Can I save near a convoy?

[King_Zog]

I've heard you shouldn't save your game near ships you can see or even hear on the hydrophones. So far I've tried to stick to this...

But, when I'm shadowing a convoy it can takes me a while to plot its course and then get into a good position for an attack, sometimes a couple of hours of play time.

If I save my game and then come back to it later while I'm near the convoy (like in visual range) will this cause all the ships in the convoy to lose their waypoints, or even worse things like CTDs and corrupted save games?

Once you've intercepted convoy is the general rule to play through as long as it takes to attack it and then get clear of what is left?

I'm just wondering, as when the visibility is poor or the convoy is swarming with escorts the whole process can take me quite a bit of time.

[frau kaleun]

Some people report that they can save within range of other units and then reload the save without any problems... but personally I wouldn't risk it.

If it's possible to leave your computer on, you can always just pause the game where it is and come back to it later and unpause it and keep playing. The only danger that I can see there is if Windows or some background program decides to do an auto-update and then reboot your system afterwards, if you're set up to allow that.

Like I said, though, some people don't seem to get bitten by the savegame bug in that situation so it's up to you.

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by King_Zog

I've heard you shouldn't save your game near ships you can see or even hear on the hydrophones. So far I've tried to stick to this...

But, when I'm shadowing a convoy it can takes me a while to plot its course and then get into a good position for an attack, sometimes a couple of hours of play time.

If I save my game and then come back to it later while I'm near the convoy (like in visual range) will this cause all the ships in the convoy to lose their waypoints, or even worse things like CTDs and corrupted save games?

Once you've intercepted convoy is the general rule to play through as long as it takes to attack it and then get clear of what is left?

I'm just wondering, as when the visibility is poor or the convoy is swarming with escorts the whole process can take me quite a bit of time.

1) I find saving games in the presence of other ships to be a crapshoot. Usually it works ok for me, but 1 in 20 fails. As a result, I save fairly often, at least 1-2 every game day, when it is safe.

2) The waypoints question is interesting. In harbor, they do lose their waypoints, so why wouldn't they in open sea? Of course, you wouldn't necessarily notice.

[Bakkels]

Never had any problem saving a game while close to a convoy (and I mean really close, like you said; being able to hear them on hydro's or within visual range). However, because each patrol / save game takes my computer about 5 minutes to load, I mostly try to complete my patrols in one session. But the times I do need to load when close to a convoy, I never had a problem...

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by Bakkels

Never had any problem saving a game while close to a convoy... But the times I do need to load when close to a convoy, I never had a problem...

Same here...

Don't want to jinx it, (so I'll touch wood just in case), but thankfully it's never been an issue.

[Howard313]

Saving near ships and ports seems to work alright for me, or at least I haven't run into any problems with it yet. Never hurts to be too careful though, nothing more frustrating than scoring a good kill only to lose said kill due to corrupted data.

Like a good friend on left 4 dead once told me. "Better safe than sorry."

I usualy follow the Frau Kaleun Method.
Pause. Sleep. Continue.

It's a good idé to unplug the internet, and any automatic functions, while playing.

With my old unstable install, I used to travel submerged in the opposite direction of the convoy for 2 hours. Then I'd surface and save, in case of a lock-up.
The few times I had to use it (computer lock-up), it worked.

[King_Zog]

Thanks for all the advice

Sometimes I have just left the computer on with the game paused, but I'd like to avoid this as I run SH3 on a laptop that is a few years old now and I worry that it'll get too hot and melt if I don't let it have some rest!

I did try just saving in the end, I made a few just in case any became corrupt. It seemed to work out on reload without any noticable problems.

Although I did try saving underwater just to see what would happen and that resulted in an immediate CTD when I reloaded, so don't do that .

[Chubster]

Dont "actually" know if it makes any difference but I, when i remember, try to save on surface, on nav map screen and game paused.

Worked ok in SH4, yet to give it a go in SH3

[Herr-Berbunch]

I'll stick my oar in here, too. I've been DC'd in The Minch near Lewis before and saved near land/surface vessel/action, successfully. And I've saved seemingly a bazillion miles from anything and it's borked!

If you can, save it, pause it and come back to it later. At least if the pause failed (my old XP machine didn't like pausing for long) you've got the save to fall back on. If you can't do either successfully then there's always the next patrol

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by King_Zog

Thanks for all the advice

Sometimes I have just left the computer on with the game paused, but I'd like to avoid this as I run SH3 on a laptop that is a few years old now and I worry that it'll get too hot and melt if I don't let it have some rest!

Paused, it shouldn't be using that many resources. And if you have it set to hibernate after x hours, then it shouldn't even be running!

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Paused, it shouldn't be using that many resources. And if you have it set to hibernate after x hours, then it shouldn't even be running!

The question is if SH3 and/or the graphics drivers like to wake up from hibernation and are able to get back into their previous state completely. Since this is an unusual situation for games to happen it's often unsupported. Maybe the newest OSes handle this better, but it's risky to rely on it.