First Career. First patrol. 0 Alive, 46 dead.

[blizzard_beast]

Just completed the training missions and went out on my first patrol.

Had to get to patrol grid AK 39, and on the way encontered a couple of ships, sunk one of 'em, and managed to escape the plane shooting at me. One crew member wounded, 5 dead. I was pretty sad at this point, but still eager to sink allied shipping.

Get to grid AK 39, and instruct my radio operator to switch on the Das Boot theme tune. I'm on the bridge screaming "Not yet my friends! Not yet!" and suddenly WHAM! a plane appears.

ALARM! Just as I begin to dive, I feel the boat shaking around me. At this point it's too late. The depth charges have been dropped. Up pops the screen. "Your U-boat has been destroyed". At first I was in complete shock, but then as reality set in, and the Das Boot title track still playing, my eyes started watering. I shed a tear for my virtual crewmen.

0 Alive, 0 Wounded, 46 dead.

What a game. I must do better next time.

Noob question: What does the ! mean, when it's displayed on your crewmen in the crew view?

[Ducimus]

Noob question: What does the ! mean, when it's displayed on your crewmen in the crew view?

Probably one reason why your watch crew didn't spot that plane in time. It means their fatiuged and need rest. If they're fatigued they do not do their job with any great proficiency.


I dont have a gridmap in front of me, but AK sound like its fairly close to england. Id stay submerged by day and only run on the surface at night. Early war, you own the night. Enjoy it while it lasts ;)

[blizzard_beast]

Cool, thanks Ducimus. Is there any way I could just press a button to have my crew switch shifts, or do I have to do it manually via drag and drop?

[Heibges]

Do not use any of the "Crew" buttons, because they often cause a lockup or crash to desktop. The drag and drop is unfortunately the safest way to go.

What was the weather? What TC were you running at?

I would change in SH3/Data/Cfg/SIM the coefficient for visual sensitivity from .01 to .02.

This seems to solve that problem of aircraft attacking you in perfect visibility with no warning.

Not to worry, they are still just as deady in medium or poor visbility, escpecially if they have radar.

[Ducimus]

Personnaly id look into getting one of the fatigue mods rather then suffer the stock fatigue model. You're quickly going to find yourself playing "lemmings in das boot" from juggling them around so much.

Acutally, if your not into fine tunning/modding your game, id grab the latest version of the Grey wolves mod. ( link here: http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=50034 ) Theres alot of goodness in that mod, and its far more realistic then vanilla SH3.

[Oleif]

haha, look at these new heros... all hot air and smoke. Better luck next time Kaleun.

[tbarak]

He'll learn in time...lol. :o

You didn't mention what boat you had, but, you may consider another go at the flak tutorial. :rotfl:

[blizzard_beast]

haha, look at these new heros... all hot air and smoke. Better luck next time Kaleun.

Hahaha, I'll need it!

He'll learn in time...lol. :o

You didn't mention what boat you had, but, you may consider another go at the flak tutorial. :rotfl:

I forgot that little detail, my crew were dying for god's sake! :rotfl:

Do not use any of the "Crew" buttons, because they often cause a lockup or crash to desktop. The drag and drop is unfortunately the safest way to go.

What was the weather? What TC were you running at?

I would change in SH3/Data/Cfg/SIM the coefficient for visual sensitivity from .01 to .02.

This seems to solve that problem of aircraft attacking you in perfect visibility with no warning.

Not to worry, they are still just as deady in medium or poor visbility, escpecially if they have radar.

I'll keep that in mind. I was running at 1024 TC, and the weather was perfectly fine and clear. Hmm...I'll give your soluting a go.

[Ducimus]

You didn't mention what boat you had,


My assumption has been a type7, early war, somewhere in the vacinity, or waters directly near england.

oh and blizzard, dont feel to bad. Aircraft have ended two of my careers :D

You should have seen what happed to my U-333, it was rather dramatic, but suffice to say, those damn buzzards got me good :D

[CptGrayWolf]

Are you using the realistic depth charge mod? I'm guessing not, if you were your boat probably would not have been blown out of the water.
Hey I just realised something, planes drop 'depth charges' in SHIII right? Or do they have 'bombs' that the realdc mod doesnt change?

[svenks]

I was running at 1024 TC, and the weather was perfectly fine and clear.

And therein lies a big part of the problem: 1024TC is WAY too much to be running surfaced on a clear day and within aircraft range (which by the way is way too long, at least for the Hurrcane). The thing is, you'll only have 1/1024 of the time to react, as opposed to running TC=1. The sequence of events is:

1) An aircraft gets close enough to spot you.
2) Your threat indicator turns yellow or red.
3) The Aircraft spots you.
4) The indicator turns red, if it hasn't already.
5) He starts his attack (and aircraft are fast!)
6) Your crew sees him.
7) Only now does your TC drop to 1.

All of points 1 thru 6 takes a few moments or minutes, but at 1024 - only fraction of a second - and you're toast!

I use max TC=128 when aircraft may appear, and then I keep my finger on the backspace button and my eyes on the threat indicator. When it turns red, I drop to TC=1 and go to the tower to see what may be seen. But it would be cheating to take action, until the aircraft has been spotted.

Oh, and do keep up the speed at day - you can always save fuel at night :)

BRGDS
Sven

[Fab]

Threat indicator? I'm not sure what that is.

Frankly, maybe it's just me but I'm disappointed in the air power in this game. I can cruise on the surface through the Bay of Biscay in late 1941 on 1024 TC and not run into a single aircraft. I would have to say of my last three patrols in 1941 I haven't spotted or been attacked by a single enemy aircraft.

Do aircraft appear more at lower time compressions? I'm all for realism, but I also don't want to spend 2 full days staring at my monitor crossing the Bay of Biscay.

[MarshalLaw]

The treat indicator is the little sub that changes colors from green /yellow /red .Green is good, Red you are on the verge of being spotted or detected if not already.

Time compression is a great thing if you use it wisely. If you are in a danger area. go slow TC of 64 is about as fast a you want if you are trying to spot aircraft and you want enough time to react.

As for the aircraft issue, yes going that fast will somewhat disable aircraft. Go 250 to 512 and you will see plenty of aircraft . :o

[tbarak]

Yeah, never good to cruise on the surface in good weather during the day at 1024 TC. Use a lower TC value and from time to time drop down to real time for a little while. I also submerge from time to time to make a hydrophone check. This is especially true if you're relatively near the shore. When in doubt, cruise submerged and you can safely go to 1024 TC.

But planes never really cause too much disruption to our missions. Of course I have the VIIC with two, twin 20mm guns and the crew does a good job of sweeping the planes from the sky - I usually take over for a few shots myself since it's fun as hell. Had one guy get killed when he shot at a plane that dove on us, the damn thing crashed into the boat. Another time had two guys wounded but the medic patched them up in no time. The only time it got a bit exciting was when 12 Sunder lands jumped us at once. We were chasing a T2 so things got a bit hectic. The pitter-patter of machine impacts all around us, the droning sounds of airplane engines, bomb gyzers all around us and the crack of our cannon. Whoooo, gotta love it!

We bagged two of the Sunderlands then dove since it got too hot. Tailed the T2 submerged for about an hour then finished her off with clear skies.

[Fab]

Thanks MarshalLaw. I didn't know what the Threat Indicator was since I play with that turned off. I thought all that showed was how visible you would be if someone were looking. Like running flank speed on a clear day would give you a red sub even if no one was around to notice. I didn't know it showed if they noticed you or not. Now I see why turning it off is an increase in difficulty.

And thanks for the tidbit about the aircraft. Not that I wanna get pounded by aircraft, but to me the Bay of Biscay was more or less a safe haven since there were never any enemy ships and never any aircraft so it was like a little cruise vacation before rounding Spain and getting into the good stuff. I'll have to try 512 from now on and see if that makes a difference.

[Sawdust]

Is there any way I could just press a button to have my crew switch shifts, or do I have to do it manually via drag and drop?
If you double-click on the name of the department with fatigued crew in it, the fatigued men will all be replaced. They'll be swapped for replacement crew from the rest quarters.

[Keelbuster]

I seriously recommend keeping your threat indicator OFF. It kills the realism and turns the game arcade. You end up spending all your time watching for the indicator to change rather than scoping the tactical situation. It also makes DC evasion way cooler when you can only guess how visible you are to the enemy.

Kb

[blizzard_beast]

Yeah, I switched it off as soon as I found there was an option to.

[Keelbuster]

Blizzard - about the planes - my new strategy is not to dive immediately (against the advice of many). I find that if you dive, and the plane has you spotted, it will conduct an uninterrupted bombing of your sub as it submerges. If it has multiple bombs, this could be fatal - then you start to take on water and sink like a stone. I've lost a few boats that way.

My new strategy is to go to the bridge, order Flank turns, and spot the airplane _myself_ with the binoculars. Then I make a judgement call - if the plane hasn't spotted me yet (i.e. has passed) I will dive to 40m as quickly as possible. If the plane has spotted me and is setting up for an attack run, I keep course, and as it starts its dive I order hard port/starboard, coupled, if weather-permitting, with a long burst from the flak guns. This can screw up its first run and cause it to miss with its bombs. Then I dive. Even if it hits, you are surfaced, and in a much better position to deal with flooding/damage.

This is in concert with my new strategies in avoiding DD attackers - only dive and hide when you have to. Otherwise, keep an eye on your opponent.

Kb

[Rosencrantz]

Well, just wondering what papa Dönitz would think... :nope:

[Heibges]

I was running at 1024 TC, and the weather was perfectly fine and clear.

And therein lies a big part of the problem: 1024TC is WAY too much to be running surfaced on a clear day and within aircraft range (which by the way is way too long, at least for the Hurrcane). The thing is, you'll only have 1/1024 of the time to react, as opposed to running TC=1. The sequence of events is:

BRGDS
Sven

This will happen at Real Time Time Compression as well as 1024X. You can be sitting there in perfect visibility, on the bridge, and the crew gives you almost no warning of the attack.

The edit of the Visual Sensitivity in SH2/Data/CFG/Sim from .01 to .02 seems to be the only thing that solves the problem, and it solves it in all Time Compression Settings.

[Antonin]

haha, look at these new heros... all hot air and smoke....

:D A line from the film, yes?

[tbarak]

To re-phrase my prior post:

You should never cruise on the surface during the day for prolonged periods. Like has been said before, don't even do it in bad weather since there's a real danger of being rammed.

[Firebird]

So what do you do when you're constantly in bad weather? You can't stay submerged forever...

[Sailor Steve]

I surface once a day for about six hours to recharge and send of a position report (imaginary, of course).

[Heibges]

One thing I have learned and remembered since Silent Service on my PCjr (yes I was the one) was always stay submerged in heavy fog.

In SH3

1939 to 1941: Surfaced. Sounchecks at dawn and dusk.

1942: Submerged by day surfaced by night.

1943: Submerged by night, surfaced by day.

1944 to 1945: Submerged

[Ducimus]

heh, theres's a reason why IX boats are kinda rusty towards the end of the war :D They probably spend more time submerged then the VII boats.

[Sailor Steve]

Boats don't rust underwater. It takes air.

[tbarak]

So what do you do when you're constantly in bad weather? You can't stay submerged forever...

Well you can also just sit idle underwater to help conserve power until nightfall, you only need to pop up for a little while to replenish your oxygen which doesn't take long. Or creep along at slow speed to stretch out your battery power. Besides, other than the radar, your hydrophones have the greatest range for detecting the enemy. Stopping to listen is a very effective tactic for finding the enemy.

Then when you need to surface, use a low TC setting or intermittently drop down to 1x speed every say 15 kms to give the bridge crew time to scan the horizon. Cruising on the surface in bad weather is risky, but the odds are in your favour.

[Ducimus]

Boats don't rust underwater. It takes air.


Eh... you sure. I was about to accept your answer but the Titanic just hit me. That thing is one big rusticle! If it takes air to rust, then every ship on the bottom wouldnt have near the rust that they do, no?

[Keelbuster]

Boats don't rust underwater. It takes air.


Eh... you sure. I was about to accept your answer but the Titanic just hit me. That thing is one big rusticle! If it takes air to rust, then every ship on the bottom wouldnt have near the rust that they do, no?

Good point. Also - there's air underwater. That's how fish breath.

Kb

[bill clarke]

Well I am still in the middle of a patrol above Scarp Flow 1940,( played this one before, but had CTD and lost it) So this time I skirted towards Norway, as before I was harrased something bad by the RAF, got further this time but the aircraft appeared eventually. Well even at night they were up (guesss it was the northerly latitude) but these guys missed me every time, (can't remember what type they were), I couldn't use my 2cm, cause it was rough every time, but I'm gratefull for their inaccuracy, which I'm sure will become deadly accurate as the war progresses.
BTW, this square AN13 not many ships, and chasing em down in rough weather in my Type IIA is hard, so far, just one stinking tramp steamer. :damn:

[Sailor Steve]

Boats don't rust underwater. It takes air.


Eh... you sure. I was about to accept your answer but the Titanic just hit me. That thing is one big rusticle! If it takes air to rust, then every ship on the bottom wouldnt have near the rust that they do, no?
True, but it takes a lot longer. When you live at sea, you get assigned to scrape off rust and repaint. When the ship hits drydock, the bottom has almost no rust. It always grows around the joints where the paint flakes off, which is why you see it around portholes and scuttles and anchor bights...but not on the bottom.

[Keelbuster]

Interesting. I'm getting more and more into things nautical.

Kb

[svenks]

I seriously recommend keeping your threat indicator OFF. It kills the realism and turns the game arcade. You end up spending all your time watching for the indicator to change rather than scoping the tactical situation. It also makes DC evasion way cooler when you can only guess how visible you are to the enemy.

Yes, I would like to keep it off too, if it wasn't for the airplanes combined with TC. And you just can't "scope" for aircraft - while I do go through the motions of scanning the sky before surfacing, I have yet to see an airplane, and I don't expect to. They are just too small! So I keep my threat indicator, and no - it doesn't seem arcade to me :)

BRGDS
Sven

[Dekessey]

Just got this great game. Couple of questions:

I would change in SH3/Data/Cfg/SIM the coefficient for visual sensitivity from .01 to .02.

This seems to solve that problem of aircraft attacking you in perfect visibility with no warning.

....

The edit of the Visual Sensitivity in SH2/Data/CFG/Sim from .01 to .02 seems to be the only thing that solves the problem, and it solves it in all Time Compression Settings.

So increasing the value increases visibility of the boat? Or is it the opposite?
And what bug does it fixes? Do planes spot boat too easily?

How realistic are planes actions in general? Are there too many of them?
Are they too accurate/too uber? Someone mentioned the phenomenal range of Hurricanes. Any other strange behaviours?


Personnaly id look into getting one of the fatigue mods rather then suffer the stock fatigue model.

What does it do? Does it get rid of fatigue?

Thanks
:cool:

[Phylacista]

Is there any way I could just press a button to have my crew switch shifts, or do I have to do it manually via drag and drop?
If you double-click on the name of the department with fatigued crew in it, the fatigued men will all be replaced. They'll be swapped for replacement crew from the rest quarters.

As an add-on:

You can also right click on a quarter and you will be prompted if crew there should be send to rest.


If you highlight a compartment (left-click) and then rightclick on another one crew will be transfered from latter to former.


Thats about it. I would love a feature where you can group crew (like in Age of Empires e.g.) and then assign them in shifts. e.g. shift1 watch crew. Then 24 hours are divided between amount of shifts you´ve set. Does not sound complicated to do, but would be way to go!

For me I'm back to drag&drop baby sitting, since Im using the NYGM TW Mod and its fatigue model - there you are having 2 shifts (you have to switch one by one *sigh*) and its the only model that takes morale into account. So every 12 h I change every seaman. And the same time I make a submerged listen check. Boat routine for now...

And as mentioned above: Only go 1024 TC for transfers. Go 512 max and 256 when you are in danger or looking for prey. Try STRG+F8 - you see the frame rate. When it drops dramatically in TC your will miss encounters or be sunk quicker you can say "backspace".

Hope this helps

[tbarak]

Not sure you'd call it a bug, but at high time compression, when traveling on the surface, sometimes enemy ships and planes have a nasty habit of suddenly appearing very close to your boat before the TC drops back to 1x. And no, the sensitivity adjustment is just that, sensitivity at which the watch sees aircraft when using high time compression. Maybe that could be construed as longer LOS. But you're still constrained by other factors like weather, crew fatigue and experience.

The planes use to scare me and I'd dive at the mere sight of them, but it seems up to the summer of '42 at least (where I'm at) the planes aren't too challenging. With the VIIC you've got two twin 20mm guns for defense. Even if the planes drop on you unexpectedly, they usually make a harmless pass before coming around and attacking. If you've got <7 kph winds, you can easily swat them from the sky with your flak guns. They're only a threat if there's lots of them which can happen in the game. In crappy weather there always seems to be enough time to safely dive, as long as you go flank.

Is that realistic? No, as planes were probably the most deadly adversary to the u-boats.

Do you guys know if the airplanes use lights at night and/or radar to find you later in the game?

[Phylacista]

Do you guys know if the airplanes use lights at night and/or radar to find you later in the game?

Im in 1941. And a catalina used a light on me:
http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=51972

dont know if this is a mod issue.
Im using Gw 1.1, NYGM TW and EUC and some file mods I picked myself.

The planes coming in squadrons and the laser guided AA gunner has been adressed by NYGM if I´m not totallly wrong.

[tbarak]

Yeah I saw your post, cool pics but I'm running the vanilla game version. :x

Once done with the first career, if I start another, I will consider modding my game.

[Godalmighty83]

your not a true sh3 player until you have crashed in your own harbour.

[Heibges]

Just got this great game. Couple of questions:

I would change in SH3/Data/Cfg/SIM the coefficient for visual sensitivity from .01 to .02.

This seems to solve that problem of aircraft attacking you in perfect visibility with no warning.

....

The edit of the Visual Sensitivity in SH2/Data/CFG/Sim from .01 to .02 seems to be the only thing that solves the problem, and it solves it in all Time Compression Settings.

So increasing the value increases visibility of the boat? Or is it the opposite?
And what bug does it fixes? Do planes spot boat too easily?



Basically, sometimes you are not notified of enemies spotted even in conditions of perfect visibility, and at real time.
The little fix doesn't make you so you see everything. But, at any time compression,with qualified watch officer and warrant officer:

On a clear day, you should spot aircraft and be able to dive without taking damage.

On a hazy day, you will take a little damage, but probably be able to dive to a safe depth.

In heavy fog you are still dead meat, so best to stay submerged as much as possible in these conditions.

[Keelbuster]

I seriously recommend keeping your threat indicator OFF. It kills the realism and turns the game arcade. You end up spending all your time watching for the indicator to change rather than scoping the tactical situation. It also makes DC evasion way cooler when you can only guess how visible you are to the enemy.

Yes, I would like to keep it off too, if it wasn't for the airplanes combined with TC. And you just can't "scope" for aircraft - while I do go through the motions of scanning the sky before surfacing, I have yet to see an airplane, and I don't expect to. They are just too small! So I keep my threat indicator, and no - it doesn't seem arcade to me :)

BRGDS
Sven

Get the 16k vis mod. Then your watch will have no problems spotting aircraft at a good distance to dive, even at high TC. Anyways - you shouldn't really be going to TC higher than 256. If you are, then it's already totally arcade. Or rather than dive, if you are surprised (which really happened sometimes), just engage them and dive when it's safe - sometimes diving immediately isn't the best option. And about the threat indicator, what about when you are evading escorts? Do you just ignore the feedback from the threat indicator? It's arcade. What about when you are approaching a convoy - i bet you dive as soon as the threat indicator turns yellow. No uncertainty there. Arcade.

Kb

[Heibges]

I seriously recommend keeping your threat indicator OFF. It kills the realism and turns the game arcade. You end up spending all your time watching for the indicator to change rather than scoping the tactical situation. It also makes DC evasion way cooler when you can only guess how visible you are to the enemy.

Yes, I would like to keep it off too, if it wasn't for the airplanes combined with TC. And you just can't "scope" for aircraft - while I do go through the motions of scanning the sky before surfacing, I have yet to see an airplane, and I don't expect to. They are just too small! So I keep my threat indicator, and no - it doesn't seem arcade to me :)

BRGDS
Sven

Get the 16k vis mod. Then your watch will have no problems spotting aircraft at a good distance to dive, even at high TC. Anyways - you shouldn't really be going to TC higher than 256. If you are, then it's already totally arcade. Or rather than dive, if you are surprised (which really happened sometimes), just engage them and dive when it's safe - sometimes diving immediately isn't the best option. And about the threat indicator, what about when you are evading escorts? Do you just ignore the feedback from the threat indicator? It's arcade. What about when you are approaching a convoy - i bet you dive as soon as the threat indicator turns yellow. No uncertainty there. Arcade.

Kb

The game considers that if you have one scope up then the AI is manning the other scope, although the scope doesn't actually go up.

You should get a warning from your crew of Aircraft Spotted, as long as you have one scope raised.