Soon as I got the Balao out of Brisbane, I pulled some damage from a freighter during deck gunnery. Not bad. Couldn't dock anywhere but Freemantle. Pulled in and got retired.

So, I'm on a new career. Because I was hesitant to start over in '41 and run into the same bug again, I just started in '44.

I also noticed that during that last patrol in the Balao, the game was taking a long time to load. Both to the main menu, and into the game engine (4 minutes). It normally opens in 15 (intro menu) and 30 seconds (save load).

You are a nagging troll, just pay your money and shut yer mouth.

Just kidding!

The career mode is perhaps the biggest bug that seemingly wont ever be fixed.

Im guessing the devs looked at one of the most rewarding aspects of SH3, the crew management and advancement feature, and decided it was simply just too good for decadent American scum to have, so they borked into oblivion.

Forced Career Termination
 

The career structure of SH3 was "open ended", thus allowing for a great degree of variation such as port, boat, crew, equipment, year, etc etc. Thus adding to overall playability as well as replay value.

Now, with SH4 we have a hideous forced career structure that severely limits playability and virtually obliterates replayability.

Now, the standard fare among the subsim forum apologists is "The average US sub commander did 5 patrols" or some such bunk.

Be that as it may, we must therefore assume that should all things be equal, SH4 should behave much like SH3.

Ive been waiting for one of the self-appointed "experts" here to clarify this, but Ive waited long enough so Ill do it myself.

Please review the following information on German uboat commanders, with special note to amount of patrols.

Weight this carefully against the theory that "if it aint broke, dont fix it". Then lets remind the dev's this is an issue that needs to be fixed...immediately.

Karl-Friedrich Merten = 5 patrols

Georg Lassen = 4 patrols

Carl Emmermann = 5 patrols

Ernst Kals = 5 patrols

Helmut Witte = 4 patrols

Günter Hessler = 3 patrols

Ernst Bauer = 5 patrols

Reinhard Hardegen = 5 patrols

Werner Hartmann = 4 patrols

Richard Zapp = 5 patrols

Victor Oehrn = 4 patrols

Erwin Rostin = 2 patrols

Hans Ludwig Witt = 3 patrols

I’ve had quite a good time in the 3 careers I’ve played so far. Just this weekend was my first ever CTD, and from the sounds of it, it’s the corrupt save game bug that is held over for SH3. Nothing going back to an earlier save won’t fix.

For a game that has just now been out for a month, saying “It won’t ever get fixed” is quite a bold statement, not to mention a very negative one.
As one of those “American scum,” I didn’t have a single problem with crew management in SH3. However I found it unrealistic for the captain of a U-boat to tell the crew when to go to bed. SH4’s watch system is more inline with how it was done historically. Also SH4’s handling of promoting and awarding medals to the crew is handled exactly the same as it was in SH3.

Looks like the average german skipper did 5 patrols.

What exactly is your problem? I support making "realistic career length" an option ... love this feature in SH3 Commander. Think it ought to be tweaked and the end screens fixed though.

Perhaps more but this is not a comprehensive list.

Regardless, SH3 allowed the player to run from the first day of the war to the last day of the war regardless of what German uboat commanders faced in reality.

But in SH4, players are forced to -/+ 5 patrols, or less depending on year and boat.

I strongly suggest the devs add a little box in the realism section that says "Realistic Career Length".

I agree, and option box would be a great way to handle this. In the mean time, what I've done is just start a new career in the year of when I was retired and pretend I'm transferred to new construction or a new boat.

A little off topic: Wasn't there already a thread discussing this topic already? I remember reading one late last week.

German kaleuns were forced to do more patrols since the Kriegsmarine was losing more than what could be replaced. As for your list, at least 1 of them, Hardegen, was retired due to health problems.

If you'd crack a book and learn a little history (or as you call it "some such bunk"), you'd know that Lockwood was big on giving his skippers leave after 4 or 5 patrols so as to keep them fresh. Many of them were bumped up the chain after just a few patrols. Imagine that, a sub simulation that actually simulates what happened.

Do I agree that "realistic career length" should be an option? Sure.

Looks the same to me. So what is the issue? That SH3 lets you go up to 15 unrealistic patrols or that part of the game does not matter to your style of game play? I'm not sure what you are attempting to have fixed here.

A discussion last week on this basically amounted to having the option to continue on or end it there. Players choice.

How many poeple would buy, and play, SH4 if you were forced to do manual targeting? Or worse yet, a flawed and innacurate manual targeting system?

Heck, play less of the game at 8096x time compression, and perform realistic approach and target assesment work, and ONE patrol will take long enough!

I agree it would be nice as an option (especially as the 'arcade' mode is still very much there, and those type of gamers shouldn't be forced into retiring when they are busy Rambo-ing through the war...if that's how they want to play, and they will pay $50 for the game to do it, BY ALL MEANS LET THEM!), but it's hardly fair to criticize the idea as a game fault.

Grunt,

The USN witch doctors determined that 4 patrols and out.

However that was not always the case.

George Fluckey mentioned that several times in his book "Thunder Below"

Fluckey did 5 patrols the fifth ending in August 1945 the end of the war in the Pacific.

BTW.

I agree with you about being able to continue with your career after 5 missions.

SH IV should give you the option of staying to fight or a desk job.

Choice is always good. It just appeals to a much wider audience.

Who to blame for the SH4 career structure bug?

1) Lockwood: for bumping skippers up the line

2) Grunt: for pointing out the problem and backing it with facts

3 The dev's: for borking the un-borked SH3 career structure beyond recognition

4. A submarine simulation for SIMULATING history. Imagine that, eh? :rotfl: