Why bother with convoys?

[Phaedrus]

First off, I have enjoyed reading the forum... a wealth of information.

But most, if not all, seems to be geared towards GWX.

Having just got the game a week ago, I am playing stock 1.4.
Does anyone still play the stock game?
I am currently downloading GWX 2 from the torrent, after having seen one post about a reported slow down in performance after install I am not so sure about making the change.
I am running a P4 2.4 Ghz with 1028 RAM, nVidia GeForce 7300 GT.
Its not a 512 card, but will it be sufficient?

But, on to the real topic.
An awful lot of you seem to be focusing on convoy attacks.
I've attempted one, with only 3 ships sunk with 8 torpedoes expended, ended up running and receiving damage from escorts.
It doesn't seem worth it to me.
I will soon be embarking on my 6th patrol, June 1941, and I spend most of my time deck gunning single merchants when weather permits.
I'm taking about 25 000 - 35 000 per patrol this way in or around BE and BF, usually heading home when my torpedoes are expended after the weather turns and I can use surface attacks anymore. I've topped out at 56 000 on my last patrol.

I seem to be doing my part in the tonnage war without heading way out of my way to target the convoys.
Are there less single merchants in GWX? Or are the convoy attacks more for the thrill?


Thanks!

[AVGWarhawk]

Your computer is just fine for running GWX installed. Once installed you will understand why no one runs stock anymore. :yep:



Convoys are easy pickings most times. If I sink 2-3 vessels on one attack before retiring to the depths I consider it a good attack. I do however prefer the loan merchant that is super easy pickings!

[Slateford-5]

For me, it's the thrill really. I agree that if your sole concern is tonnage gathering in (relative) security, the lone merchant approach makes sense: Until you have slipped through a destroyer screen and had a full 15 ship convoy in front of you, like a wee boy being locked overnight in a sweetie shop, hit some of the biggies, had 2 hours of depth charging and STILL managed to slip away, you haven't lived.

I am not entirely sure about this, but I get the feeling too that while you can pick off small merchants, coastal freighters etc relatively easily, esp 39-41, if you want the 10 and 20k targets, they are almost invariably in the centre of convoys.

It's whatever sinks your boat, really...

[mr chris]

Welcome to Subsim Phaedrus:up:

I play GWX and in my current career iam in august of 1940 and i have sunk nearly 150,000t of shipping. I have only attack one convoy the rest have been lone merchants. If you wish to hunt lone merchants the early years are the best and the are certain areas that are good points to hunt in. My favorite is in and around AM52 also the area around western approaches is also a good hunting ground.

Hope this helps

Sink them all:arrgh!:

[Brag]

Welcome aboard Phaedrus!
I play GWX. I like convoys because I can keep on attacking once, sometimes, twice a day. Once my torpedoes are finished ,I go home. :D

[_Seth_]

Welcome mate! :yep::up:
Everybody has their own way of playing SH3, and that's the way it should be! :up:
Personally i enjoy the hunt for the convoys. Shadowing, reporting, planning & attacking..And in the next moment, DD's are pouring ashcans all over my submerged @ss... :D Then the psychological battle begins....The cat & mouse game..who gets out of it alive..? Finally, when there is almost no breathable air left in the sub, and the batteries are so empty that they couldnt power a flashlight...Checking the hydrophones...Periscope depth...surface...:lol: *I just love it!!:cool::cool:*

[TS13]

I just performed my first convoy attack recently and I am hooked ever since. It's certainly thrilling, but also, you can keep shadowing a convoy for days and sink all the juicy targets. Although more torpedoes may go lost, this seems to be the best way to gather a lot of tonnage in very little game time (instead of waiting for days and days for a lone large tanker to appear!).

[thrasher]

Welcome aboard. I play 2 versions of SH3 the stock game and GWX. GWX is a way better game but I didn't want to give up on my first career. As said before it depends on your taste. I like the challange of getting to the big prizes in a convoy, but the single merchants are easy pickin's.:lol:

[bigboywooly]

Single ship contacts drop as the war goes on so tis convoys or bust

[Umfuld]

you can keep shadowing a convoy for days

That's it.


And a single convoy may have two LARGE tankers. A battleship (in GWX at least you'll often find BBs and Cruisers in convoys). And several other 10,000+ ton targets.



And I think a lot of people do it for the realism. That's what the Uboats were ordered to do.
Of course single player SHIII lacks the Wolf Pack element, but that just means you have entire convoys to yourself.

And you may eventually lose interest in deck gunning small merchants after awhile. I did it for a long time myself. Then stopped in favor of more realistic play. (and it really becomes less fun when they start firing back)



Welcome, by the way.

[danurve]

With a type VII mid-war in GWX I pull 40 tons or better out of a good convoy attack. Getting right into the columns, where the big steel is. Convoy attack tactics are not something a new player might be able to just jump into. So maybe once you get into a French port, try patroling BE, more specificly the upper right quarter of BE. You'll find Tanker alley and a few doubles now and then. Convoys pass thorugh there too sure. It's a great spin up for mid-to later war.

Btw your machine sounds ok, maybe double up on your ram.:arrgh!:

[Phaedrus]

Thanks for the input. I assumed it was a "attack how you wish" style, but I just wanted to make sure GWX didn't disable all the single ships or something like that.



Now that we've got that squared away, and I've installed GWX...


... who wants to help me get it running?

The game loads, but when I try to enter a mission in career mode the game stops loading at about 90% of the way there. I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del to close out SH3 and start again.


Any ideas?

[FIREWALL]

Welcome Aboard :up:

I think they just about covered it. :D

[mr chris]

Do you get the black screen of death?
Followed by the SH3 has encountered a problem and needs to close?

If this is not the case just keep the game loading it will take a lot longer than stock to load. Just stick with it and you should be fine:up:

Hope this helps, if not im sure we will get you up and running.

[CptGrayWolf]

I still play the stock game! *raises hand
But I do use some mods. Mostly eye candy and some sounds. I guess the only game changing mod I use is 'Improved Convoys'.
I know I really should try GWX, but the perfectionist in me likes to play a game in its 'pure' original form, dunno, call me wierd. :88)
Welcome aboard the friendliest game forum around!

[Zajcev]

I also play stock 1.4b since I already started campaign before I heard about GWX. So I'm going to give it a try. I had like 8 missions already, started in Lorient late 1940. I only run into convoy like every 3rd mission, most of the time I only see isolated ships.
Once I got 110k tons when I ran into so called "attack group" made of King George V, another battleship and like 6 escorts. The 2 battleships alone gave me like 70k tons.
I wish convoys were more frequent. I do not return to port until I run out of torpedoes, so I sink at least 50k tons.

Just learn how to deal with bombers and destroyers, then hunting is easy. Be more brave when dealing with convoys and escorts.

[vonpritz]

I also play stock 1.4b since I already started campaign before I heard about GWX. So I'm going to give it a try. I had like 8 missions already, started in Lorient late 1940. I only run into convoy like every 3rd mission, most of the time I only see isolated ships.
Once I got 110k tons when I ran into so called "attack group" made of King George V, another battleship and like 6 escorts. The 2 battleships alone gave me like 70k tons.
I wish convoys were more frequent. I do not return to port until I run out of torpedoes, so I sink at least 50k tons.

Just learn how to deal with bombers and destroyers, then hunting is easy. Be more brave when dealing with convoys and escorts.

Dont worry too much about air attacks early on, they are very inadequate..

But post 1941.. watch out..

[Amiral Crapaud]

Well how to say... Im kind of a dork when I think about it, but during my second patrol at AM19, fall 1939, I stumbled upon a convoy escorted by the Rodney and two pitiful destroyers... My first attack was for the big guns, of course, then I came around, and picked up three additionnal merchies...

Well what is cool with Convoies that early in the war is that once you found them, you may feed on them for a long, long time, and you don't fear to lose their track - not to mention the very nices surprises, just like M.Rodney, that may happen here and then...

[Phaedrus]

Thanks for the help everyone.

Sure enough, it just needed about 5 minutes of 90% to get into gear.

I'm off to start the new career.


Thanks again.

[bookworm_020]

Good Luck and Welcome Aboard!

Remember what Bdu always says "Be More Aggressive!":arrgh!:

[predavolk]

Welcome to the forum! I feel your pain, as a newbie. Convoys seem to be a waste sometimes. Especially after I just snuck up on one outside of Gibraltar, lots of merchants, get in close and....the biggest ship is a medium merchant. :roll: Five torps, I hit it 2x, hit a coastal freighter, and missed two smaller targets. On the plus side, the sea went from glass to 6 knots just before I attacked, so evasion was a piece of cake.

So I'm tempted to ignore convoys and focus on little guys, but I guess the nice thing about convoys is you never know when you're going to get nice fat, juicy targets and sometimes, when you get a whole bunch of 'em! Plus, I figure it's pretty important to practice on convoys early in the game before the escorts get REALLY good at their game! :o Good luck, and screw Bdu! :up:

[Tessa]

An awful lot of you seem to be focusing on convoy attacks.
I've attempted one, with only 3 ships sunk with 8 torpedoes expended, ended up running and receiving damage from escorts.
It doesn't seem worth it to me.

I will soon be embarking on my 6th patrol, June 1941, and I spend most of my time deck gunning single merchants when weather permits.
I'm taking about 25 000 - 35 000 per patrol this way in or around BE and BF, usually heading home when my torpedoes are expended after the weather turns and I can use surface attacks anymore. I've topped out at 56 000 on my last patrol.

I seem to be doing my part in the tonnage war without heading way out of my way to target the convoys.

Are there less single merchants in GWX? Or are the convoy attacks more for the thrill?

Thanks!

Attacking a convoy and getting the most out of it requires some planning and forethrough before you even launch your first torpedo. There's been a few times where I've literally run into convoys due to using 4098 TC and find myself surrounded by merchants. Generally once I locate a convoy I plot out its path and get ahead of it and let it come to me, then comes all the different strategies on what to do next.

Even if convoy's aren't your thing, GWX does add a lot more surface traffic than the stock version. The biggest difference would probably be that the enemy makes use of their capital ships/surface fleet. It can make harbor raiding really exciting both in the time and work done to sneak into the harbor (which are tenfold more fortified than in stock SHIII) and see a BB, CV or both moored at port. Getting 30k-50k for 1 ship is really nice :up:

[Canovaro]

... who wants to help me get it running?

The game loads, but when I try to enter a mission in career mode the game stops loading at about 90% of the way there. I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del to close out SH3 and start again.


Any ideas?

Does it really stop loading or just takes a lot of time?
Just let it load for 30 minutes or so to make sure it STOPS running!
GWX takes a lot more time to load then the outofthebox game!!
Especially on 512 mb.

Hope it helps.

[patuxai]

First off, I have enjoyed reading the forum... a wealth of information.

But most, if not all, seems to be geared towards GWX.

Having just got the game a week ago, I am playing stock 1.4.
Does anyone still play the stock game?
I am currently downloading GWX 2 from the torrent, after having seen one post about a reported slow down in performance after install I am not so sure about making the change.
I am running a P4 2.4 Ghz with 1028 RAM, nVidia GeForce 7300 GT.
Its not a 512 card, but will it be sufficient?

But, on to the real topic.
An awful lot of you seem to be focusing on convoy attacks.
I've attempted one, with only 3 ships sunk with 8 torpedoes expended, ended up running and receiving damage from escorts.
It doesn't seem worth it to me.
I will soon be embarking on my 6th patrol, June 1941, and I spend most of my time deck gunning single merchants when weather permits.
I'm taking about 25 000 - 35 000 per patrol this way in or around BE and BF, usually heading home when my torpedoes are expended after the weather turns and I can use surface attacks anymore. I've topped out at 56 000 on my last patrol.

I seem to be doing my part in the tonnage war without heading way out of my way to target the convoys.
Are there less single merchants in GWX? Or are the convoy attacks more for the thrill?


Thanks!


Bienvenue au club; so I am not the only one who plays still with the stock game 1.4 or even older. I can read so many things here on the forum about GWX, but I do not really know what it is, it seems to be something like an extension, or what???
When I see posted screen shots, I can realize that some have varieties of paintings not so are mine, maybe I do not have the appropriate mods??

[SmokinTep]

Well, how do you like GWX?

[Sailor Steve]

Bienvenue au club; so I am not the only one who plays still with the stock game 1.4 or even older. I can read so many things here on the forum about GWX, but I do not really know what it is, it seems to be something like an extension, or what???
When I see posted screen shots, I can realize that some have varieties of paintings not so are mine, maybe I do not have the appropriate mods??
GWX is a 'Supermod', a combination of many mods that changes many things in the game. It changes the way escorts act, it adds a lot of new ships and planes and changes a lot of old ones, it changes the way the harbors look and feel, and a lot more. A lot of players here swear that it is the best thing ever to happen to SH3. I don't completely agree; not because I don't like it, but because there are other things I like just as much.

WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny: