[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Michael Wood

First mission was insert agent mission, which failed. Sank a couple ships on the way home to Pearl.

Second mission was insert agent, which succeeded. Was given a 5 day patrol area mission and then goto location and sink shipping. Sank 29,550 tons shipping. Twenty one days into mission, ran out of torpedoes and started home. Next time I played, would not load. Sad.

Changed graphics after load failure.

Did not use LL until after failure to load. First time I ever used it.

Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate is a big mod, with quite a few more ships, airplanes and other assets. As such, it has a BIG footprint in memory (RAM) on the computer. This mod requires the player to use LAA or similar, to show the OS that the 32-bit SH4.exe can address more than the Windows' standard of 1.5G (or whatever the actual figure is). If you don't have LAA (or similar) activated on the executable, then the computer "thrashes" and uses a swap file quite a bit, reading and writing to the hard drive system, which is slow. The game also has minimal error-checking, and as such, if there is a problem with Saving a game, you usually do not get any warning. The writing of the Save is where the problems occur 99% of the time. The game will let the player exit before the writing to the hard drive is complete. Go figure. The computer then "flushes" the buffers, and your save is corrupted...

Now, couple that with you having old Saves from the previous version, which does have incompatibilities with the newer version, and that's a recipe for Reload failure. Sorry about that, but that is the old-tech game engine, showing its age. Do not try to re-use any of your Saves, and as CapnScurvy says, delete your Save folder(s). You should also re-install the game now. That would explain the issue with the torpedo failure rate you're seeing. Even though you may not have used the data in the Save folder, the game does, and your install may well be corrupt now. You certainly cannot reuse that old save in the older version of FotRSU now either, since it is also contaminated with the new version now. You've created a hybrid - a "Frankenstein", if you will, of the whole Save folder... If you want to keep an active older version of FotRSU going, that is up to you to decide, but use MultiSH4 - which should be in the game's root folder already anyway from FotRSU activation, and make separate Save folders for each copy of the game you use. That way, you can continue any career you may have started in v0.71 while still evaluating the latest version - and giving us feedback on the new version only. Just remember that we cannot "support" old versions once a new one is out...

[propbeanie]

Here, I found a quote from XenonSurf up in the SH5 threads that somewhat applies to SH4 saves. I made comments in orange, or highlighted XenonSurf's comments in green for emphasis:

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

... Here the notes about saving games in TWOS, just to give you a slight idea how complex this game is:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
Save the game everytime you start a new campaign or campaign section, just after entering the bunker screen (Captain's Office in SH4). Save and reload from the main menu. A pop-up text in TWOS will remind you of this. DO IT, or the campaign may not play out correctly! Usually not necessary in SH4 since we haven't had to do as much editing to the game here. However, not a bad idea to have your own named Save before leaving on patrol

2.
Don't use Autosaves, don't overwrite old saves, always save in a separate slot, use names without spaces like camp_1, camp_2 etc. to save your campaign progresses.
Autosaves can easily get corrupted and overwriting saves could make your save 'vanish'. Besides them being huge megabyte-wise

3. Best moments to save...
During the campaign, save when no ships are nearby, far away from bunkers or major ports in open sea in order to minimize save corruptions.
Best moment to save is after a convoy attack and after leaving the place in open sea with no more ships in sight, or after leaving your patrol zone (see next point). Save often in these conditions, the more saves you do the less you need to replay after a possible crash when reloading... Again, not as important with SH4, but Saving several times can "save" your career...

4.
Saving in your patrol zone will unfortunately RESET your required patrol time in that zone. The consequence is not very severe, but it's nasty. So be sure to save just BEFORE you enter the patrol zone (just in case something goes horribly wrong), then patrol your required time in one piece without saving (you can use TC!), then save just AFTER leaving the zone and after you have patrolled the required time in order to secure your progress.

DO NOT SAVE THE GAME WHEN...
- Damaged or combatting AI units are nearby; - They will re-set to 100% and all AI reactions are re-calculated all over - and the less data to write for a Save, the better
- When planes are flying nearby; - unknown quantity when re-loading and all AI reactions are re-calculated all over - and the less data to write for a Save, the better
- If your sub is damaged and underwater; also don't use TC higher than 16; - attempt to extricate yourself from the situation first. You ~will~ hear all the damage "noise" when you re-load a save done here - and the less data to write for a Save, the better
- In heavy populated ports or just outside your bunker, go further away. - the less data to write for a Save, the better
- If you have finished your time in the patrol zone, then LEAVE IT before saving (see reason above).
The 2 first ones can corrupt your savegames, especially the first one. The other ones can just be fine, but it's not optimum for game stability...
Saving prior to coming back into port can also "save" your bacon at times...

You can often get away with saving in the middle of something busy, just remember to allow the computer sufficient time to write to the hard drive before you exit. Some fellows never have a bit of trouble with Saves, no matter what they do. Others can't seem to make it through a career without having issues. The MOST COMMON problem with Saves, in my opinion, is what I call cross-contamination, where you have, let's say, TMO installed on your computer. You are progressing through a career, and you decide to activate RSRDC on top of it. Let's say you do not attempt to re-use the Save from TMO. The Save info from TMO is still in that folder though, and RSRDC makes a lot of changes to TMO files. Since a lot of those files are already in the Save folder, they do not get over-written. That is where the game pulls a lot of its information to run the game, and now instead of TMO / RSRDC, you've got a weird combination of TMO with bits and pieces of RSRDC. It usually does not function the way Ducimus intended TMO, nor the way lurker_hlb3 intended RSRDC to be. The same happens with the different versions of FotRSU. Some of the important files that the game uses are not pulled from the game folder. Rather, they are pulled from what was put in the Save folder. Like-named old information is NOT overwritten, and now you've got a mix of files in the game from both versions. It may or may not crash, but it will definitely be cross-contaminated and act oddly.

[Michael Wood]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

No......you CAN NOT load an older saved game with any different modification.....no matter which mod you're using! That means you can't use a saved game from one of the past versions of Ultimate; You can't use a TMO saved game and try it in Ultimate; You can't try ANY difference in your game files from the saved game you previously made.

Delete the Documents/SH4 folder completely WHENEVER a change in game files are made......that means after any added/subtracted modification you make to your game files.

I know this.

[Michael Wood]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate is a big mod, with quite a few more ships, airplanes and other assets. As such, it has a BIG footprint in memory (RAM) on the computer. This mod requires the player to use LAA or similar, to show the OS that the 32-bit SH4.exe can address more than the Windows' standard of 1.5G (or whatever the actual figure is). If you don't have LAA (or similar) activated on the executable, then the computer "thrashes" and uses a swap file quite a bit, reading and writing to the hard drive system, which is slow. The game also has minimal error-checking, and as such, if there is a problem with Saving a game, you usually do not get any warning. The writing of the Save is where the problems occur 99% of the time. The game will let the player exit before the writing to the hard drive is complete. Go figure. The computer then "flushes" the buffers, and your save is corrupted...

Now, couple that with you having old Saves from the previous version, which does have incompatibilities with the newer version, and that's a recipe for Reload failure. Sorry about that, but that is the old-tech game engine, showing its age. Do not try to re-use any of your Saves, and as CapnScurvy says, delete your Save folder(s). You should also re-install the game now. That would explain the issue with the torpedo failure rate you're seeing. Even though you may not have used the data in the Save folder, the game does, and your install may well be corrupt now. You certainly cannot reuse that old save in the older version of FotRSU now either, since it is also contaminated with the new version now. You've created a hybrid - a "Frankenstein", if you will, of the whole Save folder... If you want to keep an active older version of FotRSU going, that is up to you to decide, but use MultiSH4 - which should be in the game's root folder already anyway from FotRSU activation, and make separate Save folders for each copy of the game you use. That way, you can continue any career you may have started in v0.71 while still evaluating the latest version - and giving us feedback on the new version only. Just remember that we cannot "support" old versions once a new one is out...

I am aware of these things. Allow me to clarify. In the last build, I was unable to upgrade my S-18 class submarine. Period.

In this build, the game forbade my loading an ongoing game with a Nautilus class submarine after having allowed such a dozen times over the course of 6 days, which was started in the same build. Sorry, if my two separate postings caused confusion.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Michael Wood

I know this.

You said....."After 5 successful patrols and over 100,000 tons sunk in my first S-Boat using last build, this build arrived and I could not load old game."

Then why are you using a past save????

[propbeanie]

Clarification noted, but you still have to have an empty save folder before starting a new FotRSU version, and you still have to have LAA enabled prior to starting also. Not doing so can lead to corruption of the Save folder, which leads to a weird game. I cannot find a reason for a failure of the game to "upgrade" your boat previously, other than points score. There has to be at least four patrols, and at least one "excellent" patrol, as well as the other three being at least "average" before you qualify for a possible new boat or conning tower upgrade. You cannot have a "poor" showing on any of those, else the game knocks your rating way down. The way the game 'scores' and 'evaluates' a player's renown score and captain's rating is weird, strange and obtuse to say the least, but we cannot control that. If you didn't score enough in v0.80, that would be the factors involved. In v0.81, we lowered the "score" a player can accrue again. That will have to be reviewed further after more beta testing. As for the guns, those are date-based, and show-up for all players and all subs at the same time, considering the equipment that is valid for a given sub. The "S-boats" do not have much to be upgraded. As they were brought on-line out of storage during 1941, their 4" guns were removed and replaced by 3" ones. The 4" guns removed from the "S-boats" are what becomes available to the fleetboats later. Robbing Peter to pay Paul... I would guess (only a guess) Michael Wood, that the corrupted save with the Narwhal was due to not having LAA enabled, and the game (not your computer - the game) couldn't write correct data to the Save file. Not having an empty Save folder prior, whether you did or did not, also contributes to bad Saves... just sayin' - I can find nothing wrong with the first mission you did, and I tried three times with it, both in Career, and building it as a Single Mission. No issues. Something was messed-up in your game at that time, if a submerging to PD and surfacing did not get you the "Launch" prompt and / or icon.

[Michael Wood]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

You said....."After 5 successful patrols and over 100,000 tons sunk in my first S-Boat using last build, this build arrived and I could not load old game."

Then why are you using a past save????

In the last build, I was surprised I did not get an upgrade. My posting was in response to anothers post that he had not been offered an upgrade. But, he had done 6 patrols. I had only done 5 patrols, so that might make a difference.

So, why didn't I do 6 patrols? Because a new build came out invalidating the old save so I could not do 6 patrols.

I did not expect that the old save would load, as I had been informed that new builds invalidate old saves. I understand this and am certain the reason is that data changes in the database do not mesh with the data found in old games.

Standard practice in all play testing.

As for the SH4 folder, I delete this each time I start a new campaign or a new build, to avoid errors.

[propbeanie]

If anybody has the TMO 2.5 download, look in Ducimus' TMO_Manual.pdf in the support folder. I'll try and find that link that KaleunMarco gave me for the old thread about that... The game is weird with the upgrades, and it bears repeating...

Edit: found it! Of refits, new commands, rank, and retirements, thanks to KaleunMarco!

btw, FotRSU uses different values than TMO does...

[Immelmann]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Edit: found it! Of refits, new commands, rank, and retirements, thanks to KaleunMarco!

"- it cost me renown to stay at sea."........I never knew that was a possibility. Is the renown automatically deducted? I can't imagine that it would be purchased like crew members of renown or new equipment. I can't even imagine what that screen would look like. Look, if it costs me renown to stay at sea then leave me on shore.

Is there a list somewhere of the items can and cannot be altered by SH4 modders? I see a bunch of different things and I'm sure that many of them are hard coded into the game core engine. I would love to have a list to check before posting a bug to this forum that nothing can be done about.

[Michael Wood]

Originally Posted by Immelmann

"- it cost me renown to stay at sea."........I never knew that was a possibility. Is the renown automatically deducted? I can't imagine that it would be purchased like crew members of renown or new equipment. I can't even imagine what that screen would look like. Look, if it costs me renown to stay at sea then leave me on shore.

Just tested.

1) Reinstalled SH4 at E:\Silent Hunter 4 and applied patches 1.4 and 1.5.
2) Installed FOTRS.
3) Ran LAA.
4) Started application.
5) Exited application and deleted SH4 folder.
6) Reran LAA.
7) Restarted application.
8) Began career at Pearl Harbor in the Skipjack, with 500 renown and left on December 8,1941.
9) Was told to goto Convoy College and await orders.
10) Ignored this and sailed 75 miles directly south of Pearl Harbor.
11) Sat there until February 8,1942
12) Returned to Pearl Harbor.
13 Checked and found I still had 500 renown

[Immelmann]

Originally Posted by Michael Wood

Just tested.

1) Reinstalled SH4 at E:\Silent Hunter 4 and applied patches 1.4 and 1.5.
2) Installed FOTRS.
3) Ran LAA.
4) Started application.
5) Exited application and deleted SH4 folder.
6) Reran LAA.
7) Restarted application.
8) Began career at Pearl Harbor in the Skipjack, with 500 renown and left on December 8,1941.
9) Was told to goto Convoy College and await orders.
10) Ignored this and sailed 75 miles directly south of Pearl Harbor.
11) Sat there until February 8,1942
12) Returned to Pearl Harbor.
13 Checked and found I still had 500 renown

I think Ducimus is talking about reaching this condition of spending renown to stay at sea after multiple patrols, not just one.

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Experiment #1:
Made the above mission pictured test worth 601 renown. Which would put each completion as a "Good" rating. I then ran simulated patrols where every other patrol, i deliberatly did not complete the reach area objective. This way, i would have good patrols, mixed with Poor patrols equally. In this scenario:

- I was offered to retire to Anapolis as an instructor
- it cost me renown to stay at sea.
- I recieved the first refit without problem. The second refit (much to my amazement) bugged the boats configuration.

[Rockin Robbins]

To clarify the clarifications. It's always been true. Nobody has stressed it for 10 years of the game's existence. But we have found that several things cannot be used outside of the exact mod configuration they were created in (with a very, very few categories of mods as exceptions, NONE of the supermods need apply)

1. Scenarios cannot be made in one supermod and used in another. I know everyone has been doing it since the beginning of time and mostly without undue death or destruction. But they just don't work as intended. If you have a stock game scenario, load it into TMO and play it, TMO includes all the stock ships. The scenario doesn't call on any TMO ships, except in randomly generated units. Stock scenarios probably work fine in TMO, but TMO produced scenarios will crash and burn in a stock configuration. SH4 has no error handling routines. As soon as the scenario says "let's put ship x here" and ship x isn't in the stock game it's crash and burn time.

2. Game saves made in one mod configuration cannot be used in another. Same situation. Call ship x to be right here and ship x doesn't exist: crash and burn painfully.

Especially in FOTRSU, where we have corrected game errors, even with the stock ships, and have more than twice as many ships with entirely different configurations than than any other mod, INCLUDING past versions of FOTRSU and FOTRS, you cannot use previous game saves from other mod configurations, or even from previous versions of FOTRSU with FOTRSU. They will not work. The game will crash or behave erratically. None of this is a defect in FOTRSU. The game has part of the responsibility because of its awful error handling. But primarily you are causing your own problems.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Immelmann

"- it cost me renown to stay at sea."........I never knew that was a possibility. Is the renown automatically deducted? I can't imagine that it would be purchased like crew members of renown or new equipment. I can't even imagine what that screen would look like. Look, if it costs me renown to stay at sea then leave me on shore.

Is there a list somewhere of the items can and cannot be altered by SH4 modders? I see a bunch of different things and I'm sure that many of them are hard coded into the game core engine. I would love to have a list to check before posting a bug to this forum that nothing can be done about.

When I was doing my testing, done similarly to Ducimus', I did not track the "renown" path. We were more after the upgrade paths of the submarines under certain configurations. The renown though does appear to be a moving target. You get so much renown for sinking a ship, so much renown for completing mission objectives, etc., all of which are easy to follow. But then I would get back in from patrol, expecting to have say 1200 renown points, but I would find that I had 1254 instead??? So there is apparently a "bonus" given for a patrol rating, I guess. This makes it next to impossible to determine how much renown it does cost to stay at sea if you get "promoted" to Sub School Instructor. It also makes it difficult to determine how much renown it costs, or is given to you for a new boat or conning tower, because you don't get to see your "score", or renown total until you are back in the Captain's Office. Would you find any accurate information on this subject in the SH4 owner's manual?... ~no~... but it does cost a LOT of renown to stay at sea. Since I'm guessing that the first boat upgrade is with 5000 renown and at least a good skipper rating, I'd say the "cost" would be in the neighborhood of that. I will revisit this subject at a later date, and try to update everybody, but it is very boring to do - besides frustrating...

As for a list of items we cannot alter... The Save system is one. The way the game uses the Save folder, etc. Those are areas that cause all sorts of grief. As RR mentions, invalid data will often cause a CTD, and there is no error-checking to catch bad data. Also, we are stuck with all sorts of default behavior, such as with the insertion missions, the photo missions, etc., but we can alter the parameters surrounding them. It is taking a while, but we will have new SpecOps missions, and unfortunately, without the help of SpyRon. However, the 'modern' researcher does have more info at-hand. This is not to say that things will not be "wrong"... We suspect that we can change the "craft" used to launch the insertion missions, and have made progress, but thus far, it's still a rubber raft. Things like that. A lot of the game does have parameters that can be adjusted, but it's like a symbiotic relationship in the game, and you tweak the sub's dive speed, and now the thing won't hold depth, or whatever. I have noticed now that the lifeboats seem to be different (again). They have been tweaked about every other release, but who know what happens there?... I don't think anyone has attempted to compile a "list" of known issues with no known fix, but as has been mentioned by a certain modder I know, "If you say it can't be done, you've already defeated yourself..." - or something to that effect (sorry Jeff).

Originally Posted by Michael Wood

Just tested.

1) Reinstalled SH4 at E:\Silent Hunter 4 and applied patches 1.4 and 1.5.
2) Installed FOTRS.
3) Ran LAA.
4) Started application.
5) Exited application and deleted SH4 folder.
6) Reran LAA.
7) Restarted application.
8) Began career at Pearl Harbor in the Skipjack, with 500 renown and left on December 8,1941.
9) Was told to goto Convoy College and await orders.
10) Ignored this and sailed 75 miles directly south of Pearl Harbor.
11) Sat there until February 8,1942
12) Returned to Pearl Harbor.
13 Checked and found I still had 500 renown

I would go to the "Star" location for the mission first. In most cases, that will get you 150 renown points for the completed mission orders. Some are worth 200, some 300, and if you go into the Great North, some are 400, but you are at the limits of a boat's endurance up there, and need to be mindful of the fuel situation. Also, if you encounter anything enroute, and it looks safe to attack, do so, because you get points for the sinking of the ship(s), whether assigned yet or not. They would not count toward any objective you haven't reached and been assigned yet. The game has a provision for a player to call in a "Contact Report", but we've reduced the points you get from that down to 50 or less. You of course, won't get renown points if you don't sink something, or complete an assigned mission, either assigned at the start of the patrol, or given after a Status Update. The Status Update is not supposed to (though it is known to mess up) assign a new objective until the first is complete. You coming back in with a "zero" renown increase, according to the Ducimus formula, puts you into the "Poor" column for that particular patrol, earning you a -1 for a campaign rating. It will take a lot of work to get your "score" in that category back up and qualify for a new boat after four or five patrols, and might put you in line for the Sub School Instructor's position... If it's just an experiment, I'd start anew, else see what you can do with the next three or four patrols. Thanks

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by Michael Wood

Twenty one days into the second patrol, my Nautilus campaign would no longer load. Don't know why. I changed graphics to lowest resolution and level and used the "Large Address Aware.exe", to no avail.

I have never been able to get a Narwhal save to load and play. I didn't matter how long I was gone. Once the game saved it it never loaded without a CTD

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

When I was doing my testing, done similarly to Ducimus', I did not track the "renown" path.

I have never figured out why the game even deducts renown from a captain who wishes to stay at sea. It happened to me the other day and the game told me it deducted 1200 renown for not taking the teaching job.