If it don't "SAVE", I don't want it!
 

Let me reiterate the need for a stable "Save" function. I have just lost 2 days of work, in SH3+GWX3. The save will not load. I was SURFACED, I was MORE THAN 50 NM from any ship, I was IN THE CONTROL ROOM, I was NOT BEING HUNTED when I saved...but it will not load. The save is in line with dates/times (a usual culprit)...nothing points to why this save won't load...and I'm &%$@!^Y tired of it.

This behavior is completely ridiculous and needs to be sorted out. AFAIC you should be able to "Save" at any time...it's not that hard to do and it is regularly done with other games. I don't care if I'm being DC'd or sneaking up on a convoy...the "save" function needs SERIOUS work or I'm not spending a dime on 5.

I'd rather have a working "save" function than any FPS robbing prettiness we will probably be stuck with.

I second that :yep:

This is not a game. This is simulation. You should never have a shave option. You should sit behind your computer for the next 3 months acting out the entire patrol in real-time. :yeah:

SH4 doesn't have major Save issues. The old rule of not saving near enemy ships still aplies as a ship that has not spotted you will sometimes instantly spot you when you load. I doubt that they'll mess the saving back to the level of SH3.

What I'd like to see is an optional difficulty setting of "no-save". The game would continuously save the situation, similar to an MMO, so it would be impossible to load after you screw something up. And, in case you ALT-F4 or the game freezes, you wouldn't loose anything. :yeah: Each time you'd start the game, you'd choose "Continue" instead of Load. :up:

I don't like "save",beacause it's not ture.

You can't complain on features in a game when its modded to death. Yeah, the save function isn't perfect but i have never had a load savegame issue. When you mod a game you just can't blame anyone else.

I kind of like that idea. I'm guilty of saving before an encounter and if it doesn't go well I reload. I try to stop doing that, but I can't help myself! :oops:

I have yet to have a corrupted save in either Silent Hunter 3 or Silent Hunter 4. I have a 'Save' protocol in place in case of such a problem though.

I rotate 3 saved games every 5 to 10 minutes within the game. So I'll save as TDK1 and then five minutes later I'll save as TDK2 and then 5 minutes later as TDK3 before going back to save as TDK1. This way, if I ever got a corrupted save, I would simply load a game five minutes behind the corrupted save. A bit like a system restore point I guess.

I always save at the navigation map station and in 1X TC. Never had a problem. :)

Save Early Save often :rock:

Like you I never had a problem with saves in SH3 for many years (not played SH4 so can't comment) but in the last month or so I have had two bad saves. Probably my own fault as I saved near a convoy on one and near land on the other but have done this many times before without issues. Your save protocol could be flawed though and might not save you from the corrupt save problem. The way I understand this problem is that if you create a save point without exiting the game and that save is corrupt all subsequent saves are also corrupted. So if TDK1 was corrupt then TDK2 and TDK3 will be also. Of course unless you exit SH3 and reload your saves each time you won't know this problem exists until that time comes. It happened to me, my exit save was corrupt so I went to my backup save in the hope that would load, unfortunately that was corrupt too. To try and avoid this problem I now never overwrite saves and make saves at appropriate times i.e. after a major event and always mark my exit saves with an "x". Not had a corrupt save using this system yet so can't vouch for it's reliability.

I agree that SH5 needs a robust save feature otherwise players just end up frustrated at losing their hard work.

Nemo

i wish they could find a way to save the nearby AI units when you save so its not corrupted but even more important is that when surprised you can save the situation as it is and not have everything AI dissappear when you reload it.

You have no idea how many times I've shadowed a convoy only for it to dissapear on load :wah:. Saving such large data changes can be made easy by compacting them in layers, depending on distance from the sub and saving them at different intervals. Anything on the ship gets saved immediately, like orders or crew intentions ("I'm going to the loo"), anything in 10 miles radius gets saved every minute and so on. Since we get multi-core support changing a few flags for units can't be that system intensive. :up:

That has always been an insurmountable task.......keeping the AI stable after a save near scripted units.

I'd love an "Ironman"/Dead is Dead mode that worked like Uplink or, as was said, MMO's. Reward the player with a generous amount of reputation/renown/whatever if he or she uses it, and off you go.

maybe they could find a way for it to only save (take a snapshot if you will) only whats within visual range but im guessing the main problem with it is it has more to do with it still having the AI to control it :hmmm:

if they just remorphed it i guess it would no longer be connected to the AI system :damn:

it sure would be nice if they found a way to do it though

Savegame issue has NOTHING to do with modded game.
It was in vanilla game from the start. Personally I didn`t have any problems with saves in SH3 (lucky as hell) but got really pissed off few times in SH4 (mission where I was lucky to find and sink Yamato, then I had to quit because RL issue and when I tried to load CTD came up - last save was more than a week behind so go figure how happy I was...).

So don`t blame modders, they have nothing to do with it, it`s well known stock game problem.

Oh trust me I agree.....it might well be possible though because the game engine is obviously a lot newer than the one used in SH3.

What about the random crash to desktop? Which is common with this series. Just start over? No thanks.

If I do something stupid to sink the boat that's one thing, but memory leaks and dogshlt code, which has plagued the Silent Hunter series since day one, is another matter.

It's probably more hardware related as I have never had any save problem or seemingly random CTD. Of course they should have coded it a little better so there wouldn't be any problems on any rig, but it's clear the save function works very well on some rigs (like mine).

No save-game issues or random CTD, ever. :yep:

And yes, modded game most of the time. I won't deny SH3&4 have some issues, but a lot of problems with people's systems get attributed to the game. It's not nearly as bad as some would have you believe. :)