very little enemies

[pickler]

I'm seeing very little enemy activity even close to united kingdom. I previously (long time ago...) I made a post about lack of enemies in general with GWX and this hasn't changed despite a new PC and installation. Stock gameplay I experience a lot of aircrafts and lone merchants tho.

I try to lower my use of time compression to 128x or 256x max. not helpful. barely run into enemies. 1944+ I see a lot of destroyers but not much merchants or aircrafts. bad install? I also don't see aircrafts at night. I have finished several patrol with sinking only sloops near shores. can windows 7 be the culprit?

[scott_c2911]

I believe this could be a historical reality. Some merchants, early war to about 1941, chose to sail alone as there ships were relatively fast and therefore able to make more voyages than if they were encumbered by a slow convoy system. This would lead to higher profits. However as the reality that the u-boats were an extremely effective weapon sunk in with the merchant captains they started to feel that safety in numbers with an escort was much safer. The convoys got larger and more organised too, reducing the probability of making contacts further. The enigma machine was cracked in 1941 so the Royal Navy knew exactly where a given u-boat was within a few hours, and enabled them to steer around the wolfpacks. This woukd reduce merchant contacts still further yet lead to an increase in destroyer hunter killer groups and aircraft being the only contacts. It got so bad that u-boat crews either got home alive with little to show for it or never came back. Despite it being a bit tedious in GWX I feel it accurately models the battle of the atlantic as we know it from many sources. However the lack of aircraft is strange. I would systematically go through your mod list and remove them in order to find the culprit

[U505995]

This is the way gwx is supposed to be, the stock game has way too unrealistic cluttered traffic. Try looking up convoy routes and submerge periodically and cut the engines then manually do a 360 degree manual sweep of the hydrophones.

[pickler]

Originally Posted by Sea Demon U-48

This is the way gwx is supposed to be, the stock game has way too unrealistic cluttered traffic. Try looking up convoy routes and submerge periodically and cut the engines then manually do a 360 degree manual sweep of the hydrophones.

Yes I understand the historical accuracy I just wasn't sure if this was a bug or not. I remember playing this game way back on windows XP and racking up ACE tonnage by 8th patrol or so. Now I have 40,000 tons by 8th patrol and no convoys sighted. I do follow the convoy routes and frequent high traffic areas such as rockall banks. Even AM52 is deserted in 1942.

[sublynx]

No convoys in 8 patrols in AM52? There must be something wrong. In NYGM I seem to have a convoy every week or two. Single ships are a rarity, though.

[Pisces]

Well, what mods do you have installed with JSGME? Even GWX has a few optional mod-parts, some of which determine what parts of the world are in the campaign.

[Rambler241]

pickler said

I'm seeing very little enemy activity even close to united kingdom

The clue is in the word seeing - in SH3, as in RL, you could sail right round the coast and not see a single, solitary vessel. You'd be amazed if there was a mod which would allow you to see, just for an instant, just the targets within, say 100k of your boat. On my last-but-one patrol, I returned to Wilhelmshaven down the East Coast from the Orkneys, dropping down for a sonar sweep every hour - very rarely did I hear nothing at all - plenty of DDs and AMTs around. With good weather, I bagged a couple of C2s, three C3s, a few SMs and CMs, 2 tugboats and several small fry like fishing boats, and all with deck armament. All were found using sonar - there were just two from reported contacts. Visually, I'd have seen perhaps a DD or two, and an AMT.

Oh - and I forgot - I did a scan before changing course to SE when NE of the Orkneys (Scapa to SW). I heard a very fast warship to the NE, far away, and a fishing boat (or so I thought) to the SE. Perhaps the warship was bigger than a DD? I plotted the bearing, and set off, dropping for anther scan after 5km, to check direction, and (hopefully) range. It was fainter, so was moving N. I could still hear the "fishing boat" or SCV, coming S or SSE, but I did what I always do - a full scan through 360º, and could hear another v.fast warship to the SSE. I waited to plot its course (hint - even if your Sonarman doesn't "hear" the HE, you can refresh the map plot by hitting the OK tick on the notepad) and found it was heading more-or-less my way. I was turning the boat to the SW to avoid it (still submerged), when it was picked up by my Sonarman, and I ordered tracking. When it became visible, it turned out to be a Fiji light cruiser, and its plotted track would bring it within 700m or so of the boat. Turned back to 90º to the cruiser's course, and readied the two remaining type Is in tubes 3 and 4. Here I found that I couldn't set a 1,3,4 salvo and also set Fast and Magnetic. Drat and double drat! Hadn't had that problem before. Set individually, opened outer doors, slow ahead to close with the cruiser's course. At 500m, fired a torp, but realised that the second would likely miss, even at that distance, as the Fiji was doing 30 knots, so I held fire, and watched as (presumably) the forward magazine exploded. Incidentally, the sea was very rough, and the boat kept dropping to 15m or so, and it was difficult so see the target and get a good shot at it.

The "fishing boat" turned out, on closer listening, and closer distance, to be a C3 - dispatched with the last torpedo. Without that scan and follow-up, I'd have got neither. I intended to ignore the "fishing boat" as the heavy sea precluded the use of deck armament.

You get a reported contact 75km away, say - do you just plot an intercept course and race to that spot? There may be a juicy target just over the horizon, or just off your intercept route, and you'd miss it if you don't check sonar both before setting off, and during. Not only that, there may be nasty, impolite warships around that might spoil your day, or if you're lucky, be a better target than the one you're racing off to intercept. You can drop to PD, do a scan, surface and be on your way again in 2-3 minutes if you're quick about it. Not only that, the best way to spot enemy aircraft is through the observation scope, if you get my drift, shipmates.

Any time you do a scan, you increase your chances both of finding targets, and surviving the patrol. I try to remember to scan every 2 hours on the open ocean, every hour near coasts or known "hotspots" - at 15 knots the boat's travelled 27km in an hour, and sonar range is 30km+ You're covering both the area ahead, and that which you've just passed over. It might be boring, but it works.

[Pisces]

I'm all for doing hydrophone scans. It's range (34-ish km ) is twice the maximum visual range, depending on if you use the 8 or 16 km world modpart of GWX. But even then you need to consider that it's range is just a needle's pinhead in a haystack called the Atlantic. Or whatever ocean you're in. The game really tests your patience and boredom.

[pickler]

Originally Posted by Rambler241

pickler said

The clue is in the word seeing - in SH3, as in RL, you could sail right round the coast and not see a single, solitary vessel. You'd be amazed if there was a mod which would allow you to see, just for an instant, just the targets within, say 100k of your boat. On my last-but-one patrol, I returned to Wilhelmshaven down the East Coast from the Orkneys, dropping down for a sonar sweep every hour - very rarely did I hear nothing at all - plenty of DDs and AMTs around. With good weather, I bagged a couple of C2s, three C3s, a few SMs and CMs, 2 tugboats and several small fry like fishing boats, and all with deck armament. All were found using sonar - there were just two from reported contacts. Visually, I'd have seen perhaps a DD or two, and an AMT.

Oh - and I forgot - I did a scan before changing course to SE when NE of the Orkneys (Scapa to SW). I heard a very fast warship to the NE, far away, and a fishing boat (or so I thought) to the SE. Perhaps the warship was bigger than a DD? I plotted the bearing, and set off, dropping for anther scan after 5km, to check direction, and (hopefully) range. It was fainter, so was moving N. I could still hear the "fishing boat" or SCV, coming S or SSE, but I did what I always do - a full scan through 360º, and could hear another v.fast warship to the SSE. I waited to plot its course (hint - even if your Sonarman doesn't "hear" the HE, you can refresh the map plot by hitting the OK tick on the notepad) and found it was heading more-or-less my way. I was turning the boat to the SW to avoid it (still submerged), when it was picked up by my Sonarman, and I ordered tracking. When it became visible, it turned out to be a Fiji light cruiser, and its plotted track would bring it within 700m or so of the boat. Turned back to 90º to the cruiser's course, and readied the two remaining type Is in tubes 3 and 4. Here I found that I couldn't set a 1,3,4 salvo and also set Fast and Magnetic. Drat and double drat! Hadn't had that problem before. Set individually, opened outer doors, slow ahead to close with the cruiser's course. At 500m, fired a torp, but realised that the second would likely miss, even at that distance, as the Fiji was doing 30 knots, so I held fire, and watched as (presumably) the forward magazine exploded. Incidentally, the sea was very rough, and the boat kept dropping to 15m or so, and it was difficult so see the target and get a good shot at it.

The "fishing boat" turned out, on closer listening, and closer distance, to be a C3 - dispatched with the last torpedo. Without that scan and follow-up, I'd have got neither. I intended to ignore the "fishing boat" as the heavy sea precluded the use of deck armament.

You get a reported contact 75km away, say - do you just plot an intercept course and race to that spot? There may be a juicy target just over the horizon, or just off your intercept route, and you'd miss it if you don't check sonar both before setting off, and during. Not only that, there may be nasty, impolite warships around that might spoil your day, or if you're lucky, be a better target than the one you're racing off to intercept. You can drop to PD, do a scan, surface and be on your way again in 2-3 minutes if you're quick about it. Not only that, the best way to spot enemy aircraft is through the observation scope, if you get my drift, shipmates.

Any time you do a scan, you increase your chances both of finding targets, and surviving the patrol. I try to remember to scan every 2 hours on the open ocean, every hour near coasts or known "hotspots" - at 15 knots the boat's travelled 27km in an hour, and sonar range is 30km+ You're covering both the area ahead, and that which you've just passed over. It might be boring, but it works.

yes i have the same issue. I used to be able to see a lot of convoys in north Atlantic on their typical routes, this is no longer the case. I finished a mission recently where I travelled with the IXC from lorient to gulf of mexico. I saw no enemies but lone merchants and DD and only in the gulf. Pretty much nothing in the atlantic. Even still I racked up 68k tons of tankers, mostly in america. Return journey again I saw nothing in the Atlantic but DD and was almost sunk by depth charges near iceland from a PBY.

I switched back to a type VIIC/41 and by the time I had the upgrades it was late 1943 for my next journey. I remember few years back playing this game (no mods) leaving port at Brest was dangerous past 1943 as i had to dive constantly due to aircraft attacks at bay of biscay, but I saw no aircraft the whole journey to rockall banks...

here are my mods:



Never mind, I solved the issue. Just added GWX Merged campaign mod. thanks.