I've never seen a carrier in the ocean

[PurpleCity]

I've never seen an hostile carrier in the ocean. Do air planes actually take off and land from a carrier, or are they just for show.

[Walle]

There are airports, and depending on what aircraft type is stationed there, they have a certain action range. If you click the airport, there will be a circle that shows the action range.

Now, from what I read here on the forum, if you are outside of the action range of any airports around you, and you still see airplanes, they should indeed come from a carrier out there somewhere. I can't confirm this yet though, since I haven't been playing SH5 very much. What I have noticed on the other hand is that sometimes, the planes pass you, then in a pretty short while pass you again in the other direction. Then it takes a good while before the planes pass you again, but when they do they again pass a second time shortly thereafter. This should/could mean that you're pretty much at the end of their range from the carrier, "near the edge of the action radius". So the carrier should be somewhere along the course of the planes when they pass the second time.

[kiwi_2005]

I came across one on my first patrol playing the campaign the mission to sink 50,000 tons outside England. After sinking only one merchant and about to head back to Kiel I spotted a carrier task force, protected by 7 escorts. My Boats hull was at 37% from a previous pounding I got when I tried to take on 4 destroyers patroling near the bay of Biscay. So I could not dive deep. Okay i'm using auto targeting so nothing to brag about my attack :). I sneak in and at approx 5000yrds I fire all forward torpedoes then get the hell out of there. I hit the carrier and sink her with one torp damaging a destroyer. I'm using DarkWraiths UI where I think he has the AI a bit more elite in the early days so the escorts have no problem finding me and sending me to the grave. Of course unable to dive deep im a sitting duck anyways.

Load the save and try again, sink carrier (thanks to auto targetting :roll: you can't miss!) from a long distance, about turn and head away from the taskforce diving only to about 60m, silent running and deploy decoys. Escorts find me and its all over. Load save again this time I just reported the contact & headed for Kiel. :damn:

Also is this a bug or correct? When I load the save game each time the weather is different which I think is pretty cool the second load I got rough seas and heavy fog compare to the last load was calm seas and zero wind.
http://i56.tinypic.com/rmi3x5.jpg

[jwilliams]

The weather is bugged. It's not saved with you savegame. So it changes when you reload. Can be very annoying if you save when its foggy and when you reload this save its suddenly clear and about half the english navy start shelling you :o.

[PurpleCity]

The weather is bugged. It's not saved with you savegame. So it changes when you reload. Can be very annoying if you save when its foggy and when you reload this save its suddenly clear and about half the english navy start shelling you :o.

That's easy to fix... don't cheat ;)

[PurpleCity]

I came across one on my first patrol playing the campaign the mission to sink 50,000 tons outside England.

Did any of the planes appear active? or were they just eye candy.

[kiwi_2005]

Did any of the planes appear active? or were they just eye candy.

Eye candy. Plenty of planes in the area though this was a couple of days game time before I even found the taskforce so whether it was from the carrier or land bases don't know.

[PurpleCity]

that's interesting, maybe the game simulates the air response based on carrier / land base proximity without actually animating the take off/landing.

[homsikpanda]

plane "active range" (clicking on the airbas to get the little circle)

is just their normal pratol area, (esentually the just fly around the area for a little while till their fuel runs out and then return to base) it's not how far they can travel, you can get some planes that will fly out further (either going to another air base or to a bombing run, etc etc )
it's mostly locational, i find if a plane is flying around the OCEAN! (i.e big empty area to the east/west of england) it's probably coming from an aircraft carrier, now the land between england/france is, more supply planes/attack planes flying from england to france for a bombing run or something and then flying back ^_^ (this is why you see them fly 1 way then fly back again a short while later, they're doing an attack run )

[Itkovian]

There are carriers going around from time to time, and I think once I was having trouble due to airplanes in the middle of the atlantic, suggesting a carrier was performing flight ops.

That said, yesterday I came up on a task for with 1 battleship, 1 carrier, and 1 cruiser (not sure what kind), escorted by 8 destroyers. And there were no airplanes crowding the skies (to their detriment).

The fun part is the task force was headed right in my direction, so all I had to do is sit and wait for them to pass by. Ended with both the carrier and battleship down, along with 1 destroyer (which literally took a torpedo that would have hit the cruiser).

Itkovian

[pocatellodave]

Yes and in one of the scenarios you have to sink a carrier to complete the scenario.I have the tonnage ,but no luck finding the flat top!I'm running out of time,but I think I'm in the correct area for my search.

[Walle]

pocatellodave: If it's the carrier that is supposed to be in the area SW of GB, then you might be of better luck searching for it in the strait of dover. I've read about several others that stumbled upon it in the strait.

I'm actually about to go out looking for it in a few minutes, got the 5 AMC's.

[pocatellodave]

I got the Ark Royal west of the Straits of Dover.She had about 5 escorts,but I was in perfect firing position.I fired four eels,but I think the first 2 sank her.The escorts just went right along like nothing happened.
I then went north to the patrol area,but no targets showed up,and I was sent a message return to base.I don't think I got credit for the Blockade of Britian,because I ran out of time.I only have Weserbrung to do,I i'm finished with that scenario.

[MiniSmith]

I found one inside a port in the west side of the channel. It was before I installed the IRAI, so it wasn't much of a trick getting it downed either. That, and two troop transports went down with the surrounding destroyers just hanging around, casually looking the other way. That's when I rushed to these forums to get IRAI, ASAP:haha:

Prior to that, I sunk HMS Queen Mary in Scapa Flow. It is alot of fun sneaking into enemy ports, I must say. But I presume impossible with IRAI. I did it alot in SH3 and 4 though.