A mod that adjusts awards?

[Ekaton]

I haven’t played SH3 for quite a while, but I remember that even with GWX awards were really off. Once, I got really lucky and managed to sink about 100k tons on one patrol, mostly with my cannon, and only got awarded an Iron Cross 2nd class. Is there a mod that alters awards to make them more realistic? A feat like that surely merited something better.

[FUBAR295]

Not sure of any mod that adjusts awards like you are looking for exists.

I did find the following in my bag of tricks that might help from a posting by "Rudewarrior" ;

Re: [HOW TO] Fix an Unrealistic Promotion or Match Your Real Kommandant's Rank
« Reply #2 on: Today at 21:01:31 »
So BK wanted me to specifically comment on this topic, as I have been dicking around with these exact settings.

What is going on here is a unfortunate combination of problems for which there is no perfect solution (all too frequent in SH3).

So lets begin with rank. SH3 made the unfortunate mistake of starting you out with the rank of Leutnant zur See. I have seen no references to support this, but it is often commented that it did happen that U-Boot Kaleun's were sent to sea with the rank of Leutnant z. S., even though they did have officers under their command of higher rank, albeit rarely. I do not know how this happened, but I can only assume that somehow the Leutnant z. S. had wound up in command of a boat and a higher ranking person transferred in with no command experience or something like that. It probably has to do with the western naval anomaly of the Captain always being completely in charge of the ship, no matter what, even if someone of higher rank gets on. As an ex-soldier, I can say this is not the case in the Army where it is much simpler, highest ranking person is in charge, period.

So the typical rank structure in SH3 is posted above and reproduced here to put in one post:

-----------------------------------------------------------
170=Leutnant z. S.
171=Oberleutnant z. S.
172=Kapitänleutnant
173=Korvettenkapitän
174=Kapitän z. S.
-----------------------------------------------------------

The game starts you out at 170 (160 + 10, 10 being your PlayerRank (see below)). BK has been looking for where this number originates if anyone can help him with that. I just know it is written into your Career files.

When you are moving through your career, two files are created in your career folder, Careers_0.cfg and Careers.cfg. These correspond to your "In Base Before Mission" and "In Base After Mission" save games between patrols, respectively. I will use the mission number to keep track and rewrite them like so: "In Base Before Mission (2)" and "In Base After Mission (1)," respectively. The relevant lines you will see in the .cfg files look like:

-----------------------------------------------------------
PlayerName=Fritz Bittorf
PlayerRank=10
-----------------------------------------------------------

As you can see here Fritz has the rank of Leutnant z. S. This will be the lines generated in Careers_0.cfg under the heading [Career 000], which is the beginning entry in the file and corresponds to Mission 1. This file is generated automatically on launch of your new career and the first time you save at sea, in your save list, you will find a save game listed as "In Base Before Mission (1)."

Now lets talk about promotion. In your basic.cfg file, you will find in an installation, in this case GWX:

-----------------------------------------------------------
[PLAYER_RENOWN]
AcademyBonus=1000
RankLevel0=0; SCORE
RankLevel1=1499; SCORE
RankLevel2=7999; SCORE
RankLevel3=14999; SCORE
-----------------------------------------------------------

These rank levels correspond to the rank structure listed above with RankLevel0 corresponding to line 170=Leutnant z. S., etc.

Finally, at the end of a patrol, two save files are generated, "In Base After Mission (1)" and "In Base Before Mission (2)." These files are generated at the same time.

Here is where the problem begins. If I complete a patrol with between 1500 and 7999 renown. Everything is fine. I complete my patrol and I am promoted to Oberleutnant z. S. In the "In Base After Mission (1)" save game file, Careers.cfg, it will say under the heading [Career 000]

-----------------------------------------------------------
PlayerName=Fritz Bittorf
PlayerRank=10
-----------------------------------------------------------

The way the upranking manifests itself is in the "In Base Before Mission (2)" save game file, Careers_0.cfg, it will say under the heading [Career 001]

-----------------------------------------------------------
PlayerName=Fritz Bittorf
PlayerRank=11
-----------------------------------------------------------

Everything is fine.

However, if I have a kickass mission and come out with 8000+ renown, I will jump a rank and be promoted to Kapitänleutnant. Now in the Career_0.cfg file it will say

-----------------------------------------------------------
PlayerName=Fritz Bittorf
PlayerRank=12
-----------------------------------------------------------

Now I have jumped a rank and it becomes unrealistic.

Here is where we get to the problem. I have a couple of different ways to resolve this.

First, I could change the value for RankLevel2 from 7999 to something higher. This will fix the problem if you don't have an "even awesomer" patrol that pushes you over that renown level. In addition, you could have several great patrols and never get promoted to Kapitänleutnant, which may or may not be personally disturbing for you (I have also heard reaching this rank was rare and Korvettenkapitän was even rarer as a U-Boot Kaleun, again no sources for this).

Next, you could alter the rank structure, which gd suggests above, to something like this:

-----------------------------------------------------------
170=Oberleutnant z. S.
171=Kapitänleutnant
172=Korvettenkapitän
173=Fregattenkapitän
174=Kapitän z. S.
-----------------------------------------------------------

This rank structure is more accurate, but it creates a problem. SH3Commander doesn't like it and in your promotion history, it will result in no entry for you achieving Leutnant z. S. However, if you jump rank due to the awesome patrol cited above, S3C will react the same way, skipping a rank.

A third solution that I have been implementing is to physically alter the .cfg file myself. So if I go into the Careers_0.cfg file and edit the line and change the entry from 12 to 11, then everything reacts properly. This does mean that you will automatically promote rank after the next patrol, but now you at least have that entry in your S3C personnel file.

Just a couple of final notes:

Medals work the same way, so you have to space your MedalScore#= values to what you feel is appropriate or else you will quickly gain medals as well.
S3C does give you posthumous medals, but not posthumous rank. I have seen the rank promotion given in the final patrol report upon death, but it is not generated in your S3C personnel file. I suspect this is realistic, but it may not be. I haven't tried to experiment with fixing this, but I suspect editing some of the lines in the .cfg files above.
The "In Base..." files being generated at the same time creates problems, e.g. if you have been promoted and you load the game and pick the "In Base After Mission (1)" save game and then exit, you will see in the save files a new "In Base Before Mission (2)" save game. If you click on this and look at the mission summary, you will see that you will no longer have been promoted. :perdona: Keep this in mind when messing with the save files.


That is all. :Kaleun_Salute-1:

As a follow up post to show specifically how I have set it up, I will comment here.

What I use is a GWX hybrid install. I actually use the NYGM tonnage war philosophy where renown actually reflects tonnage, and there is no renown expenditures for technology upgrades, only time. So what I have in my en_menu.txt file is:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
170=Leutnant z. S.; Oberleutnant z. S.
171=Oberleutnant z. S.; Kapitänleutnant
172=Kapitänleutnant; Korvettenkapitän
173=Korvettenkapitän; Fregattenkapitän
174=;Kapitän z. S.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And in my basic.cfg file I have

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[PLAYER_RENOWN]
AcademyBonus=0; was 1000
RankLevel0=0; SCORE
RankLevel1=1000; was 1499 - SCORE
RankLevel2=15000; was 7999 - SCORE
RankLevel3=100000; was 15999 - SCORE
MedalSettings0=0.25
MedalSettings1=0.5
MedalSettings2=1
MedalScore0=15000; was 3000 2 class, SCORE
MedalScore1=45000; was 6000 1 class, SCORE
MedalScore2=100000; was 20000 knight, SCORE
MedalScore3=150000; was 30000 oak leaves, SCORE
MedalScore4=300000; was 40000 swords, SCORE
MedalScore5=500000; was 50000 diamonds, SCORE
MedalScore6=750000; was 90000 all, SCORE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So my rank and medal structures are more suited to renown being equal to tonnage rather than a fraction of it.

I am thinking of changing RankLevel2 to something more like 50000 and RankLevel3 to something correspondingly higher. This way I won't have to mess with save game files to get the result that I want. I feel like it is pretty easy to get 15 kT+ on one patrol in this game. I might up the medal ranks, too. I may have to do some research to get some better numbers. :pensativo:

An interesting artifact of this is that, because I use the variable tonnage from S3C, the tonnage in my personnel file is higher than my tonnage listed where it lists renown. I like to think of this as the discrepancy between what I report and what actually happened as it is known that Kaleuns regularly overestimated the tonnage of their targets. This is another reason that I think whatever data there is out there about how often torpedoes missed during the beginning of the war might be skewed toward duds/improper depth keeping of torpedoes, instead of reflecting crew error. :disimulo:

[CapZap1970]

There is also the Wreford Brown´s SH3 Cmdr Extra Promotions mod, that adds all the ranks, but I've never made it work properly, specially with the new super mods like Onealex. Perhaps if someone could take a look at it and see if making some modifications it can work the way it should, it would be a great thing!

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by FUBAR295

Re: [HOW TO] Fix an Unrealistic Promotion or Match Your Real Kommandant's Rank...

Would just like to take a moment to point out that is, in fact, my post before I was unceremoniously kicked out of DEF.

What I do now is I personally edit medal awards using SH3 Commander as I see fit based on some experimentation that I performed after that post.

[FUBAR295]

Originally Posted by rudewarrior

Would just like to take a moment to point out that is in fact my post before I was unceremoniously kicked out of DEF.

What I do now is I personally edit medal awards using SH3 Commander as I see fit based on some experimentation that I performed after that post.

Rudewarrior,

My apology for not making that known. Will edit the above post to reflect this.

It is a copy of your post that I just copied and pasted into a text file for future reference.

Good hunting,
FUBAR295

[FUBAR295]

Originally Posted by rudewarrior

Would just like to take a moment to point out that is in fact my post before I was unceremoniously kicked out of DEF.

You have a lot of good company in being excommunicated out of DEF, yours truly here, included.

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by FUBAR295

Rudewarrior,

My apology for not making that known.

No worries and thanx!

Originally Posted by FUBAR295

You have a lot of good company in being excommunicated out of DEF, yours truly here, included.

This I know. I won't waste time in this thread telling the story, but I'm sure there are plenty of interesting stories out there.

Just to finish on this subject. This is what my basic.cfg lines look like now with lots of reminders in place:

[PLAYER_RENOWN]
AcademyBonus=0; was 1000
RankLevel0=0; SCORE
RankLevel1=1000; was 1499 - SCORE
RankLevel2=50000; was 15000, 7999 - SCORE
RankLevel3=100000; was 15999 - SCORE
MedalSettings0=0.25
MedalSettings1=0.5
MedalSettings2=1
MedalScore0=15000; was 3000 2 class, SCORE - 1 Sep 1939
MedalScore1=45000; was 6000 1 class, SCORE - 1 Sept 1939
MedalScore2=100000; was 20000 knight, SCORE - 1 Sep 1939, German Cross at 75000 - 28 Sept 1941
MedalScore3=150000; was 30000 oak leaves, SCORE - 3 Jun 1940
MedalScore4=300000; was 40000 swords, SCORE - 28 Sep 1941
MedalScore5=500000; was 50000 diamonds, SCORE - 28 Sep 1941
MedalScore6=750000; was 90000 all, SCORE - 29 Dec 1944, U-boat war badge - 13 Oct 1939, U-boat front clasp - 15 May 1944

Dates listed are when the medal came into existence. Something I learned by doing extensive research was how the Nazis kept coming up with new and creative medals as the war dragged on. Had to keep the troops motivated!

Keep in mind here that I use a NYGM/GWX hybrid when it comes to tonnage. For those of you who were here during the NYGM vs. GWX flame wars, please pretend I didn't say anything. Don't want to start that up again.

It has been a little while since I last ragequit played the game. IIRC, medals are given upon returning to base in the "In Base After Mission" file and promotions are awarded the day you leave on your next mission in the "In Base Before Mission" file.

If you screw around with some of the entries in the Careers and Patrol files, you can get SH3 Commander to report sailors that are wounded and KIA, as well as aircraft shot down. Also note, the German Cross shows up after 3 patrols, and the U-boat Front Clasp shows up way earlier than it should.

The way the game awards medals and promotions is even worse than in my original post, but if you remain vigilant over time, you can manage it and make it more (whatever you consider to be) realistic.

I don't remember how to do all of this, but one good thing about this is that you can pretty much screw with anything here. First, make copies of anything you mess with. In addition, you can check everything just by generating the crew list and/or the personnel file in SH3 Cmdr instead of having to load the game. I am a bit hesitant to criticize anyone's coding work, but, ultimately, SH3 Cmdr is flexible for tinkering, albeit clunky.

Finally, this post may be relevant here.

Cheers!

[FUBAR295]

Originally Posted by rudewarrior

Finally, this post may be relevant here.

Cheers!

Your set up for this works very will. and use it for most of my career starts.

[John Pancoast]

Good stuff as always you two, many thanks ! And for those who may be unaware, rudewarrior's JFO mod is a must have in my book.