Variable start points for a single save
 

After an epic patrol with 27 successful saves, I'm having issues with both saves on the subsequent, unproductive patrol. Save #2 won't load at all, even after a reboot and a hot start, but this has happened frequently enough with SH4, stock and otherwise, that I'm not surprised. The notable issue is something with Save #1 that I've never encountered: sometimes it starts off NE of a convoy of tiny ships (Feb 1945, NW Luzon, Tench) and I quickly surface and resume course to Convoy College; other times, it reverts to what I recall as the original save position, which is SW of the convoy's line of travel.

Only mod: FotRSU 1.1 with the recent patch. I suspect this is a game issue, so I'm posting here.

That's an "upgrade" to a Tench then? Although I have no idea how that would influence where the game thinks you are supposed to start from in the Save. I do not recall have. Do you have a "Upon Leaving" (whatever it's called) Save? You are in the Office, but start with the same orders as you have now. ??

Not sure if this makes a difference but sometimes I have saved and after I did it the screen just kind of flickered and I wasn't ever sure it did it so I saved again and this time it took me to the screen that said RESUME in the menu, so I resumed then logged out.

Col.

Yes, both the Leaving Port and first Save have D3 as the first patrol area. Caveat: the first Save currently has me at the original position, SW of the convoy, but on the occasions I started off NE of it, I am fairly sure D3 was the first assignment there too.


Yes, it's an upgrade to Tench, but the patrol started in mid-January, 1945, so perhaps it didn't violate any temporal directives. OTOH, the previous patrol ended on 12/18/44 and we were immediately upgraded to the Tench and teleported to Pearl.

@ Col7777 - Like a lot of the aspects of the game, you have to hit some of the buttons twice - once, to get them selected with the first click, and then do what you want with the 2nd click. The Save button is like that. One exception is the PK button.

@ Mios 4Me - So you were based at Fremantle or Brisbane, and sent to Pearl for the Tench, which is of course, based only out of Pearl. There are some configuration date mis-matches between the Tench and some of its equipment in FotRSU, and that be contributing to the odd encounters upon loading your Saves, though I also have seen Stock do the same "relocating" trick. It might also have to do with the RGG spawn. Tough to say, since the game does not have any error-checking "logic" in it, other than the "symptoms" we run across...

Yes, operating out of Brissie this entire career, thanks to the excellent work on Truk you and the other FotRSU crew have done.

I'd decided not to upgrade to SV radar for potential conflict reasons, but the load out date was 1/8/45, with departure on 1/16/45, so I went ahead. Also, on the previous patrol, I extended it as long as I reasonably could...if returning Guam-Brisbane at 6 kts can be said to be reasonable. We weren't court-martialed, so...

What's an RGG spawn?

Most of the game is made up of RGG = Random Generated Group. They're the little yellow boxes you see on the ME map if editing the mis file. You can set the spawn date & time, how often and how many hours between each spawn. Unlike a "regular" group, which runs one time, an RGG can run however often the modder wants. lurker_hlb3 was the "Master Modder" of the RGG, having them generate at the time he desired. The beauty, and also bane of trouble-shooting the game, is the fact that each ship in an RGG can be "GENERIC", in other words, consist of any one of a number of ships in a given class, and that entry can also have a spawn percentage, such that the given ship(s) of that class can generate anywhere from 1% to 100% of the times that the RGG itself does. The "Leader" ship of each RGG will always spawn at a 100% rate, but all the other potential occupants can vary as stated. So you might see 1 ship, or you might see 32 or more, depending upon the RGG's configuration.

Interesting. In this case, the number and type of ships are fixed at a small transport and two small freighters, plus three escorts. Even when I've ignored them, they made their way to my assigned patrol zone to waste more of my time. ;)

I think I sighted them just before the save, locking the configuration forever. :(

EDITED TO ADD:

Just ran a series of six tests of a single save, this one later than the one described above. In this case, we were just N of Oite and the pattern observed was 1-2-1-2 where:
1 = No ships sunk at Oite and several ships detected to the E/NE on sonar only
2 = A LEO lying on the bottom at Oite and a LT a few km to the N, on radar and visual.

I'm not entirely sure which was the correct situation at time of saving, though i believe it to be #2.

Anything "in sight" is indeed "locked" in configuration. Anything beyond eye sight might change, but usually not. Anything beyond "spawn range" (24-30km) is still in the "deciding" portion of the database, and can vary wildly as to what you'll see. Plus, there are those little "bits" and pieces of computer data, where it's a zero that's read one time, and the next might be read as a 1, which one bit True or False might base its decision on that one bit...

The issue has cropped up again after an unexplained CTD (sudden heavy use of resources, probably: change of direction, depth, speed, as well as a probable attack on the sub), as well as testing the spawning issues in the western Inland Sea, as discussed elsewhere.

What makes the latest noteworthy is that the restarts vary between night and day. The original save was just around dawn but some restarts are 12 hrs earlier/later, it seems, in terms of daylight, not the clock, which doesn't change AFAIK. It's on PH time (we just transferred up from an entire career in Brisbane), so I don't really pay it any attention. If it starts at night, it stays dark long enough that it's probably an entire night.

Am I the only one who's experiencing any of this? I've never seen or heard of variable start points before the FotRSUE 1.1 patch update, which may be entirely unrelated, from what I understand of the nature of the changes made by the mod.