Sinking ships in port

By experience I have found that as soon as I start sinking ships at port a number of unwanted side-effects WILL occur soon thereafter.

1. Strange external camera behavior.
I do have TMO installed enabled but I re-enabled the external cam. The cam fails to focus on any target whatsoever and returns errors like "out of sector" at all sorts of weird angles.

2. Performance degradation.
Especially noticeable during time compression >x1024. Frame rate gets choppy.

3. Strange behavior upon loading a game.
Whenever one or more of the above has already occurred and a game is saved and reloaded the game immediately applies what seems to be random damage to one or more (sub)systems. The damage can be repaired.

4. Crashes.
When I continue the patrol despite above errors the game also starts to crash at changing camera views (like pericope to bioculars). Memory leaks also seem to occur according to the task manager. At around 1.6Gig the game reliably crashes. Enabling LAA flag in the .exe does not seem to avoid this crash.

After ending a patrol the above seems to reliably fix itself. I can reliably replicate any and all of the above behaviors at any point during the pacific campaign. Sinking a few stationary ships at port is all it takes.

So now I don't sink ships at port anymore and it's not a big deal. This post is to inform those with similar game behavior what the cause may be.

[robustits]

Originally Posted by dharthoorn

By experience I have found that as soon as I start sinking ships at port a number of unwanted side-effects WILL occur soon thereafter.

Objects in ports have many bugs, like cockroaches, flyes. Do not be too close!

[merc4ulfate]

It seems your doing many things that contribute to your own errors.

Many learned years ago that saving near large groups of vessels can cause corrupt saves. You just do not do it. Also adding a mod then changing an aspect of it can give you game play issues if you have not adjust all factors from the resulting item that you change.

Time compression is fine over long distance with little shipping traffic but around ports and convoys it is always taught that it should be avoided. Another issue that causes compression issues is what you have running on your computer along with the game. Sure we have better CPUs and ram these days but with the added load of OS's your still going to get compression issues from a game that is around 20 years old playing on a new system.

Of course if you have saved a game where you have deliberately put yourself in a situation where compression or large item mapping has to be saved your asking for trouble. It is one of the first things people are told to avoid doing when saving at sea. It is not an issue saving at port but when you pull up along side a convoy of 34 merchants and 10 escorts there is no guarantee that every single lat and longitude, speed, draft, where the wave was, where the smoke was and all of those other factors of every single vessel will be saved and then reinitialized upon resuming game play. Save in bad places will get you bad saves. Many games out there have holes where a player may fall into and then be trapped in between mapped textures and then if they save it they will not be happy when they try to play again. Same goes for SH.

You should take the time to read many dos and dont of the game ... none of these items are new to players who have been at it or years.

It sounds like it would do you well to read through a few of these threads.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=107783

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=146795

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=128517

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=131872

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=222

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=158234

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=155786

Everyone one of those will have real gems in them

It seems your doing many things that contribute to your own errors.

Indeed it seems to be so. This game seems to have quite some do's and don'ts. Thanks for the useful many links and the tips already mentioned in your post.

[TorpX]

Not everybody finds SH4 to be fussy. It may be due to different hardware people have.

I've had very few problems with saves, but I'll admit, I don't push the game to it's limits either. For instance, I do not use very high levels of TC, I only use the external cam sparingly, and don't make a practice of harbor raiding. I also make it a habit to make each save to a unique designation.

I will sometimes save in the presence of enemy ships, while submerged and all, SH3 bugaboos notwithstanding. However, since I do not chase after large fleets, that will usually involve only a small number of ships.

[Armistead]

I run TMO, RSRD and several other mods and don't have those problems. The only time you should get an out of sector error is if you use the cam to go through the subs exterior walls.

I did play on a older system, but frames still held about 40 in ports. Now if you get around ports with lots of ships, does place a load and can slow the game down some.

I've played for years on the older system with numerous setups and as long as I use the right mod setup, never had a problem with crashes.

[merc4ulfate]

The out of sector issue is a normal thing for any computer game when you understand that some section are not modeled and the designers never intended anyone to go to those places.

CTD happens so rarely with the game I do not even worry about it. 99% of the time it is because of bad saves. The only time the game has thrown me out due to over load would be the one time where I got to close to Truk. Prior to a certain date if I got to close there would be multiple convoys and task forces spawning at a continuous rate. The sheer number of ships in the lagoon overloaded the game engine and crashed. I think it was only when I ran the fall of the rising sun mod too.

[Father Goose]

Originally Posted by dharthoorn

I have found that as soon as I start sinking ships at port...

Harbor-Raiding...uhg!

[Rammstein0991]

Originally Posted by Father Goose

Harbor-Raiding...uhg!

Hey, as long as they get sunk, thats supplies the Japanese wont be getting

Harbor-Raiding...uhg!

I don't see any moral issues whatsoever with sinking ships anchored at port. As long as they are bearing enemy flag in wartime in disputed territory, that makes them active participants and thus fair game according to every rule of engagement known to mankind.

Perhaps in WW2 history it didn't happen so often because of the tactical disadvantages (even pre-MAD) involved for a sub to be in shallow coastal waters. Alternatively, I cannot think of any tactical advantages in waiting until freighters leave port with DD escorts to start sinking them. Hell, sink the DD's at port FIRST and come back later for the freighters...

[Father Goose]

Originally Posted by Rammstein0991

Hey, as long as they get sunk, thats supplies the Japanese wont be getting

Originally Posted by dharthoorn

I don't see any moral issues whatsoever with sinking ships anchored at port.

Apparently you skippers have never been called to the office of Admiral Armistead.

[Anthony W.]

You can't tell me you've never been right around Saipan with no contact in days and thought, ''There's 50,000 tons in there...''

[MarkCt]

The Tirante sank a ammunition ship and two escourts at anchorage in the northern shore of Quelpart island. Targets were getting scarce near the end of the war. There is even a film of it.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by dharthoorn

I don't see any moral issues whatsoever with sinking ships anchored at port. As long as they are bearing enemy flag in wartime in disputed territory, that makes them active participants and thus fair game according to every rule of engagement known to mankind.

Perhaps in WW2 history it didn't happen so often because of the tactical disadvantages (even pre-MAD) involved for a sub to be in shallow coastal waters. Alternatively, I cannot think of any tactical advantages in waiting until freighters leave port with DD escorts to start sinking them. Hell, sink the DD's at port FIRST and come back later for the freighters...

The reason many players frown upon harbor raiding, is that the SH4 game harbors have weak and puny defenses. Both sides knew that their harbors had many valuable ships and protected them accordingly. It simply isn't realistic, the way the game allows one to waltz into a base and start sinking stuff.

The reason many players frown upon harbor raiding, is that the SH4 game harbors have weak and puny defenses. Both sides knew that their harbors had many valuable ships and protected them accordingly. It simply isn't realistic, the way the game allows one to waltz into a base and start sinking stuff.

I've tried to find evidence of what you say on the Net and Wiki but I can't find that much to support your claim. Which ASW defences *would* there have been at harbors like Saipan that would pose a serious threat to raiding subs even at night?

Planes had nothing but visual to go on at the start. I don't know if the Japanese had the resources to allow for continuous multiple DD patrols doing active sonar sweeps that would deter a sneaky sub raiding a port.

Also, even IF there would be well equipped ASW harbors I would assume not be ALL or even a LOT of them -barring perhaps Japanese Mainland ports- especially not at the start of the war (let's say pre '43).

History supports your claim in the sense that it didnt seem all that common. I just do not understand what the actual defences would have consisted of that would be so effective. Again, especially at the start of the war.