Okay I ran some tests. Here's the deal:
With a wave attenuation value of 0.03 in a game saved while in a storm: waves are very big and compressed air runs out after about four hours if the player is running at between 1 and 512 TC. Above 512: the compressed air lasts much longer. If you're running at over 2000 TC the compressed air loss is minimal.
With a wave attenuation value of 0.03 in a game started from port and played straight through without loading a save: waves are small but compressed air still runs out after about eight hours if the player is running at between 1 and 512 TC. Above 512 the compressed air lasts much longer. If you're running at over 2000 TC the compressed air loss is minimal.
I have yet to test if saving/loading a patrol in calmer seas helps the problem, but basically it doesn't matter whether the player saves the game in a storm or out or if he runs a patrol in one sitting from start to finish - the compressed air runs out faster than the electric battery, so it's a definite problem for anyone who runs at under 1024 TC no matter how they save the game.
This is so frustrating to me - I mean these are pesky little annoyances that shouldn't be getting in the way of fixing the game. It almost seems to me that the devs must have run into this bug while the game was in development and instead of tracking it down and fixing it properly they made a work-around by boosting the wave attenuation value to a point where the boat flies between the wave tops and doesn't pitch or roll.
I think this is a problem that the developers ought to fix. I mean the SH3 subs behaved perfectly - they pitched and rolled much more realistically in heavy seas and they never came entirely out of the water. We shouldn't have to spend our time to try to fix this 'amateur hour' crap. I mean I'm spending hours on this penny-ante gameplay nonsense when I could be spending time doing what I really like - making the game more historically accurate. I'm really beginning to feel that with garbage code like this we're paying to beta test this lemon for them. I mean who ever heard of a value that's supposedly adjustable from "<0" being bugged whenever it's set at less than 0.75? I mean if it's supposed to work with any number greater than zero it should work with any number greater than zero.
Anyway, I guess this means we are indeed forced to mess with 19 values to change one pesky problem. Damnit developers, throw us a frigging bone! I mean when we ask for submarines we should get submarines, not some sort of weird submersible hovercraft.
