Cut and dried rules of game saving?

[prowler3]

After losing my 7th career...without it being caused by being pounded into the silt by DC's...I'm gettind a little exasperated.

There is no way I can run an entire patrol without saving...I have a real life :nope: . But I have lost careers when a game save will not load...once I get the infamous "SH3 has encountered an error and must close..." error...I know that career is basically a wreck on the ocean floor. In almost all of these cases I will find that my "In base before patrol" date has suddenly moved ahead of my last save. How does that happen? How does the "In base before patrol" date suddenly become today, when I may have started the patrol 5 days ago (and it was correct date at that time)? I'm guessing there are some rules to saving games, in patrol, that I'm not following. This seems ridiculous but, so be it :salute: .

So, can you tell me about these game saving restrictions as I'm not sure how many more careers I can stand to lose before I give the entire thing up.

Vic, hoping to see summer of 1940...AT SOME POINT!! :damn:

[A Very Super Market]

No saving when in contact with another ship. No saving when submerged. No saving near the coast. Its mostly random luck, but saving when you're all alone is safest.

[mookiemookie]

No installing mods while on patrol. Plus what AVSM said. :03:

[Heibges]

Also, if you have multiple careers going, don't have multiple careers at sea at the same time.

Complete a patral with career 1.

Then play a patrol with career 2. Make sure you finish this patrol before going to a new patrol in career 1, or starting career 3.

[casey.phobic]

weeeeeeeeeird. this is good to know!

[maddysad]

Just a little "Extra"

From my experience, after a "legitimate" save(see the above)if the game loads and the first thing you hear are dials breaking etc (as if your under attack) even when you KNOW there is nothing in the immediate vicinity,or in fact as little as 50km away. Abandon that patrol, or load an earlier save. I've saved at radio contacts of "Task Foce" heading in my direction(2hours away...gametime) loaded game, heard damage, continued to sink major battleships which are not even counted on return to port.

maddysad

[IanC]

Ok, I've never had a Save game problem since SHIII came out (was it 4 years already, geeshh!) This is what I do.

1. no other ships around
2. I save in the same position as when the game starts, that is; In the control room, facing the intruments.
3. no gramophone
4. I always overwrite and use only one save slot. (hey, one save game is better than zero)

In other words, keep it as simple as possible. Works for me. :yep:

[Jazer]

never realized there were save restrictions!

[Murr44]

No saving when in contact with another ship. No saving when submerged. No saving near the coast. Its mostly random luck, but saving when you're all alone is safest.

What AVSM said. Only save when you are at least 50km from land, planes & other ships. Perform a manual hydrophone check to be sure nothing is around you.

As far as overwriting previous saves, I would avoid this too. I've had a lot of problems with corrupt saves after overwriting saved games. I've found that it's "safest" (realtive term with SH3) to give each save a different name.

[Redbear]

I've had save game issues too. I agree with all that has been said. I do what amounts to a combination/compromise between someting IanC and Murr44 said. I always save games under a different name. To avoid having too much saved, every so often I go into my careers folder in 'my documents/SH3', and manually delete old patrols. I think there are two files to delete for each numbered patrol (0, 1, 2 etc.). Always delete the oldest ones, and leave a few prior to the most current.

[Lzs von swe]

Always save when surfaced.
Always save when in control room, F2, view.
Always save at least 50km off shore.
Always give the game a little time at TCx1 after being on high TC before you save.
Never save with any known contacts, go some 30km away from your last sinking.
If the first save works, do not over write it. Make a new one which you may over write.
Give the game a little time before you exit, just a couple of seconds of your time...

[Otto Heinzmeir]

This is good info. I just last my 1st save a couple days ago. I tended to save just after I sunk a ship. Will follow the tips above from now on.

In my new campaign I get the broken glass just as the game loads. I did get credit for all my tonnage after completing the mission. Hopefully when I start the next mission it will be normal and I will quit saving just after I sink a ship.

[Lzs von swe]

The sound of broken glass at loading is the game setting your damage status from your last save point. Even if you have 99% hull integrity you will hear glass breaking. Is normal.

[prowler3]

Wow...many of these are new to me...like being in control room view and being surfaced. Although these can be a pain to stick with, at time, as someone said..."it's better than NO save...". So, is the concensus that I should NOT overwrite a patrol save (Buck01, on my second patrol) but should instead create a new save each time (Buck01-2, would be my second save during my second patrol)?

If I delete previous saves while still in that career will it cause problems with SH3commander's career files?

Thanks.
Vic

[Lzs von swe]

There should not be any probs overwriting your saves, but for safety reasons leave the first, working , save as is. Then make a Buck02 save which you can then overwrite.
Personally I have had problems after overwriting the same save file several times.
Therefore I tend to make a new one whenever something important has happened since I last loaded the game. If I have only "cruised" I overwrite the save I loaded from.
You should never delete old saves from your active career, never. If you try to do that, from within the game, you will get a warning that any saves after the one you are deleting will be deleted too.
Old not active careers yes, if you delete the whole career.

[mmm...Dönitz]

The more I read about these save game issues the more I think they are going to ruin my SH3 experience. Like Prowler3 I very much have a real life and I generally only get to play for a few hours each week. Last week I had a destroyer over my head for two hours (real time) on TC32 after attacking a convoy in the Naval Academy, let alone a real career.

Being the Academy (and since both my periscopes had been destroyed already) I just hit <escape> and went to bed, but in career mode I'd have had to tough it out. I can't see how I could have got myself to a convenient point 50km away from anything so I could safely surface just to save the game (getting the destroyer 5km away would have been nice). Basically, if I get myself in a pickle when I'm in career mode I'm going to have to save when submerged and with DC's raining down.

Leaving the PC on in pause mode isn't an option either, as I spend several days away from home at at stretch and I don't want my PC on while I am away.

Are my career aspirations FUBAR'd before I even leave port? I find it amazing that Ubisoft let such a massive bug remain in the game.

[A Very Super Market]

Just make a bunch of saves. The CTDs are mostly random chance, so with 10 saves, you should be fine. If you are going out in an hour, save every 5 minutes and load the latest one when you want to play again. If it doesn't work, go back a save.

[Murr44]

The more I read about these save game issues the more I think they are going to ruin my SH3 experience. Like Prowler3 I very much have a real life and I generally only get to play for a few hours each week. Last week I had a destroyer over my head for two hours (real time) on TC32 after attacking a convoy in the Naval Academy, let alone a real career.

Being the Academy (and since both my periscopes had been destroyed already) I just hit <escape> and went to bed, but in career mode I'd have had to tough it out. I can't see how I could have got myself to a convenient point 50km away from anything so I could safely surface just to save the game (getting the destroyer 5km away would have been nice). Basically, if I get myself in a pickle when I'm in career mode I'm going to have to save when submerged and with DC's raining down.

Leaving the PC on in pause mode isn't an option either, as I spend several days away from home at at stretch and I don't want my PC on while I am away.

Are my career aspirations FUBAR'd before I even leave port? I find it amazing that Ubisoft let such a massive bug remain in the game.

If you follow some of the suggestions listed above, ie. saving on the surface, the 50km rule, etc. you should minimize the risk of a ctd. Unfortunately I don't believe that there is a 100% effective solution to this problem. Each of us has had different experiences playing both stock & GWX (don't know about the other mods as I've never played them).

[mmm...Dönitz]

If you follow some of the suggestions listed above, ie. saving on the surface, the 50km rule, etc. you should minimize the risk of a ctd.

That's just the issue - based on my (admittedly limited) playing experience to date, it might take more time than I actually have to get to a "save friendly" location after hitting a target and getting detected. Ok, so it's another good reason not to get detected :) but I'd rather I determined how and when I played the game as opposed to the other way around.

The "mulitple saves" idea sounds like a good workaround, if it works. Disc space is cheap :)

[Murr44]

If you follow some of the suggestions listed above, ie. saving on the surface, the 50km rule, etc. you should minimize the risk of a ctd.

That's just the issue - based on my (admittedly limited) playing experience to date, it might take more time than I actually have to get to a "save friendly" location after hitting a target and getting detected. Ok, so it's another good reason not to get detected :) but I'd rather I determined how and when I played the game as opposed to the other way around.

The "mulitple saves" idea sounds like a good workaround, if it works. Disc space is cheap :)


It's one of my biggest peeves with the game; having to find an empty spot to save after an hour or so of playing. I don't know how many times that I've found a supposedly "safe" place only to have an aircraft or ship suddenly spawn near by.:damn: Like I said before, there's no hard & fast rule to prevent this problem. You just have to get used to it.

[sharkbit]

I must be living right or something.....:cool:
In the past, I've broken every rule listed above fairly often due to a lot of CTD's caused by overheating issues and had only one corrupted save.
I've cut back the number of times I save now after getting my CTD issues worked out and I try to save keeping all the above rules in mind, but I do break them occasionally and have not had any problems.....yet.
(Excuse me while I go looking for place to knock on wood.)

:)

[Murr44]

My careers are generally stable too. I've come to the conclusion that save game crashes are a fact of life with SH3. Sooner or later they happen to everyone & there's nothing you can do to completely eliminate the risk of them.

[Hanomag]

Basically I only save between 1400-1515 local game time. But first I consult a voodoo priestess who comes to my house spits rum on my cpu and wipes the monitor down with a bloody chicken foot. Its messy but it helps.

Also make sure that Mars and Mercury are close to being aligned. And read your horoscope.

Don't forget to rub your lucky rabbits foot.

But really.. <looks around> <whispers> "I think its ghosts in the machine."

[Lzs von swe]

You know what?
There are ghosts in the machine!
After posting in this thread yesterday, I had my first corrupt save file in a year today, had to return to in base before mission:timeout:

The gremlins are just waiting for that special moment and then:woot: