Crashes, Bugs and Troubleshooting

[TheGeoff]

Common Problems:

• The game does not start - it immediately says "Illegal Memory Address"
  There are several possible solutions to this:
  • Extract the game from the zip file before running it.
  • Run the game as an administrator.
  • Add the game to the Windows DEP exclusion list: http://www.windowsanswers.net/articles/dep-config
  
  
• The game loads, then crashes with the message "Player nation is not in nations.list file"
  The player_nation in gameoptions.ini is invalid. Ensure the country name is spelled correctly and capitalised correctly. The nation you are trying to play may not be in the game yet - check the 'Playable nations" list.
  
  
• The game loads, then crashes with the message "No suitable starting port found"
  The selected player_nation in gameoptions.ini is landlocked or does not have any ports in the game yet, so it is not playable. Please select a different nation.
  
  
• The game crashes on startup with no error message or the graphics do not display properly
  Disable OpenGL by changing "OpenGL_graphics = 1" to "OpenGL_graphics = 0" (without quotation marks) in gameoptions.ini
  
  
• I use a non-QWERTY keyboard and the controls don't work
  There are instructions for changing key bindings in the guide.txt file. If anyone makes a good keybindings.ini for AZERTY, QWERTZ or any other common keyboard types feel free to post it!
  
  
• The game runs very slowly
  There are several ways to increase performance. The following settings are all found in gameoptions.ini:
  • Lower the number of ships and aircraft in the world.
  • Change the fire rendering style to 2.
  • Change the radar model to 1.
  • Set realistic_UI to 0 (this makes the game a lot uglier and is not recommended)
  • Enable OpenGL in gameoptions.ini, if it has been disabled.
  
  
• I have been given a mission which is impossible to complete!
  1. Download this: http://goo.gl/QsUsqE
  2. Put MissionCompleter.exe in your game folder (the same folder as the Sub Commander exe file)
  3. Save your game.
  4. Run the Mission Completer (it should say "Mission complete!")
  5. Load your game. The old mission will have been completely forgotten and you will be quickly given a new one.

Known bugs in current version:

• If an unconscious crewman dies while another crewman is attempting to revive him, the crewman who was trying to help will keep trying to revive the body forever. You can stop him by ordering him to abandon his post then ordering him to return to duty.
• Sometimes your country will accidentally nuke itself, then declare war on itself. This will turn every friendly ship and port hostile to you, so you're basically screwed... such is life in a nuclear war (I'll fix this soon)

If you have a problem which is not listed here please post it in this thread!

[kakster22]

Hello! First of all,I'm a big fan of the game,and have been spending a lot of time playing it. Some of my favorite moments in games like FTL and Silent Hunter III were damage control,bringing my Ship (Or U-boat) back from the brink of death! Sorry if this is out of place (I couldn't decide if this belonged here or the main thread or FAQ thread ) Now on to my question: In the FAQ thread you made a list of playable nations,one of them was North Korea,so I decided to give them a try however the game closed and said "No suitable port found" So I did a little investigating and checked out North Korea and found that the (presumably spawn) city/port isn't landlocked,and I should be able to spawn there. It's not that big of a deal,I can always just play as China and start out a few miles away,but I thought I'd point that out,sorry if this has already been reported or is something you knew of! Also,on a kind of unrelated note,I was wondering if there was a place to post/share custom submarines,as I'd be interested in seeing what people have come up with. Thank you for reading!

[TheGeoff]

Thanks for pointing that out, it's definitely a bug! Pyongyang and Seoul were both marked in the game files as not having nearby seaports, making it impossible to play as North or South Korea. I've now fixed this for the next update.

There isn't anywhere specific to post user made subs yet, I don't think many people have made them unfortunately. If you make any, feel free to post about them in the main thread (or post a new thread).

[kust]

Hi when I start the game the mouse is up in the right corner and don't respond
Im on windows 8

[TheGeoff]

First, make sure "show_cursor" is set to 1 in gameoptions.ini. If you are playing in full screen, try setting the game to windowed to see if the problem persists. If this doesn't work, let me know!

I do a lot of the game programming on a windows 8 laptop so it is definitely not a compatibility issue.

[kust]

Thanks it worked to put it in windowed mode thanks

[Tango589]

I've just had a strange experience. Playing as the USSR, I was tasked with destroying an enemy ship in a 6 ship battle group. This turned out to be USSR as well. Just to see what would happen, I sunk 4 of the 6 ships, including the target. The remaining ships DC'd me to oblivion, which I expected. I jumped out of the game, used the Mission Completer, restarted back in Odedssa port and was immediately marmalised by a US Task Force right outside the port! Needless to say, that was the end of me. None of the USSR patrol aircraft lent a hand, neither did any fellow whips in the area. What could cause this anomaly in the first place?

[TheGeoff]

Originally Posted by Tango589

I've just had a strange experience. Playing as the USSR, I was tasked with destroying an enemy ship in a 6 ship battle group. This turned out to be USSR as well. Just to see what would happen, I sunk 4 of the 6 ships, including the target. The remaining ships DC'd me to oblivion, which I expected. I jumped out of the game, used the Mission Completer, restarted back in Odedssa port and was immediately marmalised by a US Task Force right outside the port! Needless to say, that was the end of me. None of the USSR patrol aircraft lent a hand, neither did any fellow whips in the area. What could cause this anomaly in the first place?

That's very unusual. There are several checks to ensure you are only given orders to engage ships or groups which are hostile to your nation - I don't know how that mission could have been given. Was the target definitely a USSR ship, and did you get a 'mission complete' message when you sank it? Or could there have been an undetected US submarine nearby which was the actual target? I've never seen anything like that happen in my testing.

Edit: Was a nuclear war in progress? Sometimes nations will declare war on themselves when the nukes start flying, so that could explain why you were ordered to sink your own ships.

The second one is a combination of bad luck and not-yet-implemented features:

While most AI task forces are assigned to strategically important areas, a few will appear at semi-random locations to spread out the action a bit. Sounds like a US taskforce decided by chance to sail right up to Odessa!

Combat between AI units has not actually been added to the game yet. They will maneuver around and try to intimidate each other but they can't yet fire their weapons. This was a compromise I made a while ago, because running the AI routines for thousands of ships firing at each other made the game run extremely slowly. I recently made a breakthrough on this front, however, and combat between AI units will definitely be added in the next version - it's working pretty well so far, though there are still a couple of minor problems to iron out.

[Tango589]

I've found that when I use the Foxtrot class sub, things go a bit screwy when I save and reload. The motor control panel and misc. systems control panel both 'fill in' the missing gaps, so there are suddenly inoperative turbine controls on the motor panel, and there are the missing ventilation section controls added back in, but inoperative, to both panels revert back to 'nuclear sub status'. Also, my crew members can no longer find their way out of their respective sections, despite me opening the doors for them.

I've also found that the mission log changes from whatever your starting choices were, to a USSR sub. For instance I started this mission in a French Foxtrot Class sailing from Marsailles, yet after saving and reloading, the log reckoned I was sailing a nuclear boat for the USSR out of Sevastopol.

I know you didn't design this sub, but would you be able to fix these?

[TheGeoff]

Originally Posted by Tango589

I've found that when I use the Foxtrot class sub, things go a bit screwy when I save and reload. The motor control panel and misc. systems control panel both 'fill in' the missing gaps, so there are suddenly inoperative turbine controls on the motor panel, and there are the missing ventilation section controls added back in, but inoperative, to both panels revert back to 'nuclear sub status'. Also, my crew members can no longer find their way out of their respective sections, despite me opening the doors for them.

I've also found that the mission log changes from whatever your starting choices were, to a USSR sub. For instance I started this mission in a French Foxtrot Class sailing from Marsailles, yet after saving and reloading, the log reckoned I was sailing a nuclear boat for the USSR out of Sevastopol.

I know you didn't design this sub, but would you be able to fix these?

I did make the Foxtrot actually! Thanks for pointing these bugs out, they shouldn't be too hard to fix. I'll probably release a mini update which fixes them soon.

[Tango589]

Originally Posted by TheGeoff

I did make the Foxtrot actually!

Whoops, my mistake. BTW, how's the Sub Commander 3D going?