That makes a lot of sense. I'm in late 1942 at the moment, and the Tang book starts in late 1943.


I did completely empty my save folder, so I don't have any sort of mod conflict going on. I suspect my ease of play this career is more due to me having gotten the hang of manual targeting, and FOTRSU not making me subject to the whims of Admirals Fife and Hart, and their crappy patrol focuses.


Thinking about it, that was absolutely the first German I came across: A solo German Troopship Modern Class east of Mindano. I did come across another German-flagged Greek merchant a few days later, east of Luzon. And I've definitely run into the pairs of destroyer escorts. I've actually gotten fairly good at taking at least one of them out, though my last two FOTRSU careers ended at their hands... er... depth charges.

Well, every time you think you've seen it all, someone else shows you something new... I have never seen the issue you have Zyhgar... The crewmember section is really strange. CrewMemberSlot 1 starts fine, but then instead of doing the crewmember description and rank, it lists CrewmemberSlot 2, 3 and 4, with no actual crewmember descriptions or rank... I'll take the Saves I made earlier to find the differences between the running boats, and bring them both back in to port and dock and Save, then see what the crewmember listings look like, and get back with you tomorrow my time... :salute:

That German/Greek ship might be an auxilary cruiser, with the potential to have multiple guns to pound you... maybe even torpedoes. Very aggressive. :o
:salute:

Oh, I noticed! I hit it with a torpedo, then battle surfaced on the thing and it nailed me on its first shot! There followed a 2 hour running gun fight while it burned and my damage control party worked frantically. I think if I hadn't taken the 4 inch gun upgrade I wouldn't have sunk it. As it is, I'm hugely lucky that I managed to retain all my fuel!

My saves are all fine upon return to port... so my supposition is that your crewmember descriptions from the damage control team, which is where you take your gun crews from, got mingled with the gun crew slots PRIOR to your coming into port... I'm trying to edit my save file to look like yours from when you left port, and then come back in and see what happens... more later. :salute:


I cannot fathom how the crew got transposed into an incorrect compartment though... :hmmm:

OK Zyhgar, I may have found the issue. In your Save folder, using the folder you will take the sub out with next time (00000004??), after the re-fit, look for the section "UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 6.WeaponSlot 1", and the last line in that is "IDLinkWeaponLoaded=", and yours has "NULL, NULL". After 1942-08-01, your boat should have a "3in50calUS, NULL" in that line instead. After that section, you are missing the actual Weapon section, so paste this between that last line, and the "UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 6.CrewMemberSlot 1" header of the next section:

[UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 6.WeaponSlot 1.Weapon]
ID=3in50calUS
NameDisplayable=3inch .50 Caliber Cannon
WeaponInterval=1900-01-01, 1999-12-31
WeaponSlotType=NULL
AmmoTypesAccepted=3inAPUS,3inHEUS
AmmoTypeLoaded=NULL
AmmoMagazineSize=1
AmmoMagazineRemaining=0
WeaponCrewMembersSlots=4
ExternalLinkName3D=3_50_Soclu
FunctionalType=WpCannon
Hitpoints=100.000000
EfficiencyHumanFactor=1.000000
EfficiencyMechanicFactor=1.000000
Efficiency=1.000000
Damage=0.000000
DamageHitpointsConsumed=0.000000
RemainingRepairTime=0000-00-00 00:00:00
DamageDescription1=NULL,0,0.2,0,1,1,Jam,0,0,NULL,1 ,0.3,0.206513
DamageDescription2=NULL,0,1,0,0.5,1,Chamber Explosion,50,5,NULL,1,2,13.0046

Save the file, and then try to load that Save. Unfortunately, there is no "naming" shown in the Save data as text, so I am guessing that info is in the binary files. In your search folders though, that "IDLinkWeaponLoaded=" and the following "UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 6.WeaponSlot 1.Weapon" section are why you do not have any gun crew member slots in the game - there is no gun to put them on... Usually when this happens, there is a partial gun listing. Yours is completely missing... I found that only in the 00000004 folder of the set you posted. :salute:

I was trying to trouble shoot my self with 00000004 and 0000000a.
00000004 is the save with the stern mounted version of the 4inch 0000000a is the save with the bow mounted version of the 4inch so maybe that's why there's missing bowgun code? I didn't edit any of the code myself this was all generated via just saving the game.
I was trying to see if saving and loading by switching between the bow and stern gun versions would just fix the bug like the oxygen bug would be fixed after a fresh save.

I'll edit the 0000000a when I can (will be leaving home after posting.).
I did put a permanent gun crew on the deck gun at the start of the game so there was always crew assigned to the gun and I hired more crew for DC.
Is that the issue?

The problem with the S-Class boats (18 & 42 both), is that they cannot mount an aft gun. There is an M01 node for the bow mount, but no node for an after gun. The real boats did not have the space to mount one back there, and did not have any reinforcement on the deck either. The gun itself is in the Compartment 6, which you might notice is different from the fleetboats, which use Compartment 7 (aft) and Compartment 8 (bow) for the deck gun (s). As for an oxygen bug, if you are referring to the oxygen not restoring upon surfacing, that is also a function of the game, in that it is an old WinXP, DirectX v9 game, and as such, thinks it is the only thing running on your computer. If you shell-out to Windows, or any background app interrupts your game-play, that will introduce all sorts of oddities into the gameplay, including the oxygen not restoring, the crew not resting and eventually collapsing a "Cannot comply" responses to orders. It can also introduce graphic anomalies, such as a smoke pillar following your boat around, or the watch crew staying at their stations when you are submerged. If you encounter any of that, Save the game, exit completely, start the game again, then load the saved game and continue. All such trouble should be gone. Windows does not always restore the game to the same state and addresses it was at before, and the game itself cannot follow along with the changes.

It might be, and wouldn't surprise me if it is, but that does not seem logical to my mind... The basic idea with the larger repair crew was to hold the deck gun and AA gun crews. They can stay at the gun positions, but those are exposed, just like the watch crew positions, and they can be injured much easier, since they are technically still outside the protection of the boat at those stations. It would be nice if the game would move them to protected interior places when submerged, but that was an oversight in the development cycle of the game - maybe... lol

I do alt tab the game a lot sometimes, I'm too used to even in older games but never really had any issues with alt tabbing before other than like minor visual bugs that don't bother me.

I have tried that fix you sent me but it doesn't seem to recover the slots at all. I cannot figure it out this issue? I could try start new campaign and see if it happens again maybe its something to do with the refit? or just a one time bug.

It's tough to say what may or may not happen in the game when you shell-out. Sometimes it gets lost, sometimes not... As for your gun loss, it is probably easier to start over with a new career, since it does look like things are a jumbled mess in your Save folder. I was trying to make corrections to the files here, but more than just the Watch Crew and Deck Gun Crew got mixed-up... Sorry for the mess you have, but don't shell-out unless you have to, and when you do, Save the game, exit, re-start and load the Save to continue, else you might end up with bad data in the Save folder...

So, this might be another of the odd "something crops up before it should" bugs, but at the end of my last patrol, the 5 inch .51 cal deck gun became available for my Tambor (November 1942). I took it, of course.


Out on patrol, I learned that I'm unable to assign people to the gun, and I'm unable to load or fire it. I ended up faced with a choice between reloading at base and grabbing my old deck gun, or continuing with no functional deck gun.


Edit: Once this gun is mounted, I can't even change it out. I switched back to a 4 inch gun, but I still couldn't assign crew to it, nor could I load or fire it. I had to go back to a save from before I accepted the 5 inch gun. Strange stuff!

Notice that the early 5 inch gun available for the Tambor Class is a stern mount only gun. Your existing gun should be in the stern position before you purchase that 5 inch gun. When you get to later in the war and have the 5 inch 25 cal available, those can be fore or aft. Also note that there are a few notes in the Support folder about the deck guns. Refer to the last two pages of the "Playing_FotRSU.pdf" for some information. We used to have a full write-up on the phenomenon somewhere in the Support files... it is from a post somewhere in this thread. As a general rule, you save prior to coming into port, between the green and red circles. That way, you have a back-up to any docking issue you encounter. When you dock, the game rolls the dice then, and decides your next mission assignment, as well as medals, upgrades, promotions, etc. Then you regain control in the Captain's Office. If something goes wrong in that stretch of the game, you have no recourse unless you Saved prior to docking.

When you get a boat, note the position of the gun when you get it. That is the "default" position, and where you should have your gun when you go to make changes later. To change guns, you should always remove the crews from the guns when coming in, prior to your Save. Once in, then you can attempt to change your gun. After making your purchase, or getting the upgrade, go back to the crew page, and make certain your crew slots are there. If not, you could either check the Save folder and do any edits after you exit the game (check the files BEFORE you esit though), or back-off the purchase / upgrade, and try again. Sometimes, it comes down to going back to the inbound Save you made and jtry again, or give up on it, and try again later. Exit the game, then load that career in port again, and try any upgrades, being certain to check for crew positions. Even still, sometimes after you place a gun, and see that you have crew positions, and you put a crew on the gun, that they then do not show at their positions when Battle Stations are called... Save the game, exit, then re-start the game and load the Save. The crew is usually then there. This is another strange aspect of the game that has never functioned correctly. It will function correctly 9 times in a row, and the pooff! gone. 10th time fails. Others have 10 attempts with 9 failures. You never know. YMWV :salute:

Just remember though, the game does NOT like it when you shell out to Windows, due to Windows not always putting things back where they were when the game went inactive in Windows. :doh:

Ahhhh, I wonder if that's what the issue was. I had a 4 inch bow mount gun, and tried to upgrade directly to the 5 inch stern mount gun.


I didn't know about the "save before patrol end" thing, either. I'll definitely start doing that!

jumping in here....

i would add that any time the game gives early access to any upgrade (equipment, boat, conning tower), the user is at risk for something to break.

i am not going into details as PB would, but early access to upgrades is sometimes not a good thing...or at least not a good thing that works. (lol)

good luck!
:Kaleun_Salute:

I'm having trouble downloading, but everything seems fine
are there any problems with the link?