If a sim is hard, it is realistic? NO. I hate the sensor programming.

[Catfish]

Hello,
just have to vent a bit. After i said a thousand times the game is much too hard i made another similar experience again.

I have GWX2.0, with 2.1, and OLCE2, with the 1.2.5 Gui installed.

Yes i know the sensors in SH3 are screwed up, bad programming, one interacts with another etc. etc. So no we can not change the sensors for good, much too complicated, i do not know what i ask for. It seems we can only make them harder and more difficult. Ahaa.

Here goes:
It is still late 1939, black night and i would not see a mole in coal without Gamma set up to 2.5 with aTuner on my screen. Sure they must have had that in WW2. I just got the message that U-47 sank the Ark Royal and the Repulse. Nice. Next moment my lookout spots a convoy at roughly 11.5 kilometers. This could have happened, dark silhouettes against a horizon that is not quite as black as the sea, ok.

I overtake it at a distance of more than 10 km, the two escorts does not seem to see me. Since i know they and all merchants will see my 3 meter conning tower in a pitch black night and a distance of 8 km in SH3 (realistic eh) i go in submerged, silent running, slow.

I am at roughly 600 meters away from a freighter (submerged!), and since i want to get a bit closer i lower the 'scope and set the speed to "3". Instantly all hell breaks lose, not only are starshells going up, as well all the freighters turn on searchlights and someone is firing at me, hitting my conning tower and damaging the Flak. Next destroyer is 2000 m away as far as i can see. Back to slow alright.

Those freighters must have really advanced hydroscopes. Remember it is pitch black night, my periscope is lowered and i am submerged at 12-13 meters.

If this is realistic all books i ever read about the tactics and victories of U-boats are complete crap: U-boats ran into convoys surfaced, at night, between escorts and close to them whithout ever being seen. Now can't we somehow tweak this sim to be a bit more realistic without making it ridiculously hard ?

Grrr. I hate it. I am feeling better now. Thanks. :dead:

Greetings,
Catfish

[GoldenRivet]

good luck out there.

you just have to remember that it is a PC sim which is limited to programming capabilities.

In real life you had to work with men and equipment... in SH3 there is only "code" to interface with to make events happen within the sim.

you made the mistake of increasing speed to 3... thats the threshold above which you are detectable. when you do that the enemy INSTANTLY knows exactly where you are. if it was as dark as you say... why didnt you approach on the surface??? then speed plays a lesser role in your detectablity.

sorry... but the use of real life tactics in SH3 is limited to what the game code allows. and there are little things like speed to account for.

yes its frustrating

yes its difficult

no... it cant be changed (much) and therfore complaining about the difficulty of SH3 is like complaining about sand at the beach.

sorry you had the experience... but all i can say is better luck next time.

[AVGWarhawk]

When I was playing GWX I thought the sensors were not bad at all. Just my experience with it. I recall one night attack I was no less then 100 yards off the portside of a corvette. I was not detected. But, I guess sometimes it is frustrating if you are detected all the time. No doubt, GWX makes the game much more challenging. Stock SH3 was off my hard drive after 3 months playing until GWX made it more challenging all be just too hard sometimes.

[onelifecrisis]

Edit: taken to PM.

[Catfish]

Hello GoldenRivet,
yeah, already cooled down. You are certainly right, but it IS just so frustrating :lol:.
Imagine running even as fast at 5 knots submerged - there is no way anyone would have heard you in a 600 m radius of a lumbering merchant in mid-convoy - well, in reality, that is.
Escorts were faar away. And there was no sonar for sure. :shifty:

Only a question, i did exercise some surface attacks at night before, but i would never come as near as to 600 m without being seen. Indeed they would spot me at some 4000 meters in pitch-black night in 1939 - so it seems it is not possible to make a typical early years-surface attack ?
Oh well, i wrote i like the challenge, seems i have to live up to that.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Hartmann]

in my actual patrol i had my first frustating experience.:nope:


in 1943 with a ix-c boat, after an attack to a convoy protected by 6-7 scorts and sunk two tankers with 20.000 tons in total (i fired to a scort carrier but i missed and the two torps hit one tanker ) i tried to scape and i was near to this when one scort catch me in his sonar and start the depht charge attack.

doesn´t matter what i do, 250 meters, launch decoys, evasive actions ... the scort always see me like it has x-Ray active sonar, after some time it run out of charges, but another scort arrived and continue the attack. i had to go up to periscope depth and finish one scort with two torpedoes and dive again until the second scort run out of charges . then the same history, go up to periscope depth and destroy the second destroyer with three torpedoes.

by this time some mosquito planes were carpet bombing the surface trying to catch my boat.

seems that sometimes is impossible to scape, and if you don´t have more fishes to launch or you fail the shot .... :dead:

[Jimbuna]

I think I understand your frustration and your honesty here in the way you vent said frustration, but it is also pleasing to see you accept the challenge that the mod poses you.

I have also had many a similar experience, often more frustrating than satisfying, dependant on what mood I'm in.

Overall I consider it a challenge and liken it to the unknown variables or fog of war that Kaleuns must have faced in RL situations.

I'd hope you'd join me in recognising the limitations imposed on the team by a game code that is over 3 years old now.

I'll probably get spotted now (6000 metres and closing) by the escorts of the convoy I'm shadowing. ;)

Good Hunting Kaleun http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

[AVGWarhawk]

This reminds me of my "2nd Patrol Your Dead Club". Yes, yours truly is the founder. My challenge was to get to a 3rd patrol. It never materialized:oops: But, it made the game that much more challenging when using GWX. Personally, I like the challenge GWX imposed with the sensors. Somedays I would win some and others not.

[_Seth_]

Just a reminder to keep the discussion on periscope depth, mateys! :up:

[johan_d]

I understand fully what he said.. this bring me to those questions:

1. are the DD sensorsfile the same as the uboat ones? or are they seperate files?
in that case it could be tamed done a bit.

2. is the 2 knot speed hardcoded ot can it be altered?

3. is the detection somewhat random? since sometimes one succeed in closing up
very close, but most cant.

I do look sometimes from the target point of view to my sub, but when the distance is great, like 5 or more km, and with knowing where to look I cant see it. How can the enemy see it then?

He has a point, besides the great fun with GWX, it can be really frustrating, and then we dont even bring in 1943 and beyond!. :damn:

[onelifecrisis]

I do look sometimes from the target point of view to my sub, but when the distance is great, like 5 or more km, and with knowing where to look I cant see it. How can the enemy see it then?

Maybe because they're not looking through a tiny, pixelated window? :hmm:

[VIICDriver]

LMAO, I myself am a full-fledged member of the "second patrol and your dead" club! LOLChuck

[Phaedrus]

I don't know how deep you were cruising submerged, but it sounds an awful lot like a conning tower broach to me.


I actually don't find the sensors too unrealistic, with the exception of the close range ASDIC.

It would have been nice if they lost track of you within the 200 yard range as in real life, rather than following the boat on a rail until directly over top... but c'est la vie.


But, heres to the frustration we have all felt from spoiled attacks and depth charging.
Any game (simulation) that requires the effort and time that SH3-GWX does is bound to evoke anger and frustration when things don't go smoothly.

I would say we would all do well to recall that in the end, it is just a game, and maddening though it may be; it certainly does not compare to the hardships of those on both sides of the periscope from 1939-1945.


Regards,


Phaedrus

[GoldenRivet]

phaedrus...

An excellent point which I never considered - conning tower broach

GWX does a wonderful job simulating such an event, and it has been a tactical blunder that has caught me with my pants down on only a few occasions.

If that conning tower broaches it is without a doubt easy to spot with all the waves froth and wake produced... Sure to draw fire - I'm confident phaedrus has given us a probable cause for catfish' frustration

[Cohaagen]

If you're using OLCE2, then the best approach is a surfaced night attack. The difference is perceptible - unless you're really foolish, a surface attack in the wee hours is usually devastating.

I agree that people here far too often confuse hard with realistic. My biggest problem was always with air attacks - I know that things were rough later on in the war, but is it really likely that in 1941 my boat can be attacked from Malta 16, 17 times a day, or regularly every half hour? As I recall, the RAF were so desperate around this time they were sending Blenheims up against the Luftwaffe and Italian bombing raids. That's not realistic - that's a pain in the arse.

[Red Heat]

Hello,
just have to vent a bit. After i said a thousand times the game is much too hard i made another similar experience again.

I have GWX2.0, with 2.1, and OLCE2, with the 1.2.5 Gui installed.

Yes i know the sensors in SH3 are screwed up, bad programming, one interacts with another etc. etc. So no we can not change the sensors for good, much too complicated, i do not know what i ask for. It seems we can only make them harder and more difficult. Ahaa.

Here goes:
It is still late 1939, black night and i would not see a mole in coal without Gamma set up to 2.5 with aTuner on my screen. Sure they must have had that in WW2. I just got the message that U-47 sank the Ark Royal and the Repulse. Nice. Next moment my lookout spots a convoy at roughly 11.5 kilometers. This could have happened, dark silhouettes against a horizon that is not quite as black as the sea, ok.

I overtake it at a distance of more than 10 km, the two escorts does not seem to see me. Since i know they and all merchants will see my 3 meter conning tower in a pitch black night and a distance of 8 km in SH3 (realistic eh) i go in submerged, silent running, slow.

I am at roughly 600 meters away from a freighter (submerged!), and since i want to get a bit closer i lower the 'scope and set the speed to "3". Instantly all hell breaks lose, not only are starshells going up, as well all the freighters turn on searchlights and someone is firing at me, hitting my conning tower and damaging the Flak. Next destroyer is 2000 m away as far as i can see. Back to slow alright.

Those freighters must have really advanced hydroscopes. Remember it is pitch black night, my periscope is lowered and i am submerged at 12-13 meters.

If this is realistic all books i ever read about the tactics and victories of U-boats are complete crap: U-boats ran into convoys surfaced, at night, between escorts and close to them whithout ever being seen. Now can't we somehow tweak this sim to be a bit more realistic without making it ridiculously hard ?

Grrr. I hate it. I am feeling better now. Thanks. :dead:

Greetings,
Catfish

I think your are RIGHT!
I feel the same....

[Kpt. Lehmann]

To Catfish and others who whinge and complain regarding the sensors in GWX... I am going to respond with all the kindness and cordiality that I can muster... inspite of the rudeness of the OP.

"Was GWX's AI altered for the sake of challenge?" The answer is no. I mean no offense, but If your comparison's used the scientific method, and had begun with stock SH3... The improvements that GWX arguably introduces, may present you with a clearer picture of where we are versus where SH3 started. Modifications to GWX AI sensors were made with the intent to produce historically plausible situations and outcomes, to the best of our abilities... within an entire series of game and code limitations. Increased challenge to the player though, was a predictable side effect of modding the enemy AI sensors.

The AI should punish dumb mistakes... In stock SH3 escorts/DD's/AI response is boneheaded and thick beyond belief IMHO... allowing total distruction of convoys and taskforces with virtually no risk to the player.

A proper gradient reflecting the progression of technology, resulting in an accelerating curve of U-boat losses is modelled in GWX.

Is it perfect? Of course not. I don't think any mod's ASW arrangement or sensors modification is perfect... nor do I feel that we have anything to be ashamed of. It does the job quite nicely IMHO. On full realism, it certainly cuts down on 500,000 ton single patrols by players... The GWX dev team made a concerted effort to interlock the ASW assets, damage models, contact reports, campaign files, and weapon damage balancing in an effort cut down on rediculous tonnage hauls.

Reputable sources were used and relied upon. (Clay Blair, U-boat Commander's Handbook circa 1943... and a whole HOST of sources listed in the GWX manual) GWX dev teamers were not the victims of fictional 'propaganda' nor were they historical revisionists.

Ease of success breeds bad habits and false expectations.

Players have had it easy and have not been forced to think as submarine captains.

Your greatest weapons are not your torpedoes... and certainly not your deck gun.

Your greatest weapons are stealth and patience.

Typically what I see in those who complain is a sense that they can do no wrong. "I've been playing sub simulations for years and this isn't right because blah blah blah..."

It is easy to blame the mod instead of admitting complacency and the desire for instant gratification.

The people who built GWX, whatever their individual faults may be, are among the best that subsim has to offer.

Nothing under the sun that we do, or choose not to do, is going to make everyone happy. Tailoring the AI perception (or any element of GWX) to each individual's personal preference or interpretation is quite naturally impossible. I hope you will also understand that we don't really have any intention of helping users UNDO what we worked so hard to build... based on atypical experiences colored by individual wishes.

Months were spent tuning the ASW sensors in GWX... and months of code crunching, spent isolating sensors, determining their limits and "signal strength" at various ranges, and and interpretation (often leading to dead ends... you can't just plug in real life data and expect life-like results in SH3) preceeded the gradual changes and testing. From the original GW to GWX it continued to evolve. I'd rather have all my teeth pulled out with rusty pliers and no anesthetic, than to revisit it again!

One thing that we cannot change, is the experience base of the player... as your experience is not reduced with your simulated "death." There is no way to properly simulate U-boat warfare in any game... we can only approximate it. The player will always learn from a simulated death.

It is a good thing for us that when you die in SH3... you live to count rivets another day. You do not drown, or have to abandon ship, or be taken prisoner... You get to fight another day and carry the experience... and the desire to become a better U-boat captain.

In the end... the downloads do the talking. GWX 2.0 ALONE has been downloaded more than 10,000 times. Those are simply the ones that can be counted. I suspect a further 20,000 from other locations such as GameShadow, Atomic Gamer etc. If the AI (or any element) in GWX was so terrible, complaints about it would be incessant. I am not saying this to be bombastic or arrogant. I am saying it to drive home the points being made.

Seriously folks... if GWX causes you such distress, you have choices. Use them.

If anyone has put a gun to your head and forced you to use (and keep using) GWX... please raise your hand.:lol:

Stop complaining and get to patrolling.:arrgh!:

[JScones]

Having now turned my attention to actually playing GWX 2.1 (with SH3Cmdr R3.1.2 and wow, if I may say so myself, what an experience), in consideration of restraints such as hard code limitations imposed by SH3 (and there IS a lot - static behaviour for all years is just one of many, and one reason why SH3Cmdr exists), I have to say that I'm not sure we could get anything better. No, GWX 2.1 is not perfect, but I don't see anyone saying that it is. I'm now in mid-1940 having started in Aug 1939 and with discipline, I've had good success. I've watched enemy Destroyers totally miss me even though I wasn't that far away. Why? Because I'm disciplined in my approach and use what I consider effective evasive measures. And in times where I have been bounced, as frustrating as they were, it was because of my own stupidity - staying surfaced, conning tower breach, or some other stupid behaviour of mine.

I may not like being seen many kms away in dense fog and then watching the Destroyer make a bee-line for me only to pound me into oblivion, but conversely, I don't like sitting on the surface waving to the enemy either while they earnestly look for me. Although on this last point, one convoy I attacked I sunk three merchants and the escorts went straight to where I was and hung around there. Of course, I was on the other side of the convoy at that point laughing at them, so evasion is possible and not that hard if you know what you are doing, at least in the early years. Come 1943 things may be different, but so too will my tactics. ;)

Just my opinion, ymmv.

[the.terrabyte.pirate]

If anyone has put a gun to your head and forced you to use (and keep using) GWX... please raise your hand.:lol:

*Raises hand*

Balz made me do it. It wasn't exactly a gun, but he'd threatened me with a rendition of "Vanilla shIII isn't hoochie woochie enough" in his VIIB if I didn't install it. Now he's threatening a concert if I uninstall it.

Someone get him a type IX quick!!!

[johan_d]

Stop complaining and get to patrolling.:arrgh!:

JAWOHL HERR KALEUN!

[Red Heat]

Stop complaining and get to patrolling.:arrgh!:

JAWOHL HERR KALEUN!

*Salute!

"You heard the man... :lol:
In the Double with those provisions... this is a non stop operation!"
Schnell!...Schnell!! lol

[danurve]

2. is the 2 knot speed hardcoded ot can it be altered?



If your talking about your sub then no it's a cfg file. Under [EngineProperties] you can change AheadSlow to =0.25 for example. Then your rpm's should be about 50 or 1 knot. Keep in mind this will make keeping depth below 160 difficult. Or, you can just alter the knots by dial.

[Bosje]

Try SH4, those crappy escorts will detect you no matter what, the very second a certain 'range' covers your boat. silent running, all engines stop, deep or not, they suddenly start pinging when they get within a certain amount of yards. sole reason i went back to SH3 for the moment.

to me, gwx has always felt very realistic actually, when i got detected it was because i took a risk and lost. much like you running 3 kts. 'fair enough' i say

[Rockin Robbins]

I take the fact of your frustration as evidence of success. Is not frustration a right and proper part of simulation? Or were the real captains not frustrated?

Just one tiny piece of supporting evidence. The real U-Boat captains were afraid to their piece of passive radar detector because they were convinced it was broadcasting signals detectable by enemy aircraft! That is an action born of undiluted frustration.

[kiwi_2005]

Hello,
just have to vent a bit. After i said a thousand times the game is much too hard i made another similar experience again.

I have GWX2.0, with 2.1, and OLCE2, with the 1.2.5 Gui installed.

Yes i know the sensors in SH3 are screwed up, bad programming, one interacts with another etc. etc. So no we can not change the sensors for good, much too complicated, i do not know what i ask for. It seems we can only make them harder and more difficult. Ahaa.

Here goes:
It is still late 1939, black night and i would not see a mole in coal without Gamma set up to 2.5 with aTuner on my screen. Sure they must have had that in WW2. I just got the message that U-47 sank the Ark Royal and the Repulse. Nice. Next moment my lookout spots a convoy at roughly 11.5 kilometers. This could have happened, dark silhouettes against a horizon that is not quite as black as the sea, ok.

I overtake it at a distance of more than 10 km, the two escorts does not seem to see me. Since i know they and all merchants will see my 3 meter conning tower in a pitch black night and a distance of 8 km in SH3 (realistic eh) i go in submerged, silent running, slow.

I am at roughly 600 meters away from a freighter (submerged!), and since i want to get a bit closer i lower the 'scope and set the speed to "3". Instantly all hell breaks lose, not only are starshells going up, as well all the freighters turn on searchlights and someone is firing at me, hitting my conning tower and damaging the Flak. Next destroyer is 2000 m away as far as i can see. Back to slow alright.

Those freighters must have really advanced hydroscopes. Remember it is pitch black night, my periscope is lowered and i am submerged at 12-13 meters.

If this is realistic all books i ever read about the tactics and victories of U-boats are complete crap: U-boats ran into convoys surfaced, at night, between escorts and close to them whithout ever being seen. Now can't we somehow tweak this sim to be a bit more realistic without making it ridiculously hard ?

Grrr. I hate it. I am feeling better now. Thanks. :dead:

Greetings,
Catfish
Just be a wimp like me and try out other mods that aren't so realistic as GWX. Btw it lets you get a chance trying out the smaller mods, im playing AOTD mod at the moment hence i can run into convoys at night and slaughter them early years that is. I can run in there submerged doing 5knots and not worry about getting detected from a destroyer thats 3 miles away, just last night i was on the surface late afternoon with a convoy in my sites and destroyer not far off about 4800yrds i stayed on the surface until she detected me which was around 4000yrds then i dived to my surprise she hammered the hell out of us and made sure we stayed down until i use silent running then its was just a matter of waiting for her to leave and heading to PD for some kills. Easy? Yes. But thats my game play - stress free!. Just installed this Taskforce mod that adds more taskforces than normal gonna try it out tonight:) No offence intended to GWX its a killer mod, more a thinking mans gameplay intended, but i hate stress i get enough of that working ! :rotfl:

[Catfish]

Hello,
" ... Stop complaining and get to patrolling.:arrgh!: ..."
:lol: Aye aye, Sir!
I really did not want to "bump" this post again, i really believe we even should let it die now.
Thanks all for the kind answers to my - as it was described - original rude post :lol:. You are certainly right, and that is why i wrote i had to vent, which i meant as an excuse for not caring for stepping on one's toes.
Indeed i may not even have criticized GWX, OLCE or any other mod, but the basic programming of the original SH3 - some objects or classes obviously have not been scripted in a way that it is possible to change them according to changing environment and time progressing in WW2. It took me a long time to accept that. Thanks again to Kpt. Lehmann and others who pointed that out. Maybe we can once get the SDK, and change a portion of the code according to the year the patrol takes place, like copying in and out portions of the code to really change the sensors according to time and development. :hmm:

If you take two years and 4-5 men to produce something like SH3 out of the blue the original dev team did already do a good job - i can still remember how i was blown away by the wave action and the atmosphere in the training mission after starting the sim for the first time - ages ago i know... and this nice little red triangle .... :/\\k:
As i explained to OLC, it is that all those mods have made such a marvelous sim of the original game, that i expect this shiny polish in every detail, and cannot help feeling let down when i stumble over something that is still strange.

Ok, back to patrol,
thanks and greetings,
Catfish

[Jimbuna]

SINK EM ALL!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[Sailor Steve]

How hard is too hard and how easy is too easy? I still haven't started a patrol yet - juggling mods and experimenting with stuff. But every now and then I play the 'Happy Times' single mission, and just the other day I beat it for the very first time. Of course I was cheating right and left, using external views and all; basically just screwing around. My point is that I always get caught, and always because I take way to many chances, mainly because I can see everything that's going on. That said, I've been watching the AI behavior, and they are far from perfect. It's kind of fun, really, to watch them be spot on one time and then run right over me and not drop the next.

All this is a setup for one question: frustrations aside, how are your tonnage scores? If you're still outscoring the real kaleuns by large amounts, then the game isn't too hard...it just seems that way. In real patrols in the past, my tonnages were fairly conservative. But then when I get serious I play with my eyes closed.:sunny:

[_Seth_]

Just remember; SH3 is NOT a simulator. It was never intended to be a simulator. When SH3 was released, it was an arcade game, something like a "shoot-em-up" game IMHO. GWX and other excellent mods made the game more realistic; not like a simulator, but realistic enough to give you goosebumps and lots of frustration, without destroying the playability.
IF (im saying if) SH3 was a simulator, like FS9 or FSX is for the fligtsim world, then i would like to read all the postings in this forum.....
Example;
1: How many of you have actually tried to balancing a submerged uboat in stormy weather and unpredictable tidal current conditions at periscope depth? How would this be on a computer?
2: What would you do if the diesel filter to the starboard engine clogged up, causing the engine to stop? Would you try a restart? What if you just had spotted a convoy, and you were racing in on the surface, ready to attack when this happend? Would you abort the attack?
3: What about navigation? Ever tried to calculate a route around the british isles, considering drift and weather?
4: And the AI...
In GWX 2.1, i think the enemy stops hunting you after 30 minutes without any contact of you. What about staying down for ....lets say...4 hours, and not hearing a d*mn thing ot the hydrophone, just to surface and stare right into Capt. Johnnie Walker's barrels...?

No, you guys....Im totally grateful that SH3 and the supermods are just the way they are....

Just my two cents and a bottel of cheap beer.. :up:

[onelifecrisis]

Just remember; SH3 is NOT a simulator. It was never intended to be a simulator. When SH3 was released, it was an arcade game, something like a "shoot-em-up" game IMHO. GWX and other excellent mods made the game more realistic; not like a simulator, but realistic enough to give you goosebumps and lots of frustration, without destroying the playability.

Nooo! Don't say that! :stare:
Clearly you're mistaken and the truth is that the Germans would have won WW2 if I had been one of their U-boat commanders :yep: as proven by my results on this totally realistic simulator!

;)

[JScones]

Just remember; SH3 is NOT a simulator. It was never intended to be a simulator. When SH3 was released, it was an arcade game, something like a "shoot-em-up" game IMHO.
Well, if this is the case then someone forgot to tell UBI marketing, because my DVD case for SH3 CLEARLY states: "COMMAND THE MOST IMPRESSIVE, REALISTIC AND GRIPPING NAVAL SIMULATOR". Not much ambiguity in that statement.

And my manual includes numerous terms like "based on historical reality".

Methinks there's a disjoint somewhere - either the marketers didn't read the brief correctly, or the devs wildly misrepresented their product. :hmm:

[johan_d]

lol JSCones, just like As Real As It Gets on a anothor sim..

[Sailor Steve]

Well, I think based on what some of the other material said pre-release that what they really intended was a u-boat movie simulator, hence the background music and the Event Camera. What we have is a game that does a pretty good job of simulating the feeling of being there, no more. But no less - I like the way it feels.

On Seth's comparison to flight sims, I'd say it stops when the combat starts. I'd be amazed to ever see a WWI combat flight sim that duplicates the problem of having to fight the winds that always tended to carry fights to the German side of the lines.

[_Seth_]

What we have is a game that does a pretty good job of simulating the feeling of being there, no more. [.......]
On Seth's comparison to flight sims, I'd say it stops when the combat starts. I'd be amazed to ever see a WWI combat flight sim that duplicates the problem of having to fight the winds that always tended to carry fights to the German side of the lines. :yep::yep::up::up::up: Spot on, matey! 10 points coming your way!:up:

[Nicolas]

I think that in the game, with gwx, two things are bad, first you can sink ships near england and they not come to get you, i mean 3 ships dissapeared and not a single dd comes, that is the worse realistic, the lack of, sub hunters. And you can make with patience 90,000 tons of single merchants without messing with convoys, so i think its to easy finding single merchants or its bad the response from allies.
About convoys, its hard... most players get dead when attacking convoys so this part suppose to be realistic. But you can't speak about a high realism using auto targeting this settings should be the 70% of realism, the auto targeting its like having the weapons fire system of a nuclear submarine...