Back in the water!

[LongBlade]

The only short coming is that I am not using my lit G15 keyboard and the keys are somewhat hard to see.  Perhaps, when we settle into our hotel in Taiwan, I'll need to get some form of night light for my keyboard.

Amazon has a ton. Prices are all over the place - anywhere from $3 to $25. Here's one for $6 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002WI8GG8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002WI8GG8&linkCode=as2&tag=grogheads-20

[MarkShot]

Thanks, but I have only about a week left. No more orders in the USA.

Yesterday and today, 95% of what we own is being sold off. Most of the computer gear is on its way to Taiwan as of Monday. Just the old laptop (2004) and iPad2 remain. Right now, killing time in the library reading "Vortex" on the iPad.

[MarkShot]

It's after midnight, but I am back out on patrol again.

[MarkShot]

10/23/42   08:46 Being forced under 2-3 times a day by air patrols!

[MarkShot]

11/02/42 - I've never played this portion of the war before.  Convoys are really hard to find.

The air attacks although targeted are not hard to evade:

(1)  Crash dive (flank to 150M or better).

(2)  Put course 90d to aircraft run in as soon as submerged.

(3)  Run 10 minutes or more at flank.  (usually you will hear bombs drop)

(4)  Continue ahead slow for four hours.

(5)  Come up to PD and surface if clear.

My watch is over; 2am.  Good night.

[Nefaro]

I'm kinda tempted to fire up Silent Hunter 5 again.  After going through the Mod Soup nightmare, and knowing when to say when, it's pretty good.

[MarkShot]

Ha ha ha .... AOD didn't really have any mods, and SHCE has just a couple.

For AOD you could hex edit your sub type I believe. For SHCE, you set your next patrol area.

It was a simpler time!

[MarkShot]

Perhaps the game is modeling the time when the Enigma was cracked, but it is d*nm frustrating!

3-4 crash dives day and not a single convoy! Now, I just sank a lone 10,000 ton tanker with the deck gun which any captain would be happy to send to the bottom with just shells and no risk.

BUT HELP ME PLEASE ... I AM SUFFERING FROM CONVOY WITHDRAWAL!!!

[MarkShot]

I think when my wife goes to sleep, I am going to slip over to the laptop and get back on patrol!

It seems the light from the display does not bother her, but my typing does. She said to me, "How can you possibly be typing so much in a game that is mouse driven?". She doesn't understand as captain I must keep a log. :)

[MarkShot]

11/03/42   16:05 Back on patrol!

[MarkShot]

The war is over!  No matter what I do my current save generates a reproducible crash.  I've tried DOSBOX 0.72 (what I have it set up for) and DOSBOX 0.63 (what I first installed a long time ago).

[MarkShot]

Installed 0.74 and tried everything.  My career is kaput!

Time to move onto another game.

[Nefaro]

Installed 0.74 and tried everything.  My career is kaput!

Time to move onto another game.

:(

I've been pretty paranoid about the occasionally troublesome saves, playing the old DOS games.  I know that making multiple saves, and quite often, is highly recommended in DOSbox but some games only save to the same slot every time and I get this feeling as if I'll get one polluted save that will carry over to any later ones that session.   ???

[MarkShot]

I could backtrack as I have I do manual saves and always write auto check pointing programs for my games.  But I am just not so inclined.  I just played a game of CM11 (lost) and F12 (lost).  :)

AOD does an autosave to slot 19 every 20 minutes of game play (real time).

My autosave script:

        WinTitle(WinName(), "SavCkpt(AOD)")

; ----- Definitions ------

        SourceFile="F:\Games\AOD\SIM\SAVE\GAME19.SAV"
        DestinationDir="E:\mk\AOD\SavCkpt\Checkpoints\"
        Interval=60
       
; ----- Initialize -----

        If !FileExist(SourceFile) then ; only warn
          Message("Warning", "Save game file not found.  Waiting for file.")
        Else
          FileAttrSet(SourceFile, "a") ; prime the processing
        End If
       
; ----- Monitor Save Game Status -----

        While @true
          If FileExist(SourceFile) then ; wait for file to appear
            Attr=FileAttrGet(SourceFile)
            If StrSub(attr, 2, 1) == "A" Then GoSub CopySaveGame
          End If
          TimeDelay(Interval)
        End While

; ----- Shut Down -----

        Exit

        Message("Debug", "Pause")

; ##### CopySaveGame #####

:CopySaveGame

; ----- Form file name -----

        BaseName=FileTimeGetEx(SourceFile, 2)
        ReplaceName=StrClean(BaseName, ":", "", @False, 1)
        ReplaceName=StrSub(ReplaceName, 1, 12)
        ReplaceName=StrCat(StrSub(ReplaceName, 1, 8), " ", StrSub(ReplaceName, 9, 4))
        TargetName=StrCat(DestinationDir, ReplaceName)
        FileCopy(SourceFile, TargetName, @False)
        Beep()
        TimeDelay(1)
        Beep()
        TimeDelay(1)
        Beep()
        FileAttrSet(SourceFile, "a") ; clear the flag

        Return

And the restore script:

        WinTitle(WinName(), "RestoreCkpt")

; ----- Definitions ------

        DestinationFile="F:\Games\AOD\SIM\SAVE\GAME03.SAV"
        SourceTemplate="E:\mk\AOD\SavCkpt\Checkpoints\*.*"
        SourceDir="E:\mk\AOD\SavCkpt\Checkpoints\"
        Interval=60
       
; ----- Try Different Autosave Checkpoints -----

        Title="Select Autosave Checkpoint"

        While @true

          AutosaveList=FileItemize(SourceTemplate) ; build list in reverse chrono order
          AutosaveListCount=ItemCount(AutosaveList, @tab)
          For I=1 to AutosaveListCount
            ReplaceItem=ItemExtract(I, AutosaveList, @Tab)
            Prefix=StrFixLeft(AutosaveListCount+1-I, "0", 4)
            ReplaceItem=StrCat(Prefix, "     ", ReplaceItem)
            AutosaveList=ItemReplace(ReplaceItem, I, AutosaveList, @tab)
          next

          Autosave=AskItemList(Title, AutosaveList, @tab, @sorted, @single) ; pick an item and restore
          Autosave=StrSub(Autosave, 10, -1)
          If Autosave!="" Then
            AutosaveFile=StrCat(SourceDir, Autosave)
            FileCopy(AutosaveFile, DestinationFile, @False)
            Beep
            Title=StrCat('Select Autosave Checkpoint ( last = "', Autosave, '" )')
          End If

        End While

[MarkShot]

I am still regretting my AOD problems. Although I tried SHCE unsuccessfully on my laptop; too slow.

I think maybe the latest version might just have the tweaks to make it work.