Mission icons on map confusion

[Seefer]

I've just started getting into the Campaign and have a question that the utterly worthless manual is obviously unable to clarify.

I chose the accept the British Coastal Waters campaign objective. However when I click on the Maltese cross icon and click the button to accept the mission, another icon also appears near the cross icon. Clicking on this simply displays a box saying "Patrol the specified area."

Do these two icons (the Maltese cross and the Patrol area icon) indicate two different mission areas? Which one do I need to head to to progress the campaign objective? Clicking on the cross icon also shows a red line.

I've seen posts in these forums from people seemingly unable to complete a mission so do I need to sink ships in the area around the Patrol area icon, or do I need to sink ships inside the area between the british coast and the red line?

I've also heard that Patrol missions are unintuitive in that they do not require you to explore in a speficic area around the icon but rather simply sit within range of the icon marker for a period of time. Just how close do you need to be to this area marker? I don;t want to be one of the many frustrated and confused players new to this game left pulling their hair out at why things don't seem to be working due to the combination of silly flaws and **** documentation.

I've also had one of the crew mates (the Navigator I think) ask whether I want to do a search pattern. That sound reasonable but how the hell do you tell him "Yes please, do that now"?

Ubisoft really are taking the piss with the quality of documentation and lame tutorials provided with this game. It's not like it's a simplistic arcade shooter. How do they expect to grow the fanbase if newcomers are faced with spending hours trawling through forums and posting questions asking what the frack is going on? I suspect a lot of impulse buyers are instantly turned off from bothering with further expansions and versions of the game due to poor experiences like this :)

Thanks for any tips Captains.

[kylania]

The "Iron Cross" icons that you "accept" before leaving port are "missions". They are part of the campaign and can be finished over the course of many patrols, as long as they are finished before their listed date. These are more strategic goals than anything. You don't have to finish them, but doing so can help unlock things later on.

The yellow patrol objective icons are assigned during a single patrol. While they are often in the same area as the strategic missions, they aren't part of them or linked to them directly. You don't have to finish them, but doing so gets you more Renown you can spend on upgrading your u-boat. They also include some other types of things like photo recon, dropping off spies or intercepting convoys.

Search patterns are broken in Silent Hunter 5 v1.2.0. Hopefully they'll be fixed someday.

[Seefer]

The "Iron Cross" icons that you "accept" before leaving port are "missions". They are part of the campaign and can be finished over the course of many patrols, as long as they are finished before their listed date. These are more strategic goals than anything. You don't have to finish them, but doing so can help unlock things later on.

The yellow patrol objective icons are assigned during a single patrol. While they are often in the same area as the strategic missions, they aren't part of them or linked to them directly. You don't have to finish them, but doing so gets you more Renown you can spend on upgrading your u-boat. They also include some other types of things like photo recon, dropping off spies or intercepting convoys.

Search patterns are broken in Silent Hunter 5 v1.2.0. Hopefully they'll be fixed someday.

Thanks for the clarification.

Quite how newcomers are expected to figure this out from the lame documentation is beyond me. I suspect Ubisoft's DRM is not the only reason you need an Internet connection to play their damned games, you also need access to the online community of players for help that should be in the manual or in-game tutorials ;)

Or I guess you could buy one of their "Official Game Guides", also known as "The Actual Game's Manual" :down: