[Seaboy]

Well, if all you want to do is make a mission with the uboat going through triggered events for ONE DAY, then sh3 is for you. But if you want your sub to travel over many days and to hit many triggered events over those days, then Sh2 is for you.

WHY?

I just spend about 2 days designing a long mission that would cover about 5 days and that would consume most of the fuel of a uboat. I really only tested the game in chunks, meaning that I would set the time up to where ever my sub was so I could test things as I built. But then when I set my sub back at the real start, suddenly, as the first timed radio message came in, so did all the messages for the next 5 days (except those that were timed to take place that very day).

At first I thought I had made too many triggers, and so I chopped and tested. Then I thought maybe my file was messed up, but I checked into the text-code and saw nothing. But then I made a small test mission with 5 timed events. As long as they all took place in the same day - everything worked great, but if I spread them over two days - SCREW UP.

Here is how it works: lets say I have 6 timed events, 3 on May 1 at 0800, 0900, & 1000 on the clock. Then have 3 more on May 2 at 0100, 0200, & 0800. When the game starts on May 1 at say 0759, the game wil read May 2 as May 1 and all the earlier triggers will (those before 0759) will fire off. The one on May 2, at 0800 will fire off along with the one from May 1, 0800. Simply put the SH3 game reads all day dates as 0. Only the clock times count for triggering events. The day function does not work - I am not sure about months and years - didn't test that.

But this may explain alot of screw ups that take place with spawning. Now the way to get around this is to not use triggers with day functions, but instead use triggers with map-zone functions. This would work in small water areas, but in large ocean areas it would be difficult. It also makes it hard to fail a mission is the player reaches a goal, say home base, late. Unless that goal is just ONE DAY away.

One reason I had so many triggers was because the radio message pages only allow for postage stamp sized messages. That works for very small orders, like: "be more agressive! Go get'em!" BUt not for real sounding BdU naval orders. Well, yes you can write a paragraph, but that's it.

Another reason I had so many was because SH3 won't let me start a sub out low on fuel and low on torpedos. SO I had to trigger in lots of early orders and events to reduce the fuel and fish before the main mission began. So I needed a few extra days.

But with just one day to use.....I have to place the sub right on target, and it wil have full fuel and weapons. :dead:

[Seaboy]

Here are 2 sets from 2 missions I made showing some timed triggers:

set 1:

[Trigger 1]
TrigName=radio1
Type=1
Time=1

[Trigger 3]
TrigName=radio2
Type=1
Time=7

and then set 2:


[Trigger 4]
TrigName=r4
Type=1
Time=3

[Trigger 5]
TrigName=r5
Type=1
Time=1441

note that the time data merely says things like "Time=3" (meaning 3 minutes) or "time=1441" (14th hour and 41st minute) but note that there are no DAYS mentioned at all. Which is crazy because in the editor there was a place for indicating the day! And while at the header section of the mission the day and year is mentioned once, no other day is ever mentioned. What that means is, is that when the editor asks for the day when building triggers, it never actually uses that information in making the mission!


So could I manually add a "day=2"? I haven't tried that yet and I am not even sure what the syntax should be.

I checked all the missions that came with SH3 and I checked the campaign files and I noted that term 'trigger' with a 'time' never appears. Meaning that the SH3 Devs never used those kinds of triggers. And now I can see why - they don't work.

[Aviar]

The 'Time' parameter is measured in minutes, beginning from the start of the mission. So, 1441 is not 14 hours and 41 minutes. Instead, it is 24 hours and 1 minute into the mission (1441 minutes).

However, there does seem to be a bug here. Any time triggers from day 2 and on, seem to trip at the start of the mission.

Aviar