"Arriving on station" status not recognized

[MetalMania]

Hi,

I've been running a career in unmodded SH 4 v1.4, and recently had a strange issue. I'm on my 3rd patrol, assigned to the Mariana Islands. When I arrived on station (the orange star on the map) I didn't get the message from COMSUBPAC and the changing of the star color like on my first two patrols. It seems like it's not recognizing that I've arrived in the patrol zone. I drove the sub right through the star icon and out the other side with no change. I tried exiting the game and reloaded my last save point before that and tried again but same thing.

Before I started the patrol I changed out some crewmen and tried to relocate the deck gun from the bow to the stern. I guess there's a bug in the game when you do that, as now I've lost the deck gun crew positions in the crew management screen. I can live with that, unless it also breaks other things (like the patrol location status recognition). After starting the patrol, I made my customary stop at Midway to top off fuel and then headed straight for the Marianas. The only other thing different for this patrol than any of my earlier ones is the worst weather I've yet encountered in the stock game, seems like a huge storm lasting for days. Other than that, I haven't done anything different.

Are there any known bugs regarding the "on station" status being recognized? My first two patrols gave me the COMSUBPAC message when I got within around 50 miles of the star icon.

[Father Goose]

First, I play with the 1.5 version.
My understanding is you have to remain within 50 miles on station for a certain time, usually 72 or 96 hours before the star indicates the objective is complete. Then the star will change colors.

As far as the weather, don't worry about it, storms happen.

As far as crew management, I guess you'll just have to wait until you retun to your home port to get your crew to full strength. By the way, I've never moved the deck gun and would like to know if that's a real option.

[MetalMania]

I can see maybe it takes the elapsed time for the star icon to change and maybe I never noticed the duration before, but I've always gotten the COMSUBPAC message when I arrived on station but that's not happening in this case. I don't mean any kind of "objective completed" message, it's usually been something like "engage enemy merchant shipping" as soon as I arrive in the vicinity of the patrol location marker.

The weather, I'm not worried about it - it's kind of cool actually - I just mentioned it in case there might be some correlation with weather state and patrol zone arrival recognition. I doubt it but hey you never know in what way a "bug" might manifest itself.

Regarding moving the gun, I'm not sure if whey you say "would like to know if that's a real option" if you mean a real option in the game, or if it was done in real life? In the game, I wanted to upgrade from the standard 3" 50 cal to the 4" 50 cal. So, in the crew management screen accessed from the "office" while in port between patrols, I selected the "gears" icon (normally this brings the damage control screen when at sea). This had optional equipment that could be "purchased" with the renown points. It had options for the 4" deck gun bow or stern. I selected stern, dragged it over to the right side of the screen and it was finished. When I started the patrol my deck gun was indeed upgraded to the 4" and was mounted at the stern, and my original 3" on the bow was gone, but so were my provisions for a deck gun crew in the sub's crew management page. The deck gun still works, but only if I man it myself. I can't have it auto-manned because I can no longer assign any crewmen to it.

I read somewhere after the fact that this is in fact a bug the game - if you relocate the deck gun you'll lose your assignable positions for the crew to man it. So, yes it is actually available to do in the game but it's a somewhat "broken" option.

[Webster]

depends on your orders, sometimes you just have to get to the spot and other times you need to stay in that spot for a certain time. sometimes you need to stay in that spot AND sink a tonnage requirement.

it varies so recheck your orders and if you leave the area the clock stops until you return to the area so if you can stay in the middle of the area and not on the edges.

I always felt those "report to an area" missions never felt they worked right but they do work.

[Father Goose]

I read the following in the TMO manual today. Granted you are not running TMO but this may shed some light on your deck gun question.

Due to a hardcoded bug in the SH4 game engine, it is not possible to switch locations of the deck gun once a game has been saved to file. Trying to move the deck gun from fore to aft, or vice versa will result in the crew member slots disappearing. In order to circumvent this bug and prevent it to happening during play, the deck guns have been “fixed” to a location.

[joefremont]

I just started my first U-Boat campaign last weekend and on my first two patrols one said I had to sink 5k tons of merchant ships, the second said I had to be on station for 48 hours. But when I did the normal campaign it never said what I had to do, there were several missions where I arrived on station in my fleet boat and it never registered as completed.

Even when it never registered as objective completed, when I returned to port I still got plenty of medals.

Interestingly sinking warships did not apply against the tonnage needed for the mission.

[Webster]

Interestingly sinking warships did not apply against the tonnage needed for the mission.

where a ship is at makes the difference in if it gets counted towards your mission objectives so your not alone in scratching your head why some ships didn't count. its best to not expect anything on the edges of your area to be counted

[peabody]

There are several types of missions, but answer the specific questions asked.

The two basic patrol/sink missions are "Reach Zone" and "Patrol Area", the icons are different for each one. Patrol has the binoculars and Reach zone has a flag unless it was changed by mods. You will not see the specific wording of "Reach Zone" it is used by the Mission Editor.

On a "Reach Zone" you only have to get to the star and it turns grey, complete, and then you are usually given a second objective to sink enemy vessels.

In the Patrol Area mission, it is not enough to just reach a certain location, you must 'patrol' the area for whatever amount of time is set by the person that wrote the mission. And as mentioned, you need to stay in the 'patrol area' for the mission to complete. I always felt it was a good idea to put the area size and amount of time in the orders so you know what it is, but not everyone does that.
As for leaving the zone, most are written so that if you leave the zone the time starts over, (continuous) but can be written so you can leave the zone and reenter to complete the mission (non-continuous). Example: If it is continous for 48 hours you must stay in the zone for 48 hours without leaving. If it is non continuous, you can patrol the zone for 20 hours then leave to attack a convoy, return to the zone and in 28 more hours it will complete
NOTE: I never actually tested the non continuous to see if it actually works or not.

As for ships not counting, the mission can be set to sink tonnage and will complete or not depending on the amount of tonnage set AND the type of Tonnage set in the editor.
The types are:
Any
Merchant
WarShip
Merchant Replenesment
Merchant Cargo
Merchant Tanker
Merchant Troop Transport
Warship Capital
Warship Escort

So whether the mission completes or not depends on how it is written. If it is written to sink 10,000 tons of merchants shipping then sinking a warship will not count toward finishing the mission, but you WILL get credit (renown) for sinking it. If the mission orders say to sink merchant shipping but the type is set to "Any" then warships will count toward the total tonnage. (in other words, the mission was not written correctly and will work but not the way it was intended to work)

The only type of mission that requires you to stay in a zone for them to count is "Destroy Enemy Class" which will be a specific Class of ship such as Fuso Battleship and will be set that way, but normally isn't used because it is very specific because it must be a certain ship in a certain location and doesn't work well with the SH4 Random style of doing things. I do not think it is used in the stock game at all but may very well be used in the more historical MODs.

I hope some of that makes sense.

[Webster]

There are several types of missions, but answer the specific questions asked.

excellent info, thanks.

its been so long since I did missions but I never really took the time to learn enough about it from the start.

[MetalMania]

Peabody,

Thanks for the info about the mission type differentiation, that sounds like what is happening to me. Since I'm in a career, I don't know if there's a way for me to check the underlying parameters of the patrol, but I did notice that my first two career patrols were given the initial orders of "Deploy to xxx and engage enemy merchant shipping" - these were the ones that "acknowledged" my arrival immediately and then gave the order to engage shipping (again). I don't have a screenshot of the current one at the moment but I'm pretty sure the initial order verbage for that one is "Patrol off xxx.....". So I guess I need to stay within 50 miles for a while on this one and sink a few ships to see what happens.

I ended up going back to the end of my 2nd patrol and restarting another 3rd patrol to "fix" losing my gun crew by relocating the deck gun. Unfortunately this time around it assigned my patrol zone back near the same area that I had just finished on my 2nd patrol (south of Honshu) instead of the Marianas like my "1st" 3rd patrol. However, I'm pretty sure this assignment was also a "Patrol off" order. So now I guess I need to choose which 3rd patrol to continue with (both are saved) - I hope that doesn't screw something else up with the career records now having the same career branched off in two directions. I kind of want to continue with the original one, but I think in that case since I've already moved the deck gun I'll never get those crew positions back even if I move it back to the bow on my next patrol. Maybe I'll just continue on with the latter and forget about the original one.

[Father Goose]

I would definitely go with the option to get your sub "whole" again.
Now a good question would be if you decide to move forward with no deck gun and crew will that be corrected on a refit?

[MetalMania]

Well, it would appear to be really just "no crew" for the deck gun if I continue with "Patrol 3A" - the gun is there mounted at the stern and I can still fire it manually. I could just stick out the rest of the patrol (and possibly career) that way until the next refit and see what happens. I don't use the gun a whole lot, although at the end of my last patrol I did conduct attacks on three ships with it after I had expended all my torpedoes. The only part I don't like about manually using the deck gun is if I have to switch out of the station for a moment (to check range for example) then you have to start the whole aim/elevation process all over again every time you jump back in. I put some guys with very high "guns" skills in there between patrols to see how they would do f I just gave the order and had them handle it - but now they're gone! Maybe I'll go that route and just try it for the sake of answering the question, after all I've already spent the time to actually get to the patrol area (and taken like 100 screenshots along the way to "document" my journey). And if I fail horribly..... I have an "alternate life" in reserve!