Some DiD questions.

[Trav_R]

You guys who play DiD, got a couple questions for you. I'm thinking about starting a DiD career myself but I have some problems with it.

Do you duke it out with airplanes? I love trying to shoot down planes, but if I was playing DiD I don't think I would risk my 20+ hour game to try to shoot down planes, but at the same time I love trying to shoot them down! It's a dilemma for me, have fun trying to shoot down planes (and other fun/risky things) or discard some of the fun by diving and saving my butt. How do you guys deal with this issue?

How do you deal with Time Compression induced deaths? (ie TC'ing to home port and slamming straight into a wall because you didn't slow TC down fast enough, TC'ing into mines, TC'ing and getting nailed by a plane because the TC caused you to lose some reaction time, etc.) I really don't want to let my career go because of some BS like this.

Do you avoid doing extra dangerous, but extra fun things like sneaking into ports and such? I'm new to the game, so I'm itching to try sneaking into ports and nailing nice targets and sneaking out, but if doing so means a 50% chance of dying, I'd rather not risk my ass doing it if I'm playing DiD.

These questions are related. I want the extra thrill of knowing that if I die, I don't play that career anymore. It would make everything count for more, keep me from trying to rush things and let me savor kills more and all that good stuff. It sounds great, but I don't want to do it if it means that I have to miss out on all the fun of doing crazy things like trying to shoot down airplanes! I know that's not realistic, u-boat captains risking their sub just so they can try to shoot down airplanes, but I'll be damned if it ain't fun, and that's why I play games to begin with.

[thasaint]

well i've played dead is dead since my first patrol, all the things you've asked about i do once in awhile, duking it out with planes almost never, unless it's a swordfish every now and then cuz seems i can get 'em b4 they drop the bombs. sneaking into ports i do rarely

as for TC stuff, i don't use very high TC while sailing on the surface in heavy fog, as it seems the DD will be on top of you blowing you out of the water (obviously later war with radar that is), try to stay submerged in bad weather, surface to recharge. i've never TCed into a mine before, planes i make no excuses for. planes kill u-boats, so i expect to die from them every now and then, and i've never loaded up a previous save because of it. planes usually do damage in the late spotting situations, but rarely fatal in my experiences, just mash that C button as soon as the plane shows up hehe, and if you do get killed, chalk it up to an experienced pilot who came out of the sun or a cloud or something :). i've never hit a wall, if you zoom in you can see the walls on the port, just plot your course around them :P

oh i do stick it out on the surface n duke it out with swordfishes, since they die quickly

just play smart and you'll be fine, play like you don't want to die hehe

[Keelbuster]

Trav,

DiD is DiD :arrgh!: !. The point is, survival matters. Now you are new to the game, so I advise you to have a campaign where you save and load at will, and get all that cowboy stuff out of the way. I did the port thing, and the airplane thing, rammed, rolled and drowned escorts, and I loaded when I got DCed or sub-netted, or bombed to hell. That was my first career. I quit that one in 1942 with an excellent crew and a souped IX because I accidentally pressed 'synchronize' in the options and the game stuttered permanently thereafter.

I play DiD now. It's a helluvalot more intense. The whole point of Uboat existence was survival. Maybe watch Das Boot again if you have to. But I think that everybody needs to get the cowboy career out of the way. Then, you start to get interested in the big question: can I make i through the whole game without ever getting killed? That's the question that pushes me. In another post someone brought up the idea (damn me for forgetting his name in like 4 hrs) that this game gives you the arena to test your own sense of risk. That's what I'm after. If I put 50 hours into a career, it becomes more and more important and the stakes in each gamble become higher and higher.

That's the rush of it, and it's what's kept me playing constantly since August. The next thing for me is to turn off my external view, but I'm too stuck on documenting my uboat career with screenshots for that. Anyway - specific concerns:

plane fighting - I got bored of it. And, their bombs can be deadly. I hate planes. I avoid them.

TCing into port - don't. I always leave port and re-enter port in 1x. Patrols are so important, long, tense, and probably few, that it's worth starting and ending at 1x. Leave concerned and return triumphant, if at all.

Mines - too bad. If you thought there were mines nearby, then you should have been no higher than 64x. You can probably recover from a mine at 64x.

Same goes for aircover. If you are in a hot zone for air patrols, keep the TC low.

Slamming straight into a wall - you did that? What, a sub-net?
In that case - know that I _never_ go into ports. Mines and subnets and shallows and pantloads of patrolling DDs means that I go nowhere near them. I've met plenty of battleships, tankers, and other big fish out in the open sea.

So, that's a long answer. But play a cowboy career and if you don't get tired of the game once and for all, you'll probably get DiD.

KB

[thasaint]

hehe keelbuster, nothing like a dead is dead career with no external camera to spruce up life, sitting there biting your nails with the rest of your crew in the control room with the pounding swoosh of the escorts overhead

this game has a very high replay value for me cuz a situation like that never gets old IMO

[Marhkimov]

Slamming straight into a wall - you did that? What, a sub-net?
In that case - know that I _never_ go into ports. Mines and subnets and shallows and pantloads of patrolling DDs means that I go nowhere near them.
I posted something like this in another thread.

It was late at night and I dozed off at the helm, while at 1024TC and returning to port at flank speed. I was over a thousand kilometers away from home when I fell asleep, but when I woke up...... eh, yeah...... Needless to say, I became one with the docks. :rotfl: Even though I died due to my own total incompetence and stupidity, I followed DiD proceedures...


R.I.P. Moses Teichmann, U-567, 4th patrol, January 6th 1942
U-boat and all hands lost to "docking accident"

[Skubber]

Generally I don't fight airplanes either. Sometimes I am a little stunned by a plane showing up – like I'm playing WAY late at night, or I've had one beer too many – and in that case I let my flak gunner fight off the first bombing run. But as soon as I see the tail of that aircraft I go into a crash dive!

I do have the flak gun manned in the early evening and in the morning as a precaution. One time I ordered a crash dive, but my gunner was so quick off the draw, he shot the lead plane before popping down the hatch! (Gave him a medal for that one!)

I won't say I never go into a port. Sometimes the lure is too great. I don't know why. I've never seen anything better than a T2 in Gibralter that I failed to sink. (Failed becuase I was being cautious -- hightailed it outta there when a DD started nosing into the harbour.)

I guess that's the main thing. If your goal is first, to survive, and second, to sink enemy ships, then you really want to pursue your objectives carefully.

For example, I know I have a decent chance to win if I stay on the surface and duke it out with that armed trawler. Load up the armour piercing rounds and have at it. But this is how I behaved in that career where I died.

Surviving requires a different mindset. Don't go into a port if you aren't prepared to chicken out when things look too dicey. Don't go into a port and shoot torpedoes in broad daylight & without an exit strategy. And if you don't think you can go into a port and still be satisfied if you come out of it alive but empty-handed, you probably shouldn't be going in at all.

At least this is what I try to tell myself! :up:

Current patrol:
Spring of 1939 - April 1942, and still going!
Type II to Type VIIC
Two flak guns, anti-sonar coating,
engine & battery upgrades,
but NO radar.
I am waiting for that schnorkel!

[Keelbuster]

nice skubber - good policy. What patrol u on? What's yer Uboat number? What's the biggest thing you've seen/sunk?

KB

[Keelbuster]

sorry - also - what mods do you use?

[Trav_R]

Getting the cowboy career out of the way sounds like the best advice. That way I can get rid of some of the wild hairs I have and know what it's all about. Then I won't feel like I'm missing anything in my DiD career. Also, I'll gain experience in doing the more dangerous things and will be able to judge the risks better, and be able to make the decision whether to do it or not. So, thanks Keelbuster for the advice.

This raises one more question about DiD. I plan on "caring" about my crew to some extent. When I played B-17 Flying Fortress, I renamed all my crewmembers after people I knew. Then I played in a DiD fashion. If my best friend got nailed by flak and bled to death, he was gone. If my nephew was wounded so badly that I couldn't give him proper care while in the air and I knew he would die before we got back to base, I would strap a parachute on and parachute him down to Germany, then at least he would have a chance to survive and I may just see him again after the war.

If a plane full of my friends and family happened to lose 3 engines over the target and went down in a ball of flames before any of them could bail out, well that sure sucks and I'll miss them. It always hurt to see that plane full of people I am close to go down like that, but that's what made the game so great. I enjoyed having a mission go smoothly with no surprises, no fighter intercepts, light flak over the target, and a smooth trip home, because all my people survived, or at least weren't seriously wounded. (Since I mentioned B-17, I'll also mention that it has a nearly 100% historically accurate Norden bombsight that you get to use to bomb your targets, which ain't exactly easy, but it damn sure is FUN)

I would like to have something like this closeness to my u-boat crew. I'm not going to rename any of them, they need to have German names. However, I would at least like to be able to tell them apart. It would be easy enough with the officers, since there are only a couple and they are easy to spot on the management screen. The petty officers wouldn't be too hard, since they have qualifications and can make a pretty big difference when they are working in their specific compartment. I just think it would be tough for seamen, there's just not much of a way to distinguish them. A lot of them have the same character model, so they look the same. They have no qualifications to distinguish them. While switching crew around, pretty much any seaman will do as even the chief seamen aren't that much better than regular seamen. It makes me wonder if I even need to bother trying to keep track of them or if I should just worry about officers and petty officers.

Also, what about the guys in the engine room? I never even see them in the game unless I sometimes put them to work on the bridge or command room, which wouldn't make much sense for specialists, as they are better off in the engine room. If I can't see them, how can I give a crap about them?

So, to sum up, do you DiD guys pay much attention to your crew, and if you do, how do you keep track of the all-too similar seamen, and the never ever seen Engine room crew?

P.S. to Skubber - How did you know which gunner shot the plane down so you could give him a medal? If he was a P.O., I can see, as they are easier to keep track of. If it was a seaman, however, I'd like to know how you found out which one he was. I'm asking because I'm thinking since you ordered the crash dive, you might have already started submerging and he might have already went inside by the time you got around to checking on him.

[thasaint]

i keep a professional distance from my crew i guess you could say lol
they call me the grumpy old man

seriously though, i pay no attention to my crew besides the officers and petty officers, and only then with my sonarman (a really important part of the game in dead is dead with no external cam, he's your only connection to outside when under attack) and gunners...

[Trav_R]

Okay, there's one reasonable point of view that I may decide to use myself, I'd like to hear some more so I can decide whether it is worth it or not though!

[wetwarev7]

yed B-17 Flying Fortress, I renamed all my crewmembers after people I knew. Then I played in a DiD fashion. If my best friend got nailed by flak and bled to death, he was gone. If my nephew was wounded so badly that I couldn't give him proper care while in the air and I knew he would die before we got back to base, I would strap a parachute on and parachute him down to Germany, then at least he would have a chance to survive \


I tried this with BattleCruiser 3000, but my friends got mad at me for leaving them on inhospitable planets when they p*ed me off....


I play DiD, and it adds a LOT to the game. It makes your decisions much mmore difficult. I'm currently trying to decide whether to sneak into Gibraltor or not(see my other thread). If I go in, I stand a good chance of dying, but the rewards for success would be awesome....what to do...what to do.....

[Skubber]

Hey, Keelbuster, Trav_R

I am on patrol 24. My boat is the U-2. (Yes, a few of my crewmembers brought musical instruments, and one of them - I think he's called Benny, or Bonehead, or something - always seems to be wearing sunglasses...)

(Oh, and why does my boat carry it's number over from back when I skppered a type II? Does everyone's game do this?)

Um, the biggest thing I have sunk is a passenger liner - and I have pictures! Look about 2/3 the way down this thread: http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=44578

Trav_R - I knew which crewmember shot down the plane because I only had one flak gun at that point. And I was always manning it with the flak-rated P.O. (I don't keep track of most of the regular seamen - if it had been one of them, I wouldn't have known which one.)

But he's dead! Harald Fischer, killed in the line of duty May 1, 1942.
I lost four crewmembers on deck that day - the first and only casualties of my campaign.

It happened when I surfaced the boat to deliver the coup de grace to a crippled C-3 with the deck gun. All of a sudden the flak gunners started opening up. I admit, i was confused at first ... I thought they were firing upon the C3 for some strange reason. My brain seemed to be working in reverse, and with agonizing slowness I turned in the dawning realization that it was an air attack.

As we were close to England, I suppose should have known - but anyway, there were two Hurricane MkII's, and a whole string of flying boats that were just waiting to pounce on us. I guess the C3 must have given a distress call with a warning of a U-boat in the area.

"Alaaaarm!" I ordered flank speed and rudder hard to port, but just then a line of bombs rocked the boat. A huge wall of spray erupted, and at this point both flak gunners and two men on the deck gun were killed instantly.

Somehow the lone surviving deck gunner, my watch officer and I got the dying/bleeding men into the boat. Another huge wall of spray ... I couldn't see a thing and everything seemed to be happening with agonizing slowness. A red film covered my eyes as I readied to drop down the hatch after my men.

Finally the haze cleared just in time for me to see a Hurricane fighter-bomber go screaming past the conning tower trailing a long stream of black smoke. It exploded into the water in a huge fireball just meters away from us. A downed airplane ... the last gift from these brave fighting men who had died in an attempt to save us.

[U-104]

yed B-17 Flying Fortress, I renamed all my crewmembers after people I knew. Then I played in a DiD fashion. If my best friend got nailed by flak and bled to death, he was gone. If my nephew was wounded so badly that I couldn't give him proper care while in the air and I knew he would die before we got back to base, I would strap a parachute on and parachute him down to Germany, then at least he would have a chance to survive \


I tried this with BattleCruiser 3000, but my friends got mad at me for leaving them on inhospitable planets when they p*ed me off....
i have that game too. :rock:

[SteamWake]

I wonder about DiD and time compression.

I dont think in real life that any Subs or Crews were destroyed by time warping into a port wall. Please correct me if Im wrong :-j

On the other hand DiD should make one much more hesitant to jack the time compression up to high values.

[wetwarev7]

I wonder about DiD and time compression.

I dont think in real life that any Subs or Crews were destroyed by time warping into a port wall. Please correct me if Im wrong :-j

On the other hand DiD should make one much more hesitant to jack the time compression up to high values.

Well, I hear some weird things happened in the Bermuda triangle......

(OT: What is the deal with my avatar?!? How many post do I have to make to get rid of the hideous thing?!?)

[SteamWake]

The avatar answer requires the use of an explicitive which while is actually an acronym I hesitate to post for fear of being banned :cool:

But it has something to to with S.H.*.T. :know:

[wetwarev7]

The avatar answer requires the use of an explicitive which while is actually an acronym I hesitate to post for fear of being banned :cool:

But it has something to to with S.H.*.T. :know:

Ah.....won't make that mistake again..... :lol:

[Nedlam]

I'm fairly new at this sim so take this for what it's worth. :)

I have five DiD principles that I, ummmmm, live by...

1) When my WO spots any aircraft: I dive. I don't wait to see whose side they are on or what they are. Flank speed, periscope depth and then I adjust my depth after that.

2) I never go looking for a fair fight. My job is to sink merchant vessels. Good, ol defensless merchant vessels. That being said if a warship falls into my lap (it's happened twice) where I have to do little or no maneuvering to set up my shot and the chance of me being detected is low I take the shot. So far: U-Boat: 2 Destroyer: 0. Also I only chase warships if I think they might be part if a convoy and that's the only clue I have (along with a radio report I hope) to find the convoy.

3) When approaching enemy ports enter it like you would your own port (only submerged!). Don't try to sneak in using some weird approach. If you thought of it assume the enemy has too and it's probably mined or has a sub net. I also avoid ports with a narrow entrance (Portsmith I think is a good example). In my business an area that narrow and confining is called a "kill zone." They are called that for a reason. :)

4) I run submerged during the day at 20 - 25 meters in "dangerous waters" (Not the other sim :D ) by dangerous waters I mean the area in range of enemy aircraft. Once every six hours while on patrol I come up to periscope depth and take a look around turning off my engines to help my SO listen to our surroundings. I never surface until I check what's above me especially behind me. I run on the surface at night to recharge my batteries and sometimes when the weather is overcast (light fog is always good to) I surface during the day.

5) As far as Time Compression goes: 1024x surfaced/submerged from my port to "dangerous waters" then it's 512x surfaced/submerged in perfect weather and 256x surfaced/submerged in poor weather. While on patrol or in enemy controlled waters, 256x surfaced in perfect weather and 128x surfaced in poor weather (256x or 512x submerged). Near enemy ports 64x surfaced/submerged.

Take'em for what they are worth. I've lived through 15 patrols (combined two captains, same U-Boat and crew - sorta) with minimum damage and 80,000+ tons of shipping sunk.

I run RuB 1.44 with the lastest Harbor Traffic (for RuB) mods on 85% realism (WO and outside camera not disabled: I like taking screen shots :) )

[Keelbuster]

good policy. But, I find 512 is a bit dicey when surface in enemy air zones. I somehow feel like the sim advances maybe 1 step after an air threat is detected, and that step can be 256 time points or 512, and the former is slightly more survivable. I guess I'm still bitter at the loss of U-47, on patrol 21, to a Catalina that I encountered at 512 and didn't have time to deek.

Oh yea - and I still don't do enemy ports - I don't wanna mess with minefields.

kb

[thasaint]

and subnets, i've wasted many a torpedo in the few occassions i went into scapa on that illustrious...

[Trav_R]

Hmm, sounds better and better the more you guys talk about it. I'm about to have a dozen or so hours to throw at it this weekend, I might have to start playing DiD then. Oh hey, another question: How many of you DiD guys use F12 to check a ship's flag before committing to an attack? I've spend a lot of time overtaking and intercepting targets by hydrophone only to find they're neutral with F12, I can't imagine doing all that and THEN committing more time to getting in perfect position and setting TDC for the shot, only to find out as the shi is 1000 m away that it is neutral. So, how many of you guys use F12 for this purpose and how many don't?

[gordonmull]

I'd say biting your nails as you will the sub below the waves as fast as the old tin can can go is every bit as exciting as slogging it out with them on the surface. Sure you're able to take a more proactive approach up top but the agony of that dive time....waiting for the bombs to rip you to shreds. *shudders*

DiD is the only way I've ever played the game, I made that resolution after the naval acadamy and it adds so much tension, which is what a good proportion of this game is about to me. The slow, creeping death from above that you slooooowly have to avoid. Knowing I was just able to load it back in would take that all away.

As for the TC....weeell...I've had a good few near misses with the old incompetant watch crew on the bridge in bad weather but nothing fatal. If it was the fault of game mechanics...I'd probably reload on that. Like SteamWake points out commanders didn't really have to worry themselves about speeding up time and losing/damaging their boat because of it. I'd say in game terms that it's pretty unfair to expect a player to take a knock just because the system is less than perfect. Still, you have to think about player/character knowledge in this circumstance. If you're last save was 10 days ago game time and you've negotiated the English channel between times you'll know the patrol routes of the DDs so it could hard to ignore that knowledge and let yourself blunder into an incident on the surface. OK not likely but I'm just trying to make an example :yep:

Think all in all if I got killed from TC problems I'd reload and stay well away from the areas that I'd been previously to avoid having advance knowledge from the ghost commander that went down the other trouser leg of time (Pratchett readers will know what I'm on about).

[wetwarev7]

Hmm, sounds better and better the more you guys talk about it. I'm about to have a dozen or so hours to throw at it this weekend, I might have to start playing DiD then. Oh hey, another question: How many of you DiD guys use F12 to check a ship's flag before committing to an attack? I've spend a lot of time overtaking and intercepting targets by hydrophone only to find they're neutral with F12, I can't imagine doing all that and THEN committing more time to getting in perfect position and setting TDC for the shot, only to find out as the shi is 1000 m away that it is neutral. So, how many of you guys use F12 for this purpose and how many don't?

Alot of people don't use the external camera at all. I've settled on disableing F12, but using < and > to check the targets' flags without giving me any positional information.

[Marhkimov]

I use freecam for dramatic effect and screenshot purposes, and I try to restrict it to only that. If you want to be realistic with it, just refrain from hitting the F12 button when you are in dire need of info. It's hard, I know, but you should set those limitations for yourself; that way, you can still enjoy the 'eye candy' uses of the freecam.

[Von Scheerbach]

I've been playing DiD with no external cam since campaign #1, but I don't do the manual targeting stuff. I just don't have the patience to dig for the old high school geometry book. 84% realism is enough for me.

But the later it gets, the less I use 1024 TC, especially in air cover areas. Campaign #2 ended badly for U-65 on patrol 16 after a flight of Catalinas jumped me off of New York at night at 512 TC. Since then, nothing over 256 after Jan 1, 1942 when I'm on the surface, and I always keep the flak guns manned with "Fire at Will" selected, weather permitting.

I don't go skulking into enemy ports, so sub nets & mines don't pose a problem. I prefer my hunting on the open seas (cuts down in the battleship & carrier sinkings though....exactly ZERO in 2+ careers!).

I also usually warp into port after I get close enough to get the "dock at <wherever>" link on the Exit Patrol screen, so I don't have to worry about crashing into walls. I did all the way in one time, but it was too tedious to do it patrol after patrol (I think, anyway).

Just my two cents!

[Trav_R]

Alot of people don't use the external camera at all. I've settled on disableing F12, but using < and > to check the targets' flags without giving me any positional information.

What do < and > do?

P.S. How do you quote someone where it will say "So and So said:" Instead of just "Quote:"?

[Valtonen]

Hmm... I´have never thought of saving and starting again if I die. Im on my second campaign at the end of 42. I just want to survive. I havent done any raids to enemy ports and Ill try to avoid shallow waters if possible. Ill just go to my patrol area do my search there go to some good hunting grounds with deep waters.

[snowsub]

Hmm, sounds better and better the more you guys talk about it. I'm about to have a dozen or so hours to throw at it this weekend, I might have to start playing DiD then. Oh hey, another question: How many of you DiD guys use F12 to check a ship's flag before committing to an attack? I've spend a lot of time overtaking and intercepting targets by hydrophone only to find they're neutral with F12, I can't imagine doing all that and THEN committing more time to getting in perfect position and setting TDC for the shot, only to find out as the shi is 1000 m away that it is neutral. So, how many of you guys use F12 for this purpose and how many don't?

I do, but I still get closer to check with periscope, just cause I used F12 doesn't mean the captain did :know:
Just think of it as practice for the crew :cool:

[Trav_R]

I finally decided to just use F12 for screenshots and checking out the nice graphics. My main beef was spending a lot of time intercepting a hydrophone contact and setting up for it only to find out about 2 minutes before torpedo launch that it was a neutral, but I can live with that.

[wetwarev7]

Alot of people don't use the external camera at all. I've settled on disableing F12, but using < and > to check the targets' flags without giving me any positional information.

What do < and > do?

P.S. How do you quote someone where it will say "So and So said:" Instead of just "Quote:"?

They give an external view that is attached(locked) to each ship, letting you cycle thru each ship in the immediate vicinity. If you are under 40m of water or so, it you can't look out over the water to get a tactical advantage(like when you are being hunted by destroyers), and it won't show you where you are relative to each ship either. Great for checking flags! :up:

[SteamWake]

Alot of people don't use the external camera at all. I've settled on disableing F12, but using < and > to check the targets' flags without giving me any positional information.

What do < and > do?

P.S. How do you quote someone where it will say "So and So said:" Instead of just "Quote:"?


Either use the quote button or edit in [quote="name" (close bracket)

[Nedlam]

I finally decided to just use F12 for screenshots and checking out the nice graphics. My main beef was spending a lot of time intercepting a hydrophone contact and setting up for it only to find out about 2 minutes before torpedo launch that it was a neutral, but I can live with that.

Or chasing a contact for several hours only to find out when you spot it finally you've been chasing a tug boat or trawler or some other ship that's not worth the time or torpedo to sink.

I chaulk it up to experience for my crew and sail away. Screenies are the only reason I use the external cam too. I'll admit I use the < > for awhile to watch the airplanes attack my sub as it submerged. But I grew out it.

[Trav_R]

Yeah it's a great camera, would be a shame to waste it. My rule will be if it helps me, I won't use it.

Wetware: Okay yeah I checked out those controls to see what you were talking about. That's a nice compromise for checking flags, so it's good to know. Of course, I could have just looked at my reference card eh?

Either use the quote button or edit in [quote="name" (close bracket)

Thanks! :up: