Resupplying

[LightStalker]

Ahoy again Kaleun's!

Well, finally I settled back home, and could continue my career.

This was U-98 third patrol, and BdU assigned me a quadrant just north-east of the UK. The patrol so far took me 23 days with five confirmed sinkings, for a total of about 37.000 tones. Not bad I suppose, but I still 4 fish left, just waiting to blow a hole in an unsuspecting merchant's hull. The weather is a serious problem though. My watch crew havent seen any ship for the past few days because of the blasted storm. And seeing that two of those torpedoes are the external reserves, and can't really be loaded, I guess I have only two torpedoes for the time beeing. To add injury to the insult, one is in my aft tube, while the other is in the fore tube... :nope:

Other than that, I'm starting to worry about my fuel reserve. Battling those waves really does empty my tanks quickly...

So since it's impossible for me to launch a salvo, and If i just keep cruising around my crew will have to paddle back home, I decided I need to restock. I don't see any point in returning to port yet, I wanna annoy the Tommies for a little longer... Besides, this is a good opportunity to learn how to re-fit my sub.

And this, dear subsimmer's is where you come in. You see, I never did resupply earlier, and the mechanic's behind it are, well wierd to me.

Ok, so let's say that I find myself a supply ship. I simply get in range, and select dock from the menu, right? But, the game would count that as ending my patrol, and once I left the ship, I would begin my fourth mission. Also, any damage my sub sustained would be completely repaired, which is ridiculous seeing as there is no dry dock, and I honestly don't think that it would be possible to... oh, say replace a damaged/destroyed periscope/proppeler/engine/whatever at a supply ship. Is there any way around these issues? Any way I can only get some eel's and continue patrol no.3?

And it get's even weirder when it comes to milkcows. Specifically, I mean getting a complete restock of torpedoes, from a floating gas station. Again, any way I can ONLY refuel at a milkcow, and not start a new patol while I'm at it?

Eh, guess I couldn't keep thing's short again. Sorry about that guys. :oops: But thanks in advance.

[Pisces]

North East of the UK sounds like the north sea, quadrant AN or thereabouts. I don't think you'll find a milchcow/supply freighter there. To close to home I guess. I'd say set your throttle to economy mode (depends on your type) and move across some traffic lanes. And listen often on your hydrophone every 1 or 2 hours. You'll be surprised how many you'll find.

[rifleman13]

Ok, so let's say that I find myself a supply ship. I simply get in range, and select dock from the menu, right? But, the game would count that as ending my patrol, and once I left the ship, I would begin my fourth mission. Also, any damage my sub sustained would be completely repaired, which is ridiculous seeing as there is no dry dock, and I honestly don't think that it would be possible to... oh, say replace a damaged/destroyed periscope/proppeler/engine/whatever at a supply ship. Is there any way around these issues? Any way I can only get some eel's and continue patrol no.3?

And it get's even weirder when it comes to milkcows. Specifically, I mean getting a complete restock of torpedoes, from a floating gas station. Again, any way I can ONLY refuel at a milkcow, and not start a new patol while I'm at it?

Eh, guess I couldn't keep thing's short again. Sorry about that guys. :oops: But thanks in advance.
Well, that's the limitations from stock SH3...

All of us here at Subsim just want to have the SDK for it and we can do anything we want in SH3...:arrgh!:

[LightStalker]

So to put a long story short, at this point every visit at a supply vessel, equals fresh torpedoes, fuel, repairs and a new paint job? Bummer. :down:

And I suppose that the chances of UBI giving us the SDK, are rather slim?

North East of the UK sounds like the north sea, quadrant AN or thereabouts. I don't think you'll find a milchcow/supply freighter there. To close to home I guess. I'd say set your throttle to economy mode (depends on your type) and move across some traffic lanes. And listen often on your hydrophone every 1 or 2 hours. You'll be surprised how many you'll find.

Yes. that's true, but this was my first sitiuation where I could use supply's. So I just asked before the idea would escape my mind.

And I'll do sound check's more often, but that dosen't help me with my external reserves torpedo problem. :(

[Kielhauler1961]

My workaround for the "torpedoes from milchcows" is to make a note of how many, where and what type of torps you have before you dock. After replenishing, simply fire the surplus torpedoes into empty ocean. Same goes for gun ammo.

Torpedoes were often transferred between combat boats at sea. A damaged or low on fuel boat heading home with a goodly stock might be ordered to help out a colleague with plenty of fuel but low on torps. You could use a random method for generating the amount you receive, say roll a six-sided die. I use a regular pack of playing cards. I draw one card and keep the amount of extra torpedoe equal to the cards value if between 1 (ace) and 6. Anything higher than that (inc. court cards) means zero. The chance of such a link-up happening in the first place could be adjusted for location, weather, year, whether Doenitz likes you or not, etc..

Supply ships might be have been able to help with minor damage - you'd have to make a judgement call on a case for case basis. A supply ship could provide some of the more common smaller spare parts. Remember that as far as the game is concerned, you are the ONLY U-Boat out there! Sometimes you can justify taking the few extra "crumbs" available.

[Pisces]

North East of the UK sounds like the north sea, quadrant AN or thereabouts. I don't think you'll find a milchcow/supply freighter there. To close to home I guess. I'd say set your throttle to economy mode (depends on your type) and move across some traffic lanes. And listen often on your hydrophone every 1 or 2 hours. You'll be surprised how many you'll find.

Yes. that's true, but this was my first sitiuation where I could use supply's. So I just asked before the idea would escape my mind.

And I'll do sound check's more often, but that dosen't help me with my external reserves torpedo problem. :(Yeah, I know I wasn't really helpfull with your re-supply questions. Sorry, never visited those milchcows before.

You said you had 2 torpedos for immediate use, 1 front,1 rear. That's for two occasions with something to do until the weather clears. You'll find single merchants mostly anyways. And they hardly require more than one in my experience (GWX2.1) when I fire at the 1st mast. Just hope for a little luck and give them time.

What's your fuel status anyway? My type-7b with full tanks should be able to go 34000 km at 8 knots in good weather. In bad weather the consumption is worse, but still best when set to 8. Ask your navigator for the maximum range at your current speed. For the north sea, once it reaches 2000km or so (don't know where your home is, or how safe you want to be) I would 'call it a day' and head home.