Generic Ships are not so desirable

Stiebler · 05-29-06, 04:10 AM

Anyone who studies the campaign_RND.mis file in Mission Editor will find a lot of ships listed as 'generic'. In the file itself, they are distinguished from other ships by the fact that they have a type (eg type=4) but not a class (eg class=DDHuntI).

The original idea was that any ships of the same type present in the roster could be randomly substituted so that each game would be slightly different. I don't know whether the programmers intended that modders should create new ships that would also be randomly substituted.

There are two problems with this approach:

1. The trivial problem occurs when a randomly substituted ship is inappropriate. For example, on patrol recently, I encountered two of AG124's neat little new coastal tankers. Unfortunately, both were in mid Atlantic. What was particularly ridiculous was the occasion when a coastal tanker tagged along behind an enormous giant tanker, thundering along at 12 kts. The coastal tanker was striving to keep up, looking like a little poodle on a lead. Or even like a towed lifeboat.
Unfortunately, even writing special routes for the coastal tanker will not prevent it being used generically. [Solution - reclassify the coastal tanker NCOT to type 104 (coastal), not 101 (tanker)].

2. Much more serious is the use of generic escorts. In Mission Editor, the type is not assigned, and you cannot state whether they are escorting the convoy or merely attached to it. As I discovered recently, adding some new escorts to several convoy groups in Mission Editor, then saving the file, resulted in the new file having a selection of generic warship types (originally all escorts) changed randomly, so that some became battleships! One convoy I stumbled on during testing the new file had three King George V battleships in it (they could have been any generic battleship; the type had been changed to 11). The 'escort=true' of the original file had been changed for the battleships to 'escort=false'.
It took me about two hours to hand-change the altered warships in a word processor back to the way they had been in the original (backed-up).

There are three warnings here:
a) Never allow generic warship types if you add new convoys. At some point it's going to be necessary to reassign the existing generic types.
b) Be very careful about changing/adding to generic warships in Mission Editor for existing convoys.
c) If you're a modder making new ship types, think carefully about how they will fit in as generic substitutes for other ships of the same type.

Stiebler.

gouldjg · 05-29-06, 05:04 AM

They are a pain in the neck thats for sure. Thanks for the heads up

Der Teddy Bar · 05-29-06, 05:40 AM

I think this may be your issue with regards to the type of esort, or should I say battleship turning up.

To stop the notepad informing you that you went over a ship, the English.cfg (and German etc) was edited to remove the ship class names, so for example, Type0=Patrol Craft was changed to Type0=-

This causes the Mission Editor to not have the 'generic Ship Class' option for use in the random group selection.

So instead of having a Generic Battleship, Generic Fleet Carrier, Generic Destroyer, Generic Cruiser and so on, you will only get a single entry Generic.

Images....
With Generic Ship Class - http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7729/image18qc.jpg
Without Generic Ship Class - http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image28iz.jpg

So for editing, just have a copy of the file, drop it in when you are editing and drop the other one back when playing.

In this file, this...
;Warships
Type0=Patrol Craft
Type1=Corvette
Type2=Frigate
Type3=Destroyer Escort
Type4=Destroyer
Type5=Minesweeper
Type6=Light Cruiser
Type7=Heavy Cruiser
Type8=Escort Carrier
Type9=Fleet Carrier
Type10=Battlecruiser
Type11=Battleship
Type12=Minelayer
Type13=Auxiliary Cruiser

Has been changed to this
;Warships
Type0=-
Type1=-
Type2=-
Type3=-
Type4=-
Type5=-
Type6=-
Type7=-
Type8=-
Type9=-
Type10=-
Type11=-
Type12=-
Type13=-

Wulfmann · 05-29-06, 12:35 PM

Your argument only has validity because of inaccurate use of this much superior method.
Here is why.
Don't get your shorts in a knot, follow me.

One, the coastal tanker is a great example of poor choice of designation, you prove this. I added that to mine but changed it to a 104 from the tanker 101. Now it only shows up in coastal areas. problem solved.

You also have a good point on escorts but there is much more to it than that.
Destroyers were rarely used as convoy escorts so adding a type4 means a Tribal or J-Class might be where it never would be (in a convoy)
Or, a Hunt (These were DEs in real life and should never have been a DD in SH3) or V&W might be escorting a KGV class BB. All wrong.
Also wrong are a bunch of single DD type 4 with a BB anyway. They should all be the same as DD squads were assigned in groups of the same class. This was not iron clad but was typical although more than one such group could be together. But, that would then be say 4 J-class and 2 Tribal not 6 each a different class.

How to remedy this?

Make the coastal tanker a 104 and the talented builder should only offer this as a 104, IMO.
Convoys should (early) have type 0. 2 and named DDs in them. The V&W were used for convoys because they were too worn for fleet use. Later the C-Class were converted to be DEs (Wrongly labeled River class in SH3, these are the modified A-G class)
Later convoys would add type 1 (Mid 1940 on) and be mostly type 3 with some 1 and 2 types from 1942 on with no type 4 (unless a Hunt, V&W, Clemson or C-Class named, no generic 4) These type 4 from 1942 on should mostly be Hunt class I, II or III.

Wherever possible generic allows more variation so you can not recognize a convoy, very unrealistic to know its make up just from the lead DD!!!!

I have edited the RND convoys so many cargo (102) are generic to vary the make up. It allows the KGN (and any new 102) to appear and mixes up the ships each time.
I do not use generic 101, tankers or 103 troopships (because of the hospital ship, should not appear in a convoy).
In one way it is easier for me to make this argument because I have the unreleased ships from the next SW Mediterranean add on which includes 1 new 0, 3 new type 2 a Hunt DE type 3, many more DDs and cargos which changing things to generic allows any new ships to readily be used without future editing.

You make some valid points but what needs to be done is edit things to accept proper generic use and eliminate the things that mess that up..
One thing someone could do to help this would be to edit all 3 Hunt classes to be type 3, DE. By adding 3 more DEs to the one River (and the GW adding a Yank in His Majesty's service, good move) would mean 5 possible. Then changing most 1942 convoy escorts to a generic 3 would make things more real. If real is important

Wulfmann

bigboywooly · 05-29-06, 01:17 PM

Hi thanx for the above
Am ploughing my way thru RND now - can you tell me what a type 100 is ?Replenishment

CCIP · 05-29-06, 01:23 PM

I believe that's the milkcow that never made it to the game. Ignore it.

bigboywooly · 05-29-06, 01:31 PM

no the milkcow is Type201=Replenishment Submarine

Type5=Minesweeper
Type7=Heavy Cruiser
Type12=Minelayer
The above never made it into the game either unless UBI were banking on someone modding them for them

Ducimus · 05-29-06, 01:31 PM

Ive used Generic destroyer escorts with reguarlity and i havent noticed anything odd in game at all.

bigboywooly · 05-29-06, 02:00 PM

While I agree with the comments about the Coastal tanker - came across one myself in tow with a large cargo in the middle of the Atlantic - does that not mean that the Coastal merc should be a 104 as well ??
And if change it and taker to a 104 will they still appear or is there any other changes to RND or SCR to enable them around the coast

Wulfmann · 05-29-06, 02:44 PM

D, there is only one DE in the stock game and GW added a Brit version of a US DE so you would not notice anything odd with DEs. It is DDs that are AFU. Making type 4 generic allows for DDs that would never escort convoys to do so and allow DDs that would never escort a task force to do so.
So, Type 4 should not be generic, IMO in the RND.

In fact, SH3 devs should have made what was what by dividing them into warship escorts and convoys escorts to allow more accurate placement. Since they did noy bother to place the ships in the correct classes anyway.

Making the coastal stuff type 104 means they only appear in coastal waters. There are no type 104 in convoys. The RND file ask for type 104 generic in almost every case.
Nothing else need be done to make that coastal tanker a 104.

Unfortunately, that is not the case for changing the Hunt class from a type 4 to a type 3.
Can someone explain why warships can not be easily reclassed whereas the coastal tanker can by the simple edit?

Wulfmann

bigboywooly · 05-29-06, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wulfmann

Making the coastal stuff type 104 means they only appear in coastal waters. There are no type 104 in convoys. The RND file ask for type 104 generic in almost every case.
Nothing else need be done to make that coastal tanker a 104.

Wulfmann

Yeah noticed no 104 in convoy as ploughing thru it just wondered if change coastal merc to a 104 will they appear around coastal areas without anything further being added or will they spawn anyway as not noticed 104 in RND at all

booger2005 · 05-30-06, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

Yeah noticed no 104 in convoy as ploughing thru it just wondered if change coastal merc to a 104 will they appear around coastal areas without anything further being added or will they spawn anyway as not noticed 104 in RND at all

Simply changing the coastal merchant will get them to appear as coastal traffic since all coastal traffic is generic in the RND layer. However, don't do this, as you may run into the following problem. Unless you've edited the convoys yourself, the coastal tankers are specifically scripted into convoys. The RND file looks like this:

[RndGroup 1.RndUnit 1]
Class=KSQ
Type=102
Origin=British
Side=0
CargoExt=1
CargoInt=0
CfgDate=19410401
No=1
Escort=false
SpawnProbability=100
CrewRating=2

So the mission associates each ship with a class. So simply changing type association will throw a great big monkey wrench into your RND layer. I'm not sure exacly what will happen, but I'm sure CTD is not out of the question, not to mention hampering your ability to use the mission editor. You'll need to go through the RND layer and remove all Class=KSQ lines (find all "Class=KSQ" Replace with ";")

Anyway, don't let the name fool you. There were quite a few 2000 tonners and even smaller ships that sailed in convoys. I personally don't mind seeing them in convoys.

booger2005 · 05-30-06, 01:39 AM

My appologies for loosing control of the font size. Don't have time to figure out how to fix it now.

bigboywooly · 05-30-06, 02:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by booger2005

Simply changing the coastal merchant will get them to appear as coastal traffic since all coastal traffic is generic in the RND layer. However, don't do this, as you may run into the following problem. Unless you've edited the convoys yourself, the coastal tankers are specifically scripted into convoys. The RND file looks like this:

[RndGroup 1.RndUnit 1]
Class=KSQ
Type=102
Origin=British
Side=0
CargoExt=1
CargoInt=0
CfgDate=19410401
No=1
Escort=false
SpawnProbability=100
CrewRating=2

So the mission associates each ship with a class. So simply changing type association will throw a great big monkey wrench into your RND layer. I'm not sure exacly what will happen, but I'm sure CTD is not out of the question, not to mention hampering your ability to use the mission editor. You'll need to go through the RND layer and remove all Class=KSQ lines (find all "Class=KSQ" Replace with ";")

Anyway, don't let the name fool you. There were quite a few 2000 tonners and even smaller ships that sailed in convoys. I personally don't mind seeing them in convoys.

Yes I was removing all KSQ from RND and SCR too
Not that I mind seeing them in convoys just a pain when over 50% of the convoy is made up of them and small mercs
Have been removing the class line completly so the game will throw in ny generic 102 including the new ones as have yet to see a large cargo in a convoy

Stiebler · 05-30-06, 02:49 AM

Wulfmann makes some interesting points concerning the composition of the convoy escorts. I'll look into adopting most/all these ideas for the next NYGM campaign files - too late for the next release after all the massive current testing.

As for adding generic new types of merchant ship, I used a programmatic solution to insert randomly new agreed types into the existing campaign files. We prefer not to allow generic types from any source, since Teddy Bar has to fix the damage zones for slow sinking. I am personally dubious about untried new ships anyway - someone else can test them first before they get incorporated.

Teddy Bar's solution for generic warships in Mission editor (change the English.cfg file) does indeed work - now he tells me!

Stiebler.

05-29-06, 04:10 AM	#1
Stiebler Fuel Supplier Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 1,237 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 4	Generic Ships are not so desirable Anyone who studies the campaign_RND.mis file in Mission Editor will find a lot of ships listed as 'generic'. In the file itself, they are distinguished from other ships by the fact that they have a type (eg type=4) but not a class (eg class=DDHuntI). The original idea was that any ships of the same type present in the roster could be randomly substituted so that each game would be slightly different. I don't know whether the programmers intended that modders should create new ships that would also be randomly substituted. There are two problems with this approach: 1. The trivial problem occurs when a randomly substituted ship is inappropriate. For example, on patrol recently, I encountered two of AG124's neat little new coastal tankers. Unfortunately, both were in mid Atlantic. What was particularly ridiculous was the occasion when a coastal tanker tagged along behind an enormous giant tanker, thundering along at 12 kts. The coastal tanker was striving to keep up, looking like a little poodle on a lead. Or even like a towed lifeboat. Unfortunately, even writing special routes for the coastal tanker will not prevent it being used generically. [Solution - reclassify the coastal tanker NCOT to type 104 (coastal), not 101 (tanker)]. 2. Much more serious is the use of generic escorts. In Mission Editor, the type is not assigned, and you cannot state whether they are escorting the convoy or merely attached to it. As I discovered recently, adding some new escorts to several convoy groups in Mission Editor, then saving the file, resulted in the new file having a selection of generic warship types (originally all escorts) changed randomly, so that some became battleships! One convoy I stumbled on during testing the new file had three King George V battleships in it (they could have been any generic battleship; the type had been changed to 11). The 'escort=true' of the original file had been changed for the battleships to 'escort=false'. It took me about two hours to hand-change the altered warships in a word processor back to the way they had been in the original (backed-up). There are three warnings here: a) Never allow generic warship types if you add new convoys. At some point it's going to be necessary to reassign the existing generic types. b) Be very careful about changing/adding to generic warships in Mission Editor for existing convoys. c) If you're a modder making new ship types, think carefully about how they will fit in as generic substitutes for other ships of the same type. Stiebler.

05-29-06, 05:04 AM	#2
gouldjg Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Manchester UK Posts: 881 Downloads: 4 Uploads: 0	They are a pain in the neck thats for sure. Thanks for the heads up __________________ My Mods Gouldjg's Crew Ability Balancing Mod for SH5 1.2 http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=169630

05-29-06, 12:35 PM	#4
Wulfmann Ace of the Deep Join Date: May 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 1,010 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	Your argument only has validity because of inaccurate use of this much superior method. Here is why. Don't get your shorts in a knot, follow me. One, the coastal tanker is a great example of poor choice of designation, you prove this. I added that to mine but changed it to a 104 from the tanker 101. Now it only shows up in coastal areas. problem solved. You also have a good point on escorts but there is much more to it than that. Destroyers were rarely used as convoy escorts so adding a type4 means a Tribal or J-Class might be where it never would be (in a convoy) Or, a Hunt (These were DEs in real life and should never have been a DD in SH3) or V&W might be escorting a KGV class BB. All wrong. Also wrong are a bunch of single DD type 4 with a BB anyway. They should all be the same as DD squads were assigned in groups of the same class. This was not iron clad but was typical although more than one such group could be together. But, that would then be say 4 J-class and 2 Tribal not 6 each a different class. How to remedy this? Make the coastal tanker a 104 and the talented builder should only offer this as a 104, IMO. Convoys should (early) have type 0. 2 and named DDs in them. The V&W were used for convoys because they were too worn for fleet use. Later the C-Class were converted to be DEs (Wrongly labeled River class in SH3, these are the modified A-G class) Later convoys would add type 1 (Mid 1940 on) and be mostly type 3 with some 1 and 2 types from 1942 on with no type 4 (unless a Hunt, V&W, Clemson or C-Class named, no generic 4) These type 4 from 1942 on should mostly be Hunt class I, II or III. Wherever possible generic allows more variation so you can not recognize a convoy, very unrealistic to know its make up just from the lead DD!!!! I have edited the RND convoys so many cargo (102) are generic to vary the make up. It allows the KGN (and any new 102) to appear and mixes up the ships each time. I do not use generic 101, tankers or 103 troopships (because of the hospital ship, should not appear in a convoy). In one way it is easier for me to make this argument because I have the unreleased ships from the next SW Mediterranean add on which includes 1 new 0, 3 new type 2 a Hunt DE type 3, many more DDs and cargos which changing things to generic allows any new ships to readily be used without future editing. You make some valid points but what needs to be done is edit things to accept proper generic use and eliminate the things that mess that up.. One thing someone could do to help this would be to edit all 3 Hunt classes to be type 3, DE. By adding 3 more DEs to the one River (and the GW adding a Yank in His Majesty's service, good move) would mean 5 possible. Then changing most 1942 convoy escorts to a generic 3 would make things more real. If real is important Wulfmann __________________ "The right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed upon, if only to prevent tyranny in government" Thomas Jefferson,; Constitutional debates

05-29-06, 01:17 PM	#5
bigboywooly Rear Admiral Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Swindon, England Posts: 10,151 Downloads: 35 Uploads: 0	Hi thanx for the above Am ploughing my way thru RND now - can you tell me what a type 100 is ?Replenishment __________________ My mediafire page http://www.mediafire.com/?11eoq19bq9r41

05-29-06, 01:23 PM	#6
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	I believe that's the milkcow that never made it to the game. Ignore it. __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

05-29-06, 05:40 AM	#3
Der Teddy Bar Blade Master Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,388 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	I think this may be your issue with regards to the type of esort, or should I say battleship turning up. To stop the notepad informing you that you went over a ship, the English.cfg (and German etc) was edited to remove the ship class names, so for example, Type0=Patrol Craft was changed to Type0=- This causes the Mission Editor to not have the 'generic Ship Class' option for use in the random group selection. So instead of having a Generic Battleship, Generic Fleet Carrier, Generic Destroyer, Generic Cruiser and so on, you will only get a single entry Generic. Images.... With Generic Ship Class - http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7729/image18qc.jpg Without Generic Ship Class - http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image28iz.jpg So for editing, just have a copy of the file, drop it in when you are editing and drop the other one back when playing. In this file, this... ;Warships Type0=Patrol Craft Type1=Corvette Type2=Frigate Type3=Destroyer Escort Type4=Destroyer Type5=Minesweeper Type6=Light Cruiser Type7=Heavy Cruiser Type8=Escort Carrier Type9=Fleet Carrier Type10=Battlecruiser Type11=Battleship Type12=Minelayer Type13=Auxiliary Cruiser Has been changed to this ;Warships Type0=- Type1=- Type2=- Type3=- Type4=- Type5=- Type6=- Type7=- Type8=- Type9=- Type10=- Type11=- Type12=- Type13=-

05-29-06, 01:31 PM	#7
bigboywooly Rear Admiral Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Swindon, England Posts: 10,151 Downloads: 35 Uploads: 0	no the milkcow is Type201=Replenishment Submarine Type5=Minesweeper Type7=Heavy Cruiser Type12=Minelayer The above never made it into the game either unless UBI were banking on someone modding them for them __________________ My mediafire page http://www.mediafire.com/?11eoq19bq9r41

05-29-06, 01:31 PM	#8
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	Ive used Generic destroyer escorts with reguarlity and i havent noticed anything odd in game at all.

05-29-06, 02:00 PM	#9
bigboywooly Rear Admiral Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Swindon, England Posts: 10,151 Downloads: 35 Uploads: 0	While I agree with the comments about the Coastal tanker - came across one myself in tow with a large cargo in the middle of the Atlantic - does that not mean that the Coastal merc should be a 104 as well ?? And if change it and taker to a 104 will they still appear or is there any other changes to RND or SCR to enable them around the coast __________________ My mediafire page http://www.mediafire.com/?11eoq19bq9r41

05-29-06, 02:44 PM	#10
Wulfmann Ace of the Deep Join Date: May 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 1,010 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	D, there is only one DE in the stock game and GW added a Brit version of a US DE so you would not notice anything odd with DEs. It is DDs that are AFU. Making type 4 generic allows for DDs that would never escort convoys to do so and allow DDs that would never escort a task force to do so. So, Type 4 should not be generic, IMO in the RND. In fact, SH3 devs should have made what was what by dividing them into warship escorts and convoys escorts to allow more accurate placement. Since they did noy bother to place the ships in the correct classes anyway. Making the coastal stuff type 104 means they only appear in coastal waters. There are no type 104 in convoys. The RND file ask for type 104 generic in almost every case. Nothing else need be done to make that coastal tanker a 104. Unfortunately, that is not the case for changing the Hunt class from a type 4 to a type 3. Can someone explain why warships can not be easily reclassed whereas the coastal tanker can by the simple edit? Wulfmann __________________ "The right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed upon, if only to prevent tyranny in government" Thomas Jefferson,; Constitutional debates

05-30-06, 01:39 AM	#13
booger2005 Engineer Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Akron Ohio Posts: 204 Downloads: 11 Uploads: 0	My appologies for loosing control of the font size. Don't have time to figure out how to fix it now.

05-30-06, 02:49 AM	#15
Stiebler Fuel Supplier Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 1,237 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 4	Wulfmann makes some interesting points concerning the composition of the convoy escorts. I'll look into adopting most/all these ideas for the next NYGM campaign files - too late for the next release after all the massive current testing. As for adding generic new types of merchant ship, I used a programmatic solution to insert randomly new agreed types into the existing campaign files. We prefer not to allow generic types from any source, since Teddy Bar has to fix the damage zones for slow sinking. I am personally dubious about untried new ships anyway - someone else can test them first before they get incorporated. Teddy Bar's solution for generic warships in Mission editor (change the English.cfg file) does indeed work - now he tells me! Stiebler.