Active again

[Claves_Mortis]

Hi, I am a member of this forum for a long time, have never been active though. Because I want to download Trigger Maru for SH
Best,
CM

[TorpX]

Welcome aboard! :salute:

Come back and tell us how your first patrol went.

[fireftr18]

Welcome aboard. Since you've been here a while, I have a special duty for you. We need someone to see if the outside torpedo doors open while submerged. Can you check on that for us?

:lurk:

[Claves_Mortis]

Torpedo tubes do all open as intended! :salute:

After practicing navigation and calculating things for more than one week, my first patrol (actually my third, had to restart career after second patrol because I installed Trigger Maru subsequently, raping my savegame) is going well so far, one torpedo fired, one British freighter sunk.


I had quite some trouble getting my navigating and shooting on track. I am playing at 100% because I felt the auto-aim and all-shown-on-map did take a lot of the challenge (and for me a lot of the fun) from the game.

After reading different stuff, partly tutorials for Silent Hunter, party old material from making the sailors license from my dad (whatever that license is called in English...) I at least am able to get reliable positions, speeds and course for enemy ships by manually painting everything on the navigation map.
I am terrible at guessing the arc of bow and using the implemented speed-calculation-tool which always give me strange values. Besides of that, it feels way better to get hits by solutions calculated and entered in the tools on the attack map "by hand" :-)

Only thing which is really difficult is to find enemies and get into position only by sonar- and radar-contacts. Definately needs some practise, especially after Trigger Maru removing the information if ships spottet by the scout plane are friends or enemies. :Kaleun_Periskop:


Regards,
CM

[Tibe Wolverine]

Same here ;) Try to rejoin after six years or moaar... Let see the crew decide to throw me in the water or follow orders..... :D

[Cybermat47]

Welcome
To
Subsim!

[MinskMariner]

While we're all crawling out of the woodwork, I may as well chime in and say that I too am getting back into subsims after a long hiatus. I'm playing SHCE right now because my laptop is as old as an S-boat and it can barely run SH4. I've actually following subsim since before 2004 although I forgot what my username was back then. To make a long story short, glad to be back! :up:

[magic452]

Welcome to the boat mates. :salute: :salute: :salute:

Claves I sure hope you're playing U Boats. :D
TMO does nothing for U Boats, its really for Fleetboats, except for the
environmental graphs. Try Operation Monsun for U Boat gaming.

Magic

[Claves_Mortis]

So all the gameplay changes which come with TMO (except for the graphics) do only take effect in American career? :O

I am currentlty playing Uboot Missions because I do highly prefer the manual torperdo shooting with the German Uboote (or let's rather say: the tool-interface on the attack map of the German Uboote). I can't handle the US tools very well, especially the "when-do-I-activate-the-position-keeper-or-do-I-activate-it-at-all-part".

TMO-things which definately are active in Uboot Missions are:
* new grammophone songs
* the new navigation map
* no identification (friend / enemy) on nav map for ships spottet by scout planes / reported by radio message
* the changes in a lot of buttons in command bar (most without picture though which is fine for me), exempli gratia: weather report, normal-sweep mode for sonar-guy, follow warship for sonar-guy, ...

I feel like the "less ships and no single ships on the open sea"-thing is active too, but that is a feeling.

Changes which, besides of that, would be important for me are
* better / more penetrant AI (can't judge about that, did not play against a lot of warships, neither before nore after TMO yet)
* less but stronger planes (which might be active, I only encountered a single 2-planes scout unit during the first patrol which did take several weeks, but did travel long distances surfaced. Before using TMO I had up to 5 or more planes per day in some areas if I do not mix that up with US career)


I'm gonna try some US careers anyway at some point because I am a big fan of the crappy S-18 :-)

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD! :sunny:

So all the gameplay changes which come with TMO (except for the graphics) do only take effect in American career? :O
Technically yes. Operation Monsun is the only supermod designed to work with u-boats, and it gives a complete Atlantic u-boat campaign as well as various boat types.

TMO-things which definately are active in Uboot Missions are:
* new grammophone songs
Sound files work with all variations of the game.

* the new navigation map
OM will give a German map with both latitude and longitude coordinates and the Kriegsmarine grid.

* no identification (friend / enemy) on nav map for ships spottet by scout planes / reported by radio message
Again that's a file type that is universal. If OM doesn't do that for u-boats it's possible to isolate those files and install them with OM.

* the changes in a lot of buttons in command bar (most without picture though which is fine for me), exempli gratia: weather report, normal-sweep mode for sonar-guy, follow warship for sonar-guy, ...
I believe OM does those as well.

I feel like the "less ships and no single ships on the open sea"-thing is active too, but that is a feeling.
I'm not sure how OM handles those, but in an Atlantic u-boat campaign single ships were common, especially early in the war.

[/quote]* better / more penetrant AI (can't judge about that, did not play against a lot of warships, neither before nore after TMO yet)[/quote]
That's something I can't address one way or the other. Sorry.

* less but stronger planes (which might be active, I only encountered a single 2-planes scout unit during the first patrol which did take several weeks, but did travel long distances surfaced. Before using TMO I had up to 5 or more planes per day in some areas if I do not mix that up with US career)
I can't play anything right now, so I can't double check, but I think OM does that for u-boats as well.

I'm gonna try some US careers anyway at some point because I am a big fan of the crappy S-18 :-)
HEY! The S-Boats were great boats...in 1920.

One of the best tools you can use is MultiSH4 http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=433. It will let you have and manage several versions of the game at the same time. You can have TMO, RFB, GFO, FOTRS and OM, all in separate games.

[Claves_Mortis]

Oh... OK, thank you Sailor Steve.
I am downloading OperationMonsun presently, guess I am giving it a try. Adjusting / modding SH IV seems to be much more versatile and complex than I thought it would be going to be, I was hoping to just "put the great uber-mod for anything and everything" somewhere and have everything capped at "perfect" :D
Let's see if I can get that stuff running :-)

[TorpX]

I am terrible at guessing the arc of bow and using the implemented speed-calculation-tool which always give me strange values.
Many have trouble with the Angle off the Bow estimation thing. You will get better with practice.

The poor accuracy of the speed calc. button is a known weakness of the game. I would recommend just calculating the speed yourself; you will have better results this way.



... I may as well chime in and say that I too am getting back into subsims after a long hiatus. I'm playing SHCE right now because my laptop is as old as an S-boat and it can barely run SH4. I've actually following subsim since before 2004 although I forgot what my username was back then. To make a long story short, glad to be back! :up:

I have very fond memories of SHCE. It is an excellent game, IMO. I don't play anymore, as I could never get it to work on my new machine.


Same here ;) Try to rejoin after six years or moaar...

Wow, with all the new recruits coming in now, my boat will be fully manned in no time. You all can swim, right? :lost:

[Claves_Mortis]

Wow, with all the new recruits coming in now, my boat will be fully manned in no time. You all can swim, right?



I would rather go with a crew which is unable to swim. Just imagine worst case, the crew has the option:
1. Crew can swim: swim or die fighting for your submarine
2. Crew can't swim: drown or fight for your submarine
:P

Many have trouble with the Angle off the Bow estimation thing. You will get better with practice.

The poor accuracy of the speed calc. button is a known weakness of the game. I would recommend just calculating the speed yourself; you will have better results this way.My English is not sufficient to express what I try to say :(

I'll address that problem in more detail (if any1 does want that explained with pictures as a "how to" I will be glad to provide it in an extra-thread, if not asked for I won't because there are plenty of how-tos for Silent Hunter).

Here is what I am doing
on my German Uboot

1.a identify target ship and get the range via stadimeter in periscope / UZO or
1.b get the range via the radar at the bearing at which I see the target ship

2. remeber the bearing and distance of the target ship and as fast as possible start the chronometer

3. waste 2-3 minutes by drawing the position of the target to my navigation map (using the circle-thingy-tool for distance and the ruler with three edges for the bearing, no idea how these tools are called in English)

4. take another range and bearing after as exactly as possible 3 (or 2, just stick to the same number) minutes with the same method used in step 1.a / 1.b

5. draw the position of the ship on the map again in the same way as step 3.

6. listen to Spike Jones to spend 3 (or 2) minutes for the second time

7. (if there is enough time left until target ship gets to approximate "shoot-me-position") take distance and bearing a third time and draw it on navigation map

8. measure the distance
* between position1 and position2 of target
* between position2 and (if I had time to make) position3 of the target
* between position1 and position3 of the target
-> use the distances to calculate the target's speed:
. in metric: [distance]meters times 20 (if measured for 3 mins, to get the three minutes on a 60 minutes value) divided by 1854 meters (to get the meters per hour into nautic miles per hour which is knots)
. in imperial: [distance]yards times 20 divided by 2025 (so, in easy words, just divide the distance in yards by 100 to get knots IF TIME MEASURED HAS BEEN 3 MINUTES: 800 yards IN THREE MINUTES (!) are about 8 knots)

9. enter target speed in knots into the tool for enemy speed on the attack map

10. draw a line which is in about the middle of all the positions you did calculate and stretch it until it is in front of your sub (on the nav map)

11. draw a line at your subs 0 degree which does "meet" the line (enemy course) from step 10. (will take AoB at my 0 degree at this point)

12. measure the AoB using the ruler with three edges on the two lines from step 10. and 11.

13. obviously enter the AoB in the tool on attack map

14. measure the distance from your submarines bow tubes (or aft tubes if firing those) to the point where the torpedoes are going to hit (some meters difference do not matter that much)

15. enter the distance to enemy in the tool on attack map

16. look through periscope / UZO and search for the bearing where the impact angle of torp into enemy (it's the gyro angle in English I think) is at your desired value, I usually take 90 degree plus / minus up to 25 degree

17. wait until the ship (or the part of the ship, e.g. the midship) is at that bearing and fire your torpedo

18.a enjoy several minutes of watching a slowly sinking ship
18.b get your sub away from enemy warships if there are any

I do have good rates of hitting / sinking ships using this method on German Uboote. Now my problem is, the main thing of this technique (at least as far as I understand the American subs) does not work for them: I can't do all the calculations for "when enemy is at my 0 degree", enter them and then have the torpedo-course-calculating-thing calculate it to the position where I am aming at. Instead I have to make measurements of where the target is RIGHT NOW, enter them and then activate the position keeper on that ship to have them calculated at the actual positon of the target. I can not just turn around my periscope and have the computer calculated the torpedo solution, firing when the target get's into my "crosshair"; it is not a static solution which I enter at any point and which is just calculated for where I aim. The worst thing for me is to know when to switch on / off the position keeper as I do not need that for the German Uboot. Also, I do not have to tell the computer / position keeper my values right at time or something, I can calculate them end enter them anytime (before I want to shoot), still having a correct (because static, only dependent on where I aim my periscope) solution.

So, long story short: My problem is not to get data about the enemy (calculating his speed, AoB, distance, etc. is all fine for me), but how to feed the American submarines with these information. On German Uboote it's just "calculate, enter, aim, fire" with - at long as the target does not pass the point where you can shoot it - no requirement of how / how fast / when to do these steps.

I hope the quantity / length of this post does help to clarity :O

[Gerald]

:arrgh!:

[MinskMariner]

I have very fond memories of SHCE. It is an excellent game, IMO. I don't play anymore, as I could never get it to work on my new machine.

Even using DOSBox?

[TorpX]

Now my problem is, the main thing of this technique (at least as far as I understand the American subs) does not work for them: I can't do all the calculations for "when enemy is at my 0 degree", enter them and then have the torpedo-course-calculating-thing calculate it to the position where I am aming at. Instead I have to make measurements of where the target is RIGHT NOW, enter them and then activate the position keeper on that ship to have them calculated at the actual positon of the target. I can not just turn around my periscope and have the computer calculated the torpedo solution, firing when the target get's into my "crosshair"; it is not a static solution which I enter at any point and which is just calculated for where I aim. The worst thing for me is to know when to switch on / off the position keeper as I do not need that for the German Uboot. Also, I do not have to tell the computer / position keeper my values right at time or something, I can calculate them end enter them anytime (before I want to shoot), still having a correct (because static, only dependent on where I aim my periscope) solution.

So, long story short: My problem is not to get data about the enemy (calculating his speed, AoB, distance, etc. is all fine for me), but how to feed the American submarines with these information. On German Uboote it's just "calculate, enter, aim, fire" with - at long as the target does not pass the point where you can shoot it - no requirement of how / how fast / when to do these steps.


I don't really know how the German equiptment works, but will try to help you with the USN versions.

First, understand the TDC position keeper was in reality, always on. People have come up with different styles where it is turned off for particular purposes, but it is not necessary to do this. The PK's function is to update the firing solution to account for the target's and sub's movement. Otherwise, the solution would only be good for the moment it is calculated. With the PK activated, the solution will be good until either the target changes course or speed, or the deviation between the target's true course/speed and your estimated values becomes significant.

Here I will suggest 2 different ways for you to try the TDC:


1. Turn the PK ON at the outset. Enter data into the TDC as you observe it. I would suggest speed first, AoB next, then range and bearing. It is important to enter bearing last as it will usually change more quickly. You will want to do a succession of observations to obtain good data. If you compare the TDC generated ranges/bearings to your observations you can see how good your solution tracks. You can launch torpedos at any time you are in range and you consider the set-up advantagous. Note that you can maneuver your sub for tactical advantage at any time. (The PK makes this possible.)

2. Turn OFF the PK. Observe and plot the target's course as you do with the U-boats. Enter in the data for the target's positon "when enemy is at my 0 degree", but keep the PK OFF. When the target actually is crossing your bow, turn the PK ON. Then you can launch on the target. (Really, if you launch quickly, you don't even need the PK.) In this way, you have at least broadly, your U-boat equiptment. This might seem more familier to you. Note, you must maintain course until the target crosses your bow, and cannot launch before that point.
I think you would be better off to use the method in 1., but the method in 2. should work ok.






Even using DOSBox?


I couldn't get it to work. I forget the details.

[Claves_Mortis]

I don't really know how the German equiptment works, but will try to help you with the USN versions.



Ok, thank you for the explanation on the position keeper and how to use it :-)

I guess - for attacks which can be planned well in advance so I dont have to move - I will try the second method and shoot when the target is where I want it to be to see if that works as well as planned.
Only "disadvantage" compared to the Uboot (actually it's more a "not used to thing" for me) is that I am used to the position keeper / torpedo solution thing calculating for the position where I aim at, not always on the target ship. Some practise with your guys good advice I got will propably solve that problem during my next patrols, thank you :-)

[TorpX]

I've never used the method outlined in 2., but it should replicate the U-boat technique you described.

Let me know if it works.

[Claves_Mortis]

I've never used the method outlined in 2., but it should replicate the U-boat technique you described.

Let me know if it works.


Works perfectly fine. Only difference is that you have to know where you want to shoot and enter that AoB, and then - obviously - can not change that by just turning the view of your attack scope (without adopting the AoB and maybe distance manually). So if you calculate an AoB of 93° on a bearing of 24° and enter all the data for that position you have to shoot at 24° and, because of the missing position keeper, can not shoot in advance or after that.
As long as you stick to the one point / bearing for which you did calculate the solution it works very well in the American subs, too :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

[TorpX]

Ahhh... Glad you got it all figured out.

One of the charms of this game is how you can play around with different techniques. Much better that a shoot-em-up game.