Hey there Proph3t! like Aktungbby (watch out for his warped sense of humor!) says, "W3lcome to SubSim!"
In the meantime, I can't remember what, if anything lurker_hlb3 changed in the "renown" settings, but most of the time with Silent Hunter 4, you need to have several "Good" patrols, and get your "skipper rating" up. Try to avoid having "bad" patrols. Even just one bad patrol can put you way back in the points system, especially if you have it early in the career. The game uses a system for the player to get upgrades and new boats, and it can be very frustrating, since there is no easy way to see your "score". I'll try to find that Ducimus thread about the points... [three hours later] ... wow... 15 pages later, I found it:
Of refits, new commands, rank, and retirements
specifically,
Post Number 10 for the "formula" (or, as Mr Krabs says "formulay, formuler"). Ducimus modded Trigger Maru Overhaul (TMO), while lurker_hlb3 did OM, and may have used different renown numbers for patrol completions and sinkings, but the idea of what you need to do is there. Also, you might have to be at a base where the "upgrades" are available. Lurker has a lot of his info in his ReadMe files in the "Support" folder of the game.
Edit 2125: OK, looking through my files, in v705 lurker had a good patrol set to 200. In v715, he took it up to 750, whereas in Stock, the value is 1000 points
