I'm New and Confused :(

[oblivionenigma]

Well... perhaps some of you can shed some light on these issues.

First of all, how do I complete a patrol mission? I go to the area assigned, and I have done everything I can think of, but I cannot complete it.

Second, after 2+ good torpedo hits, often times a boat will sink so where just a few inches remain above water. Yet sometimes it continues to chug along at normal speed, or sit dead in the water, but not sink. Similarly, I've had boats explode and sit there engulfed in flames, and yet it won't sink and I won't get credit. Bugs? Am I doing something wrong? If I waited for 12 hours, would they finally sink?

Third... What do you do when your crewmen are injured? My entire watch was injured from a good hit. Their average health was about 95/100. They all died. I reloaded and tried switching them to other compartments. Interestingly, the NEW watch crew started to lose health while the old ones maintained stable health. Any clues?

Finally, my antennae got damaged that same time that my crew started to die off. I'd repair it, and then it'd be damaged again. It'd repair it, it'd be damaged again. Etc. They were no boats or planes to attack me, so it seemed like all of my crew and my antennae were just...what? Spontaneously combusting?

Am I just missing something? :\

Thanks in advance for any help.

[DirtyHarry3033]

I'm new at SH4 too ;) Haven't been in real combat yet, just the training missions.

Regarding your 2nd question, some ships have a VERY strong will to live and take an ungodly amount of time to sink. Others give up easily and sink in a matter of minutes.

Well actually, I imagine it's more to do with where you hit 'em. When playing SH3, I hit a C3 freighter once and stopped her dead in the water, she was still floating 24 hrs later. Not wanting to waste torps (was nearly out) I finally surfaced and took her out with the deck gun.

About your crew dying, did you take them off battle stations after the engagement was over? Think I read somewhere yesterday or today that if you leave them on battle stations too long, they'll die, basically drop dead of fatigue. They're very dedicated crew apparently ;)

Maybe that also has an effect on how well they do repairs? If they're dropping from exhaustion, don't know how well they could fix things.

[walsh2509]

If its the star+binoculars icon you have to sail to for your mission, when I did it PH to Japan, it took 14 days of patrolling up and down the Japanese coast before the star icon changed to grey to indicate that you have completed your patrol.

[Gildor]

I have done three missions during 2 patrols with the star-bino mission. I have only had to patrol within 55nm of the icon for 48 hours.

The reason i say 55nm is because when i was sent to a star-flag mission to patrol, it triggers completed when you get close and that was 55nm. Therefore, I surmized that in order to trigger the missions you have to be within 55nm.

[NefariousKoel]

I have done three missions during 2 patrols with the star-bino mission. I have only had to patrol within 55nm of the icon for 48 hours.

The reason i say 55nm is because when i was sent to a star-flag mission to patrol, it triggers completed when you get close and that was 55nm. Therefore, I surmized that in order to trigger the missions you have to be within 55nm.
This is true and expert advice. I think if you get more than 55nm range from the center of the star, it will restart your 'time on station' timer.;) 48 hours.. 2 days.

[Bort]

First of all, how do I complete a patrol mission? I go to the area assigned, and I have done everything I can think of, but I cannot complete it.

When you've done all you want to do, return to your base that you started from and a window should pop up asking you if you want to complete your mission, refit, or postpone. Click complete your mission and you'll complete it. Sometimes though, especially early on, your base will be taken by the Japanese and you'll need to find a new base to dock at. When this happens, simply head over to a base with a big blue anchor on it on the nav map and the same window will pop up. :up:

[oblivionenigma]

When you've done all you want to do, return to your base that you started from and a window should pop up asking you if you want to complete your mission, refit, or postpone. Click complete your mission and you'll complete it. Sometimes though, especially early on, your base will be taken by the Japanese and you'll need to find a new base to dock at. When this happens, simply head over to a base with a big blue anchor on it on the nav map and the same window will pop up. :up:

Thanks for the reply, but I was actually referring to the specific "patrol" order... The binoculars one that others were referring to.
I'll try staying withing 55nm of that icon and seeing what happens.

With the damage to enemies problem, I have literally had nothing but the antennae of the enemy's boat above water and it still wouldn't sink. I waited about 4 hours game time before using the deck gun. It took about 20 rounds to sink it even then. I thought that was a waste. :\

As far as the crew and injury thing, I'll be honest... I've yet to call "battle stations". So it they were at normal status and only mildly injured (none below 90 health). And yet they all trickled down to 0. I'm wondering if there was a bug that caused the game to think my deck was getting perpetually damaged. If I swap crew, the uninjured crew get injured and die...all without getting attacked.