[REL] Dark Waters

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by WH4K

That's right, I was assigned an Australia mission out of Lorient not once but twice (or was it 3 times?). Twice in a row, then immediately after upgrading to a IXC.

Same missions where the mission orders were in French. It's now late February 1945 and I've seen a few radio messages in French as well.

I didn't re-use any earlier saves, I started a fresh career in 1939 (out of Wilhelmshaven in a Type IX).

Let me dig through the PatrolObjectives, Flotillas, and the individual assignments you would be assigned for that flotilla then. Only a transfer down, or assignment while at Penang or Djakarta should result in those Australian assignments, and even at that, they should not be the Stock missions. That's like receiving an East China Sea assignment each time out on the US side. That is the "fail-safe" for if there is a bad assignment made, to keep from getting "Primary objective not found" error messages. Of course, I have found other ways to induce the game into that comatose state with FotRSU...

That's probably where the trouble you have lies...

Update: OK WH4K, I think I found the crack in the floor that your career fell through. In the old OM, of which 95% of the DW campaign came from, under the IXA boat are three calls for the boat to use the SPAIN code to find missions in PatrolObjectives. However, it looks like the 2nd one has a typo for the year, so there is an overlap of the SPAIN calls. That can cause problems. Then to throw salt in the wound, the Patrol Objectives has seven calls to missions, but there are only six missions. Mission 2 repeats, which is not good, and is probably what caused you to fall through to the "default" Australia assignments group. The "easy" fix is to add a 7th mission to the SPAIN calls. However, the true fix is to remove the extra call for Spain-2... Of course, that is no easy task in the DW PatrolObjectives file, with all of the renumbering that would be involved - This hole has been in there for who knows how long, but it is a double-whammy and is probably why your Save data is corrupt. I am not certain if you want to mess with the Save data, but in your latest Save, you could attempt to alter CareerTrack.upc file and change the CurrentStatusLast section's CurrentFlotilla= and CurrentFlotillaBase= lines to 33Flotilla and F14Flensburg and see if that works, but back-up the entire Save folder before you try that. There are other "hooks" to your current base and flotilla, and that is the easiest reference to find. Maybe someone else knows more about Save folder edits and could better help you, because I would put at least a 50-50 on failure after the edit...

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

I am not certain if you want to mess with the Save data, but in your latest Save, you could attempt to alter CareerTrack.upc file and change the CurrentStatusLast section's CurrentFlotilla= and CurrentFlotillaBase= lines to 33Flotilla and F14Flensburg and see if that works, but back-up the entire Save folder before you try that. There are other "hooks" to your current base and flotilla, and that is the easiest reference to find. Maybe someone else knows more about Save folder edits and could better help you, because I would put at least a 50-50 on failure after the edit...

your fix should work.
the only issue would come from the fact that you are making changes to the CareerTrack during a mission...that action is always risky.
but, hey, it is only a game. try it.

BTW, what-the-h is SPAIN code?

[WH4K]

FWIW, the edits only work if you do them in 2 places.


Within the folder for a given savegame (e.g. \Documents\SH4\data\cfg\SaveGames\00000024) there is a further folder called UPCInitial.


You must edit the CareerTrack.upc found in both this folder, and the parent one (00000024 in this case) to successfully change homebase.


However, it doesn't really work. Though I get the tilted anchor at Flensburg, when I try to head back there the game crashes.

[propbeanie]

I suspected as much... there might be another instance of the home port, or maybe it's the "CurrentSDepartureDescription=", which is the longitude and latitude of the place you start from at that particular base. However, the CareerTrack file uses "scientific" notation for the big numbers, and I am not at all familiar with converting the numbers to that. You might also have to mess with the

[CareerTrack 1.CareerStatusSave X]
ID=ID
Reason=CSS_FlotillaChange
NameDisplayable=
CurrentDate=1939-09-01 15:00:00
FlotillaIDLink=2Flotilla

[CareerTrack 1.CareerStatusSave X+1 ??]
ID=ID
Reason=CSS_BaseChange
NameDisplayable=
CurrentDate=1939-09-01 15:00:00
BaseIDLink=F4Wilhelmshaven

and I don't know if you'll find others of that or not. I also do not know how the "X" and "X+1" work, and if they would be before or after your last Save. I cannot find a "Transfer" in any of my Save folders... I have seen them, but never did pay much attention to the info...

[WH4K]

Did some experimenting.


If I only change the block at the beginning of the savegame file (CurrentFlotilla= and CurrentFlotillaBase=) to reflect the 33d and Flensburg rather than the 2d and Lorient, I can load the savegame, but it crashes almost instantly once I start moving the boat. Or within a minute or two, if I remain at anchor.


I tried adding blocks to the end of the file, reflecting changes of flotilla and base (e.g. Reason=CSS_BaseChange) but those saves always crashed the game when I tried to load them.



"CurrentSDepartureDescription=" does not appear to be latitude and longitude in any standard, real-world format.



Suspect the coordinates are based on game "cells." Open-ish-world games like this one often use such regions to calculate what's happening. E.g., once you leave a cell, its state is saved and things are not being simulated "live" while you are away, to reduce processing load. Only the area immediately around your boat is "live." Just guessing though, based on what I've seen in other sims.


Another thing I don't get: near the top of the CareerTrack.upc file is "CurrentDate=1944-09-01 00:00:00" This is most definitely not the current time and date within the game when I saved, so I don't know what that field is supposed to show.

[WH4K]

I had to give up on that career. Game either crashed every time I tried to load a save, or would crash shortly after loading. Couldn't even cruise around the Atlantic to kill time until the war ended.


I tried starting over with a Type II career in the Baltic. Transferred to Kiel. After some success, received a IIC to replace my IIB. Got assigned (in French) to go photograph Fremantle harbor. WTF.


Gave up and uninstalled the mod. Oh well.

[Kongo Otto]

Why are neutral merchant ships in allied convoys?
Sunk a merchant out of a convoy and got a green killmark on the map, totally immersion breaking and ruins the patrol because of the negative rep hit you take.

If a neutral travels with a enemy convoy it is not a neutral merchant ship anymore and therefore a legit target.
Is this from Ubisofts original or is this part of the mod?

[propbeanie]

Don't sink neutrals. It is part of the Stock game, though there are unattractive work-arounds that could be tried...

[Kongo Otto]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Don't sink neutrals. It is part of the Stock game, though there are unattractive work-arounds that could be tried...

I already had the suspicion that this is part of the stock game.

Makes it quite unrealisitc when half of the enemy convoy is neutrals ships from Greece and Panama given the time of the attack (May 1940).
Well, back to SH3 it is then. Thanks for your efforts to fix that game, the mod is really good work. But this is a total immersion breaker.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Kongo Otto

I already had the suspicion that this is part of the stock game.

Makes it quite unrealisitc when half of the enemy convoy is neutrals ships from Greece and Panama given the time of the attack (May 1940).
Well, back to SH3 it is then. Thanks for your efforts to fix that game, the mod is really good work. But this is a total immersion breaker.

actually, the situation you describe is very real.
read any Battle of the Atlantic book and you will understand what i mean. Try Samuel Morison or E.B. Potter.
Ever heard of the USS Reuben James? She was neutral when she was sunk in 1941.

[Kongo Otto]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

actually, the situation you describe is very real.
read any Battle of the Atlantic book and you will understand what i mean. Try Samuel Morison or E.B. Potter.
Ever heard of the USS Reuben James? She was neutral when she was sunk in 1941.

I've heard about the Reuben James and and to be brutally frank right here, an US Navy destroyer escorting Convoys from Canada, a belligerent nation, until being sunk of off Iceland is anything but surely not neutral.

I would agree with the US Navy being neutral when they would have escorted britsh convoys inside US waters but Iceland is a bit far away of these waters.

Picking up a convoy in Nova Scotia (as Canada was a belligerent nation) and escorting it to England is generally not a act a neutral nation would do, it's a blatant violation of said neutrality.

In September 1941, Roosevelt publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel. In his speech of October 27, 1941, he once more expressly affirmed that this order was in force. Acting under this order, vessels of the American Navy, since early September 1941, have systematically attacked German Naval Forces. This also was a blatant breach of neutrality.

USS Reuben James, USS Greer and USS Kearney were explicitly named in the German declaration of war against the USA for exactly that reason.
Get yourself a copy it's in the National Archives.



TL;DR: The USS Reuben James was not a neutral, it was performing escort duties for a belligerent nation, which is nothing else than an act of war and was dealt with accordingly. End of story.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Kongo Otto

I've heard about the Reuben James and and to be brutally frank right here, an US Navy destroyer escorting Convoys from Canada, a belligerent nation, until being sunk of off Iceland is anything but surely not neutral.

I would agree with the US Navy being neutral when they would have escorted britsh convoys inside US waters but Iceland is a bit far away of these waters.

Picking up a convoy in Nova Scotia (as Canada was a belligerent nation) and escorting it to England is generally not a act a neutral nation would do, it's a blatant violation of said neutrality.

In September 1941, Roosevelt publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel. In his speech of October 27, 1941, he once more expressly affirmed that this order was in force. Acting under this order, vessels of the American Navy, since early September 1941, have systematically attacked German Naval Forces. This also was a blatant breach of neutrality.

USS Reuben James, USS Greer and USS Kearney were explicitly named in the German declaration of war against the USA for exactly that reason.
Get yourself a copy it's in the National Archives.



TL;DR: The USS Reuben James was not a neutral, it was performing escort duties for a belligerent nation, which is nothing else than an act of war and was dealt with accordingly. End of story.

calm down, Mein Herr.
i was merely pointing out that the inclusion of neutrals in UK convoys prior to December 1941 was a common occurrence. by playing this mod-set we are rewarded for sinking the enemy ships and penalized for sinking neutral ships.

it was not an indictment of German policy.

if you like sinking neutrals in DW, then edit the CFG file and change the penalty for sinking neutrals to positive points.

[propbeanie]

The easiest way is to change the "Neutral" multiplier in Basic.cfg from -1 to 1 (zero might work for no points for the neutrals, but I cannot remember - might be an "illegal math operation" in the game... wouldn't that be funny). The only time you get "reprimanded" in the game is if your points fall below a threshold, which is the MissionManager section of the UPC.cfg file. In DW, a -100 gets you a stern warning, while a -250 might get you drummed out of the Kriegsmarine...

While testing something else in DW environment I found this:



Seems like there is a wrong texture in ship M01B. I has a long white line in the right hand side of the texture M01B_T03.tga.

[AvusFisch]

Hey, I just bought the game from Steam and it keeps crashing once i click on start in the career.