Mission tonnage

[bcarter3]

I've been playing SH4 for about a week now, and I've read so much my head is spinning with submarine giddyness, not to mention a great admiration for anybody that does this, or has done this, in the real world.

Anyhoo, I kinda feel guilty bringing in 30-50k tonnage at the end of each patrol now. Now granted, my career has been on easy mode so far, but looking at the "aces board" after 7 missions I'm sitting at over 100k tonnage - the skipper below me has only half that.

My question is, what would be considered a "normal" amount of tonnage to sink on a patrol. If I upped my difficulty should I expect to see the same kind of numbers, or is this unrealistic?

[Rockin Robbins]

I still can't return to port with under 30k tons. RSRD is supposed to reduce traffic to realistic levels but you can't prove that by my experience. The only change I've noticed is lots more convoys much better escorted. Both are most unrealistic changes. I just attacked a convoy with 2 tankers and four escorts. Was detected on the way in, did battle and sunk one escort. Now I have four escorts above me so another escort from outside has come in to join the party. Six torps left and I have to use them to defend myself, it looks like.

At least DDs are lower tonnage and I won't get much over 30k this trip! I think the traffic is so frequent because people would refuse to play a game where you drive all over the ocean and then come back to base with a full load of torpedoes most of the time. We want action and the number of tons per cruise is sacrificed to make interesting game play. I can live with that.:up:

[bcarter3]

True, I guess I'm looking for a balance, and going back with torpedos in my boat just feels wrong. On saying that, with the number of duds I've been getting (see my other post) I'm thinking this will start to balance out itself.

I would agree though, even though we crave reality from the simulations it is nice to sink something (or even see something and take a pop at it) on a patrol. In the end it's just a game (hey I'm a bilge rat dont shoot me for saying that), and I don't think it would be anybodys idea of fun to sit in game for a couple of hours and find nothing.

I will probably start picking out targets of highest opportunity, like the large oil tanker thats in the middle of the convoy - instead of taking out the entire convoy escorts and all :)

I did laugh though, on the last patrol I surfaced and finished off the escorts with deck guns - they kinda riddles my ship with holes but I survived. After limping home (man o man that was a loooong trip back on the surface) the mechanics scratched their heads and wondered how I made it back. The Admiral gave me a new ship - ironically, it had fewer torpedo tubes than my original boat :damn:

[Go4It]

If your into lots of tonnage....

SH4 is a little like SH3, if you find a good tonnage ship to sink, chances are it'll come back a few days later near the same course it was traveling. Passenger liners do this a lot... It's course may vary by a few miles, but it'll return. Try Luzon straight right in the center, but watch out for aircraft, they have radaer.

[cwelt]

I guess I must be the only guy who gets realistic patrols... I was out for 28 days in game time on my first patrol and found 1 (yes 1) merchant ship. I am running TM and RSRD and I guess they are working good lol.. without going right into a harbour I can't find a ship to save my life :P I have refueled 3 times on current patrol cause I can't get my 10000 tonnes to get mission completed :damn:

[swdw]

It's a LOT more difficult to rack up extreme tonnage with a realistic torpedo mod.

Here's an example I relayed on a thread about RSRD
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=783898&postcount=21

Out of a full load of 16 fish, 4 hit and detonated.