Strange issue..
 

Hey guys! Strange problem today.

While in SH3 commander, I have the "Start patrol at sea" option unclicked, but when I go into game, it always starts me at sea. Any idea why?

(By the way, I also have GWX 3.0 Gold if that helps)

Hmm. I have noticed that the setting you make at the start of a career can -- sometimes -- "stick" and override any settings you make later. I've had both your issue and the opposite (starting at dock, even when I have checked "start at sea.")

Moreover, it often fixes itself on the next patrol.

It has never irked me enough to investigate more deeply, though.

Just a wild guess but could this have anything to do with not using Auto-Rollback?

I'm pretty sure there are some options that can seem to get "stickied" to the game if you don't let Commander roll them back each time you exit, but I don't know if starting position is one of them. :hmmm:

I always rollback after every patrol, as I heard you say that once before a long time ago and I've never forgot it. Its never fixed itself, and its been going on for about 20 patrols...

Well, I think the starting spot is controlled by a long/lat setting given for a particular named location in the game... the start at sea option just alters it for the bases in whatever file that info is in, so the "dot" on the map for Kiel or Willy or whatever is moved and the game places you there instead of inside the harbor when you start a patrol.

I don't have access to the game files ATM, but if somebody knows which file contains that info you can check and see what the current long/lat settings are for the different bases, or maybe find another mod that's done something with that particular file and see if that's the source of the alternate info that's placing your base outside the harbor.

If "start at sea" is unchecked in Commander, I assume it wouldn't be making any changes to that info when you launch the game... so whatever is there already would be controlling your start position. The settings for the base's location on the map have gotten changed somehow, it sounds like, and Commander's not going to mess with them either way if you're not telling it to start you at sea, cuz it has no reason to touch them at all. Even if you did check 'start at sea' for one patrol, and then rolled back, it would just roll back to what was already there before you started that session, which is apparently placing your base outside the harbor anyway.

Seems like the simplest solution would be to find out what the original locations settings are for the bases and make sure they are in the proper spot in the game files before you start the next patrol. Then if you don't tell Commander to change them, and another mod is not altering that file after you make the corrections, the game should locate the bases back in their usual positions inside the harbors at the subpens. :hmmm:

Oh wow. I'll just wait for someone to find the file, haha. I'm horrible at computer files.

No problem, if no one else can look it up today (or knows of something else to try) I'll do it when I get home and can access my game files. Are you playing stock, or GWX, or...?

GWX 3.0 gold with some mods added on that came with it.

Which mods? I don't think any of them would affect starting position, but better to know what all to look at just in case. I've got an umodded GWX3 installation so I'll see if I can find the relevant files.

BTW if anybody else reads this and knows exactly which files to look at, that would be great. I can probably find everything with a little digging but I don't remember offhand exactly where the info in question is located or if it's in more than one place (and they all have to match up).

The ones in parenthesis are GWX mods:

(16KM atmosphere, Alternate load screen, axis meditteranean aircraft skins, captain america's officer icons, enhanced damage affects, integrated orders, main movie "das boot", no medals on crew, contact color, merged campaign)
A single emblems mod, wolfehunters VIIB-83 skin, real depth charge

The starting locations are in the flotilla.cfg file. It's in the \silent hunter III\data\cfg map. You can just edit it with wordpad.
It's a file with a huge amount of text, so just press ctrl-f and enter the name of the port your flotilla is currently based.

A couple of lines below the name of your flotilla's port you'll find these lines:

DeparturePointLong0_0=1218360.000000
DeparturePointLat0_0=6521927.000000

(just an example, these are from Kiel)

You can edit those figures, but I have no idea how coördinates work exactly, so you'll have to ask someone else about that... Hope this helps a bit. :salute:

btw, as far as I can tell, this problem shouldn't be caused by any of the mods you're running. But if you don't mind me asking; why are you running merged campaign?
It causes sh3 to take a huge time loading; because you're loading all region's which is only necessary when you're transiting from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean..

I just run it to run it. Kindof as a test for my computer. It only takes about 30 seconds to load either screen... (The main one and the one for starting a mission or a patrol)

Well consider yourself lucky, the game itself loads pretty quick here, but when I want to start a mission I've got to wait 5 minutes or something like that...

Yep, my just recently build gaming computer. It'll probably last me 5 more years.

Thanks, I thought it was probably controlled by the flotillas file, but it's never occurred to me to type in a base name and let Windows search the file for the right section. D'oh! :haha:

If nothing else we can see what the values are in the unmodded GWX install and compare them with what's in the file he's got now, if they're different then they can be changed back and that should move the starting points to their original locations at the subpens. Provided nothing else alters the file afterwards, and certainly none of the mods listed would alter the starting locations AFAIK even if they were disabled and re-enabled and allowed to overwrite stuff again.

@ ryanglavin: I wonder was there a time that you had start at sea checked and then for some reason didn't roll back after exiting the game? Not sure if you're using Auto-Rollback or doing it manually.

Because if you had 'start at sea' checked and didn't roll back, Commander would've changed the DeparturePoint info when you launched the game, and it would never have gotten changed back when you exited. Then even unchecking the option again wouldn't do anything, since the altered DeparturePoint info would still be in the game files and Commander would have no reason to overwrite it either way. :hmmm:

Anyway - a comparison of the data from your flotillas.cfg and one that hasn't had the DeparturePoint data altered will tell us something. :yeah:

I live by rollback, haha. Always manual so I always remember to do it. So what files do I check?

The file I showed you a few posts back, flotilla.cfg. If you name me the base you're starting from, I can give you the right numbers to add in there.

Two questions:

1) If you are concerned about remembering to do it, why do it manually at all?

The Auto-Rollback option does it automatically so you don't need to remember to do it manually.

-and-

2) If you are rolling back manually, do you do it every time you exit the game, or only when you finish a patrol?

IIRC there are some changes Commander can make to the game files that cannot be undone just by deselecting the related option at a later date and relaunching the game. Once the change is made, if a rollback is not performed (either manually or automatically) when you exit that gaming session, the changes will remain in place until they are manually edited out of the game files (or some other mod is enabled that overwrites the affected file).

That's why I'm wondering if "start at sea" was checked at the launch of one gaming session, which ended without a rollback being done, and then unchecked at a later time. If you were in and out of the game several times before finishing the patrol, and you only rolled back after the last session where you completed the patrol, I think it would've been too late to uncheck the option and have it undo the changes made when you first checked it.

I usually do it whenever I finish a patrol, as I like to look at the patrol log of that patrol :D

If you are going to rollback Commander, you should do it every time you exit the game - whether you finish the patrol or not. Using rollback has nothing to do with looking at the patrol logs, so I assume you mean that you manually rollback at the end of a patrol because that's the only time you open Commander again after exiting the game. But auto-rollback will perform a rollback on exit every time whether you finish a patrol or not. You don't have to remember to rollback, you don't have to remember to reopen Commander. Definitely the way to go IMO.

At any rate I suspect this may be where your persistent "start at sea" base locations are coming from.

If you launched the game one time with "start at sea" checked, Commander changed the DeparturePoint settings for all the base locations. If you exited the game after that session without a rollback, the new DeparturePoint info was left the way it was during that session with all your bases located outside their harbors. They will stay that way until you manually edit them, because deselecting the "start at sea" option probably doesn't overwrite that file again with the original data, it just prevents the same alternate data from being written in a second time.

Auto-rollback is your friend, if you're rolling back anyway there's no reason not to use it and let it rollback every time you exit the game. :yep: