Ship Spawner - JakeKen25/Privateer GitHub Wiki

Available in Privateer 1.0.1 Beta prerelease. Download the prerelease. The published 0.9.10 stable release does not include Ship Spawner.

Ship Spawner lets you copy ships from another campaign or import ships from an SDF design into the nation you select. The source save or design file remains unchanged.

Choose a source

  1. Open the destination campaign in Privateer.
  2. Right-click the nation that should receive the ships and choose Ship Spawner.
  3. Choose Copy from another save or Import from SDF file.
  4. For a save copy, choose Browse source… and select a different campaign's complete Game folder. For SDF import, choose Custom designs… or Installed designs…. Custom designs opens Custom Files beside the Save game location configured in Settings. Installed designs opens Designs inside the configured Rule the Waves 3 location.
  5. For a save copy, choose the Source nation, then use Search to find ships by name, class, type, or other displayed information. Click column headings to sort.

Copy ships from another save

  1. Select one or more ships. Use Ctrl-click for separate rows or Shift-click for a range.
  2. Choose Stage selected. The Pending copy column shows your choices. You can stage ships from several source nations in the same batch.
  3. Use Unstage selected to remove particular choices, or Reset changes to clear the batch.
  4. Choose Apply to accept all pending copies and close the manager.
  5. Use Save or Save As in the main window to write the destination campaign.

Cancel, Escape, or closing the copy window discards pending choices. Changing the source campaign asks before discarding a pending batch. Nothing is written to the source save.

What a copied ship keeps and changes

Copies use the receiving nation as their builder. They keep the class, equipment, crew, history, build year, damage, fleet status, and construction progress. Equipment is not scaled to the destination's technology or date. A ship under construction remains under construction and may incur construction costs in-game.

Each copy receives a new identity and the required design data. It appears in the receiving nation's home area, without a commander or movement orders. Its original name is retained unless already used by that nation's roster; duplicates receive a suffix such as (copy 2).

Existing history text is retained. Ordinary transfers within a save still preserve the original builder. The operation does not directly change funds, technology, or the campaign date. It does not copy officers or fleet divisions.

Import ships from an SDF file

  1. Open the destination campaign and choose the receiving nation's Ship Spawner.
  2. Choose Import from SDF file, then Custom designs… or Installed designs…. Custom designs opens Custom Files beside the Save game location configured in Settings. Installed designs opens Designs inside the configured Rule the Waves 3 location.
  3. Select a design and enter Number of copies (1–100). The form pre-fills a suggested class name and one suggested name for each ship. Edit Class name to set the shared class for this batch, and edit each individual ship-name field as needed. Changing the copy count adds or removes ship-name fields to match. Names must be filled in and unique within the receiving nation.
  4. Choose Apply, then Save or Save As from the main window. Cancel, Escape, or closing the import window discards your selection.

By default, ship names follow Privateer XX Y, where XX is the ship type and Y continues above the highest existing number for that type in the receiving nation. For example: Privateer DD 1, Privateer DD 2. The suggested shared class follows TYPE NAME N, such as Destroyer 2, Battleship 7, or Light Cruiser 1. You can replace the suggested names and class before applying the batch.

Imports arrive completed and active in the receiving nation's home area. They use that nation as builder and the campaign's current year as their service year. They have default crew, no commander, and no prior service history. Aircraft facilities and capacity are retained, but no aircraft are assigned. Importing does not deduct funds or adjust the design to the nation's technology. The source SDF remains unchanged, and no other campaign is needed.

The importer accepts current SDF exports and the common older layout used by installed RTW3 ship designs. It supplies defaults for the deck-color and high-spotting fields omitted by those older designs. Unknown layouts and non-ship designs are rejected. SDF import remains experimental across other ship types, especially carriers. Verify imported ships in RTW3 before continuing your campaign.

Current limits

When copying from another save, carriers and other ships with aircraft capacity cannot be copied. Sunk, scrapped, museum, and other historical ships are unavailable. Unsupported save formats or missing dependencies produce an error without applying part of the batch.

Keep a backup and check the result in RTW3 before continuing your campaign, particularly when copying later equipment into an earlier era.

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