Important information about LND layer (for RuB and others)

[Stavinsky]

I've put the finger on something that could cause troubles.
I don't know if people working hard on the LND layer have
discovered it already, but in case they haven't i prefer to share
this information.

I'm helping Rubini with the sub pen starting idea
and was beta testing the harbour traffic mod for RuB 1.43
when i got something strange.

I've collected most of the sub pen Coordinate and Heading
so i could simply open the LND layer file, find the
german Naval base and change the Latitude, Longitude
and Heading values to set it under a sub pen.

So when i started to beta test i founded that Bergen
was still starting in the "open sky" dock, and thinking
it has escaped previous change i got it opened
and searched for the german version of Bergen Naval Base.

There I noticed that the value were correctly inserted.
So i searched further and noticed that the naval
base definition for the Norway version of Bergen
is first in the file( unit 207 in the RuB version,
the german naval base is unit 208).

That looks like the parser used to seek an Harbour
is very simple.

It seek the First instance of the Harbour name in the LND
file and happily pick the coordinate and heading from it.

I was curious to see how simple the parser is
so i've "pushed" the idea further. I've modified
the order of the base in the LND file.

I put a Norway Naval Base for Bergen 1km to the East
in the mountain (244m high). When i started the
mission my sub started to roll down the moutain
( :rotfl:, pretty costly testing)

So, i've also modified other base , like having
the French version of Brest first in the LND file
and i found my submarine not at all in the supposed
starting point for the german base, but on the "french"
coordinate.

To be sure i've opened the original LND file from the
scratch installation, and i've seen that every german naval
base that could be having different nationality during the war
have their "german" version piously declined first in the file.

So i think everything point the fact that the parsing routine
is simple and we need to be cautious on order we use
when we define naval bases, at least when we have
to use them as starting point, with some specific coordinates.


That get me to a question for the team working on the RuB
LND Layer.

Can we swap the ordre of "units" in that file without disrupting
the other parts ? is the Unit numbering used in other parts
or not ?

If the order is not a decisive factor then we can
simply change things by swapping the harbour definition
around in the LND file.

Hope it helps, and thanks for any answer to the last question.
Stavinsky