Sorry about your luck on that SpectreMkX. In the documentation though I do mention the fact that the game is terrible about keeping time. One of the parameters that governs your time in port is "MinimumDaysInBaseUS", which was set to 17.5 in an attempt to "kick the game in the teeth" - it ignored us... so you might be in base 18 days, you might be there 21, maybe more, but generally between those two figures. The problem is the close-together mission assignments necessary for a set of SeaTrials missions. By the time you are hitting what is supposed to be the 3rd mission, you could be well beyond its expiration date. I did extensive testing on this for the v1.46 release, and never could get your situation, but apparently, there is still a way to fall through and get trapped in the Twilight Zone. sigh... So, Do a March of 1942 start at San Diego instead, and you will still end up in Dutch Harbor before the fellows who started in January at San Diego. They got all softened by the cush life of the San Diego harbor area, and don't want to go experience any willowaws or iced decks and railing, and deck guns that won't rotate because of ice... or broken arms from being "pooped" while on watch... That's what makes a true submariner, is going to the Bering Sea yes sir!

So the January 1942 start we'll say might be a 50-50 that you get away from San Diego without having to do Save file edits, while all of the other S-Boat starts there are what I call "dunk and go", where you might do one Sea Trial, come back in, and then off to Alaska on the next mission. Or, you might do a dunk and go right away on the first mission. Hunter's Point is similar in this regard, but there are a few other boats there that do a 3 mission Sea Trial there. If the DaysInPort work out, the set does fantastic, and off you go. But any little delay of the game holding you in port, and it can really put a cork in it, and then you're stuck... :salute:

I see, I see. Could it potentially be that I spent too long in base since I was undergoing repairs? My orders said to find crush depth, and I did, at the cost of a few lightbulbs.

Yes, that would do it... We really should remove that wording. That is a leftover from the TMO days, and it should be an option, and not even mentioned for the S-Boats... how deep did you get before you started breaking things? The wording in the "orders" insinuate that you will see the conning tower walls buckle before anything else, but I have never experienced that. Usually, you'll have glass breaking and other sounds of failure and "We're taking damage, sir!" "We have heavy flooding, sir!" and then you have to blow ballast and "Ahead Flank!" to even begin to recover. After that, ~then~ you might see some "dishing" in of the plates, but I have never done that in an S-Boat... sounds like a fun time, eh?... :arrgh!:

Glass started breaking and lights went out at roughly 300 feet, which surprised me. I thought for sure that my boys and I would be turned into vacuum packed sardines at that point. Didn't suffer any flooding though, but I did take two points of Hull damage. Guess I didn't suffer from sudden onset water leakages because I was diving at one knot

I was taking my Tambor to 500' in 50' increments(or so I thought). At 425' the lights flickered and one of the big gauges shattered. 3% hull damage. Emergency blow! Ahead flank! Compartments report!

425 seems pretty shallow for a Tambor Class to be crush depth. I recall reading one of the patrol reports(trying to think which one) where were forced down to 500 feet without issues. Even an old Porpoise Class (Pollack) made it to 540 when in an out of control dive during depth charge evasion.

It may have made it further but I didn't want additional damage.

Argh. My first CTD report since LAA and SH4 clearing.

8 nautical miles off Guam. Feb. 3, 1942 (17:10). Contact:unknown. Depth:350'.

https://i.imgur.com/gJPBoAS.png

https://i.imgur.com/XfDYZnU.png

https://i.imgur.com/YIdWYmz.png

https://i.imgur.com/r2UwKDa.png

Damage: 3% hull from earlier depth test - nothing else.

Gauges show normal and correct display.

CO2 level: 18%

~~~~

This was the boat's first potential enemy encounter.

Tried loading same save three times. CTD would happen 60 seconds later each time no matter what action was taken (even no action).

Loaded previous save - January 19, 1942 (09:03) no indication of enemy contact - and game proceeded, blissfully.

https://i.imgur.com/7Cseu41.png

CTDs are the only thing that's a deal breaker for me.

Hoping it's merely a corrupted save. (I had been saving consecutively with no overwrites but I'd been deleting the older saves - I named this save the same as one of the previously deleted saves).

yes, they are annoying.:hmmm:

next time.....try a system reboot, just before you start abandoning saves.
sometimes, SH4 doesn't get the proper memory allocated from the Vaunted Microsoft Operating System.:03:
:Kaleun_Salute:

I see great promise in FOTRSU, it just needs some kinks wrung out. For now, I'm going back to my steady (TMO). Even back then it would CTD me from time to time but now that I'm well indoctrinated in using LAA and purging the SH4 document folder I anticipate completing careers. And I may see if I can complete a career in RFB. But I will give FOTRSU another go when a newer version surfaces. :)

A CTD in SH4, no matter whether Stock, TMO, FotRSU or any other mod, is all too common. TMO will also eventually CTD on you. And the Roster isn't near that of FotRSU - until Bubblehead1980 gets his updates out. In the meantime, I do appreciate the pictures. With all of the information in them, I was able to drive to Guam on the date notated. I had a time of it avoiding the harbor patrol a couple of times, so pulled out to deep water until dark, then came in the rest of the way. This is the results:

https://i.imgur.com/Hl2zgoB.jpg

The ship burning and sinking in the foreground is a Medium Tanker that was partially hiding behind the docks. Leftover AvGas helped my cause here, else a bow shot most likely would not have sunk it. The fire burning in the background is a Modern Passenger carrier, probably used to transport the occupation forces over from Saipan. That bugger took 3 torp explosions, but six torpedoes all told. I must remember to turn duds off when I am testing... Anyway, that ship was sitting on the far north quay. The Medium Tanker would have been behind the south quay. The sonar line you are showing is in the middle of the docks, so is most likely a Landed H6K. But you do have an airbase right there also, so I would suspect either an airplane issue, bad data from who-knows-what in the game, or your computer, with possibly something in the background using clock cycles. It is really tough to say. We'll do a few more runs into the neighborhood and see what we can stir up...

I recently bought a 500 renown upgrade for my Tambour class which added a 4inch gun on the bow with a single 20mm AA gun on the stern. But the problem is, the single 20mm gun is not accessible. I also have a twin 20mm AA gun on the conning tower which is accessible though. And also there is only one slot shown for Manning the AA gun in Crew management page. What should I do?

if i recall the mod team's suggestion correctly, you should:
1. remove crew from gun positions before entering the green circle around your harbour;
2. buy a upgrade of guns. At this time, some slots will be wrong, don't worry and proceed;
3. save and exit the game completely;
4. enter the game again and load what you have saved. The wrong slots would be corrected.

Also do a Save coming into port, which is important, but you can also so another Save of the game in port, also under your own naming, such as "BeforeGunPurchase" or whatever you want, so you have multiple Saves to possibly use. In port Saves do not always function correctly though. After you purchase the gun, you do have to look at the crew page and make certain you have crew slots for the new gun(s). If the slots are missing, something is wrong (but who knows what that is??). Another Save at this point most likely will not fix the issue. The only "safe" course is to back off the gun purchase, in which case you do lose your renown used. There is another option though, and that is after the bad purchase (no crew slots), Save the game as flaminus mentions, and use the 3rd section of the "Coletrains and Others" gun fix pdf (I forget the actual name), found in the Support folder, either under the HowTo or one of the other folders. I'll be back on my computers in about an hour or two and can verify the file name and location.

Generally speaking, where the boat has its "default" deck gun placement is where you will have the most success with placing the deck gun of the dual gun set-up. In other words, if you have a bow deck gun, use the dual gun set-up that uses the stern-mounted 20mmDG, and the bow mounted 4 or 5 inch gun. It will usually function correctly either set you choose though. The 20mm placement will only have two personnel manning it. It will also not do AA, and will only fire on other ships. A gun can either be designate "AA" or "DeckGun", and therefore cannot do dual-purpose roles on the player's sub, and the same for there only being one deck gun slot and camera that the player can man, and that follows the actual deck gun. These are restrictions of the base SH4 stock game, and we just try to circumnavigate them, or try to fool the game into doing something it wasn't designed to do.

If you have the correct slots for the guns after purchase, put crewmen in those slots before you leave port. If you happen to place the crew on Battle Stations though, you will usually not see all of the guns manned, which is just an initialization problem. The game is not aware yet of your purchase. Relieve the crew of Battle Stations and do another Save, preferably one outside of port influence (the green circle), exit the game, then come back into the game, loading that save, and all of the crew should show in-place with the next use of Battle Stations.


Edit: I found the file name to reference is "NewColetrainsAndOthersDGfix.pdf", and it is in the "Support / HowTo" folder of the mod. Use that if you have a "no crew slots" situation. Be aware that there are multiple ways this manifests itself, depending upon what happened to the game's data. You might only have the "CrewMemberSlotAdditionalRepository" issue, which is the easiest trouble to fix, or you might be missing the gun itself, which involves a bit more searching and work, or you might have both problems at the same time, and / or at one or both guns. The same situation happens with the base stock game, which of course is what propagates it into all mods.

I will just simply wait till I get transferred to a new boat and apply the method which you all just said before upgrading to a newer gun.
Thanks :Kaleun_Salute: