[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