Empty seas with Gwx 3.0

[Freiwillige]

Is it just me? I sailed from Wilhelmshaven north to Scottland, up around the orkenys, around the backside of Ireland and down to grid Bf and came across only one vessal the whole trip. Are ships more scarce in GWX 3.0 or am I just unlucky?

[Faamecanic]

Yes ships are more scarce.... did you try activating the 16km mod through JGMSE? (startard viewig distance is 8km).

Also you will find more success (in early war) sticking near English coast and doing "listening" dives using the hydrophone yourself.

Also if you sailed at 1024 TC, then your chances of your watch crew spotting a ship go down significantly. Try cruising at no more than 512 in areas where there is known ship traffic.

SH3 stock was TOTALLY unrealistic with the amount of traffic and reports that would pop up on your map.

[Erich dem Roten]

Also make sure that you have not enabled "Indian Ocean Campaign Files Only" or "Black Sea Campaign Files Only" in your mods. Either of those will create an empty Atlantic.

[Task Force]

Where where you at? Try the east cost of England.:up: There probably wouldn't be too many ships there in early war.

[Madox58]

There's just as much traffic in 3.0 as in 2.1
maybe a bit more?

[FIREWALL]

When MFM is released things could pick up a bit.

[Iron Budokan]

I'm finding lots of contacts in 3.0. Enough to keep me busy, anyway. But I tend to run at a lower time compression than most people (or so I would suspect) and I dive a lot and listen a lot.

Definitely enable the 16k mod if your rig can handle it. Make sure you work the choke points and heavy traffic areas, too. Good hunting! :)

[FIREWALL]

I'm finding lots of contacts in 3.0. Enough to keep me busy, anyway. But I tend to run at a lower time compression than most people (or so I would suspect) and I dive a lot and listen a lot.

Definitely enable the 16k mod if your rig can handle it. Make sure you work the choke points and heavy traffic areas, too. Good hunting! :)

I'm the same way. 256 tops. Very good advice. :yep: :up:

[Freiwillige]

Well it is november of 1939. I just remember in GWX 2.1 alot more small ships and I took my usuall deck gun madness route along the eastern edge of England about 75 km off shore and their were a few "5 or less" contects within 100 Kilometers but not what it used to be. I remember "Ship sighted" about ten times before I even got to Scottland with a few being neutrals.

How much hit is it for the 16Km mod? My system is already a bit below specs but for the extra, extra long loading times (roughly 5 minutes) all else seems okay and stutter free

AMD Sempron 2.8 (Basically an atholon 64 with less L2 cache):nope:
Geforce 7300GT AGP with 512 megs of ddr on card:huh:
756 megs of ddr memory on the system (Ouch I know, 2 gigs coming soon!):damn:
80 gig WD ATA hard drive:ahoy:

So do ya think it will handle the extended horizon?:hmm:

[iambecomelife]

Is it just me? I sailed from Wilhelmshaven north to Scottland, up around the orkenys, around the backside of Ireland and down to grid Bf and came across only one vessal the whole trip. Are ships more scarce in GWX 3.0 or am I just unlucky?

Are you running submerged & using hydrophones? I find that's a major help. If you are submerged much of the time, what speed are you running at?

[A Very Super Market]

Your system is better than mine, apart from RAM, but its mostly the graphics card that makes a difference. 16km should be fine for you.

[Phantom II]

Little traffic? I'm on patrol 6 at the moment in my career with GWX 3.0 and I've already sunk the HMS Hood and the HMS Nelson(<-twice), along with a whole bunch of tankers, cargo ships, trawlers and a British Submarine all for a total of 250,000 tonnes (100,000 of which came from a single patrol). THAT is what I would call a bit unrealistic. On my way back to port from my last patrol, I even spotted a huge Battleship taskforce (had a ship which looked like the Nelson, except with camo, one which looked like King George, and a third one which I couldn't identify, all surrounded by no less than 10 destroyers), unfortunately I only had one rear torpedo remaining, so I didn't bother.

[Freiwillige]

Is it just me? I sailed from Wilhelmshaven north to Scottland, up around the orkenys, around the backside of Ireland and down to grid Bf and came across only one vessal the whole trip. Are ships more scarce in GWX 3.0 or am I just unlucky?

Are you running submerged & using hydrophones? I find that's a major help. If you are submerged much of the time, what speed are you running at?

Nope surface unless looking for a specific target known to be in the area I stay up top. After all it is early in the war. Should I dive and do hydraphone checks? If so how often?

[Weiss Pinguin]

I try to do regular hydrophone checks, but since I like to micromanage where my crew goes it can get tiresome. How I wish SH3 had the watch feature from SH4. :p

But at the moment I've had about as much luck as Freiwillige. (Sitting somewhat disheartened on a lone bulk freighter...) Maybe this next patrol I'll try running submerged. :hmm: Generally I cruise on the surface, with the occasional sound check. The only contact I've picked up (Aforementioned bulk freighter) was spotted by the watch crew.

[meduza]

Nope surface unless looking for a specific target known to be in the area I stay up top. After all it is early in the war. Should I dive and do hydraphone checks? If so how often?
When I'm hunting and the visibility is less than perfect, I dive every 2 hours, sometimes man the station myself, sometimes let my SO do the job. Otherwise I dive once or twice a day.
During unlimited visibility I usualy stay on surface.

[bigboywooly]

There is no change in shipping frequency from 2.1
As posted above dive and do regular sound checks

I would say over 70% of my targets are picked up as sound contacts

[FIREWALL]

My old rig was P4 3.0
XFX 7600gt 512mb AGP
2gb ram

Played 2.1 and Sh4 1.5 all at max no probs.

Hydrophones are key to Gold...

[TarJak]

The main thing is to keep your TC lower than 256x when in your hunting mode. i normally bump TC up when more than a couple of hundred NM from land but when near Britain or the coast always cruise at 128x. I normally dive for a sound check twice daily when cruising and on the end of every long leg of a search pattern this gives me a 90deg turn which gives my hydrophones 360deg coverage.

You can even do this at 128x TC which I've found works effectively to pick up contacts. I almost never go sprinting after radio map contacts unless they are within a 180km radius of my boat.

[Task Force]

So where do you usualy patrol? some areas arnt merchant rich like others. (try around the lower portion of the eastern side of britian, Ive seen Large amounts of Tommy tonnage.:up: (Most comeing out of the channel.):yep:

[Weiss Pinguin]

Between Ireland and Britain is supposed to be full up, or so I hear. I've also run into several convoys southwest of Britain. (Grid BF27 or so)

[TarJak]

Early war there are easy pickings if you run east/west across the top end of Scotland and slip between the mainland and the Shetland Is.

The Western Approaches are always good in particular close to the the northern and Southern approaches to the Irish Sea. All shipping coming to Britain from across the Atlantic needs to come through these channels so hanging in deep water near the approaches works well.

You can also find plenty of smaller targets closer to the East coast of Britain running North South.

Mostly you should find single merchants and I've seen sizes ranging from small coastal craft (trawlers and yachts) up to 7k or 8k tonners.

[FIREWALL]

Oct 39. Ran out of torps going halfway thru the Channel. 15,000 tons :D

This is at 100% realism No deck gun.

[Weiss Pinguin]

The channel... :o Shallow waters and no room to manuever, enough to give the bravest Kaleun nightmares.

[TarJak]

The Channel is pretty tame in '39. I've even sailed up the Thames to Southend, docked at the pier, had a pint in the Borough and played the slots before heading back to the North Sea for some targets.:lol:

[A Very Super Market]

I've spent entire patrols infiltrating every port in the Channel, most of them are shakedowns. :D

As for the wartime, I've done it without sinking 5 times in '39, 2 times in '40 none in '41, '42, '43, and somehow, 1 in '44. Southampton is hell, just let me tell you that.

[Iron Budokan]

The Channel is pretty tame in '39. I've even sailed up the Thames to Southend, docked at the pier, had a pint in the Borough and played the slots before heading back to the North Sea for some targets.:lol:

LOL! :D

[Pisces]

Running into visual range with a ship is very much dependant on the weather/fog at that moment. It could be they simply went past unnoticed. If the weather was bad visibility could be as bad as 1km or if moderate 8km. That significantly reduces your chances.

Hydrophone is not hampered by that (maybe your crew's effectiveness in detecting is). If you listen yourself you can pick up anything within 34km radius (18.4 nm). That means you get 17 times more surface area of maritime real-estate over the 8km stock unlimmited visual range circle (=(34^2-8^2)/8^2). But only 3.5 more for 16km vis, still not bad. The trouble is you need to dive each time, and kick that lazy watchofficer back up in the end.

The interval depends on the size of the area (talked about later) and the relative speed with which the target crosses your hydrophone coverage, so your own cruising speed and the probable target speed and approach to you. If both you and the target are head-to-head add his (possible) speed to yours. If moving in the same direction take the difference. If perpendicular the Pythagoras equation should be used. The head-to-head situation is the quickest to cross the coverage area so also the determining factor.

Assuming your crew reports everything that comes into visual range immediately, the closest distance of the target-track to your visual range edge determines the interval to listen. The 'maximum' interval to choose depends on how lucky you (think you) are to get a target that crosses your path just outside maximum visual range. Have a look at the below sketch:
http://ricojansen.nl/image/hydro_track.gif
The drawn target-track is the most lucky one, just ouside visual range. (direct visual is ofcourse even better: automatic detection by crew) If you are unlucky the target just crosses the outer area of your hydrophone range and so the traverse time could potentially be very short, requiring constant listening. The question comes down to how certain you are of being on a hot traffic-lane. If you think you are on top of the traffic-lane you can use the track-lengths in the image. If not, make a conservative reduction of the time interval we will calculate below.

If you want to catch a target atleast once during his passage through your hydrophone coverage the interval is simply the tracklength (in nm), divided by the relative speed (in knots).

Taking the most extreme case of merchant (medium) speed: 12kts
and uboot cruise speed (i.e. type 7) 8kts
head-2-head relative speed: 20 knots

track outside of 16km visibility: 32.4nm; transit_time=32.4/20= 1.62 hours= 97min

track outside of 8km visibility: 35.7nm; transit_time=35.7/20= 1.785 hours= 107min

track outside of 1km/no visibility: 36.6nm; transit_time=36.6/20= 1.83 hours= 109min

So at the very most do your hydrophone drill every 1.5 hours or 90 mins to make sure a nearby medium speed target has the least chance of escaping your attention.

If you are only interested in head-2-head with slow targets (<8kts) you can do with maximum interval being just under 2 hours. (8+8=16kts , 32.4nm/16kts= 121min)

--------

Aside from that knowledge, I have increased the radius in which map-contactreports can be displayed, from 200-ish to 600km. This means more (distant) contact but not neccesarilly more often (since that is probability driven). So I have more chance to decide for myself if I want to chase them, instead of BdU making it for me. If I cannot be on their central course before they have moved 175km along it (at upper limit of their speed range), I forgo the intercept. At that distance the possible positions due to course uncertainty starts to extend beyond your hydrophone coverage. This way I OWN THEM. :arrgh!:

[meduza]

good post, Pisces. :up:

Speaking of the empty seas, since I instaled GWX 3, I can hardly reach my patrol area before spending all eels. Usualy spend them all in the BF grid. Patrols last up to a week, average tonnage 50000+ tons. :D

[Dekessey]

On my way back to port from my last patrol, I even spotted a huge Battleship taskforce (had a ship which looked like the Nelson, except with camo, one which looked like King George, and a third one which I couldn't identify, all surrounded by no less than 10 destroyers), unfortunately I only had one rear torpedo remaining, so I didn't bother.

Chicken!




:lol:

[Steeltrap]

A few points, most of them already covered to varying degrees:

TC: I never hunt at more than 128x. If I'm in transit through an area with a reasonable chance of contact, or aircraft, I do so at no more than 256x.

Unless the visibility is unrestricted, I spend a lot of time submerged if hunting. If you set your speed manually to 1knt you can stay under until you reach 50% on the O2 guage without depleting your battery to any extent. Throw in some course changes of 60 degrees here and there to avoid a fixed blindspot arc in your hunt area. With half decent crew member on hydrophone, nothing much will get past you. It also removes the issue of aircraft for much of your hunting.

The other benefit to this is you use very little in the way of fuel - people posting that they struggle with fuel on a 'normal' patrol simply must be burning it up running around with to no real purpose. My rule is this: if I've nowhere to go, I run at low speed if on the surface. You can easily spend 12-18hrs submerged at 1knt and then recharge the battery in a matter of hours. Even if you don't recharge, you'll still have 90%+ of capacity after such a period submerged. The only thing that drives me to the surface is O2.

IF the system allowed you to spot smoke on horizon, etc, then there would be more reaon for being on the surface (fact is the smoke from a convoy could be seen well over the horizon vs. the ships themselves).

Cheers

[j_o_nn_y]

Ive noticed that when your moving with time compression and you notice a slowdown or stutter of your submarine on the map. There might be a contact nearby and then I submerge and a lot of the time the hydrophone picks one up.

[Murr44]

Ive noticed that when your moving with time compression and you notice a slowdown or stutter of your submarine on the map. There might be a contact nearby and then I submerge and a lot of the time the hydrophone picks one up.

Yes, lagging usually means that something is nearby. I avoid using high tc (512+) unless I'm in a relatively "safe" area where no contacts are expected. 1/3 speed seems to be a "happy medium": you'll still get where you want to go but you won't waste diesel, exhaust your engine crew or have to go along at a crawl.

[Weiss Pinguin]

So, currently submerged in grid AN26, going at 3 knots. No contacts, but it might just be that BdU sent me to an empty grid.

On the bright side, I'll now have Jimbuna's 300+ gramophone tracks to keep me company. :p

[meduza]

So, currently submerged in grid AN26, going at 3 knots. No contacts, but it might just be that BdU sent me to an empty grid.

On the bright side, I'll now have Jimbuna's 300+ gramophone tracks to keep me company. :p
in one of my previous careers, aboard Type II, I often patroled AM26 and found a lot of targets in the area.

[bigboywooly]

AM52\AM02 is one of my faves
Plenty of action around BF17 etc too

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h22/bigboywooly/MFM/ScreenHunter_054.jpg

[Weiss Pinguin]

Well, I think my luck is turning. Only four ships sunk for a total of 13,000 tons, but hey, I'm happy. ;) I ran across two ships southeast of the Shetland Islands, a coastal tanker and medium merchant, and then two more on my way down, an Old Split Merchant or whatever and then a Danish (Oops...) medium cargo. Got a little greedy on the last one and mistook the flag for the Red Ensign. :oops:

I need to work on my aim some, I think, as I used up the the entire forward torpedo stores, save for the external, on those four ships. :doh:

[ReM]

Early war patrol GWX 3.0 and targets galore! Found about 4 smaller vessels off the northern tip of Scotland outbound for my patrol grid near the Rockall bank. Smoked ´em with the deck gun.

After arriving in the assigned area i decided to take a little dip a little west of the Bank for ´rundhorchen´. I couldn´t believe my luck, multiple contacts! It was a small flotilla of 2 auxiliary cruisers and a DD. They were coming right at me, I only had to align my bow a little to get a perfect firing solution. Zapped those 2 cruisers, the DD never even found me. They are pretty helpless in the early days. (their time will come though)

A big ore carrier found it´s watery grave a day later a little south of this area......

November ´39 and the future looks bright:sunny:

[StarLion45]

:D Hi everyone :D

In february 1943 , Grid " EB21 " is damn good :yep: :p
Also " The gulf of Mexico " is good . Near " The port of spain ",


If you follow the " EB21 route " You run into this , a large troopship:p :o :yep:

In the next post you can see my spots in 1943 from the map:p :)




http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/5108/screenshot1231525790sa1.jpg

[Freiwillige]

Yea it was a fluke cause I find em a plenty now. The submerge regularly in heavy traffic areas really pays off as well. My last mission, feb 40' mission 6 I ran out of torpedo's before I even cleared the north of Scottland and with my final four I came across a Light cruiser followed by two auxillary cruisers. I couldnt set up a run on the first cause he was too quick so I used the second to set my TDC up and let loose a spread of four on the third. One pre- detinated and the other three were dead on at 1700 meters with target going 24 knots. Not bad i say and I must be getting alot better. Wether was bad but no rain!:sunny:

[StarLion45]

:D Hellooo :D

I have draw lines and marked with an X where you can find big big ships

Such as "Whale factory " ships , " Troopships " , " Large Tankers " ,
" Ceramic ocean Liners " and , , " Large Troopships " .:p :p :cool: :cool:

As you can see from the map , I'm not so good to draw lines :oops: :oops: :dead: :dead: :roll:

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/3223/sh3maplk8.jpg

[Weiss Pinguin]

That map is easily contender for the most useful pullout in SH3. :lol: It's saved me a lot of mucking about in the past.

[Iron Budokan]

really good post, Pisces....

[Jimbuna]

That map is easily contender for the most useful pullout in SH3. :lol: It's saved me a lot of mucking about in the past.

Give or take a hindred or so miles either way :lol:

I'll stick to the accuracy of the SpySat ;)

[Biggles]

Today I encountered a Large Tanker just east of Scapa Flow, july 1940! Beat that!:smug:

[TarJak]

Today I encountered a Large Tanker just east of Scapa Flow, july 1940! Beat that!:smug:Easy Peasy! Sank an Invincible class aircraft carrier off Norway in 1940.:lol:

[Jimbuna]

Today I encountered a Large Tanker just east of Scapa Flow, july 1940! Beat that!:smug:Easy Peasy! Sank an Invincible class aircraft carrier off Norway in 1940.:lol:

Cames across the Warspite entering Narvik.....was clean out of eels so surfaced in front of her, forcing her to stop, jumped aboard and knocked seven bells out of all the crew then kicked a hole in her side below the waterline with my steel capped boots.....jumped back aboard my boat and had a large glass of schnapps and a cigar as I watched her sink slowly under the waters surface. http://imgcash3.imageshack.us/img412/4774/thumbsuplargeon1.gif

http://imgcash3.imageshack.us/img524/1262/pinocchioij9.gif

[Weiss Pinguin]

:rotfl:

[TarJak]

Today I encountered a Large Tanker just east of Scapa Flow, july 1940! Beat that!:smug:Easy Peasy! Sank an Invincible class aircraft carrier off Norway in 1940.:lol:

Cames across the Warspite entering Narvik.....was clean out of eels so surfaced in front of her, forcing her to stop, jumped aboard and knocked seven bells out of all the crew then kicked a hole in her side below the waterline with my steel capped boots.....jumped back aboard my boat and had a large glass of schnapps and a cigar as I watched her sink slowly under the waters surface. http://imgcash3.imageshack.us/img412/4774/thumbsuplargeon1.gif

http://imgcash3.imageshack.us/img524/1262/pinocchioij9.gif
I find that hard to believe...:rotfl: :rotfl:

[meduza]

Cames across the Warspite entering Narvik.....was clean out of eels so surfaced in front of her, forcing her to stop, jumped aboard and knocked seven bells out of all the crew then kicked a hole in her side below the waterline with my steel capped boots.....jumped back aboard my boat and had a large glass of schnapps and a cigar as I watched her sink slowly under the waters surface. http://imgcash3.imageshack.us/img412/4774/thumbsuplargeon1.gif

http://imgcash3.imageshack.us/img524/1262/pinocchioij9.gif
With that nose you could easily drill a hole in her hull. :lol:

[A Very Super Market]

I think Jimbuna should be used as a prototype AP torpedo! :rotfl:

[TarJak]

I doub't he'd fit in the tube without a lot of vaseline!:lol:

[Weiss Pinguin]

Might be easier getting him through the Strait of Gibraltar. :-j

[A Very Super Market]

Remember, the range of the Jimbuna torpedo is highly variable, depending on sleep level before launch, prior meals, and how cold the water is.

[TarJak]

A pint or too of the old broon dog makes all the difference! He goes much further with a few Newkies under his belt.

[Jimbuna]

A pint or too of the old broon dog makes all the difference! He goes much further with a few Newkies under his belt.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd320/pasquarade/drunkcob.gif

[B.N.R.T.]

I hardly find the GWX seas to be empty as well. Tonight I spent waaay too much time chasing contacts than is good for me. Had a blast as well. UNTIL my windows decided it was time for an update.

I had the options to 'restart now' or 'restart later', seeing as I was just about to put some eels in an Ore Carrier I wanted to restart later. This message kept propping up every five minutes though. It went well for quite some time, until I was finishing the Carrier of with my deck gun, then SH3 crashed, losing my game, which I had not saved for a while due to proximity of ships.

Does anyone know where I can turn off this automatic update thingy? I'm really quite ticked off about this.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Control Panel > Security Center > Automatic Updates. Set it to however you want.

[B.N.R.T.]

Thank you for the quick reply. I think I've nailed it now, if I had only known before sailing out...:ping: