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This mod provides a 'poor man' Enigma in SH3. 'Poor man' because the encryption is very weak/poor. However, I consider this not to be very serious because the quality of the encryption hardly matters for a SH3 player.
How it works
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The mod consists of two parts: an in-game 'Enigma' (which is draggable) and an external tool to create encrypted radio messages for SH3.
The external tool:
The external tool is a packed perl script which takes all messages in a file named 'messages.txt' and creates a new file 'enc_messages.txt'. This file contains the encrypted messages. Empty spaces in a message are replaced by 'X' and the output is grouped in blocks of four letters. In order to get these messages into SH3, you have to copy the messages to your messages_de.txt or messages_en.txt depending on your language. In addition, the 'enc_messages.txt' also contains a list of numbers and letters. This list is required to decrypt the messages. You have to copy it to your de_menu.txt or en_menu.txt (again depending on your language) at the correct number position.
The script uses the replacement rule as given in the file "code.txt". You can change this if you want. If the script does not find the file "code.txt", it will generate a random code and give the replacement rule at the bottom of the file "enc_messages.txt".
The in-game 'Enigma':
The mod adds an 'Enigma' board to the radio message screen. If the mouse cursor is moved over a letter on the board, a different letter appears (see screenshots). To decrypt a message you just move the mouse cursor for every letter in the message over the corresponding letter on the board and write down the decrypted letter on a paper. A decrypted letter 'X' indicates either the letter 'X' or a space between words.
In addition to the Enigma machine, there is also a notepad which shows the decrypted letter when the encrypted letter is pressed (see screenshot). This notepad allows a quick decryption, however, it has also several drawbacks, see this thread: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=221973 (Second post).
To illustrate the mod and the external tool, I have included a NYGM and GWX version with a single encrypted message. To test it, start the 'Navigation' mission in the academy. At 18:00 you should receive an encrypted message.
Installation for a generic mod setup
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Just activate the mod 'Enigma' and copy the [G37 ...] entries from "Menu_enigma.ini" over your [G37 ...] entries in "menu_1024_768.ini". In addition, you have to add the two fonts to the beginning of the file "menu_1024_768.ini" (with the correct numbering. You might have to adapt the font numbering to your installation and change the numbers in the G37 block). Finally, you have to add the following entries to your de_menu.txt or en_menu.txt file:
Some tips
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- Before you encrypt messages, remove special characters like ä, ö, ü,... and also replace numbers by their written version, e.g., 7--->seven,...
- If you want to use different decryption keys for different periods, you can use SH3 Commander to adapt the '*_menu.txt' according to the date.
- The mod is set up according to the encryption given in "External Enc Script/code.txt". You can change the encryption if you want, however, in this case you have to change several parts of the mod, see the files in "Tycho Readmes".
- Since decrypting messages can become quite tedious, I recommend to encrypt only important messages for the player. For my personal use I have extracted about 50-100 important messages (e.g., orders concerning historical events,...) which I have encrypted. Now whenever I receive an encrypted message, I'm excited because I know it's important for my SH3 world/campaign. In this case the decryption is really thrilling.
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