GWX (Grey Wolves eXpansion Mod)

[frau kaleun]

Task forces can be really difficult to apprehend, they move much faster than convoys and unless I am almost right on top of them or directly in their path when I get a contact report for them I usually just let them go.

And often they do not "maintain course" in the same way a convoy does, so setting up an intercept based on their last known heading doesn't guarantee that you will find them even if you can get there fast enough.

A lot of the time they are making far more speed than you can match with your own boat and chasing them down is usually a futile endeavor. They will get where they're going and despawn before I ever get close enough to spot them.

[Narwhal01]

Thanks for the reply. Most of what you wrote, I realize, but this is a little different.
I know that it is difficult to catch up with the TF, but here is something else. Several times I was using safe / load check where TF is with absolute certainty.
Yet there is never, nor sonar does not detect anything. Another problem is that once I get to where I should meet with the TF, not only that there is not, but I also no longer update its location on the map. Completely cease to receive position reports TF.
It just seems that once I get close to the TF, TF disappear. I wonder whether there is any error in the mode that deletes TF as I get close.

[Captain Shadow]

Hey all.

I'm revisiting SH3, and it's my first time trying out GWX. I'm having some problems getting into it, however.

Tried to carry out four patrols on an IXC (2nd Flotilla, 1942). Three of those ended in my sinking, with no more than one little merchant ship spotted (and sunk) after crossing the Atlantic each time. I used the ostensibly handy convoy map to sail along routes with expected traffic, yet only encountered a single convoy. That was my first sinking, as the thing spawned in my face, with the fore escort being spotted less than 50 metres away from my surfaced sub.

It was really frustrating, like the second sinking, which happened at night on the eastern side of the quadrant off the coast of Florida. My incompetent watch crew "spotted" the warship closer 500 metres when the first shell rocked the boat. Great job there, men. The U-boat was destroyed in no more than five shots, before it was even half-dived.

Only the third sinking felt in any way fair. Tribal-class destroyer sailing in front of a beeline of two merchant ships not too far WSW of the British Isles. I positioned myself very well, about a thousand metres away and perpendicular to the mini-convoy's projected course. The idea was to let the DD sail by and hit the merchies. But even though I was submerged (12 metres or so), dead still and had my periscope down, the Tribal started pinging me. It turned and started coming straight at me. The situation was a bit like the stern shot at the end of U-571 (the film), only we were face to face. I could only fire a single torpedo, and it ran right under the destroyer. I had my fish set to Impact to hit the merchies, so maybe if it had been magnetic the Tribal wouldn't have smashed through my conning tower.

The sudden deaths are annoying, but maybe they're just unlucky flukes. I guess my main beef right now is that I can hardly find any targets across the Atlantic even if I follow convoy and single-ship routes. Is this a realism tweak or something? I remember having enough action in vanilla SH3, so maybe that density of shipping was unrealistic and changed in GWX?

Any thoughts, guys? I'm feeling really frustrated. Even with time compression, sailing back and forth the Atlantic Ocean takes a good while, and it's not that much fun when you only have two spottings along the way and a 50% chance it turns out to be a warship.

[Beqany]

GWX Team , Thank you so much for your hard work. In my opinion , you guys made the silent hunter 3 the best submarine simulator. i own both silent hunter 4 and 5 and after GWX 3 i don't even want to look at those games.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by Captain Shadow

Hey all.

I'm revisiting SH3, and it's my first time trying out GWX. I'm having some problems getting into it, however.

Tried to carry out four patrols on an IXC (2nd Flotilla, 1942). Three of those ended in my sinking, with no more than one little merchant ship spotted (and sunk) after crossing the Atlantic each time. I used the ostensibly handy convoy map to sail along routes with expected traffic, yet only encountered a single convoy. That was my first sinking, as the thing spawned in my face, with the fore escort being spotted less than 50 metres away from my surfaced sub.

Interesting. Stock SH3 convoys aren't supposed to spawn if you're camped on their starting point. GWX convoys should be the same in that regard.

It was really frustrating, like the second sinking, which happened at night on the eastern side of the quadrant off the coast of Florida. My incompetent watch crew "spotted" the warship closer 500 metres when the first shell rocked the boat. Great job there, men. The U-boat was destroyed in no more than five shots, before it was even half-dived.

I never rely on my crew to visually spot an approaching ASW vessel, since the crews can get tired and unless you're watching their fatigue levels they can lose a lot of their effectiveness. Try listening to your hydrophones more frequently.

Only the third sinking felt in any way fair. Tribal-class destroyer sailing in front of a beeline of two merchant ships not too far WSW of the British Isles. I positioned myself very well, about a thousand metres away and perpendicular to the mini-convoy's projected course. The idea was to let the DD sail by and hit the merchies. But even though I was submerged (12 metres or so), dead still and had my periscope down, the Tribal started pinging me. It turned and started coming straight at me. The situation was a bit like the stern shot at the end of U-571 (the film), only we were face to face. I could only fire a single torpedo, and it ran right under the destroyer. I had my fish set to Impact to hit the merchies, so maybe if it had been magnetic the Tribal wouldn't have smashed through my conning tower.

A real-life destroyer would use the narrow beam of its active sonar to search for submarines near the surface that were lying in ambush. (see the manual for some evasion techniques). SH3 uses a percentage chance that the sonar operator has activated its sonar and that its pointed in your direction, so it sounds like the computer had "hot dice" that time.

The sudden deaths are annoying, but maybe they're just unlucky flukes. I guess my main beef right now is that I can hardly find any targets across the Atlantic even if I follow convoy and single-ship routes. Is this a realism tweak or something? I remember having enough action in vanilla SH3, so maybe that density of shipping was unrealistic and changed in GWX?

Any thoughts, guys? I'm feeling really frustrated. Even with time compression, sailing back and forth the Atlantic Ocean takes a good while, and it's not that much fun when you only have two spottings along the way and a 50% chance it turns out to be a warship

Hello & Welcome Aboard!

Well, GWX convoys don't always follow the original game map: some folks figured out where the convoy routes were in earlier versions and just camped out on them. In response, our crafty campaign designer set up the convoy routes so that their waypoint locations are a bit random, just as they were in real life, so the convoys don't always follow the same path.

One way to counter this is to refine your search method. I personally do the following:

1. Use the 16km horizon mod.
2. Buy the advanced Kristalldrehbasisgerät (KDB) hydrophones as soon as possible, possibly before my first patrol. Dive, stop, and listen to the hydrophones myself rather than rely on the computer-controlled hydrophone operator.
3. Listen to my hydrophones at least once every few hours to find distant (30+ miles) contacts that aren't anywhere near the visual horizon.
4. When I hear a contact, go down that heading for an hour at full speed, stop and listen again, adjust course, and continue. Keep track of where you find ships and you'll eventually map out the rough convoy routes. If you find enemy ASW vessels, avoid them.

I realize the lack of contacts can be frustrating, but IRL contacts were generally few and far between.

Hope this helps!

Pablo

[Captain Shadow]

Originally Posted by Pablo

Interesting. Stock SH3 convoys aren't supposed to spawn if you're camped on their starting point. GWX convoys should be the same in that regard.

Well, it wasn't the convoy's starting point. I had gotten the contact report from BdU and positioned my submarine along their guesstimated track. But I think I can attribute both my sudden-ish deaths mainly to high time compression (over x1024). I seldom go over x512 now, and no higher than x256 when in England's backyard.

Right now I'm kind of ignoring my patrols' objectives, which send me all the way to the Caribbean or US eastern seaboard, and trying to focus on known nearby high-traffic areas such as the BF quadrant, immediately to the southwest of the British Isles. There's a higher chance of warship encounters, and I've already run into a number of aircraft, but I guess I can handle it.

Also gotta watch out for the flags. I was extremely disappointed this afternoon. I had found four huge merchant ships (cargo and tankers) heading towards the Atlantic from Britain and got all excited. But once I was ready and in position, I was close enough to realize the small convoy was Irish. Sigh. They can't agree with the Brits on a single damn thing!

Originally Posted by Pablo

I never rely on my crew to visually spot an approaching ASW vessel, since the crews can get tired and unless you're watching their fatigue levels they can lose a lot of their effectiveness. Try listening to your hydrophones more frequently.

Yes, I should start doing that. Should be fairly intuitive... right? Listen for the chug-chugging of propellers?

Originally Posted by Pablo

A real-life destroyer would use the narrow beam of its active sonar to search for submarines near the surface that were lying in ambush. (see the manual for some evasion techniques). SH3 uses a percentage chance that the sonar operator has activated its sonar and that its pointed in your direction, so it sounds like the computer had "hot dice" that time.

Maybe he was lucky, but it was my mistakes that killed me. He ran straight at me long enough I could've blown him out of the water if I had had the presence of mind to switch and trust my magnetic torpedoes. I pulled that off once on a later occasion, during one night I engaged two American Clemens-class destroyers (separately). Maybe I don't know much about advanced evasion and/or I'm too impatient, but I've found the best way to get rid of angry warships is to man up and engage them.

I've had some success maneuvering immediately after the target has made its depth-charging pass, and positioning myself for a perpendicular shot, or in some cases a straight one.

Taking advantage of its fore-only main armament, I once managed to surface behind a Flower-class corvette that had just passed over me and send it to the bottom with my deck gun. I hadn't noticed the stern-mounted machinegun before it was too late. It injured one of the gun operators and killed my watch officer, but after a couple dozen intense seconds, we prevailed! It was exhilarating.

But granted, all of that requires heavy use of the external cameras, so I don't presume to have an extraordinary amount of skill.

Anyway, I recently installed the KDB. The vulnerability to depth charges scared me off initially, but eventually I decided to test it out. And I'll try the 16km horizon mod. I had left it off since I thought it was just a cosmetic thing, given how the manual says all the stuff outside your atmosphere is still calculated.

Thanks for the tips, Pablito!

Oh, and before I forget, is there any way to mod the renown percentage I get from sunken tonnage? My realism level is 46%, but the game only takes into account the stock realism settings to calculate renown earnings, as far as I know. And GWX makes things considerably more realistic regardless of difficulty, so... maybe I deserve 60%, or even 70%?

[VONHARRIS]

Originally Posted by Captain Shadow

Oh, and before I forget, is there any way to mod the renown percentage I get from sunken tonnage? My realism level is 46%, but the game only takes into account the stock realism settings to calculate renown earnings, as far as I know. And GWX makes things considerably more realistic regardless of difficulty, so... maybe I deserve 60%, or even 70%?

Well I know a way to do this.
This is how :
In ..\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Cfg folder you will find the GameplaySettings file.
Open with notepad
In this block :

[RealismPercentage]
LimitedBatteriesRealismPercentage=5
LimitedCompressedAirRealismPercentage=1
LimitedO2RealismPercentage=6
LimitedFuelRealismPercentage=6
RealisticVulnerabilityRealismPercentage=5
RealisticRepairTimeRealismPercentage=8
RealisticShipSinkingTimeRealismPercentage=2
ManualTargetingSystemRealismPercentage=10
NoMapUpdateRealismPercentage=0
RealisticSensorsRealismPercentage=11
DudTorpedoesRealismPercentage=4
RealisticReloadRealismPercentage=6
NoEventCameraRealismPercentage=3
NoExternalViewRealismPercentage=10
NoStabilizeViewRealismPercentage=5
NoNoiseMeterRealismPercentage=12
NoWeaponOfficerAssistRealismPercentage=6

change the values to your liking and save.
Make sure that all values add up to 100%.
Always keep a back up of the original if something goes wrong.

This method though can easily be considered as cheating because it lets play at "100%" realism but your real percentage can be much lower.

It is up to you to decide.

[Lord Denvil]

nice work

[Jimbuna]

Quickest way is to pick two functions you use.

Set those two you use at 99% and 1% respectively, giving you a choice of 99% maintains your ability to port back to base.

[rowi58]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Quickest way is to pick two functions you use.

Set those two you use at 99% and 1% respectively, giving you a choice of 99% maintains your ability to port back to base.

Do they want to win the war and see somthing like THIS?

Greetings
rowi58

[IllogicalRacoon]

Is there a fix for 3.0 that pertains to maintaining depth? My Type IIA will not maintain depth, and always runs shallower than what I set the depth as. For example, I'm around Scapa Flow, with depth set to 14m, but it's running at 8-10m with perfectly calm water. Is this a bug? There is still another 12m under the keel too, so the floor isn't limiting my depth.

[Myxale]

Have a look at Realism- and gameplay-related hardcode fixes for SH3.EXE

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=174225

[Ekaton]

I am experiencing some weird troubles:

1. Game keeps firing end of the war after I'm returning to base in january 1942, but only if I close the career. After the patrol I can normally start the next one, play it and all and it even appears in game files in documents, but every saved game is not available.
2. I started new career and I can see that all the messages added by GWX as well as ship names are in French. Is there any way to fix that?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Ekaton

I am experiencing some weird troubles:
2. I started new career and I can see that all the messages added by GWX as well as ship names are in French. Is there any way to fix that?

Did you enable the optional "fix French" mod or whatever it's called that came with GWX? If so, you need to disable it. It's only for people who play the game in French instead of German or English.

[Nicolai_Clausen]

IS it normal to have a GWX briefing state to do one thing and orders be completely different? Example: Briefing states that if I were from Flotilla 1 or 2 its a 5 day shakedown cruise. Flotilla 7 its stay inside the bay and run a target practice. Mean while I am ordered off the coast of Scotland and its August 1st 1939. This makes no sense at all. Still love the game though.