At career start in the office you can save manually, and I would do it instead of using autosaves later. I know from SH5 that overwriting a save when saving game, or using autosaves will mess-up your career at some point. I always save in different slots giving progressive names like Xenon_Carrer_015 etc... At some point I delete them. Up to now I didn't encounter crashes or problems. (But I'm not only playing FORTSU).


Of course the reason in your case may be a totally different one.


XS

As XenonSurf mentions on the previous page, Saving to a "new slot" is rather important with both SH3 and SH4. What that means is that if you have a Save "MySave" already done, that you do not attempt to Save over the top of that, like standard Windows procedure, but rather that you give the next Save a new name, such as "MySave02" or whatever (as has been mentioned). Doing so helps minimize the Save file size, and keeps a "known-good" Save in the game. As a person's career advances and proceeds through time, there is more and more data to keep track of for the game. I do not know the game's "specs", as far as their buffer sizes or any of that fun stuff that a player shouldn't have to worry about, but the larger your Save is, the longer it takes to write it to disk, of course. Hence the recommendation to pause after clicking on "Save". Each person's computer is different, some use write-caching, some don't, etc.

With SH4, the devs did eliminate most of the Save issues, such as being restricted from Saving while submerged, but it is still not "fool-proof", especially anytime I'm at the keyboard :roll: - this is why it is also recommended not to Save while it is really busy around your boat, which includes while sitting in or near a large harbor, such as your Home Port, or in the middle of a battle. Save prior to each event. But the SH4 system has proven that it can do that, more often than not, but there are exceptions of course. The use of LAA and the like on the SH4.exe file seems to help the most, but a fast hard drive with plenty of space probably helps also... I'm forgetting something... I'll update later if I think of it. :salute:

I was able to rescue my previous patrol by loading a save from well before I got anywhere near Enewetak Atoll, and its ridiculous collection of warships. SH4.exe stability does seem to depend heavily on how much is going on near one's sub. Then I kept playing until I was well away from there, then got back to Midway and all is well again.

An observation on AA armament: Ever since my Balao got the 40mm flak guns, we have been absolutely WRECKING attacking aircraft. It's still a bit of a gamble to fight it out on the surface, but more often than not, the boys in the air go down in flames.


I haven't found the 5" gun's aircraft ammo to have any discernable effect. The gunsight on the deck gun just is not suited to tracking aircraft, even if I could somehow compute the firing solution to get the flak burst vaguely near the attacking aircraft.

What I would suggest doing is naming your save games after your objective. For instance, if you were ordered to patrol in area 11-B, name your save-game "Area 11-B 1" and if you saved again in that patrol grid area, name it "Area 11-B 2" and if you were ordered to patrol in that area again, name it "Area 11-B 2.0 1".

That is what I do and it works for me.

That's an idea to have, but there is an important finesse to know I think:


You don't want to save within your patrol area if you haven't yet achieved the mission goal. The reason is - I guess it's the same like in SH5 - that your patrol timer will be reset if you save/reload. Let's say you are ordered to patrol for 5 days, you will have to do it in one-go in your patrol area - and then save, or you save just before entering your patrol circle. Doing differently will cause you to have to patrol for 5 days again before completing successfully your objective. Of course if you achieve a lot of tonnage in your zone then you can neglect this, you will have a high score when returning to your base anyway :)


Note that in SH5 there is the additional nuisance that the same enemy (be it a single or a convoy) will freshly spawn a 2nd time after reloading in the patrol zone, I hope this doesn't happen in SH4.


If this ain't so, then all the better, you can save when you want.




XS

All of the game's "timers" re-set when you Save and exit, including any damage incurred that is still in the process of being repaired. If the fellows wrenching are five minutes away from affecting repairs that have taken 3 hours and 55 minutes thus far, if you Save and exit there, when you come back in, there will be four hours now until that same repair is finished. You will also hear some of the sound FX of the game as you come back in with a re-load, which if you've hit an anti-sub net, can be quite startling... and like all of the other SH series of games, yes indeedy, the enemy can re-spawn, situationally dependent. In certain situations, if you sank a ship previously, saved, re-enter, find that same ship again and go to sink it a 2nd time, you usually do not get "credit" for another sinking. But that's the way the game engine works. Save ~before~ you do something, do the "something", then exit the area to save again. It is not a good idea anyway, to hang around the area of an attack. Too easy to find you for a counter-attack... :salute:

Oh gosh, even repairs... That's what went terribly wrong in my last save :salute:


Good to know, thanks Propbearnie.

Error With Mod
 

Hey there, I launch the game with the mod just fine. However, when I try to load into a game it crashes and errors out with an "unknown error" any known causation for this or fix especially? Like when I launch 'submarine school' or the 'fleet-boat campaign'

-querez

Radar issues + torpex
 

1. Proceeding on the surface to Area 10 on 5/13/45, near the eastern entrance of the Tsugaru Strait, we detected a small freighter through the raised periscope rather than the radar or sonar. Radar was confirmed on and set to continuous sweep.

2. The radar has always been inferior to sound detection; I understand this is a known issue.

3. The Mk 16 torpedo seems to have less explosive power than even the Mk 14 from the stock game, much less than the Mk 16. Small freighters and escorts routinely take two or more hits to sink. In one recent attack, an 800 ton escort shook off a hit from abeam just forward of the superstructure; a second hit from abeam just forward of the stack finally caused it to stop and slowly sink 10 min later.

Never had that problem before. Maybe I have but I just didn't notice.

Radar screen red or green
 

Hi all!
I present my opinion. Was the US submarines radar screen red or green historically? I can be wrong but I always believed that the screen was green, but in FOTRSU it is red. Is it possible to change the screen from red to green? Maybe it's not an important detail but for me the graphics are important.
TNX in advance!
Torpedo:Kaleun_Salute:

The PPI was indeed red, I have seen pictures of it but I can't remember where. In the early days of SH4 modding we did a lot of research regarding that. :Kaleun_Salute:

I'm not convinced it's red, this video would make me believe it was green ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Baswg-0BpCw

Note that he is in a 'modernized' conn, and he points out the ST (periscope) as green, but does not mention the SJ, of which in SH4, the A-Scope is green. :salute: