Ahhh shiiiiii.......

[Kapt Z]

Had been away from the game for about a month and had time today to pickup my last 'during patrol' save. Wasn't a bad patrol, sunk a couple of large merchants, but had not seen anything for a few weeks except Catalinas out of Iceland. They bombed us, but no damage.

Finally latched onto a good convoy and got into them in great position. Blew up a nice large tanker and damaged another, but while we were diving away to evade I received the dread-

"Silent Hunter has stopped working." screen.

When I closed out to Commander it gave my assigned grid as 'Null'.

I rarely get this kind of thing, but the last time I shut the computer down before I loaded this save it did one of those automatic updates. IIRC the other time the error screen came up my computer had also had a previous update.

What do you all think?? I can't predict when these updates will occur and due to 'real world' stuff I rarely can finish a patrol in less than 5 or 6 saves. Should I reload this same save and hope for the best? Is it a waste of time or should I go back to the last save and lose all the tonnage from this patrol so far(20m tons)? Should I(can I?) rollback Commander while saved at sea?

Thanks for any input!

[Capt. Morgan]

I hate it when that happens.

Might as well try re-loading, possibly from an earlier save. If you do, I'd recommend that you make a copy of your save-game directory first, as SHIII automatically deletes any game-saves after the one you reload.

[VONHARRIS]

I can not anwer to your question , but this is what I do:
If I can not complete a patrol I pause the game and let the PC running or in sleep mod.
I rarely save , unless absolutely neccesary.

[Kapt Z]

Well, I reloaded the same save and everything seemed alright. I didn't trust it though. I teleported back to base(didn't want to waste the time to sail back and have it crash within sight of St Nazaire!) and took my 20m tons with me.

BdU ended up beaching my kaleun after this patrol anyway!

U-97 is out on her 6th patrol now under a new CO. Hope to have better luck.

[Fish In The Water]

Glad you got it back up and running...

For future reference, multiple saves during the same patrol can often be a lifesaver if you suddenly happen to encounter an SH3 blip. That way if one save goes down, you can always roll back to the previous one without losing the whole patrol. Just a thought. Have fun and good hunting!

[Raptor]

I learned the hard way long ago: save shortly after I clear the harbor, save again when I reach my grid square objective, and again after EVERY battle.

If I'm taking a long distance trip - say Lorient to Trinidad - I'll save several times along the way.....just in case.

Sadly, I can not trust SH3.

[Kapt Z]

I hear you guys on the multiple saves per patrol.....

I do it myself using the patrol number followed by the next letter in the alphabet. Patrol 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d....etc. Even made it to the letter 'V' one time! Problem this time was that to reload the previous save would lose the tonnage I had just sunk(the only tonnage of the patrol) so I took a gamble and it seemed to work out.

This time....

[Fish In The Water]

I guess you caught the engine in a good mood so it decided to play nice. Trouble is, it's nigh impossible to predict when she might get grumpy.

[Captain Nemo]

In your case Kapt Z I don't believe the save was at fault. Most corrupt saves rear their ugly head during load up not after loading successfully then sinking some ships. I would put that crash down to another cause. For those who like to make several saves during a patrol, whilst good in theory, you can end up with a whole batch of corrupted saves. Once one save goes bad all subsequent saves will also be corrupt. The only sure way is to verify each save by exiting SH3 then reloading that save to make sure it's OK.

Nemo

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo

Once one save goes bad all subsequent saves will also be corrupt.

I haven't found this to be the case at all. Whenever I encounter a 'corrupt' save, the previous entry or two almost always load up. That being said, individual user experience will vary.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by Fish In The Water

I haven't found this to be the case at all. Whenever I encounter a 'corrupt' save, the previous entry or two almost always load up. That being said, individual user experience will vary.

In your case if the last save you made was the first corrupt save the previous saves will load. I used to make multiple mid patrol saves without exiting but on one occassion the last save in the sequence wouldn't load up so I thought no worries the previous sequence of saves should save the patrol. Nope all previous saves were bad too.I had to restart the patrol from the in base save which means my first save after leaving port without exiting was a bad one. During a patrol I only save and exit now but I don't overwrite my previous save because I know it loaded OK.

Nemo