Regarding Steiblers Sh3 Patrol

[Salvadoreno]

I dont understand how to use it even after reading the NYGM 2.0 manual. I just recently "docked" at the ship in the Correintes in 1941 and when i exited my game but not SH3 and went to SH3 patrol and did not have many options. Im kinda confused, its not a utanker so i did not click any of the options, but it didnt show anything for docking at a merchant tanker. The new grids just have ---- and days in port said 31, so i didnt do anything. I just deleted the career since i thought i screwed it up, BUT i am now using an IXC and heading towards America and plan to stay there for a while docking at U466 or one of those. Help??

[Salvadoreno]

bump

[Stiebler]

Bump after 73 minutes? Impatient, aren't you.

Your description of SH3Patrol is correct, and you should never need to delete any patrols, campaigns or anything else when you use it. Or even if you mis-use it.

The Corrientes counts as an 'ocean tanker' (ie, a tanker in the ocean, like a U-tanker).

SH3Patrol should be used in two stages:
1. After you have docked at the tanker: Go to the main menu of SH3, press ALT-TAB, run SH3Patrol, click (for Corrientes) 'North Atlantic tanker', click OK. Now return to sea. You will find your date at sea is now (randomly) 1-5 days on from when you docked.
2. After you have sailed away from the tanker, for at least 30 nm (I always use 100 nm), 'save-and-exit'. Return to the SH3 main menu. Alt-Tab again, run SH3Patrol again, again with 'North Atlantic tanker' selected (for Corrientes). Return to SH3, reload your saved career. When you have fully reloaded, check your Mission Orders. The grid will no longer show NULL.

This is very tedious, but there is no other way, owing to the way SH3 is hard-coded. Of course, you don't have to carry out both parts (1) and (2) above, if you prefer to skip part of the functionality to save time.

Stiebler.

NYGM Tonnage War Mod - Leading Edge Realism
[Also the most realistic and best-tested campaign files!]

[cobalt]

does this mod change your patrol count so it doesnt addd one on too?

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by cobalt

does this mod change your patrol count so it doesnt addd one on too?

This would fix what I see as the biggest drawback of using milkcows, so I hope it can. But if this mod doesn't do this automatically, is there any known way that works to go in later and manually edit your save game files or whatever to stitch the two (pre- and post- milkcow) patrols back into one patrol so things will be right once you proceed on the next "real" patrol, in your career?

I just had to use a milkcow after my latest drumbeat patrol 'cause I didn't have enough fuel to get home and didn't want to warp home with the escape key (not even sure if that would work at my realism settings), but I'd really like to repair my patrol record once I get back to my home port after this.

[Stiebler]

Cobalt and Panthercules asked:

does this mod change your patrol count so it doesn't add one on too?

Sorry, no. I've never understood why people are so concerned about their patrol count. Some real U-boats had to do short moves from base to base (eg St Nazaire to Brest) just for repairs, or to load up with mines. Does that count as a patrol?

In theory, you should be able to delete patrol entries from the mydocuments/sh3/[career-name]/cfg folder. From memory, it would be the career.cfg, career0.cfg, patrols.cfg and patrols0.cfg files, from which you would have to delete the last-but-one (or last, I can't remember now) patrol and reduce by one the patrol count at the top of each file by one. It seemed that it would be very hard to make these changes reliably, so as to work for all people in all situations, and my view was "Too much effort, too little return".

Besides, some other people would be certain to complain about their missing patrol.

Stiebler.

NYGM Tonnage War Mod - Leading Edge Realism

[kiwikapitan]

Hey Stiebler I don't know if you are still around but I was wondering if you can help me with a few issues with SH3Patrol.

I don't use NYGM mods but I am using GWX 1.02 and because my current career is using a type XI boat it was inevitable that at some point I was going to have to use a milch cow, and now the time has come. I also use SH3Commander and therein lies the problem (I think).

I use the high res fix and so had to change my desktop res settings in able to ALT TAB out of the game, load SH3Patrol and change option to correct u-tanker, ALT TAB back and see that the date has gone backwards approximately a whole month from when I docked!

Because I originally loaded the game via SH3Commander is it this that is causing the incorrect date in the game? It is actually easy to fix by going into the Careers folder and editing the patrol.cfg and patrol0.cfg file but is there any other way around this? A small but annoying problem I think you will agree.

I notice in the NYGM manual that you say only to use SH3Commander from a home port and SH3Patrol from a u-tanker and now I see why. Still in spite of this I like your little mod.