Happy hunting :arrgh!:

Good luck and, as someone else on the forum would say, "Sink em all!"

:salute:

Okay, back to posting this where it belongs. As reported in my new Patrol Logs thread I did a false patrol, set up my crew, then tried to start a real patrol only to have the loading bar freeze. I know it can take longer to load with lots of mods, but 30 minutes with no change? I don't think so.

I've been reliably informed that I'm an idiot. Well, not really, but I know the horrible truth. I really have been reliably informed that my new PC should easily handle the mod loadout, so the next best assumption is that I screwed up somewhere, which is certainly believable. My current plan is to start another career and see what happens. If that doesn't work then I'll be stripping everything out and reloading it again. The difference this time is that I'll be keeping everything in JSGME like I probably should have all along. I just like to make sure things are working that way and then loading them in permanently. I probably need to break that habit.

I'll be doing all this tomorrow. Tonight I have music to play, and today I need practice. I also have a model I've been putting off far too long.

We'll see how it goes. :sunny:

No need to do that, although I suspect that your habit might arise from a distrust of early versions of JSGME. Maybe stick with JSGME for a few rounds, until you are absolutely certain that everything is working just the way you want it. If you choose to hand-install the mods at that point, you can be sure that any problem which comes up is due to a PEBKAC error.:)

My experience while running MFM Lite BETA was loading times of around 70 to 90 minutes. While I loved all the added ships, I finally tired of the long loading times, and took it out. My loading times dropped to 5 to 10 minutes then.

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I posted here. Then again, I thought I might be done with starting over and actually underway. No such luck, at least then.

And now? I followed BW's advice and stopped pretending like I know what I'm doing. Everything is installed using only JSGME. This let me experiment a lot more. I finally figured out which mod was keeping me from playing 'Happy Times'. It was Racerboy's (TheDarkWraith) SH4 Effects for SH3. With that not installed I got to play the single mission one more time. I installed it after. If I get a crash later because of a missing ship or some such I'll know what to try first. Until then I'm sticking with it.

Anyway, tomorrow I plan to start a new career and hope it will stick. :sunny:

Well that should get you a good verbal posting of 'your stupid' or some such from you know who.
:har:

Actually I don't know who, but I'm the first to admit that I am indeed stupid when it comes to understanding things like this. :sunny:

I have a new problem. I hit the 'P' key to go to periscope depth and the boat starts dropping like a stone. Going full speed and ordering any depth, including surface, doesn't help. I haven't died because 'E' to blow the tanks will stop the dive, and another 'E' or two will start rising. I tested it several times to make sure I hadn't hit a wrong key, and it does the same thing every time.

The funny part is that I then ran a single mission and a couple of Academy missions and everything works exactly as it should. It's only happening in my brand-new career.

I did some research and similar things have happened to others, but seemingly only after ordering a Crash Dive, not a normal dive to periscope depth.

Oh, also it has happened after getting out of the game and reloading.

Strange indeed. Maybe check your keyboard commands with Setkeys?

H.sie's Crash Dive fix maybe related with the problem?

Would that change between Career and Academy modes? I just now loaded it up again and avoided the keys altogether. I used the mouse to click 13 meters. Again the boat headed for the bottom as fast as it could.

Maybe. I'm not sure how to check that.

H.sie's and Stiebler's mods have a setup program (Option Selector) that lets one pick what tweaks one wants to be written to SH3.exe. I checked the options I have on in my SH3.exe, looked like this:

http://i.imgur.com/S12juej.jpg

This is what it says in the Option Selector help file:

“Crash dive blues” - Bug fix by H.sie and Stiebler (V15E or later)
From now on, you don’t lose control over the sub anymore if you interrupt a crash dive before the sub has reached its designated crash dive depth. NYGM players will benefit especially from this fix, since in NYGM the Crash dive blues is more noticable.
Prevents the old problem that an interrupted crash-dive (for example, by setting a greater depth before the crash-dive is completed) will cause the U-boat to settle out at the new depth at an angle, and become difficult to control at slow speeds.

If the problem description sounds familiar, it might be that patching your SH3.exe could fix the problem. If you do try patching your sh3.exe, be ABSOLUTELY sure you have a backup copy of your original SH3.exe AND the SH3.exe that you now have (with the h.sie and stiebler corrections).

My first instinct is to say "I've never crash-dived with this campaign! How can that be the problem?" My second instinct is to remember that often things in computer programs take on a mind of their own, and it sometimes gets weird.

I'll uncheck that item and see what happens. Thanks for the advice. :sunny:

Hopefully that helps. Your problem sounds very strange. If it doesn't help, let's hope someone else has experienced something like that and can give a hint about what might be the problem.

I removed both and it fixed it real good. Crashed the game. Of course I knew that might happen, being in the middle of a patrol and all. Of course if I waited until the end of the patrol I might have encountered a destroyer, and with no vertical control underwater I likely would have died anyway. Oh well, I was only about four game-hours in.

Restarted the career and it seems to be working alright. I'll never know if one of those was the problem or it was just a glitch in that career. Either way, it's fixed for now. I'll be loud and noisy if it happens again.

Thanks for the advice. :sunny: