Fuel problem

[Mr. Redbird]

I sailed from Midway to just West of the East China Sea. My fuel gauge reads halway between 1/2 and 3/4 full. In other words I have used less than half of my fuel to get there. My problem is this. When I try to sail back to Midway I run out of fuel before I get there. I have no damage. I tried running on batteries until they get low and then only on the surface until the batteries recharge but still I come up short. I've tried to make the return at standard speed, 2/3rds speed, and 1/3 speed but to no avail. I don't get it. How could I have gotten where I was on less than 1/2 of my fuel but can't get back to port with more than 1/2 of my fuel. Any ideas?

[Rockin Robbins]

There is damage somehow that is leaking fuel. If you got there on a third of a tank, you will get back in less than half a tank, even with bad weather conditions. Using the electrics does not extend your range because for every bit of distance you gain, you spend fuel recharging your batteries. Under ideal conditions you can be close to break-even on the transaction, but mostly you will do worse.

[rrmelend]

At any point did you take damage to your electric engines? I had that happen once and I did not turn off the recharge batteries option. What ended up happening was that my batteries were damaged and would only hold a 3/4 charge but the game tried to recharge them to full (which was unable to happen) and thus I ran through diesel fuel at a very alarming rate. If you have a saved game find the option on the bottom to turn off automatic battery recharge and see if this does anything.

[Soundman]

I feel your pain! Same thing happened to me. No damage or anything, it was a complete mystery to me. I finally sailed through the two ports in Aussie land, refitting everytime, and I BARELY got back home. After the 40,000 tons I sunk in shipping on that patrol, damned if I was gonna give up! I never figured out the problem. The batteries charging, as stated above, may be a good place to check. All I know, is that I showed no damge at all.

[M. Sarsfield]

Redbird and Soundman, are either of you using RSRDC? There are range/fuel/performance fixes in that campaign mod, I believe.

[Quillan]

There's a known issue that crops up if you ever take battery damage. Even though the damage is repaired, it will not switch off if the batteries reach full charge, resulting in a massive increase in fuel consumption. Start paying attention; when it happened to me I wound up editing a save file to disable the fuel limit to get back home, but I reloaded after I found out about the battery problem and sure enough that was it. I had to remember to turn off recharging every time but I made it home that way.

[M. Sarsfield]

That's interesting to know. I'll have to remember that the next time that I get battery damage.

[Soundman]

Yes I'm running RSRDC. Thanks for the battery info, Ill remember to check that if the same thing crops up again. I did post this in another thread, but nobody said anything about the issue. Thanks again!

[Mr. Redbird]

It was the batteries. Although I showed no damage to the batteries I turned off the automatic recharging and made it back to Midway with fuel to spare. Unfortunately I had to go on to Pearl Harbor for repairs and I had not completed my Mission Objectives. I had sunk 7 ships in route to my assigned patrol area (2 large tankers, 2 large modern freighters and a 3 small freighters) but was still surprised to receive the Silver Star when I docked at Pearl. The reason I had originally planned to sail back to Midway was I had expended all of my torpedoes. I planned on refueling and rearming and then to go on to the assigned patrol area.