Thanks to all who have attempted to assist Comrade K. Please keep up the good work.
This is an old Stock SH3 bug.
It is most visible when returning to base after a patrol.
It is common to
ALL big mods.
It is also visible in any harbor with 'parked' or docked vessels.
It essentially relates to the inability of the game to recognize vessels that are able to move about in the game (via 'programming' in the campaign files) as being intentionally docked or parked.
There are a few exceptions to the rule, such as the 'block ships' and buoys introduced by the GWX dev team. (Easily recognized as listing, damaged, half-sunken, and rusting hulks.... often marked by said buoys. Buoys may go up and down a bit, but do not otherwise move around in the game.)
Theoretically, we could fix the problem by cloning a bunch of vessels and essentially building them as undamaged vessels, employed in the same manner as the locations of the block ships. Doing so would also create the need for reworking the campaign files again.
Weather in Stock SH3 is also a bit problematic, as it has a tendency to get stuck in stormy and/or heavy seas.... which make parked/docked ships move about/drift more.... which in turn makes the problem appear worse.
Even in calm seas, as you have on patrol departure, the issue is present. If you remained stationary in your port of departure and engaged time compression to watch what happens, you will find examples of the drifting vessels. Once they come into contact with another object, such as a dock/pen wall, other vessels, or land.... the real craziness begins. Vessels sometimes merge with other vessels, vessels end up between buildings, working their way onto land, and etc.
We did a great deal of work in GWX to minimize the effects of the stock SH3 harbor traffic drift bug via spacing, and not adding piles of traffic in the harbors.... but the problem remains.... as the true solution was onerous.
It seems possible that you may not have played stock SH3 without mods, so I will remind for the sake of any who might need to hear it: Stock SH3 had ZERO harbor traffic in either friendly or enemy harbors.
I think that having no harbor traffic
may have been the SH3 dev team's solution to the drift problem. To paraphrase what a friend from the SH3 dev team once told me: 'If we needed money we had no problem getting it from Ubisoft. If we needed more time, the only solution was to bring your sleeping bag to the office and live there like a slave.'
The choices are either having no parked/docked traffic at all in the harbors at all, or having some parked/docked traffic in place. The direction we chose, was to live with it a little and spend our energy on other developmental matters.
The ports are indeed 'stable.' I define instability as being something that causes the game to stop running. They do make ya want to pull out a little of your hair sometimes though. Late in the war though, you can blame it on the bombing raids you just missed before arriving.
