Shared Designs from campaign start

[Stormsword]

I've made it a project of mine recently to try create a full roster of shared designs for the AI to draw from in order to minimise or eliminate AI-generated designs until they're a bit less Frankenstein-ish than they are currently - it's been something that's taken me out of the immersion campaigns might otherwise offer. I put quite a bit of effort in to that end - I have a set of at least 1 design in each category for every nation (barring battlecruisers occasionally) for 1925, 1930, 1935, and 1940, though I don't have very many designs dotted in between. However, when I actually started a 1930 campaign, every AI design was autogenerated, and despite quite a bit of testing I've been unable to make the AI draw on my shared designs for the campaign start. Is this a regular issue, or am I just going to have to accept our AI overlords ruling over every start design? And, if not, what steps would I need to take in order to ensure the AI uses my designs?

[Panzergraf]

It helps if you make ships that are from a couple of years before the campaign start. For my current German campaign, starting year 1910, I made a lot of shared designs too.
The 1908 designs I made were built from the start, the 1910 designs were not.

Since then, up until the current year (1946) the AI has not built any additional Shared Design ships, even though I have been periodically "feeding" them tech by editing the save file to make sure they weren't just lagging too far behind.

[o Barão]

4 hours ago, Stormsword said:

However, when I actually started a 1930 campaign, every AI design was autogenerated, and despite quite a bit of testing I've been unable to make the AI draw on my shared designs for the campaign start. Is this a regular issue, or am I just going to have to accept our AI overlords ruling over every start design? And, if not, what steps would I need to take in order to ensure the AI uses my designs?

The answer and the solution.

 

The reason is every time you set a new campaign, the game will use the previous 4 years to design the ships before the first turn.

 

The solution to solve this issue is to:

• Go to: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Designs
• Copy your 1930 designs; change the file year and paste in the same location for these years. 1926; 1927; 1928 and 1929
• And now the AI will be forced to use your designs if you start a 1930 campaign.

 

As an example, let's say you have this design "1930 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

Then you need to have in the same folder.

"1929 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1928 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1927 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1926 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

 

The file is the same, you are only changing the year in the name.

 

Note: This method works very well for the 1890 campaign. In other starts because some techs are being unlocked, maybe can be some issues.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by o Barão

[Stormsword]

Thanks for 

19 hours ago, o Barão said:

 

"1929 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1928 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1927 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1926 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

 

Currently trying this out - thanks for the response btw. So far I've copied the designs and have renamed a few, but in the shared designs tab they still appear to be 1925 designs, so I just have double designs for each. Is this what you also saw when you did this, or am I doing something wrong? Actually wait I've talked myself into changing my method of doing this anyway - but regardless, question stands

[Panzergraf]

On 7/27/2023 at 11:00 PM, o Barão said:

The answer and the solution.

That's really clever! Will definitely do that for my next campaign.

So, any advice on how to make the AI build shared designs later on in a campaign? For example, with a 1910 starting year, is there anything I could do to make the AI build my 1930, 35 and 40 designs when that time comes?

[o Barão]

On 7/28/2023 at 5:20 PM, Stormsword said:

So far I've copied the designs and have renamed a few, but in the shared designs tab they still appear to be 1925 designs, so I just have double designs for each. Is this what you also saw when you did this, or am I doing something wrong?

Sorry for the late answer, only now I saw your question.

 

You don't change the ship name. What matters is the "year" in the file.

So let's say you want to start a 1890 campaign, and you have designs for that year already. You copy the files to another folder; change the year and bring the files back to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Designs

So in the end you need to have the same design for the 5 years. One year is when the campaign starts, the other 4 years are the previous years that the campaign will take into consideration to designing new ships when you start a new campaign.

"1930 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1929 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1928 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1927 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

"1926 France BB Charles Martel.bindesign"

Note! The only change you make when renaming the file is the year.

[o Barão]

On 7/29/2023 at 1:42 AM, Panzergraf said:

That's really clever! Will definitely do that for my next campaign.

So, any advice on how to make the AI build shared designs later on in a campaign? For example, with a 1910 starting year, is there anything I could do to make the AI build my 1930, 35 and 40 designs when that time comes?

If you are playing a campaign where you choose the option for the AI to use the shared designs, the AI will always use them if they are available. The issue here, to make sure the AI to always use your designs, is that you need to have a design for each hull for each year. So thousands of designs are needed I guess.

[Stormsword]

15 hours ago, o Barão said:

You don't change the ship name. What matters is the "year" in the file.

So let's say you want to start a 1890 campaign, and you have designs for that year already. You copy the files to another folder; change the year and bring the files back to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts\Designs

So in the end you need to have the same design for the 5 years. One year is when the campaign starts, the other 4 years are the previous years that the campaign will take into consideration to designing new ships when you start a new campaign.

 

I have done this to make all my 1925 designs 1926 designs, but when I looked at the shared design repository in-game all that had happened is that the designs had duplicated in 1925, with no designs in 1926 - hence the question, since I'm not sure whether it'll actually work. Just to clarify - I'm just renaming the files instead of changing the file contents, right? And if I'm actually fiddling with the files, what software should I use to do that?

And thanks for the help so far

[o Barão]

4 hours ago, Stormsword said:

I have done this to make all my 1925 designs 1926 designs, but when I looked at the shared design repository in-game all that had happened is that the designs had duplicated in 1925, with no designs in 1926 - hence the question, since I'm not sure whether it'll actually work. Just to clarify - I'm just renaming the files instead of changing the file contents, right? And if I'm actually fiddling with the files, what software should I use to do that?

And thanks for the help so far

I need to apologize to you. I had to run some tests to see what is the issue. And you are right. The method I mentioned only work for the 1890 campaign, not for the other years.

Sorry for the time you lost trying to understand how to make it work. 😞

[Stormsword]

18 hours ago, o Barão said:

Sorry for the time you lost trying to understand how to make it work. 😞

It's no worries - mistakes happen. I'll go back to badgering the devs for proper shared design support in the campaign

[Lastreaumont]

I wanted to create some designs available on some years, and started to be bored to redesign several times almost the same ship. I tried to just change the ship save file name but it is not enough. I found the date in the file (coded in hexa on 2 bytes, antepenultimate and penultimate bytes of the file). Changing it allows to see the ship at the selected year in the game. 

So copying a ship save file, changing name and date into the file seems to work (try done on a CL built in 1921 and copied to 1922 to 1925. But (there is always a "but") the available techs to refit the ship remains to ones available at the 1st build of the ship. So, no refit possible of the copied designs on later years. 

My theory is a ship save file contains the ship description and the "needed" tech to build it (i.e. what was available when it was built), and the game editor uses theses techs when we modify the ship instead of using the available techs at the current year. So, to have copied "refitable" ships, we should analyse the save file data to separate "needed techs" from "ship design", to be able to replace these techs by the ones of a save file done at the destination date.