Saving a saved game

[The Renegade]

No I'm not an idiot, just hear me out.

Okay, I just downloaded the Grey Wolves Mod yesterday and I have a question about carrying over a saved game/campaign. I know that a fresh installation of SHIII is needed to install GW, but I already have a campaign on my stock SHIII and I've done about 10 really great patrols. I'm just wondering if there's some way to back up a saved campaign and then somehow re-integrate it with the new SHIII installation so I don't have to start a whole new campaign. I do have SH3 Commander, which I was thinking may be able to help, and I also have the JSGME mod enabler, if that helps.

[JohnnyBlaze]

No I'm not an idiot, just hear me out.

Okay, I just downloaded the Grey Wolves Mod yesterday and I have a question about carrying over a saved game/campaign. I know that a fresh installation of SHIII is needed to install GW, but I already have a campaign on my stock SHIII and I've done about 10 really great patrols. I'm just wondering if there's some way to back up a saved campaign and then somehow re-integrate it with the new SHIII installation so I don't have to start a whole new campaign. I do have SH3 Commander, which I was thinking may be able to help, and I also have the JSGME mod enabler, if that helps.

Well my experience with installing new mods is that I always start a new career.
I guess it depends on what mods did you use earlier with the game...

I'm sure someone else can be more correct on this one so I'm just going to shut up :lol:

[JScones]

Generally, installing mods whilst in base is OK. Installing whilst mid-patrol is definately a no-no.

For reference, SH3Cmdr makes changes to SH3 each time it runs which is commensurate to installing mods (SH3Cmdr works around the "installing whilst mid-patrol problems"). So you can see that it's OK to do so.

However, some players do lose their careers. Most times though, they are easily "reassociated" by some file/folder manipulation (renaming the career folders and renaming them back). Personally, I've *never* had problems installing mid *career* and I am regularly throwing different mods in and out of SH3 in order to test compatibility with SH3Cmdr.

[The Renegade]

Thanks a bunch JScones and Johnny Blaze. That's great news that you don't have to reinstall a fresh "copy" of SH3, and I'm definitely gonna try to install GW when I'm back at base. I guess if it doesn't work I can try to rename the files or whatever or just start a new career, but this is a great alternative.

So thanks again. I'l be sure to report back if it doesn't work. You know, cause you guys are so knowledgable :up: .

[JScones]

I recommend, if you have the HD space, to make copies of your freshly installed and patched SH3.

That way, you can create a copy and install GW into it. You can create another copy if you wanted to install any other supermod.

Then, if you somehow corrupt the GW copy, you can simply delete and replace it with a fresh copy of SH3, without needing to fully reinstall from DVD again.

Your careers won't be affected by this as they are saved elsewhere.

[The Renegade]

Well it did work, although the mod tried to make me switch my base from Wilhelmshaven to Kiel, and as a result, when I started the patrol, I was off the coast of Africa. No idea why, but then I just ended the patrol, started a new one, and I was in Kiel. And man, once I was in Kiel, I was just blown away by all the improvements. And there are so many.....to the guys who did this, I can't thank you enough.

Couple questions though, and I don't know if I should ask these in this thread or somewhere else, but whatever. First of all, what are the "atmosphere" mods, and what are the differences between the 8km light/dark and the 16km light/dark?

Also, when the mod was installing, I didn't select "generic ship names" for something to be installed, cause I thought it would make all ships "unknown" and I'm not really ready for that yet. But all the ships are still colored black on the map and are unknown. Is that just a part of the mod I have to disable, or do I have to install the generic ship names?

About disabling and enabling things too. I got the mod from the Swedish mirror, cause the one on Subsim doesn't work right now, and all the files are in "BIN" format. I've read that you can enable and disable individual aspects of the GW mod somehow, but I can't open the "bin" files and I can't find them in the SH3 program folder. So, exactly how do you modify the mod?

If anyone just feels like taking the time to answer my barrage of questions, thanks. Otherwise, I'll try to solve it on my own :roll: or I might just post somewhere else.

[JScones]

Well it did work, although the mod tried to make me switch my base from Wilhelmshaven to Kiel, and as a result, when I started the patrol, I was off the coast of Africa. No idea why, but then I just ended the patrol, started a new one, and I was in Kiel. And man, once I was in Kiel, I was just blown away by all the improvements. And there are so many.....to the guys who did this, I can't thank you enough.
Great to hear.

Couple questions though, and I don't know if I should ask these in this thread or somewhere else, but whatever. First of all, what are the "atmosphere" mods, and what are the differences between the 8km light/dark and the 16km light/dark?
I'll leave this one for someone else.

Also, when the mod was installing, I didn't select "generic ship names" for something to be installed, cause I thought it would make all ships "unknown" and I'm not really ready for that yet. But all the ships are still colored black on the map and are unknown. Is that just a part of the mod I have to disable, or do I have to install the generic ship names?
Selecting the "Generic ship names" option will change all ship names simply to "Contact". This is different to GW's default behaviour of changing all contact lines on the nav map to grey.

About disabling and enabling things too. I got the mod from the Swedish mirror, cause the one on Subsim doesn't work right now, and all the files are in "BIN" format. I've read that you can enable and disable individual aspects of the GW mod somehow, but I can't open the "bin" files and I can't find them in the SH3 program folder. So, exactly how do you modify the mod?
Provided you haven't added any further mods to your GW SH3 installation, just rerun the TGW11a.exe file, selecting whatever options you want.

If you have installed further mods, they must be disabled/removed first.

Please note though that once installed, the enhanced seafloor textures can only be removed manually.

[The Renegade]

Wow thanks again for the quick reply JScones.

Yeah, I read the readme and then your post and discovered that I was confused about the generic contacts and the unidentified contacts. I kinda miss the color coding though, even if it wasn't completely realistic, but I do think that reports from other subs or Bdu might have mentioned the ship's nationality time after time. Then again, it would be hard to mod for that, so I guess now I'll just have to track down those ships!

It's also great to hear that you can just run the installer again to change things. I thought it was going to be complicated as hell and I'd be at the computer so long my eyes would hurt. Hate it when that happens.

And as for my atmosphere mod question, I kinda get it now, but I'd still like to completely understand what it is and what it affects.

Now just a random thought by me. I did install the seafloor mod, but then I discovered the water was really dark. Black almost! I discovered that the water was intentionally made to be more murky, but it's really murky. I couldn't see the seafloor at all, even when I was in shallow waters in my port, so in my opinion, the murkiness is too much and defeats the purpose of the seafloor mod.

[JScones]

You can change the "murkiness" with SH3Cmdr - "Adjust water density" setting.

Syxx_killer released a compromise re the contacts. That is, they are grey until sighted, in which case they take on the usual colour. Check out... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=92475

[Sailor Steve]

I'm confused. When I uninstall SHIII it always asks me if I want to keep my saved campaigns, and I've never had a problem with it; they always work just fine.

[The Renegade]

I'm confused. When I uninstall SHIII it always asks me if I want to keep my saved campaigns, and I've never had a problem with it; they always work just fine.

Ah.... :damn:

I guess I never have tried to uninstall SH3 so I never knew that it did that. I just assumed it uninstalled everything, including the saved campaigns. Silly me.

Thanks again JScones for the info. I might try that compromise mod and I will play around with the water density as well. I do have another question for you though regarding SH3 Commander. I noticed that the GW comes with an optional 24-hour fatigue mod, but in SH3 Commander, it just says GW 8-hour Model. So I'm just wondering how to set up SH3 Commander so that the 24-hour model is used in the game.

[JScones]

Thanks again JScones for the info. I might try that compromise mod and I will play around with the water density as well. I do have another question for you though regarding SH3 Commander. I noticed that the GW comes with an optional 24-hour fatigue mod, but in SH3 Commander, it just says GW 8-hour Model. So I'm just wondering how to set up SH3 Commander so that the 24-hour model is used in the game.

Either copy the below block into SH3Cmdr's "Crew fatigue models.cfg" file, located under the \Cfg folder:

[5]
Desc=Grey Wolves 24 Hour
;CREW_ block
0_FatigueMax=0.80
0_FatigueStep=0.031
1_FatigueMax=0.80
1_FatigueStep=0.032
2_FatigueMax=0.80
2_FatigueStep=0.033
3_FatigueMax=0.80
3_FatigueStep=0.034
4_FatigueMax=0.80
4_FatigueStep=0.035
5_FatigueMax=0.80
5_FatigueStep=0.04
6_FatigueMax=0.80
6_FatigueStep=0.04
7_FatigueMax=0.80
7_FatigueStep=0.041
8_FatigueMax=0.80
8_FatigueStep=0.042
;FATIGUE_COEF block
RegularFactor00=0.001
SpecificFactor00=0.00333
BadWeather0=0.02
RegularFactor10=0.001
RegularFactor11=0.001
SpecificFactor10=0.00333
SpecificFactor11=0.00333
BadWeather1=0.001
RegularFactor20=0.001
RegularFactor21=0.001
SpecificFactor20=0.00333
SpecificFactor21=0.00333
BadWeather2=0.001
RegularFactor30=0.001
RegularFactor31=0.001
SpecificFactor30=0.00333
SpecificFactor31=0.000
BadWeather3=0.02
RegularFactor40=0.001
RegularFactor41=0.001
SpecificFactor40=0.000
SpecificFactor41=0.00333
BadWeather4=0.001
RegularFactor50=0.001
RegularFactor51=0.001
SpecificFactor50=0.045
SpecificFactor51=0.045
BadWeather5=0.02
SpecificFactor60=-0.0000001
SpecificFactor61=-0.0000001
SpecificFactor70=-0.0000001
SpecificFactor71=-0.0000001
RegularFactor80=0.001
RegularFactor81=0.001
SpecificFactor80=0.045
SpecificFactor81=0.045
BadWeather8=0.02
RegularFactor90=0.001
SpecificFactor90=0.05
BadWeather9=0.02
RegularFactor100=0.001
SpecificFactor100=0.05
BadWeather10=0.02
RegularFactor110=0.001
RegularFactor111=0.001
SpecificFactor110=0.02
SpecificFactor111=0.02
BadWeather11=0

OR wait until SH3Cmdr R2.6, which includes it as default.