My first patrol: what am I doing wrong?

[Sniper297]

Q1, I've done the same thing when ending a patrol, frantically hitting the backspace key to stop time acceleration while the program ignores the keyboard and runs the sub aground. I've learned to add a "buttonhook" to the end of the course line, a short sharp turn away from the land into open sea.

Q2, not in the stock game - US subs didn't have snorkels until the post WWII Guppy class. I use snorkel depth for "decks awash" instead.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=211613

[Armistead]

best thing to bring tc down quickly is just hit a key for one of the sub compartments....

[FredMSloniker]

Okay, one last question (for now): is there a preferred subforum for me to have a thread about me streaming myself playing the game? I think it'd be fun, and that way you guys could pop in and be all NO YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by FredMSloniker

• When the boat gets to the end of a plotted course, it turns the engines off. It does not attempt to stop the boat at the last waypoint. It doesn't attempt to stop at all; it just turns the engines off when it hits the waypoint. And subs slow down very slowly on their own. Which means I pulled into Midway to refuel, looked away for a few minutes, and crunch
• Indeed, there doesn't seem to be any good way to come to a full stop. I can reverse engines and get close to a full stop, but I still drift for a good long time. Maybe if I put the boat into a tight turn? Or is there an anchor button I'm missing, silly as that sounds?

You might want to try Improved Ship Physics. It doesn't have an anchor, but it does away with the gamey acceleration/deceleration.

[Crannogman]

Originally Posted by FredMSloniker

Things I've learned so far in my efforts just to get to my first patrol in one piece:

• When the boat gets to the end of a plotted course, it turns the engines off. It does not attempt to stop the boat at the last waypoint. It doesn't attempt to stop at all; it just turns the engines off when it hits the waypoint. And subs slow down very slowly on their own. Which means I pulled into Midway to refuel, looked away for a few minutes, and crunch
• Indeed, there doesn't seem to be any good way to come to a full stop. I can reverse engines and get close to a full stop, but I still drift for a good long time. Maybe if I put the boat into a tight turn? Or is there an anchor button I'm missing, silly as that sounds?
• I shouldn't rely on the game to step down time acceleration when I'm close to land in general. Not only does it tend not to do so, getting close to a harbor will lag the game at high accelerations, making it difficult to manually turn them off.

Maybe in the next few days I can actually get to the point of shooting something!

Base radius is about 10nm, so you shouldn't have to get near enough even to be pointed at land. When plotting a course home or to re-up, I usually make my last leg short and parallel to land. I also bring the TC for the last few hours as I approach home. That said, I usually also get brought down from TC as my sensors start picking up the local harbor traffic.

[thegrindre]

I believe the realistic way to stop IS to reverse the engines to slow down and then stop so you can drop an anchor, which we don't have.
That's the way I'm doing it cuz I don't have an anchor.

[FredMSloniker]

I didn't get a response to this question, so I'll ask again:

Originally Posted by FredMSloniker

Okay, one last question (for now): is there a preferred subforum for me to have a thread about me streaming myself playing the game? I think it'd be fun, and that way you guys could pop in and be all NO YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

[TorpX]

There is a sticky thread, 'Stories and Patrol logs', near the top.

[FredMSloniker]

Thank you much!