Patrol Start Dates

[Sharkley]

Working on a little project and I need to know the following.

No matter what month you select to start your patrol (using SH3COMMANDER)
do you always start at the 1st of the month ??

If not what dates do you typically see ??

Many Thanks

[Oneshot/Onekill]

Unfortunately due to SH3 game limitations you can only start at the first of every month. the GWX team added the ability to start in Aug of 1939 so that you could reach your assigned patrol area before the war officially began, unfortunatley you have to start on the 1st.

[Sharkley]

That is what I thought.

Thanks !!

[Sailor Steve]

Yep, 'tis true. The stock game only lets you start at the first of September 1939, and the first of January 1940, '41, '42 and '43. A long time ago a fellow who goes by Beery made a mod that lets you start at the beginning of any month of the war. But even he couldn't make it start on any other day of the month but the first.

[JScones]

Just to be pedantic, it's only the first patrol of a career that defaults to the first day of the month. But this can be fudged to any date with a combination of coding and user interaction. It's the user interaction part that has stopped me from building it into SH3Cmdr; but it is very easy to achieve with just a basic understanding of the game files and a smidge of lateral thinking - there's a post explaining how to achieve it around here somewhere.

Subsequent patrols can start on any date.

[Oneshot/Onekill]

I stand corrected..thanks for clearing that up

[Jimbuna]

A quick way would be to simply add an upgrade, let's say hydrophones and a few days are totted up.

[JScones]

Arguably the most user friendly way is to change the below block in Basic.cfg (it's right at the end, so very easy to find):

[SPECIAL2]; emblems
DaysSpent=0 <- days offset. Set to the day that you want to start during the month that you selected within SH3Cmdr
Nb=1
Renown0=0
Name0=

Then just get your users to ensure that they select an emblem when they first start a new career. I'm guessing that most players do this anyway, so it's prolly the most intuitive way to do it.

Just keep in mind that this may provoke the missing tonnage bug.

Hmmm, just thinking about it, I might add:

[0:data\Cfg\Basic.cfg]
SPECIAL2|DaysSpent=I|0|28|N

to my Randomised events.cfg file so as to randomise the starting date of all my subsequent new careers. As I only ever select one emblem during a career, and always before my first patrol, what value it subsequently gets set to is irrelevent (although I can manually remark out the line after the first running and unremark it prior to starting any new career), so I can add it once and forget about it. Too easy.

[Oneshot/Onekill]

Hmmm this is some really interesting stuff. I wish i had known about this awhile back, as the only upgrade i add at the beginning of a career is my U-boat emblem, which i am pretty sure does not trigger the missing tonnage, or renown bugs.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Yep, 'tis true. The stock game only lets you start at the first of September 1939, and the first of January 1940, '41, '42 and '43. A long time ago a fellow who goes by Beery made a mod that lets you start at the beginning of any month of the war. But even he couldn't make it start on any other day of the month but the first.

I think you mean any year of the war. Beery's Flotilla mod added default start months for 1944 and 1945. Only SH3Cmdr easily allows players to change the start month to whatever they want, within the Flotilla's existing life span of course (which is defined in the game, not SH3Cmdr).

[JScones]

Originally Posted by Oneshot/Onekill

Hmmm this is some really interesting stuff. I wish i had known about this awhile back, as the only upgrade i add at the beginning of a career is my U-boat emblem, which i am pretty sure does not trigger the missing tonnage, or renown bugs.

I've *never* had the missing tonnage bug and I've *always* set an emblem up front. However, there's posts scattered throughout this forum from players who've experienced the bug that are adamant that all they "upgraded" was the emblem. So, YMMV.

My guess is that it's linked to *anything* you choose that changes the start day from the first of the month (as GWX and IIRC most other mods now set the emblem days spent value to 0, it could explain why no-one running these mods experience the problem if it's all they upgrade). It's not the first SH3 bug that seems linked to indexing errors.

[Oneshot/Onekill]

I definitely think your on to something here.

[JScones]

I should clarify for anyone reading this and wondering how changing the start day can have any bearing on not getting any tonnage recorded for ships sunk, the "missing tonnage" bug is actually more than just missing tonnage. It's missing dates as well; the career start date and flotilla start date are both set to 0/0/0, thus my suggestion that, like the null patrol grid "bug", it's an internal SH3 indexing error.

IIRC renown awarded is not affected.

[Sharkley]

Originally Posted by JScones

Just to be pedantic, it's only the first patrol of a career that defaults to the first day of the month. But this can be fudged to any date with a combination of coding and user interaction. It's the user interaction part that has stopped me from building it into SH3Cmdr; but it is very easy to achieve with just a basic understanding of the game files and a smidge of lateral thinking - there's a post explaining how to achieve it around here somewhere.

Subsequent patrols can start on any date.

Thanks, I was only thinking of the 1st patrol. The day is not as important as the month. So I won't worry about changing any settings.

But thanks for providing the great info !!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by JScones

...it is very easy to achieve with just a basic understanding of the game files...

Sir, you ask too much!:rotfl:

I think you mean any year of the war. Beery's Flotilla mod added default start months for 1944 and 1945. Only SH3Cmdr easily allows players to change the start month to whatever they want, within the Flotilla's existing life span of course (which is defined in the game, not SH3Cmdr).

Show-off!

Just kidding. I don't remember that part, but then I've been using Commander since the day you released the first version, so I'm probably wrong (what else is new?).