"Updated" PacWar Editor (Excel 2000 Spreadsheet)

[returnfire]

Recently, I did some re-working to Rich Dionne's pacwared21.xls, the editor that comes with PacWar v3.0. Here are most of my changes made to the Pacwar Editor:

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Note: I personally have NO experience in writing Macros in Excel 2000 or using worksheet functions such as VLOOKUP. I simply read Rich Dionne's code, "improved" some of them, and used it as a template for creating several new features.
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In all sub-sheets from "Aircraft" to "Factory":
1) NEW FEATURE: Partial Input/Output. For example, clicking on the "Input" button in the "Aircraft" sheet will only load aircraft data. This should make "alternative history" scenarios easier to design.

Note: The Buttons in the "Misc" sheetwill still load the ENTIRE file. To Input/Output the information in the "Misc" sheet only, use the Macros "GetMiscOnly" and "PutMiscOnly."

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"Misc" sheet:

1) UPDATE: The names of ship types were modified to reflect the changes in v3.x-- CS was renamed to AV, etc.

2) NEW FEATURE: SIGINT Targets, Atomic Arsenal, Kamikaze/Okha groups authorized.
Note: The Kamikaze/Ohka "pool" is shared between the two types of missions.
In other words, if the game displays "Number of Kamikaze Groups authorized: 30," you can have 30 Kamikaze groups OR 30 Okha groups OR something like 25 Kamikaze groups + 5 Okha groups (but the total is always limited to the given number, which is 30 in this case)

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"Aircraft" sheet:

1) Created the "Used by" Column (just for show).
Note: Since the air groups are hard-coded (for historical reasons, etc.), it's possible for individual air groups to use a plane type that its nationality normally "cannot use" in the game (for example, although one of the NZ Wings is equipped with P-40's, but you cannot assign P-40's to Commonwealth fighter groups manually).

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"Air Group" sheet:

1) Modified Column H to accommodate the case of "air group loaded onto TF as cargo."
2) NEW FEATURE: If the air group is located on a carrier, the code will check for the status of the carrier to see if it is already sunk. If so, Cell H3 should tell you so.
3) Fixed Column K to get rid of the #REF! error. Air groups on multi-ship units should display correctly now.

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"Missions" sheet:

1) The "Mission," "Rank," and "Nation" columns were shortened for ease of reading. (Worksheet functions elsewhere were modified to adapt to this change.)
2) NEW FEATURE: Cargo Types-- these are used in the "Ship" sheet.

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"TF" sheet:
1) NEW FEATURE: If a leader is present on the TF, his name will be displayed in cell N3.

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"Ship Class" sheet:
1) NEW FEATURE: The Flak value of all ship classes are displayed on row R.
(In case you're wondering, I used the AutoFill feature to fill in the data from R5 through R203. PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE THE CODE IN ROW R. You can increase the flak value of the ship by increasing the number of weapons or improving the flak power of individual weapons.)

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"Ship" sheet:
1) Minor fix: If a ship has no name at all, it will be marked as "removed from scenario."
2) NEW FEATURE: Cargo Types. Finally figured them out through trial and error [:)]
This will display the cargo type and the amount of cargo loaded. If the cargo is an air group, the name of the air group will be displayed.

**Also note that 5000+ is used for the "delay time" of sub groups.

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"LCU" sheet:
1) UPDATE: "Corps" was renamed "Armored Brigage" (changed in v3.0)
2) Minor fix: The naming system of sub-units was modified to match it with the way the game displays it (e.g. "1/1st Def Bn")-- also, Cell B3 will read "(No Unit)" if the unit has neither a name nor a parent unit.
3) NEW FEATURE: The arrival date of the LCU will be displayed if the unit has a TTA value (i.e. Location >= 2000)

**Trial and error shows that the British 7th Armed Brigade (unit #294) will always be removed from the game in Jan. 1943-- was that historical? You may want to split it into sub-units and march the sub-units into other bases (so the units won't recombine) to keep most of the tanks [:'(]
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"Leader" sheet:
1) NEW FEATURE: Added Arrival date for leaders who haven't arrived yet. Also, it seems that a leader with a TTA value of 254 or 255 is treated as "removed from the scenario" (captured, killed, retired, etc.)

**General Short (leader #157) will always be removed from the game in Jan. 1943. This seems to be hard-coded.

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"Prep Pts" sheet:
1) FIXED/NEW FEATURE: The TTA column is not exactly working. After a bit of trial-and-error, I figured out that the data for an HQ's location are stored BACKWARDS with two bytes of data (I had to change the VB code to fix this). Also, HQ's on TF's are designated locations of 200+TF number. Again, arrival dates will be displayed for HQ's that haven't arrived yet.

**Note that some HQ's may return sooner than the displayed arrival date.

2) NEW FEATURE: The HQ Leaders will be displayed in Cells H3 and I3 (if assigned)

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"Base" sheet:
1) Minor Fix: The terrain types will be displayed in H3 (just for show).
2) If there is a commander at the base, the name of the leader will be displayed at Q3.

**Unfortunately, due to the way the VLOOKUP functions works (only the first value is returned), only the Japanese Leader will be displayed if there are two leaders (one Japanese and one Allied) assigned to the same base (this happens often at the frontlines).

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>>>NEW FEATURE: "Tools" sheets<<<

**The information required for these "calculators" were all obtained from the manual and/or the data card.

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"Aircraft Survivability Calculator"
Enter the two aircraft numbers (don't change the information below!) and their survivability during air combat will be displayed. Please note that maneuverability and experience were NOT taken into account (as they are too hard to test).

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"Carrier Strike Size Calculator"
Enter the TF Leader's air rating, the number of CV points (note the US Carrier Coordination bonus), and the nationality of the enemy (for radar check). You will see the relative size of the attack force.

**Note that a 15-CV TF (the Allies can easily do this in 1944-45) should theoretically give you only 25% CAP (they should fail both coordination checks since there are more than 14 CV points). Assuming that you have 48 Fighters on each Essex/Lexington/Yorktown Class CV, you should get 48*15/4=180 fighters for cover. I tend to get more CAP than that, though. Perhaps Fighter-bombers are calculated differently...

Bottom line: You will probably see more fighters and fewer bombers than the theoretical result. (@#$%^&*$%#?!)

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"LCU Effectiveness Calculator"
Enter the Base leader's land rating, and the unit's experience and readiness. Its chance of failing the first check (readiness reduced to 1% if EXP<30), failing the second check (readiness quartered if EXP<50), or gaining the +50 readiness bonus (high EXP, good leader, plus good luck), and its "average effectiveness" will be displayed.

**Since the actual result of the dice roll is random, it may be a good idea to split inexperienced units or stack them in one base. In case of land combat, luck will be less of a factor as the results will be closer to theoretical (since the dice is rolled for EACH unit).

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The file is attached to the post. It is a WinRAR self-extracting file.

(Since the forum does NOT support executables, I renamed it to a "txt"-- please right click on the link, choose "Save Target As," and then change the file extension to ".EXE"-- tell me if it doesn't work)

[Rich Dionne]

Nice job on the editor update!

Regards,

Rich Dionne

[deVada]

Anyone interested in knowledge on messing with PBEM savefiles exchange ?
[:'(]