Hi & what did I do wrong??

[CharlieReddog]

Hi all,

I've just bowed to temptation and bought SHIV on steam. I used to play Silent Service II on the Amiga, but since then I've not been on a sub!

I just jumped straight into a career, with most of the difficulty options left as they were so I think I'm only about 40% realism at the moment.

On the first cruise, I managed to intercept and sink a couple of lone merchantmen, but then I stumbled onto a big contact. I figure they were assembling a convoy, or a taskforce in a big bay. I saw about 8 DD's, 2 Light cruisers and several big merchantmen. Most were stationary, although a couple were creeping around at 1kt.

I crept up to about 6,000 yrds, at pretty much 90Deg to one of the stationary light cruisers. Came to a halt, and rose to PD. Locked on, and fired 4 torps. (Figured I'd like to make sure of this one, and get the hell out of dodge since I'm new to it.)

After a long wait, all 4 missed>?? What did I do wrong? Seems that every time I lock on to a target, the torps miss, but when I just have the periscope over the target and launch, they'll hit? (Provided of course the ship doesn't evade).

I had to spin round, fire my 2 stern tubes (not locked as above), and they hit and she turned turtle in about 5 seconds and went down. I didn't even get pinged by sonar as I came out. Unfortunately, my mucking around earlier in the cruise meant I only had 1 stern torp left so back to base to refit and rearm.

[Armistead]

If the ship is stationary and not moving, you should lock on, take a bearing, range not all that important, but should do it, that way you can check your torp line on the attack map.When you take your bearing when it's locked, did you click it twice to send to the TDC. Set speed, which should be zero. AOB no big of deal, but you can leave it straight on or set it to what it appears to be....if torps don't fail, they should hit. Again, look at your attack map and you can see where your torp line is.

Just looking without locking on does nothing unless you set the bearing. You don't have to lock, but you can send the bearing to whatever part of the ship you want to hit.

If they're moving, obvious got to have correct range, speed, bearing and aob.

You said 6000 yards. I assume you shot M14's at slow speed...at high speed range is 4500 yards

[Ethaninja]

If the ship is stationary and not moving, you should lock on, take a bearing, range not all that important, but should do it, that way you can check your torp line on the attack map.When you take your bearing when it's locked, did you click it twice to send to the TDC. Set speed, which should be zero. AOB no big of deal, but you can leave it straight on or set it to what it appears to be....if torps don't fail, they should hit. Again, look at your attack map and you can see where your torp line is.

Just looking without locking on does nothing unless you set the bearing. You don't have to lock, but you can send the bearing to whatever part of the ship you want to hit.

If they're moving, obvious got to have correct range, speed, bearing and aob.

You said 6000 yards. I assume you shot M14's at slow speed...at high speed range is 4500 yards

What if your not manual aiming? Can you just point and click? Do you have to set speed while your going automatic?

[Diopos]

IIRC you must have the Position Keeper on when you're Auto Targeting...
and turn it off after the torps leave the tubes or your next salvo will be chasing ghosts.......

[tonyw123]

If you lock on then the run depth is set on the tdc. Early war this sets the torps to run under the target as the torps would run deeper than they were set.

[Gibus]

Bonjour,

With 40% realism, several reasons are possible :
- "Dud torpedoes" is activated or depth torpedoes is too low
- Doors tubes are not open
- You fired with fast speed

Good luck

[CharlieReddog]

Thanks for the replies. I don't think I was that clear, my torps didn't "miss", they went completely the wrong direction. I think I've sorted it out though, it looks to me like I don't have to lock on to fire torpedos if I'm auto targetting.

Cracked into an 8 merchant convoy last night which I enjoyed until the game crashed! Still, save point just after I began my attack run, so I get to do it all over again tonight!

Just out of interest, how mnay torps should it take to destroy a Large Modern Tanker? I hit one with 4 good hits, 3 on sbd side and 1 on port. It developed a list which must have been close to 45deg, but refused to go down, even when I put 30 HE rounds into it.

[Armistead]

You hit a Large Tanker with 4 torps and 30 He rounds and it didn't sink...?

Usually 3 doe's it for me, sometimes less. If it is loaded with fuel, one can blow the hell out of it. Sometimes it takes some time for ships to sink. Depending on mods or damage zones effect the way ships sink. Usually best to spread the damage. In some mods, but not sure about stock if you hit the same spot over and over, it doe's less damage. Like the first hit scores most the damage, so another hit in the same spot can do little.
Also helps to hit it in the engine area.

If you're playing stock...30 rounds of just HE would usually sink it alone. Other mods like natural sinking mechanics it can take a while, because it sinks more flooding. Hard to believe it didn't sink with 4 torps and 30 he rounds...You mentioned it crashed. It you're getting CTD's..somethings wrong, could be causing problems, but you need to get that worked out.
Maybe more info, version, drivers, specs, ect...and someone can help you with the CTD's.

Did it eventually sink? I like to save torps, so if I get one damaged and it stops, I'll wait a few hours to see if it goe's down.

You do have to lock on firing torps with auto. I don't think you can send a bearing with auto..but I may be wrong, but I think the controls are basically dead and the computer does all the figuring. Maybe you can adjust them, but I thought you couldn't use the controls in auto. You basically lock on and the arrow will light up...red is no shot, yellow is a poor chance of hit and green is a good setup.

With manual you don't have to lock if you use other shooting techniques. If you use the stad method, then you lock on to get range and send bearings, but you can unlock for finer tuned shooting.

Take time to look at all the shooting techniques in the skipper bag of tricks sticky thread at the top....it also has an auto targeting tutorial.

[Munchausen]

You do have to lock on firing torps with auto. I don't think you can send a bearing with auto..but I may be wrong, but I think the controls are basically dead and the computer does all the figuring.

:hmmm: Granted, you can't send any data to the TDC, manually, but you can still "aim" at selected parts of your target. The TDC automatically computes torpedo course relative to the position of your crosshairs. Ergo, if the bow of your target is in the crosshairs when you fire, your torpedo should impact the bow.

[CharlieReddog]

Hi Armistead,

I don't think it was going to sink. It definitely took the amount of damage I said, as I was absolutely amazed. It was only the arrival of a DD which forced me under or I'd have carried on shooting her. She was making about 8 kts with a list that put her port rail under water. By this time I'd been chasing her for about 4 hours from first impact. Pretty ridiculous to be honest.

As for the "aiming", it's exactly as Munchausen says. I'm lining up the cross hairs where I want the torp to hit, but not pressing "L". The little indicator arrow comes up, red, yellow or green as you say still, so i think I'm doing it right and it does seem, by and large, to work.

The crashing seems to occur when I try do something with TC on. It's only occurred a couple of times, once when I had TC way high, like 7k+ and hit rudder left by accident, and last nights was I think about 528TC and I hit crash dive. I didn't expect "Crash" to be taken literally! I've got a brand new Steam install, and my drivers etc should be up to date, but I will check. Don't think it is a problem, I'm ok with a game crashing so long as I know what to avoid doing to make it so!

Again, thanks for the help.

[Armistead]

HIgh TC shouldn't crash your PC. Not sure about steam, but I assume they give you a DX9 option DL, as you need DX9 to play the game, newever versions can cause problems.

How much ram do you have?

[CharlieReddog]

Vista 64bit
4Gb Ram
8800 GT w 512mb Ram
Q6600

That's my specs in total. I'll check all my drivers at the weekend to make sure they're all up to date.

[commandosolo2009]

Hi all,

I've just bowed to temptation and bought SHIV on steam. I used to play Silent Service II on the Amiga, but since then I've not been on a sub!

I just jumped straight into a career, with most of the difficulty options left as they were so I think I'm only about 40% realism at the moment.

On the first cruise, I managed to intercept and sink a couple of lone merchantmen, but then I stumbled onto a big contact. I figure they were assembling a convoy, or a taskforce in a big bay. I saw about 8 DD's, 2 Light cruisers and several big merchantmen. Most were stationary, although a couple were creeping around at 1kt.

I crept up to about 6,000 yrds, at pretty much 90Deg to one of the stationary light cruisers. Came to a halt, and rose to PD. Locked on, and fired 4 torps. (Figured I'd like to make sure of this one, and get the hell out of dodge since I'm new to it.)

After a long wait, all 4 missed>?? What did I do wrong? Seems that every time I lock on to a target, the torps miss, but when I just have the periscope over the target and launch, they'll hit? (Provided of course the ship doesn't evade).

I had to spin round, fire my 2 stern tubes (not locked as above), and they hit and she turned turtle in about 5 seconds and went down. I didn't even get pinged by sonar as I came out. Unfortunately, my mucking around earlier in the cruise meant I only had 1 stern torp left so back to base to refit and rearm.

you probably fired a salvo fanned enough that missed the ship..