[TWOS] Noob Question
 

So, I go out on patrol, I am watching the different charts for the shipping lanes, and cruising them for days. Maybe after about an hour or so at 1024x I finally come across a convoy, is this normal? Is there a better way to find convoys or targets?

I do know about the radio contacts, if they are within a close enough range I will go snoop about, but 95% of the time I waste 2-3 days searching the area ahead of their direction of travel with no luck.

Hi Rysgame
You do not say where you are patrolling, this would be useful to know, or what your objective is.

Enemy ports will have traffic moving in and out
Hydrophone automation scripts can be useful.
Peter

I am patrolling mainly through central AK/AL and northern BD/BE

Using TWOS

Happy Times Campaign

You should mostly make use of your hydrophones to locate targets in a 40 km range (with rough sea your sonar guy may only detect at lower range). Be sure to dive below periscope depth and listen for a while, if you rely on eyeball alone you will probably never make encounters in the Atlantic, even if on a convoy route.


Staying near ports is a sure way to encounter targets, but mostly patrol ships too...so you are asking for trouble :)


Consult your Captain's Log frequently and watch for convoy reports there, then anticipate a possible interception.


Inside your patrol zone (as for your current mission) any encounter chance is increased.

Great Advice .. The only way to find targets even when it is a nice day

Hydro Hunting!! There is a learning curve but its well worth it, Use germ138's method to figure out the course of the ship after 3 bearings and your sub can be moving

Thanks for the advice guys! I have been watching the radio reports. And planning an intercept course, then diving down to 30-50m every 100km or so, my tonnage on a single patrol shot up to 35k. Would of been near 50k+ but I forgot about impact pistols and the 90 degree offset. Had 3 eels bounce.

Few TWOS V2.2.7 noob questions :

- when taking damage, in the submarine tab there are different colors for damaged parts… when in red, there is no way to repair, is it right?
For other colors, is there a way to see how long it could be repair?

- when a ship takes a torpedo but doesn’t sink right away… do we have to follow him (before he unspawn) to get credit when he finally sink?
If he might unspawn, what is the unspawn radius from own sub?

Thanks for reply, it’s been years since i navigate SH5 :oops:

For repairs it's deceivingly simple:
you have NO control on what item to prioritize repairs, you will see a moving 'hammer' over the current repaired item, but there is no way to change it, the terrible thing is: you can actually change the hammer position and put it on another item, but it will return to the previous one when you close window and re-enter. This indicates that the process is bugged and therefore malfunctionning...
What you can do instead is to talk to the engineer and send a major number of crew doing repairs to accelerate them - or concentrate on the flooding; be sure to revert this order for better sub handling once important items are repaired (although it would be logical that all the sub handling like engine efficiency, engine speed output, turn rate etc. get REDUCED when a lot of crew members are busy with repairs, I was however not able to acertain that in my observations, so I still don't know exactly).

Low percent numbers in red means you cannot repair on sea and the equipment is not operable; other low (but not critically low) items take very long to repair.
Check if some crew in the crew management can be assigned more points to increase the repair quality and rate (I don't remember).


This aspect of the game is by far inferior to SH3 or SH4 where crew management is much better, but it's just my opinion that this factor should matter more.


Torpedos hitting ships but not sinking:
You will never get any credits or points for only damaged ships, so you always have to sink them. This means it's futile to attack big troop ships or warships when you have only something like 2 torps left...

After being hit, The ship must 'stay in sight', if the contact is lost (which means out of sight AND no sonar contact anymore by your sonarman) and then the ship gets hit and sinks you DO NOT get credits for it. This could happen when attacking ships in a convoy at long distance and then getting away too fast, the ships will be hit and sink but if the sonarman has lost their track then: no credits for you...Just use your chrono and get to halt somehwere until all torpedos get to target.
Then, unfortunately, if you damage ships in rough sea the ship can sink due to the weather - you DO NOT get credits even for that, so hurry up to 'finish' it with your canons or send another torp to 'technically' destroy the ship...


So how should you play? Just dismiss all this, if you don't get credited so what...It shouldn't change your strategy, I wouldn't just stay 'in sight' of a ship and risking getting killed by an escort for hunting the credits and points...In arcade gaming competition this is called BONUS LEECHING...:)
However, I would do a bigger effort for the case in rough seas.

Ok, thanks for all those infos XenonSurf.

A shame no modder had fixed that...nevertheless they already did a lot!

That’s right SH3 is better for the repair matter. We’ll have to do with it anyway :salute:

The repair management not working can only be corrected by Ubisoft when patching the game code, a modder cannot do it I think, and that's true for other minor bugs in SH5 like the 'ships suddenly following you' bug or else.

The problem with not getting credited for kills doesn't happen too often, but if I miss the log I'm angry of course...:timeout: