This is NOT a full mod guide, as I am not a 3D modeller.

This is about how to make small mods to CW, like add a weapon to a particular sub, add a sub to a particular map, and so on.

You can find me on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/@CaptChang

WARNING: If you use JGSME to enable the mod, as DotMod recommends, you have an extra step. After you made the modifications, you will need to run JGSME to disable, then enable the mod, THEN start the game.

The reason is there are several copies of the game files in use, and the one you're editing is probably NOT the one the game's using, and you need JGSME to copy your changes over to the active files.

Your campaigns are in

...\Cold Waters\ColdWaters_Data\StreamingAssets\dotmod\campaign\campaign001 through 005.

Open up that campaign folder and look for campaign_data.txt

Open that file, and look for CampaignPoints and CampaignStartPoints

The way campaign works is Campaign starts at the "midpoint", so CampaignStartPoints is always half of CampaignPoints (i.e. two sides are evenly matched). When campaign points gets to zero, you get the endgame mission. When campaign points gets to the limit set in CampaignPoints, you lose the war.

If you want a longer campaign, increase both CampaignPoints and CampaignStartPoints. Like 3000/1500.

Conversely, if you want shorter campaign. decrease both, like 750/325

NOTE: The game *does* keep track of how many ships of each class is available for some classes of ships, mainly to keep the "unique" or "limited" vessels from appearing too often, such as the unique Narwhal class unique. Check the vessel_selector.txt for the limits available. If you want a longer campaign, you may want to increase the number of some of the ships available.

Tired of getting killed in an Oberon in the Royal Navy Campaign? Hated the diesel-electric deathtraps in the Soviet 84 campaign? Here's the simple way to turning that off.

Soviet campaign is

...\Cold Waters\ColdWaters_Data\StreamingAssets\dotmod\campaign004

Open summary.txt and campaign_data.txt and look for UsePrestige and PrestigeModeEnabled

they should say =TRUE, change both to =FALSE

The Royal Navy campaign is campaign005, and you can do the same thing there.

save and restart the game.

In the mission editor, when you choose a map, you have a list of which ships are available for that map/side. What ships are available for that map, is controlled by "editor.txt", in ...\Cold Waters\ColdWaters_Data\StreamingAssets

Scroll down until you find the line "PlayerVessels=...." for your particular era/map. That controls what vessels are available for that era/map.

Go to the end of that line, add a comma, and ship's internal name to the end of the line. Save. Done

Let's try an example:

I am going to add the Dutch Zwaardvis sub to the South China Sea 2000 era/map in the mission editor.

Open editor.txt in any text editor (Notepad.exe is fine), then find the South China Sea section:

//South China Sea 2000 US vs PLAN/Russia

Scroll down to PlayerVessels=...

Go to end of the line, add a comma, then the model of the sub you wish to add at the end of the line.

Now I need to find the Dutch sub's internal name. Go up to vessels\01_Submarine\07_Netherlands and you'll see it has only 2 entries, and one of them is rnn_84_ssk_zwaardvis.txt So you know the internal name for the Zwaardvis is rnn_84_ssk_zwaardvis

Switch back to editor.txt. We've added the comma, so we add "rnn_84_ssk_zwaardvis" to the end of the line.

Save the file, and reload the game, and now your new vessel should be a choice when you choose the map in the editor.

NOTE: This has multiple steps, so it can be a bit complicated.

Understanding how mods work in CW. Almost everything except graphical assets are controlled by txt files, so simple modding is very easy, but it can be a bit tedious as a vessel is controlled by a lot of components. Best way to add vessel, is to copy an existing vessel, then modify the copy.

As an example, I'll make a 1999 version of the guppy-tench, by copying the 1973 version of it. These are the steps:

• Find the vessel you're trying to copy
  
• Copy the vessel definition
  
• Copy the ship reference
  
• Copy the profile pix
  
• Copy the damage control and damage control mask pix
  
• Copy the signature

As the 1973 version of the Guppy-tench is a Dotmod addition, you can find it in

...\Cold Waters\ColdWaters_Data\StreamingAssets\dotmod\vessels\01_submarine\06_ROC\roc_73_ss_guppy_tench.txt

copy that to roc_99_ss_guppy_tench.txt, same directory. We have created a new vessel called roc_99_ss_guppy_tench

Feel free to add some remarks at the beginning, prefix the remark with double slash "//" like

//this is a remark, it's just for us humans to read, game disregards text here

Now, this is doesn't do anything in itself, so there are a couple other steps.


You need to then create a corresponding entry for it in the ship reference, which is in

..\Cold Waters\ColdWaters_Data\StreamingAssets\dotmod\language_en\vessel\

Copy the existing roc_73_ss_guppy_tench_description.txt to roc_99_ss_guppy_tench_description.txt


Now do the same to the profile folder, you need to copy the self profile PNG from the 73 to the 99 version, so you have both a roc_73....png vs a roc_99...png


Make a copy the damage control and damage control mask files under

...\Cold Waters\ColdWaters_Data\StreamingAssets\dotmod\hud\damage_control\

copy the roc_73_guppy_tench.png and roc_73_guppy_tench_mask.png

to their respective 99 versions.

One last step.


Finally, do the same to the signature folder, copy the 73 to the 99 version


You may want to add something to the ..._description.txt to let players know you're dealing with a modernized version of the same sub. Study how the two versions of the sub differ such as the 68 version of Sturgeon differs from the 84 version of the sturgeon.

Now, your sub should appear as a new sub of that era in the reference section, and you can now start tweaking it to add weapons and such, which we will do so in the next section.

Remember to playtest your sub, by adding it to the mission editor, see earlier tip.

Generally, it is better if you add a weapon to a "copy" of the vessel (i.e. a new variant), but you CAN modify an existing sub. However, keep in mind that your modified version will be erased when you install a new version of the DotMod, which is why I recommend you create a new variant of the vessel, THEN modify your own variant.

Anyway, to add an existing weapon to a playable sub, that is controlled by the main text file. For our example, we will modify the new version we created, which is roc_99_ss_guppy_tench.txt

Scroll down until you find [Weapon Systems]

For the guppy/tench, there should be only one entry under TorpedoTypes

TorpedoTypes=roc_a184

This means it fires the A184 torpedo, which is unique to the ROC Navy.

We can modify this, by giving the sub a couple Mk 48, but first we have to find the reference to the Mk48.

If you go up one level, back to ...\StreamingAssets, you will find a "weapon" subdir, and inside, you will find 2 different version of usn_mk48, the usn_mk48_description, and usn_mk48_adcap_description

Basically, one's the original version, and the other is the ADCAP, the improved version.

I personally copied the usn_mk48_adcap_description.txt to roc_mk48_adcap_description.txt, thus creating a roc_mk48_adcap

Then I went back to roc_99_ss_guppy_tench.txt then edit TorpedoTypes to say

TorpedoTypes=roc_a184,roc_mk48_adcap

Also edit the subsequent line to say

TorpedoNumbers=14,4

This gives the sub 14 of the A184 torpedoes, and 4 Mk48_adcap torpedoes.

This covers the simple mods most people want to do. There are more complicated mods possible, of course, but that's beyond the scope of this little guide.