Help with Days in Base and The Like

[Reinhard Dietz]

Here's the deal:

I'm heading back to St. Nazaire and will arrive during the second week of December 1940. The boat's undamaged, but I want to trade my very lucky VIIB for a brand-new IXC when I immediately transfer from the 7th to the 2nd at Lorient.

If I understand the relevant data files in SH3C right, the IXC becomes available in January of 1941, so I need to spend at least a month in base after the transfer to the 2nd in order for it to be available on the U-boat panel, correct? If that's the case, what kind of SH3C-fu do I need to perform? I suppose it's choosing "Set number of days spent in base to" and entering something like 30. When would that be set, right before I load the save where I'll finish the current patrol in St. Nazaire?

Any advice is appreciated, and I hope I've clearly expressed what it is I'm trying to do. I also need to nudge the ol' renown upwards so that I don't lose my recently-acquired rank of Kaleun; it's appropriate to do that with the 'In port before mission' save, correct?

[krashkart]

What I would do is head out for another patrol instead and gain some extra renown to make it easier on the stripes I've earned. I'd want as much cushion as possible to retain rank and still be able to purchase and upgrade a new boat. Just my preference, though.

OTOH you could save and exit the game, then set your number of days in SH3C according to your calculations, then reload your save and dock. You'll burn a few days in the transfer, too, if I'm not mistaken. When all else fails, upgrade your flak guns a few times, they should cost 0 renown. When I do that it advances the calendar two more days per change.

I now cede the floor to more advanced members of the group. *bow*

[Reinhard Dietz]

krash:

I'm hoping to haul in enough renown off of the about-to-be-ended patrol to ride out the loss. I'd do another one to build that cushion, but I'm itching to get back into the North Atlantic in time to say hello to a certain carrier named Ark Royal on behalf of Admiral Lutjens and company. You wouldn't happen to know if she's at sea in the stock campaign in May of 1941 and in the more or less historical position, would you?

Thanks for the tip on the flak upgrades! My absolute fallback position is going to be loading one of my voluminous saves from earlier in the patrol.

Do you recall if the IXC in the stock game and with SH3C has the correct torpedo loadout? I vaguely remember either it or the IXB being one short.

[Reinhard Dietz]

Bother! I've run the clock ahead to early January 1941 via the flak upgrade method and there's no sign of the IXC. I wonder what I've done wrong---the 2nd at Lorient's U-boat options are the VIIB, VIIC and IXB.

It would appear that someone in the construction program didn't get the message with regards to the data in U-boat availability.cfg, so

ETA: On the other hand, backing out of the game and coming back into it seems to have cleared up the problem. Yay for SH3C.

[krashkart]

So... it worked out alright then?

Erm... to answer your Q's about the Ark Royal, I don't have the answers. I had always hoped for an encounter with a historical cap ship but finally resigned myself to simply trawling for targets when I played stock. If you go to Scapa Flow playing GWX3, though, there is a Revenge class parked in the bay... but it's on the wrong side of the bay to be the Royal Oak (plus, it's part of the scripted campaign layer; e.g. pretty much always there).

[Reinhard Dietz]

Woo hoo, now sailing in U-126. However, there's a problem. In-base, the date was 26 March 1941. In-patrol, it's 20 December 1940. Er, how the devil do I fix that?

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by Reinhard Dietz

Woo hoo, now sailing in U-126. However, there's a problem. In-base, the date was 26 March 1941. In-patrol, it's 20 December 1940. Er, how the devil do I fix that?

Ah, I think that's because you transferred to a new boat. It takes some time to familiarize the crew with the new Uboat. I didn't think about that when trying to answer your questions. I guess the fix would be to back out of the current stage of your career and reload your previous save game, then try again. Looks like nearly a month went by, so maybe if you buy your new boat first and check the date, then try to adjust it as needed.

EDIT:

Wait, maybe I didn't read that right. You were in port in 1941 and are now three years behind that in your patrol?

[Reinhard Dietz]

Yeah, that's about the sum of it. I used the flak gun thing to skip ahead to the IXC availability date, backed out of that save and restarted the game, loaded that save, got my IXC and outfitted it properly, with all office calendars showing 26 March 1941.

I then went into the patrol and all the dates inside the patrol were 20 December 1940. The boat was in fact a Type IX and the game reports it as an IXC. I wouldn't mind being on the first wave of IXCs into the water, but I was planning on having the crew home for Christmas, etc.

I had previously deselected the specific days in port option of SH3C and chosen random time in port after successfully getting the IXC, for what it's worth. Looking at Patrols_0.cfg, I'm starting to get tempted to change the date in the PATROL 010 fields, specifically StartYear, StartMonth, StartDay, StartHour and StartMinute. Do you know how that works?

[krashkart]

I haven't delved into the campaign folders much so I don't know if changing dates there will work or not. That is possibly the strangest thing I've ever heard of happening in this simulator, though.

Anyone else know what's happening to RD's campaign? I'm at a loss.

[Jimbuna]

Due you have the alternative flotillas mod enabled or the historical U-boat availability date unchecked?

[Reinhard Dietz]

jim:

No on both counts. I'm still sailing with the default flotillas and historic availability is definitely on.

[Reinhard Dietz]

It has occurred to me to, if nothing else, have a patrol or two that involves cruising around the Bay of Biscay until January of 1941---a grand total of about three weeks---and then starting from there. Call it the U-48 Farewell Tour or something.

I may yet be forced into this one, but the good news is that I can easily do it thanks to preserved saves. I'll just have to make the manual changes to the crew via SH3C.

[krashkart]

Sweet. Where there's a will there's a workaround.

[Reinhard Dietz]

Yeah, there may be a workaround, but what's got me wondering is whether there's something that I can do that doesn't involve me having a couple of zero tonnage patrols to look at on the record.

The next alternative is simply to take an IXB when I arrive in mid-December and see if I get the option to trade up to an IXC right before I leave on patrol. Since I've already got my crew for the IXC configured, what exact file(s) should be preserved in order to save that work? Also, where does the game store the "In base before patrol" save data?

Thanks for the assistance so far, everyone.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Reinhard Dietz

Call it the U-48 Farewell Tour or something.

You could make a fortune on t-shirts and programs alone.