Moon phase problem in GWX?

[Matyas]

Hello everybody!

Well, as no one reacted on my previous posts in other threads I decided to create a new one. Maybe I can draw more attention this way.

So, in a nutshell, my problem is that I noticed that the moon (at least in my game) doesn't seem to change its phase. It means that I always see a half moon on my sky. I did some testing today and figured out, that this is becasue when I load my saved carreer game, the moon phase becomes the same as it was when I started the whole patrol. So, when I start my patrol with a half waning moon in Wilhelmshaven, then I will saw this half waning moon every time I load my game. If I play the game for several days, then the moon behaves as it should (i.e. its phase becomes smaller and it rises later each day ), however, if I save my game with a well visible new moon on the sky (approximately 11 days after my departure from Wilhelmshaven), then next time I load my game I won't find the new moon on the sky, as it was "reset" by the game loading process and now it is a half waning moon again. (And I can't see it as by that time of day when I saved the game it should still reside under the horizont).

I usually play with 16-32x time compression, so I spend no more than a couple of days at sea each time I load my carreer. That's why I didn't notice any difference in the moon phase. Now I know the the problem is rooted in the game loading mechanism that always resets the moon phase.

I'd like to know whether others have this same faulty load mecahnism or it works this way only on my computer? Another interesting question is that whether this issue was brought about by GWX (I use GWX) or it is a stock SH3 bug?

Matyas

[_Gabriel_]

hi,

well i never see that problem but ok i never save and load when im on duty.
The Save Function of SH3 is always a pain in the ass, so i never save when im on duty.


Greetings

Gabriel

[Matyas]

Originally Posted by _Gabriel_

hi,

well i never see that problem but ok i never save and load when im on duty.
The Save Function of SH3 is always a pain in the ass, so i never save when im on duty.


Greetings

Gabriel

Well, that's a possible solution to the problem. BUT as a patrol usually lasts for severaly weeks and I usually have only a few hours to play per day, it doesn't seem to work for me. And I don't want to take a risk and set a time compression higher than 32x when on the surface, as once I was bombed badly without even having a chance to react when I played on high TC.

Thanks for your reply!

Matyas

[_Gabriel_]

Hi,

well yes i know what you mean.
well i will try it later and see if i get the same results with the moon.
First i need to get home from work

Greetings

Gabriel

[Matyas]

Thanks in advance.

Matyas

[Matyas]

Ok, I did some more testing and installed a stock SH3 onto my PC and found out, that the same issue exists there. Conclusion: it's a stock SH3 problem. A grave one, I think.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by Matyas

Ok, I did some more testing and installed a stock SH3 onto my PC and found out, that the same issue exists there. Conclusion: it's a stock SH3 problem. A grave one, I think.

Hi Matyas, honestly I don't know why it isn't working for you.

In my copy of GWX, I have a normal progression of changes in the phases of the moon... no problems there whatsoever.

[Matyas]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

Hi Matyas, honestly I don't know why it isn't working for you.

In my copy of GWX, I have a normal progression of changes in the phases of the moon... no problems there whatsoever.

Hi Kptn!

The progression of phase change works fine at me too (the moon cahnges its phase and rises later each day as it should). The problem is that when I load back a saved game, the moon is "reset" to the phase it had at the start of the patrol (regardless of the phase it actually had when I saved the game). That causes the phenomenon that I save a game with a D shaped moon and when I load this save back I saw a C shaped moon on the sky (supposing that the moon had a C shape when I started the patrol.)

So this problem should be tested this way: start a patrol (and check the phase of the moon as soon as possible), go away from the port (to see the horizons and to be able to save), set a high time compression (send the WO and the radio operator to rest in order to avoid their interrupts) and wait for several (e.g. 6-7) days. Then check the shape and direction of the moon on the sky, save the game, then reload the game. If I am right, the moon should disappear from the location where it was and its shape should be set back to the "original" (i.e. it had when the patrol started).

Does it work this way on your PC too? Or really am I the only one struggling with this?

I would really appreciate your feedback

Many thanks in advance.

Matyas

[panthercules]

Hmmm - interesting. After reading this thread, I decided to do a little testing of my own. Sure enough, I saw the "moon reset" behavior, but with a weird twist:

At the start of my patrol from St. Nazaire, Nov 11th, the moon rose in the east (105 degrees true) around 16:30 or so local time, more or less "D" shaped.

A week later, the moon rose in the east (73 degrees true) at about 19:30 local time, more or less "C" shaped.

Five days later (11/23), the moon rose in the east (90 degrees true) at about 00:00 local time, as an even slimmer crescent "C" shape.

I saved the game, exited, and then reloaded the saved game.

Upon reload, the moon was now an almost full "D" shape, essentially the same as when the patrol started on Nov.11th, but it was now located in the west (255 degrees true).

I didn't have time to test it again from that point forward to see what the progression would be, but it does certainly seem that there's a bug problem here of sorts.

Using GWX with its 16km atmosphere and Dec 23rd fixes and some minor sound and graphics tweaks (officer icon faces, torpedo wakes, Kriller's smaller sun, damage textures) - nothing that would seem to be related to moon behavior, but who knows.

Odd indeed.

[Matyas]

Thanks for your valuable feedback, panthercules!

I have also noticed the weird thing (beside the "phase reset" feature) that the moon (and also the sun) sometimes rises at a NE-E direction, rather than an E-SE direction... Even when I was at a rather northern location (north from Faroer islands) in autumn 1939 I saw the sun and moon rising in the direction of 75-80 degreess. I think it is also a bug as the sun should rise at an E-SE direction in the northern hemisphere (in autumn after the equinox = the 23rd of September). But this issue is less grave than the "moon phase reset" issue I think, so I decided to discuss the latter first.

Matyas

[panthercules]

Yeah - this seems really odd after all these months/years of people posting that the moon/stars representation in SH3 seemed pretty reasonable/accurate. As you can see from my experience testing above, I also noted some odd directional issue - I basically headed due west from St. Nazaire, so was at essentially the same lattitude during the test run, yet the moon rose first at 105 degrees (ESE), but then it next rose a week later at 73 degrees (ENE), and then 5 days later at 90 degrees (E).

I didn't check the sunrises so I don't know where it was coming up, and I haven't done the research to figure out where the moon should rise at that lattitude or time of year, but it does seem odd that there would be that much variation in the moon rise location at the same lattitude over such a short period of time.

I hope they manage to get this working right in SH4, or somebody figures out if it can be fixed for SH3 (sounds probably hardcoded to me, but I really have no idea).

[edit] - (NOTE - I just remembered that I actually sailed westward at high speed for that first week, where the moon went from 105 to 73, and then eastward at slower speed back toward St. Nazaire for the next 5 days, where it went from 73 to 90, so maybe that explains why the moonrise location was fluctuating that way - not sure. Even so, that wouldn't explain the "reset" issue or what you say you are seeing with the sun rises, so something odd is still going on here. - I wonder if anybody still has a vanilla install so they could see if this is happening in stock SH3 and not just GWX - I can't imagine why/how GWX would have caused this but who knows)

[Matyas]

Well, in fact a couple of days ago I installed a vanilla SH3 onto my computer to see whether it's a GWX problem. I experienced the same "moon reset" issue in the stock game, so I think it has nothing to do with GWX. If it is really hard coded in SH3 than I am afraid we have to get along with it. Anyway I still hope that the GWX dev team may overcome this problem. They worked wonder with GWX.

[bigboywooly]

The moon reset seems to be the same as the weather
The weather tends to change around every week or so
If you save on day 6 then reload that save later then the weather in effect restarts from day1
Thats why some people suffer from a storm the whole way through a patrol while others have good weather - all depends on how often you save and finish playing and how long you were playing for ( game time )
It seems that the moons cycle is subject to the same behaviour

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Well, I cannot run SH3 ATM due to PC issues... However, this has to be a stock SH3 problem that just wasn't noticed before.

We've done nothing to change how the phases of the moon work as part of our modding.

[difool2]

Is this easily modded I wonder?