Corrupt Career saves

[spccolts]

Hi all. Just experienced my first corrupt save on my American Career mode. Lost all of my data from my 3rd patrol. Still have my Leaving Port autosave. So I have to redo my entire 3rd patrol which sucks since I got some major warship sinks.

Anyways, how do I save my mission data safely without coming back to port everytime? What are the do's and don'ts of saving out at sea?

[Gray Lensman]

1. Don't ever save over the top of a previous save. (i.e. in other words make a new save each and every time.) and save at least once a day.
2. Don't save when there are nearby enemy contacts (including air contacts) especially if they are close enough to be visible. (This sometimes sucks, but is somewhat avoidable if you achieve a manual sonar sound contact and save before the contact is developed into a crew sound contact. By that I mean, you notice the sonar contact but your crewmen tell you there are no contacts yet.).

Adhering to those two rules has reduced my corruption episodes to almost nil.

[mikesn9]

What gray says is true, but may depend on your version.
When I was at 1.4, I would have corruption if I saved submerged or with contacts near.
I am running 1.5 (no mods) and seem to have no problems with saving in any situation.

Very important though: do not save to an existing save file, at least add a comment ( I may add BU to a previous save name, especially when running to or from a port far away).

I usually make a save name that succinctly describes my situation at that time.

[fireftr18]

I make a save while in the office, ready to go on patrol and name it "Fireftr." Then I save after setting up my waypoints to the patrol zone and call it "Fireftr1." I then save as needed and continue to number the saves.
The "save rules" are from when the game was new and most computers were barely able to run it. Computers are so far ahead now that the rules aren't really necessary. It still can't hurt to be cautious.
:Kaleun_Salute:

[propbeanie]

I want to also add, and have been guilty of this more times than I care to remember, but it's with the mods... Prior to my use of MultiSH and a separate "Save" folder for each mod, I used to unknowingly cross-contaminate my game all the time. I would change mods in port, but I wouldn't clear my save folder. So, say I'm doing GFO, get back to port from a patrol, everything is cool. I then de-activate GFO, and activate TMO and go out on patrol. The game would seemingly run fine. I'd have to save and exit to go do something else (work!??!!). Almost guaranteed to cause a corrupt save every time. If I didn't encounter anything with a different "call" in the game, I wouldn't CTD, just might not be able to open the save next time I played.

So now I've got a separate install for each of the mods I regularly use, and another one for my "experiments" that I have to remember to delete the "Save" folder for every time I experiment. We've discovered corrupt saves and encountered CTDs just from modding one version of FotRSU to the next, with little edits to the MIS files, where a few ships might have been moved between versions... You have to delete the Save folder (usually C:\ My Documents \ SH4) between mod changes, or like I say, use MultiSH, else you can easily end up with what we perceive as corrupt saves.

Now, you might think I should be charging RR every time I do this, since I do it every opportunity lately, but... I cannot recommend highly enough the use of Rockin Robbins' SH4CMS (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2460009#post2460009) utility. Very cool and useful little set of batch files, that will make your SH4 modding life much much easier in the long run. I'd almost put it above JSGME on the ratings scale, though that would be nigh on heresy... With RR's little utility, MultiSH, LAA, and JSGME, you should be wll on your way to being able to avoid most issues... with SH4, that is... :lol:

... and our manners, forgive us... Welcome to SubSim spccolts!!! :subsim:

[THEBERBSTER]

A Warm Welcome To The Subsim Community > spccolts
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Steam Conversion SH4 Installation Instructions By ValoWay (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2297825&postcount=7)

[CapnScurvy]

I've got some insight on a Windows 10 install for SH 4 here [TEC] Windows10; Large Address Aware; SH4 Install (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2468826#post2468826)

The last page has kind of a Do's/Don't list for stable gameplay. Lots of info about Saved Games......Link HERE (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2468826&postcount=7).

[torpedobait]

I am very superstitious about saves. Long ago in my SH3-GWX days, before knowing about Large Address Aware or SH4, I followed advice to never save within 50Nm of any port, never while submerged, never within sensor or visual range of another ship, always with a new save (no overwriting), and always save from the Control Room (F2).

That pretty much worked for me for several years. In SH4 I tended to follow the same process, although I have learned that I was too conservative. That said, here is the process I follow now:
1. I don't save within 50 Nm of a port - if you save near port, and then reload, you may find ships have run aground, collided, or otherwise destroyed themselves in the interim; so my first navigation step is to use the compass to scribe a 60 Nm circle around the center of the port symbol and never save inside that arc. (I also scribe one for 10 Nm so I can tell when the option to end my patrol will be activated;
2. I still save from the Control Room only, but no longer worry about how close an enemy contact may be; in the modern mods, including FOTARS and TMO, it doesn't seem to be a factor, and neither does being on or below the surface;
3. I generally do not overwrite a save file, just to be safe;
4. I give my computer time to finish all write activity (watching the disk activity light) to ensure the entire file is saved, especially nearer the end of a patrol when the file is very large, before returning to the game via the Resume button.
That last one seems to be the key for me. Since the game is in Pause mode anyway, its a good time to take a short galley or head break, even with the Solid State drive it saves to. Following these rules works for me, and might work for you too.

But as one of our colleagues has suggested in times past, it may just all be superstition. Don't knock it if it works.

[nionios]

Another rare weird issue with saves is that you get a message "delete failed" when trying to delete a save.

[Rockin Robbins]

Personally I pay no attention whatever to what's going on when I save the game. I've saved in battle, within 50 nm of a port, in contact with a dozen enemy ships and with a torpedo on the way to the target. Never a problem. I've had about two bad saves in ten years. Just make sure you have backup saves so you only lose a little if it happens.

Nobody has a handle on what causes corrupt saves. But Microsoft Excel does corrupt saves once in awhile too. It's something that happens with all operating systems, all programs and all computers. We may never know what the root cause is, and if we were to know, it probably wouldn't help us avoid future corruption. I will say that alt-tabbing is a problem. Playing in a window and clicking outside the window doesn't seem to be an issue.

About all you can do is mitigate the consequences and make sure your game is not corrupted. It might help if you always saved on the surface, outside of 50 nm from any contacts or port, at half throttle or less with scopes down and facing Mecca. Or just clutch your lucky rabbit's foot while saving. Your mileage may vary.

[mikesn9]

I agree with RR. One thing he alluded to I always do: I leave the last 'save' that I KNOW loaded ok. So, if I have, say 3 saves, I load the latest, and go off searching for trouble. Next time I save, I delete the older 2 saves and keep the third one, just in case I find I'm unable to load the one I'm saving today. Even with multiple saves during one gaming session, always leave that last known good one.

[Rockin Robbins]

It's just like computer hard drives. There are only two kinds: those that are crashed and those that are going to crash. You have to mitigate the harm when it happens. It might not happen for seven years or so. The hard drive may last only a year if you are particularly unlucky or bought a Maxtor.:D:D

[DicheBach]

Always interesting to learn how each game app has its own peccadillos.

Which "engine" is this game built on? Is it by any chance an evolved version of Gamebryo?

Since at least The Elder Scrolls 3, Morrowind, Bethesda has used their own concoction built from Gamebryo. Lots of weird file corruption issues with those too.

On the other hand, I know of games that model the entire Pacific War (War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition), with details down to the level of individual ships (tens of thousands of them), Battalion (and even smaller) land combat units, all the air groups, etc., etc.,

. . . literally hundreds of thousands of individual entities of one form or another, and most with scores if not hundreds of attributes that can be change during play . . . corrupted saves are so rare, I'd go so far as to say they do not happen with WiTPAE. There were and are bugs sure, but corrupted save files is not one of them.

[Rockin Robbins]

Always interesting to learn how each game app has its own peccadillos.

Which "engine" is this game built on? Is it by any chance an evolved version of Gamebryo?
The Silent Hunter Series is its own game engine, not based on anything. That is both good and bad.

The bad part is that the SH3 group didn't properly document their creation and subsequent dev teams used the modules anyway, not understanding their inner workings. What could possibly go wrong with that scenario?:doh:

[DicheBach]

The Silent Hunter Series is its own game engine, not based on anything. That is both good and bad.

The bad part is that the SH3 group didn't properly document their creation and subsequent dev teams used the modules anyway, not understanding their inner workings. What could possibly go wrong with that scenario?:doh:

I've been training/apprenticing as a developer for about 1.5 years now. Fun stuff.

The project I'm an apprentice on right now is a WWII era game of "very similar" nature to the subject matter of this game (won't disclose for NDA purposes though :03:). Same sort of deal: it uses it's own engine . . . 21 year old C code, which has been reworked for about 5 or 6 different games over the decades, and now with just a smidgen of C++ (and Java!) mixed in . . . enough to get it to work in modern Windows OSes.

It is amazing that the guys who have been working on it over the years (and the current team in particular) have achieved. Just getting it to use multi-threading is amazing.

Bit like being thrown into the ocean/deep end of the pool and told "learn to swim!"

I assume Silent Hunter is written primarily in C++? Boy I would love to get to look at their source code. This game does amazing things and I would love to understand how it does.

Most notably I find the seamless way the game integrates representations across such a broad range of space and time scales to be remarkable. It would be fascinating to see how that is done and consider how that envelope might be pushed even further.