Search Pattern Help

[depthtok33l]

Early in the war, got no long range radar on my boat, fuel down to 75, third week on patrol, still no contact.

I am still fairly new to this game (just over 100 hours of gameplay) and I'm going to need all the help I can get from the vets.

So anyways, without radar its almost impossible for me to find contacts, maybe its because of my tactics and all. What I usually do is making a radius of 100 miles from the centre of the objective and plot my points in a "zigzag shoe lace" pattern.

Any tips for searching would be greatly appreciated.

:Kaleun_Salute:

[Warren Peace]

Nothing wrong with the shoe-lace patrol pattern, it is extremely efficient as it gives very good, all-round hydrophone coverage during the run.

What I have found most successful is to concentrate on areas that should be guaranteed to have a high-amount of traffic; namely natural choke-points and harbors.

Natural choke-points are the easiest, as you just look for an area where landmasses, such as islands, that would force surface traffic into passing through that area (think of the Luzon Straight). If I don't have that option, such as being stuck in part of the China Sea, I'll pick 1 or 2 ports in the area and work up two or 3 rough courses from each that lead back toward Japanese home waters, then patrol along those routes as there tends to be quite a bit of traffic heading home (Japan is taking over all of that area to get at the natural resources, so it's gotta be shipped back at some point).

[THEBERBSTER]

I either use the 3 sides of a triangle or a rectangle box.

2 hours at 'Ahead Standard'. 'All Stop' 'Dive' 100 feet 1 hour on the 'Hydrophone and repeat.

On the triangle I 'hydrophone at the 3 points of each corner.

[Admiral8Q]

Stay surfaced early in the war. :Kaleun_Sleep:

[Akotalaya]

find the convoy routs during that time frame...a great place to hit them though is the Luzon straight, you will almost always get atleast one ship there, happy hunting!

[Armistead]

Much depends mods or not, with stock traffic anything can happen about anywhere, with TMO or RSRD you get more historical traffic.

I don't do search patterns in a patrol zone, have as much luck just sitting still on the surface. Use the lag cheat of sorts, if you see your PC or your clock lagging something entered your contact zone. Your crew won't call it out due to poor sonar, but the game allows you to hear anything in your contact zone all war long..

[A Hidden Soul]

Once I get to my patrol point I set speed to ahead slow and almost always I will find someone or I won't.

Also, what Armistead said is 100% accurate. I always use that lag cheat.

[depthtok33l]

Thanks guys, finally made contact. :D

[Snarf]

I like to think of the lag cheat as 'smoke on the horizon' If you don't have hours to spend looking and you want quicker action, it really helps having that indicator while using high TC. I always use 1/3 or 2/3 bells while searching, always go to choke points or known shipping routes, even sit all stop at a choke point and wait with high TC, this ensures plenty of fuel economy.

[Warren Peace]

I like to think of the lag cheat as 'smoke on the horizon' If you don't have hours to spend looking and you want quicker action, it really helps having that indicator while using high TC. I always use 1/3 or 2/3 bells while searching, always go to choke points or known shipping routes, even sit all stop at a choke point and wait with high TC, this ensures plenty of fuel economy.

Speaking of the lag cheat, and smoke on the horizon (specifically my hatred of those things), I should mention I modded my sensor files so that if I can see it, so can my watch crew (not constantly mind you, due to weather and stats, but they are so much more useful). I also cranked up the hydrophone range to something more useful than 3.5nm, so my sonar guy actually uses his ears instead of just taking up space on my boat. It's so nice to have a competent crew that supports the Captain instead of a bunch of useless lumps out for a pleasure cruise.