"Fake" Destroyer TF?

[BarracudaUAK]

I searched, and as close as I could find to this problem was here:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=203863

It is similar, but not exactly.

I started a new career to test some mods I have for SH4, and I'm in the Luzon Straight late '41...

I get radar contact, so I move to check it out, the map shows 3 ships...

I use the , and , keys to look and see what the ships are.
3 Destroyers.

So I figure "what the heck, let's test the new mods and see what happens".
(the mod is a minor sub tweak, nothing "new" was added, just minor adjustments to existing.)

As I approach and the map markers turn red, I go to the bridge and see, not 3 Destroyers, but 3 LINES of 11/12 Destroyers!

None are firing at me, but the 3 "real" Destroyers are the last in the lines.

I have the crew man the deck gun, and using the binoculars, put it over the first Destroyer and press {spacebar} and it marks the last ship in the line.

When the crew fires the deck gun, the game crashes.

And it crashes, not to the desktop, but to the point that I have to press ctrl+alt+F2 and log in as root (Linux) and run the shutdown command to get out of SH4.

Has anyone seen this before?

Barracuda

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by BarracudaUAK

... I started a new career to test some mods I have for SH4, and I'm in the Luzon Straight late '41...

I get radar contact, so I move to check it out, the map shows 3 ships...

... I go to the bridge and see, not 3 Destroyers, but 3 LINES of 11/12 Destroyers! ...

Not under those exact circumstances, but close. Luzon Straits... Where is your home port? What was the mission that was assigned to you. Do you remember the date? East or West side of the Philippines, closer to Luzon or Formosa? What time of day was it, and were you by chance using Time Compression, and if so, how much? We've found a few too many instances of similar occurring in Fall of the Rising Sun, and we're trying to chase it down. We've got a scent, and trying to catch it, but... We can't get it to do that strange "convoy" of DDs (Dirty Dogs) consistently... If we find the fix here, it should work for all mods... maybe.

[BarracudaUAK]

I loaded up a save that I had made right before I got the radar contact.

I was running somewhere in 500-1000x range on time compression, I THINK... I'm not sure, but I usually run that when I'm trying to make my way from one area to the next.



Home base is Manila, Mission was to go "patrol" (about 75-100 miles) west of Manila.

I had completed that.

I was in the Luzon Strait, go 30-35 miles south, and about 50 miles east of the southern most "tip" of Formosa, north of the "S" & "T" in "Straight" where it is on the map when you zoom in far enough.
The TF was about 10-15 miles NORTH-EAST of my location.
Date was Dec 26, 1941 and the time was 19:50-ish according to the in-game clock.

I picked up the radar contact again, and I used the , and . keys to view the DDs, and I rotated the view around to see if it would repeat the glitch, and it did, however it only added 1 DD to each line, for a total of 2.

I then tried to exit SH4 using the menu, and it crashed again.
So once again I did ctrl-alt-F2 and ran the shutdown command so I could reboot the PC.

I tried to get a screen shot the first time, but all I got was a big black square.

Barracuda

[Rockin Robbins]

This is a stock game bug that never got squashed. Armed with a super hex editor, the FOTRS Ultimate team is attempting to find the bug(s) and squish it (them). It may be hiding in the campaign files. If it is then it is probably replicated throughout and hiding because it is everywhere. The super hex editor is equipped to deal with that and Jeff-Groves isn't afraid to use it.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by BarracudaUAK

...
Home base is Manila, Mission was to go "patrol" (about 75-100 miles) west of Manila...

Excellent report sir! Thank you. That will help us zoom in on that area of the ocean, see what group is spawning in that area, and hopefully confirm what our suspicion is, and if not, maybe point at what's really at fault.

What seems to happen is that there are so many ships mistakenly spawned in the area near where you are, that the computer can't keep up. I'm surprised that your save was OK. You must have made that before the ship count got too high... maybe.

[propbeanie]

Forgot one ~minor~ detail there BarracudaUAK... which mod were you noodling with, or were you at "stock", v1.4, or v1.5?...

[BarracudaUAK]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Excellent report sir! Thank you. That will help us zoom in on that area of the ocean, see what group is spawning in that area, and hopefully confirm what our suspicion is, and if not, maybe point at what's really at fault.

What seems to happen is that there are so many ships mistakenly spawned in the area near where you are, that the computer can't keep up. I'm surprised that your save was OK. You must have made that before the ship count got too high... maybe.

I encountered the ships SE of Formosa. I had been WSW of Formosa just prior to this.

As far as the PC keeping up... it has 32GB DDR3 RAM, and 4GB video RAM (running 2 cards crossfired), and 4 7200rpm hard drives in RAID0.
I've "survived" glitches and bugs in many games that outright hang/freeze other machines (Including my previous PC, which when new, was similarly "over-built") when encountered.

This is the first PC that I've built to "full capacity" when new, and very happy I did!


Then there is also the possiblity that it is because I'm running Linux, SH4 saved successfully.
In SH3 I can ONLY save submerged.
If I save surfaced in SH3, the game WILL crash on load.

SH4 Doesn't seem to be bothered with this and will save anywhere.

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Forgot one ~minor~ detail there BarracudaUAK... which mod were you noodling with, or were you at "stock", v1.4, or v1.5?...

I am running stock v1.5 (steam version), the mod was a mod that I made for Sh3, I simply made the same changes to SH4.

It's a few tweaks to the subs .sim file (for now, sub model to be replaced soon).

Barracuda

P.S. My apologies for the delay, work has been at some odd hours lately.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by BarracudaUAK

... As far as the PC keeping up... it has 32GB DDR3 RAM, and 4GB video RAM (running 2 cards crossfired), and 4 7200rpm hard drives in RAID0 ...

... I am running stock v1.5 (steam version), the mod was a mod that I made for Sh3, I simply made the same changes to SH4 ...

OK, so basically the "stock" campaign layer then. That helps immeasurably. Thanks. As for the computer, it's not the amount of hardware that is the issue, it's the 32-bit "windows" program memory limitation that does it, even if you have a LMA proggy installed.

[BarracudaUAK]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

...it's the 32-bit "windows" program memory limitation that does it, even if you have a LMA proggy installed.

May also be Linux/WINE combo, while the game is limited to ~2GB the OS isn't, so it can successfully write to the HDD, since the game is "contained" and not sharing the system memory.

Just a thought...

A lot of things work in Linux/WINE that shouldn't/don't when running through Windows...

I'm keeping the save file, if you need me to run any more "test" and get any more info, just let me know.

Barracuda

[BarracudaUAK]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

...
The super hex editor is equipped to deal with that and Jeff-Groves isn't afraid to use it.

I love hex editors, once upon a time I would tweak many of my old dos games with them...

"You can't change your personal aircraft yet, you have to keep it for 3 months."

Oh, really? We'll see about that! *hex edits save file* *loads game*
WOW, you boys got me a new plane? You shouldn't have! (had to be forced to!)

Very useful tools!

Barracuda

[Rockin Robbins]

I used to hex edit Castle Wolfenstein on the old Apple ][ to give me 100 grenades.