Wake up and smell the Beta...

[akdavis]

Had a refreshing first patrol. Full realism (save external view, not used for combat) and over 80,000 tons in an S-18 class out of Manila at the beginning of the war! Half of the ships were taken down with the deck gun after my torpedos were expended. Not sure why I even bothered with torpedos (well, since I ran out of torps and deck ammo, I guess I needed both). Every contact was an unescorted pair of merchants that behaved about as passively as possible, except the huge passenger liner that fell (near instantaneously to catastrophic explosion) to a trio of torpedos. You might think this was a good experience, but it wasn't. It was a turkey shoot with a touch of the absurd. Besides the insane ease of stumbling on this mass of shipping, hear are the elements that conspired to remind I was playing a game...an unfinished game, that is. ;)

-most ships succumbed almost immediately to catastrophic explosions, the last few cases as a result only of AP shells (not many at that, and these were large merchants).

-merchants travelling in pairs responded with the brilliant tactic of slowing down to a near halt when engaged by deck gun fire on the surface. In each instance, both ships slowed from there original speed and one of the pair turned broadside and came to a virtual halt. Calm seas, good visibility. Some daytime, some night.

-on return to port, bombed just after submerging. Deck gun and decoys reported damaged. No other damage or flooding, but suddenly I realize my depth control has gone crazy. Pretty soon I come to conclude that now I have 3 choices: run on the surface, cruise at periscope depth with my bow out of the water, or hang near vertical in the water column. Stopping engines leads to a rapid tailslide, so eventually the battery will die.
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/4493/s18bugpi5.jpg

-attempting to view log and radio messages lead to inevitable CTD. I just resigned myself to hoping I wasn't receiving new orders.

So much potential. Soooo many unfinished areas.

[Marko]

It must be a feature when they stop to dead :D . They perhaps are trying to drop their jap flag and put the white flag but until i don't see that i will kill them all.:yep:

[vois2]

Half of the ships were taken down with the deck gun . . . Every contact was an unescorted pair of merchants that behaved about as passively as possible . . . It was a turkey shoot with a touch of the absurd. Besides the insane ease of stumbling on this mass of shipping ...

-most ships succumbed almost immediately to catastrophic explosions, the last few cases as a result only of AP shells (not many at that, and these were large merchants).

Perhaps like you, I took a good week to do my first patrol, also from Manila. (Before I forget, I never did figure out what my home port had been changed to ([rom Manila to something else] during the course of the patrol. Did you?)

The unescorted two merchants were a repeat spawn for me, as you witnessed. Moreover, the spawning itself is incredibly predictable. Once you find one of these spawning lanes you can get your repeat two unescorted merchants in spades on the exact same track. You can literally park the sub and count on it coming down the pipe. Once I noticed these clear linear tracks, I avoided them, for obvious reasons of gameplay.


-merchants travelling in pairs responded with the brilliant tactic of slowing down to a near halt when engaged by deck gun fire on the surface. In each instance, both ships slowed from there original speed and one of the pair turned broadside and came to a virtual halt. Calm seas, good visibility. Some daytime, some night.

Same for me, I saw it, too. Dead stop while being shelled or approached for shelling. I looked for the waving of white flags or linens but nope, they just sat there dead in the water until the damage was enough to make the rescue boats spawn a few yards away from the flaming craft. Yawn.


-on return to port, bombed just after submerging. Deck gun and decoys reported damaged. No other damage or flooding, but suddenly I realize my depth control has gone crazy. Pretty soon I come to conclude that now I have 3 choices: run on the surface, cruise at periscope depth with my bow out of the water, or hang near vertical in the water column. Stopping engines leads to a rapid tailslide, so eventually the battery will die.

The damage model for ownship is really crazy at this point in time. I found that one strike by a bomb (from enemy airplane) could send you to the bottom -- from the surface -- in seconds. One time it happened so fast that my crew reported damage, I looked up to see what part of the ship had been hit, and before I could read the text line the "death video" came spiraling onto the screen. Yet at other times, I've been bombed to smithereens by plane attacks, multiple hits took, and the damage was as minor as one could hope for.


-attempting to view log and radio messages lead to inevitable CTD.
A lot of people are complaining about several minutes to open up the log book as the patrol grows longer in time. I have seen it enough that I'm very intrigued because there is only a minimal wait on my machine, even after weeks of accumulated messages. Someone had the good idea to select the middle tab from "Show All Messages" to "Show Sent Messages", that way when you open up the Log Book the default view contains exactly zero log content. I am more intrigued that I do not experience the problem, except for a few seconds of delay now and then.

[U-Bones]

-on return to port, bombed just after submerging. Deck gun and decoys reported damaged. No other damage or flooding, but suddenly I realize my depth control has gone crazy. Pretty soon I come to conclude that now I have 3 choices: run on the surface, cruise at periscope depth with my bow out of the water, or hang near vertical in the water column. Stopping engines leads to a rapid tailslide, so eventually the battery will die.

So much potential. Soooo many unfinished areas.

I have seen this particular thing several times. My biggest gripe so far...