I play a heavily modded GWX with S3C. One thing this configuration allows you to do is to start your patrol on 19 Aug 1939, so that you can simulate being one of the U-Boots on patrol during the opening shots of the war. However, in order to do this, you have to conduct a small patrol at the beginning of August that runs 4-5 days. Then in S3C, you set an appropriate number of days in base such that you start on 19 Aug, and off you go.
However, there is one problem. Unfortunately, the initial shakedown patrol you perform is considered a combat patrol by S3C for all intents and purposes. This throws off your career length if you are using that option, and your individual crew members get an extra combat patrol under their belt. I found this behavior annoying.
I found a remedy that allows you to completely eliminate the shakedown patrol from your career history, so that you can have a better looking personnel file and no career issues. I have written this procedure with the understanding that you have completed your first two patrols, with the first one being your shakedown patrol. If you have changed personnel between the two patrols, do not edit any information for new crewmen. None of their stats should be changed and by the end of the procedure they will have the same level of experience as the shakedown crew, instead of the shakedown crew getting undeserved experience and combat patrol recognition for the shakedown patrol.
One final point, I am aware that some of these steps may be cosmetic and/or unnecessary, but I have tried to be complete as possible. We don't want any CTD's from the quirkiness of SH3's software.
After you have returned to base from your second patrol (first combat patrol) and before you have done any crew management through S3C
e.g. awarding medals, go into your career folder, designated by your commander's name, and conduct the following steps:
- Delete folder "0."
- Rename folder "1" to folder "0."
- Go into your newly named folder 0. Open each file with the name crew_config_<save game name>.cfg. Remember, this only applies to shakedown crew members ONLY. Change all lines of Patrols=1 to Patrols=0. Change all lines of Experience=501.000000 to one less at Experience=500.000000. Do the same for entries of 401, 301, 201, 151, 101, 51, 21, and 1. You have now eliminated the "experience" gained from the shakedown patrol.
- Go back out to the main career folder, and delete Log_0.cfg.
- Rename Log_1.cfg to Log_0.cfg.
- Delete Crew_Career_00.cfg and Crew_Career_0.cfg.
- Rename the following files:
Crew_Career_10.cfg -> Crew_Career_00.cfg
Crew_Career_1.cfg -> Crew_Career_0.cfg
Crew_Career_20.cfg -> Crew_Career_10.cfg
- Open Crew_Career_00.cfg and do the exact same thing as conducted in step 3 above (for shakedown crew members ONLY).
- Open Crew_Career_0.cfg and Crew_Career_10.cfg do the same thing as conducted in step 3 above, but with a couple of slight differences. First, instead of doing Patrols=1 -> Patrols=0, do Patrols=2 -> Patrols=1. You also have to change the experience lines as well; however, if you sunk any ships, it is likely that your crew members have picked up more than one point of experience, as they get a default of one per patrol. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think that crewman can gain different experience per mission. Either way, we will operate on that assumption. The way to quickly check is in your S3C interface. Click on "Click for available actions...," and then click on "Manage your crew..." From there you can look at each crew member and see how much experience he has gained. In my most recent patrol, they had all gained 6 points from the last two missions (including the shakedown patrol), so my highest ranking officer sat at an experience of 506. So I had to change Experience=506.000000 to Experience=505.000000 for his entry. Do the same for all the other entries reducing all of their Experience values by 1 (Again, for shakedown crew members ONLY) You can adapt the method from step 3 above to help facilitate this.
- Open Careers_0.cfg. Under [INIT] Change Careers=2 -> Careers=1. Completely eliminate the first career listing. This means the block of entries beginning with [CAREER 000] and all entries after up to and including the line Hydrophones_Receivers=. Change the remaining career listings such that they are all one less e.g. [CAREER 001] -> [CAREER 000]
- Open Patrols_0.cfg and do the same thing except under [INIT] change Patrols=2 -> Patrols=1. Also, the listings end at ChangedRank= and the headings will look like [PATROL 000] instead.
- Open Patrols.cfg and do the same thing that you did for Patrols_0.cfg. In addition, under [PATROL 000], change PatrolNumber=1 to PatrolNumber=0.
- Open Careers.cfg and do the same thing as you did in step 10, but then you will do some extra work. Make sure that the [INIT] block remains AFTER your first career listing, i.e. it is after the block headed by [CAREER 000]. For some reason the [INIT] block is in a different location in this file. Change the following lines:
CareerNumber=1 -> CareerNumber=0
Patrols=2 -> Patrols=1
NbPatrolsInFlotilla0=2 -> NbPatrolsInFlotilla0=1
Then delete the entry in PortName=. Finally, the first entry in this file has a slightly different sequence. Take all lines from AttackPeriscope=0.000000 to Hydrophones_Receivers=0.000000, inclusive, and cut and paste them immediately after [CAREER 000] and before the next line, CareerNumber=0.
Congratulations! You have gone from this:
to this:
I am wondering if you could do this mid-patrol. It would certainly make for less work in that step 3 could be reduced considerably. However, I think, upon death/quitting, at least some of the other files are generated, so you would have to be doing that work anyway. Also,if you are coding or even using Notepad++ doing the extra work for the other save games would be a non-issue.
Always safer in port anyway.
