Oops; stuck with no home port..

[Greystone]

I'm playing vanilla this time around. While stationed at Wilhelmshaven after my 9th patrol, I put in for a transfer to one of the French ports, which turned out to be Brest. I left Wilhelmshaven on the 10th patrol in July 1940 & have just exhausted torps and, low on fuel, I see that there is no Brest port shown on the map. Being low on fuel, I docked at Lorient to refuel. The next mission shown while at Lorient is to proceed from Lorient to Brest. The current date at Lorient is August 1940, a month after arriving there. Brest is still not shown on the map. I used SH3 Cmdr to limit time spent in port to 1 month from the beginning of the career, so my guess is that the game doesn't show Brest existing as a German sub base yet in August 1940, though why it assigned Brest as my (transferred to) home port prior to launching the 10th patrol from Wilhelmshaven, I can't answer..
So, I'm stuck at either Lorient or Bordeaux (the only other home port shown on the map). Any suggestions on how I can get the game to put Brest on the map?

[Mittelwaechter]

IIRC there was a bug in Vanilla SH3 with the 2nd Flotilla transfering to Brest.

11 years ago - playing Vanilla - I found the port at the correct location: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brest,_France


You may want to check the (C:\GAMES\)Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Cfg\flotil la.cfg and scroll down to the 2nd Flotilla/Wilhelmshaven

Make sure the date for the location shows 09 1940.

Flotilla1=903
TO1=941
NbStartingDate1=6
NbDate1=6
Emblem1=data/Emblems/SubEmblems/Flotillas/2nd flotilla.tga
NbBases1=2
Base1_0=752;Wilhelmshaven
Date1_0_0=1939
Month1_0_0=8
Date1_0_1=1940
Month1_0_1=8
DeparturePointLong1_0=976375.000000
DeparturePointLat1_0=6422169.000000
Heading1_0=97.1805
Base1_1=753;Lorient
Date1_1_0=1940
Month1_1_0=9

(my CFG shows Lorient, just because the 2nd Flotilla wasn't transfered to Brest but Lorient; this was addressed with GWX and other mods)

Now check your (C:\GAMES\)Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Campaigns\ Campaign\messages_en.txt - assuming you run the english language version.

Find the radio message concerning the transfer to Brest and edit it accordingly to match 'September 1940' (late August).
(my modded version reads: 19400828 1200 19400829 1200 1 100 20 A new submarine base is available for operations in Brest.|Bdu)

All modifications to the data only while in your homeport! (SIC!)
You may have to replay the last sortie from Wilhelmshaven and delete all later savegames.

edit: rethinking your problem, the radio message was triggered early. Just sail to Brest and the port should be there - depending on the original Vanilla flotilla.cfg date (should read 08/28/1940, but yours may be different).


Installing i.e. GWX would solve the problem too. I guess you have your reasons for playing Vanilla?

[Greystone]

First off, thanks Mittelwaechter for the time & effort put into your response.
Before attempting to implement your suggestions, I left Lorient and went to where Brest is supposed to be and low & behold it was there, even though the word "Brest" was not on the map. While docked there, I realized I'd lost all my promotions, medals & choice of a new qualification. So I reloaded the Lorient docking and passed out all the perks to the crew before heading out again for the ghost port of Brest. Before departing, I noticed that I was missing one of my officers, having only 4 instead of 5. When I went to recruit a new one, the game informed me "Too many officers!" ie: as far as the game was concerned, I still had 5 officers.
Well, that did it. Goodbye vanilla. Welcome back GWX.
Since I'd never played a vanilla career, I thought I'd give it a shot. I could suffer through all the bugs & glitches I'd encountered up to now with vanilla, but enough is enough. I can see now what initially motivated the GWX team & others to roll up their sleeves & set things right.

[Mittelwaechter]

Fine you've solved your problem.

The missing officer is ringing a bell.
Remember to empty the repair compartment before docking. The officer in there tends to disappear.

You'll find him in ... OwnData/MyDocuments ... \SH3\data\cfg\Careers\NAMEofKALEUN\Crew_Career_x.c fg - for x is the highest patrol number showing the crew arrangement of your latest patrol after docking - before promotions and medals and qualifications.

(...\Crew_Career_(x+1)0.cfg shows your new arrangement - right before leaving port).

Check for the missing officer's name and change his compartment to whatever is not occupied by some other officer and is lower than NrComp=7 (IIRC thats the repair compartment).

edit: just checked it - 11 should be the repair compartment - but 1 is the sonar room without an officer slot.
You may want to use 5 (forward torpedo room) or 8 (stern torpedo room), assuming you don't keep officers in there by default.

[CREW_MEMBER_0]
Name=Armin von Stetten
Index=5
NrComp=0

NrComp=0 is the conning tower

Your missing officer may appear two or three times in the CFG; some of his entries read NrComp=-1.
Change all his data to the same compartment.

Now load your last "end of patrol" savegame and he should show up. Redo the promotions etc. and you're good to go.

[Greystone]

Again, thanks Mittelwaechter for your generous response..
However, I uninstalled, reinstalled, & implemented GWX3 into the game; am now on my first patrol of a new career.
You're right, though; I DID have that missing officer in the repair compartment, and will remember to empty out that location before docking in the future.