a comparison afterwards.

That's kind of what I'm thinking of doing, as a test.

What I'm curious about now is what the game uses to determine whether a ship is friendly, enemy, or neutral. Is that controlled by the roster it spawns from?

[Damo]

It has to be, otherwise there'd be no point in placing the MFM neutrals in the allied roster folders. One thing that occurred to me as well was that when I had the trouble of having my logs show M#B instead of Medium Merchant ##, I rectified it by updating the englishnames.cfg with the needed edits (M##B=Medium Merchant ##) and then reupdating my personnel files. Maybe, if you remove your edits, effectively putting them back to M##B, and update your personnel file for that patrol, it would work in reverse, showing exactly what ships you sunk? Just a thought.

My money's still on Canada though....LOL.

[frau kaleun]

Well, I changed up the EnglishNames.cfg in my other GWX install and did a test patrol. Here's what I sank by ship class, along with the ShipNames class used for name/cargo (if any), the Allied/Axis/neutral designation, and nationality based on visual ID:

M03X
unnamed
neutral
no flags/markings

M27B
M27B
Allied
British

Granville-type Freighter/GRA
GRA
Allied
British

M07X
unnamed
Allied
no flags/markings

Medium Cargo/KLS
C2 (KLS=C2 per ClassMap)
neutral
American

M15B
M15B
Allied
British

M14X
unnamed
Allied
British

M20B
M20B
Allied
British

M01X
unnamed
Allied
no flags/markings

M37B
M37B
Allied
British

M34X
unnamed
Allied
Swedish

I can confirm the enemy/friendly/neutral status of these ships was exactly as noted above since I was using Contact Color and the Allied ships were all red icons on the map while the two neutral ships were green. My tonnage totals at the end of the patrol also confirm that everything I listed as Allied was counted as enemy tonnage while the two "green" ships were counted as neutral.

I used the external cams to do a thorough 360° sweep around all the ships before attacking, and can say without a shadow of a doubt that those listed as British were flying the Red Ensign of the British Merchant Navy. Three of the M**X ships had no flags or markings of any kind, and IIRC two of them were spotted or attacked at night and were running without lights. The American ship was running lit and had her US flag spotlighted, so no doubts about her.

Of particular interest was the final ship, by class an M**X "neutral" that spawned with Swedish flags and markings (as seen in the file data\Sea\M34X\M34X_T01.tga) but the game gave her a red icon and counted her among the Allied tonnage sunk. She was heading ENE in grid BF17, presumably heading for the Irish Channel; in theory I assume this could've meant a destination of either an enemy UK port, or a neutral Irish one. It was daylight so her being lit/unlit was not a factor. If this had been a "real" patrol (and I hadn't been shown a red icon on the map) I don't know if I would've attacked her since I think her status as an enemy ship might have been debatable.

If nothing else I think the use of the MFM mod will be the nail in the coffin of the Contact Color mod for me, as much as I hate to give that up. Pushing me ever closer to more realism, which I don't mind really. Having it enabled sort of defeats the purpose of using a mod like the MFM, which requires you to make difficult decisions about whether or not to attack a ship that may or may not be a legit target regardless of its flags/markings or lack thereof. But that would also mean losing the navigational "tails" on my ship icons, which would be really tough at this point. I wonder if there's a way to keep just those and not have the color coding.

For me personally, like Damo, it will probably also mean doing something with the ShipNames file to provide names for all those M**X classes, since it's clear that they are going to show up not just as potentially legit targets but as obviously legit ones (the M14X I sank was most definitely flying a British flag).

Sadly, all of the above does nothing to explain why several of the ships I sank in my last "real" patrol got names from the ShipNames list for M01A ships when I know they were flying enemy flags. British or Canadian (and I still believe they were British, as there was nothing on them to indicate otherwise, but whatever - GWX shows Canada as Allied starting Sept 3) they were still enemy ships sunk in Sept 1939 and therefore not American. And class M01A is not in the British, Canadian or any other UK/Commonwealth rosters I checked. So where that's concerned, I still got nothin'.

[Damo]

Nice post Frau .

I really like the MFM's tendency to make you wonder about the neutrals, I know that the Uboats would check vessels for contraband and would likely sink them if they carried war materials etc (early war anyway, before they started shooting back). I kind of emulate this by approaching the neutrals and if they start evading by zig zagging I assume they have something to hide and I send em to the bottom.

I've not had a chance to look at the files or do any edits but I did manage to get a few hours on SH5 at my friends house last night while I babysat his son. Initial impressions?

5mins=
10mins=
30mins=
1hour=
2hours=
2hours, 1min=

Although I will miss the graphics when I return to sea in SH3......

[Robin40]

Originally Posted by Damo

Nice post Frau .

I really like the MFM's tendency to make you wonder about the neutrals, I know that the Uboats would check vessels for contraband and would likely sink them if they carried war materials etc (early war anyway, before they started shooting back). I kind of emulate this by approaching the neutrals and if they start evading by zig zagging I assume they have something to hide and I send em to the bottom.

I've not had a chance to look at the files or do any edits but I did manage to get a few hours on SH5 at my friends house last night while I babysat his son. Initial impressions?

5mins=
10mins=
30mins=
1hour=
2hours=
2hours, 1min=

Although I will miss the graphics when I return to sea in SH3......

ihihih......I agree

[brabham85]

I'm here just for congratulate Steve for this work!