two questions
 

1. When "buying" a new boat (playing GWX w/ Commander), do I purchase it at the end of a patrol before exiting the game, or do I leave, select the new type in Commander on loading it back up, then purchase it? Or perhaps leave commander alone, and buy it when the game loads?

2. I was badly damaged attacking (successfully) a convoy, but no one on my crew was hurt. I escaped, got to a nice, empty bit of ocean, and saved the game and exited. When I loaded it back up today, first all the valves and dials burst as soon as the game came up, then four of my crew were suddenly red. There wasn't anything around, so it had to be related to the damage taken before. How does that happen? I put the wounded crew in their bunks with a medic-trained officer and made it back to my home port, but they were all listed as dead when the patrol report came up after I docked.

About No1
You can not change your Uboot type with the Commander in the middle of the career.
It makes no difference if you buy a new one when you finish your patrol or when you start your next one so long you have the renown.

About No2
The bursting of dials is common is that situation , it happens to me as well. It is just eye candy.
As far as the wounded men , I really don't know.

2. I have had similar issues. For example If you start to take damage from a dive for instance you can then surface your boat, repair all the damage and then save your game, and when you reload sometimes the game still thinks you are taking damage from pressure and will crush your submarine even though you are on the surface and everything is fine and dandy.

Generally if you save your game in Silent Hunter 3 there is always a chance something crappy will happen.

edit: (Although ofcourse some lucky people never experience any issues at all, your best defence is to make lots of saves you can fall back on, but yeah it does suck when you've just done something really cool and you lose your achievement to weird bugs or game crashes upon reloading a save. Sometimes I think it is just Ubisoft's way of trolling us, I bought SH4 hoping these issues would be fixed but it reacts in the same old way also :rotfl2:)

When you load a save with a damaged boat the crashing of glass from dials etc. is the games way of assessing the damage and starting your save from the same state of play as when you made said save.

Better to upgrade boat, equipment etc. just prior to commencing your patrol.

#2
Looks to me that your officer-medic is incompetent. Unload the bugger, and suggest a transfer to the Eastern front. :D

If you restart a savegame in a damaged boat you get the reminder of the taken damage by audible and visible signs.

But there may be a random function for the damage calculation and it may rerun while loading the savegame.
This may lead to different results in the amount of damage taken and consequently includes the possibility to be sunk or have wounded or killed crew.

Can't load a game right now for my constantly reappearing 'summer '43' issues. Someone please check if the damage meter shows different percentage of taken damage before and after the save.

No need to because the damage amount is a constant embedded in the save file on saving.

I make a habit of saving on the surface after a successful attack so that I don't get robbed of my accomplishment by a corrupt save later in the patrol. Often when I reload that save one of my guys yells "Yay!" Like we just sunk another ship.

He's just really happy the save loaded without a CTD. :haha:

Hahahaha

I think you're on to something.

LOL... :haha:

So do any injured crew automatically die when you get back to port? Should I sit outside the port with time sped up until everyone heals? On that note, how do I tell how badly hurt someone is? There's just a black "X" on a bandage-looking thing.

I don't know but I think if they're still wounded when you end your patrol, the game will award them a wound badge. But if they are all the way healed when you return to base, the game doesn't remember it and they don't get diddly.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone's ever returned to base with a still wounded crewman, it has to be possible in theory otherwise the wound badge wouldn't exist and work the way it does.

I was ctually kind of excited to give out my first wound badges (what do they do, if anything?), so I was quite disappointed when the guys kicked the bucket. The petty officer was my best mechanic.

The badges increase the crewman's endurance so they don't tire as quickly as normal. If you're playing with an active fatigue model then you should notice the bars dropping a little slower than before.