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- Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=202)

- - hello all (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=140739)

so I started a new career again figuring out the gameplay options have no bearing on the career path. you can't customize the options on a career, you're forced with the presets for the difficulty level which sucks. I went with very hard which should be 100%. left from peral to a patrol in the East China Sea. Ran out of diesel just as I arrived on station and I wasn't even speeding. Even if I stopped at Midway for a top off I wouldn't have enough fuel for maybe a loop around my patrol area before I'd have to return to Midway. Am I missing something?

lets not talk about creeping past Wake at PD at 1/3 till batteries got to 25% and then sitting till nightfall to surface and continue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lothos

how much run time do they need to arm? I just hit a medium freighter at 350 yards. first shot was a fast at 20feet and the second I forgot to switch and it was slow at 20. The slow one definitely had a bigger boom.

when it comes to the spread angle setting, how much deviation is a tick on the dial? is it supposed to be just 1 degree? On my above mentioned target, the first shot was 1 tick left of 0 and the second was 1 tick to the right. contact making 7 knots the first shot hit a good 25% up from the stern and the second was just behind centerline with a perfect 90 deg ambush.

Question 1- a bit over 400 yards in stock. If the target closes the distance after you shoot, you get to see how well a torpedo bounces :D

Question 2- 1 degree per tick. Spread on the target depends on target speed, range, angle on the bow, and if he tries to evade. Being an OS, you understand the trig involved so thankfully I don't have to explain that.;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by lothos

you can't customize the options on a career, you're forced with the presets for the difficulty level which sucks. .

Yea... I knew I should have mentioned this...

Look to the left of your 'desk' in the office. On top of the shelves is a radio. Click that.

That is where you customize the difficulty settings for your carer. :|\\

I haven't made it back to port since I got a widescreen monitor, but in standard 4:3 resolutions the radio isn't visible in the office; you have to pan the camera to the left to see it and interact with it. I'll check when I return from this patrol if it shows up in 14.4:9 aspect ratio.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lothos

i've been lurking for quite some time and figured I'd say hello. Being a former OS in the Navy I've always loved naval sims and have played just about every one that comes my way. I have some thoughts and questions of course for the better players than I though.

1. When engaging a convoy do you go after the escorts first/at all before taking on the merchants? Right now my method has been to pop and shoot and then dive and sneak and repeat when clear. This of course only works for as long as I can maintain my position among the convoy. I try and dive below the thermal to reposition and cruise ahead at flank just to maintain my range.

2. torpedo settings, I've heard a couple differing opinions and have tried both with about equal success/failure. One, high speed versus low speed. Supposedly high speed always is what i'm lead to believe and even then I've had destroyers floor it and move out of the path inside of 700 yard shots. Contact vs magnetic, this will vary slightly depending on the next point but contact hits give you a larger hole in the ship which improves flooding versus magnetic which may cause it to go off before reaching the target per say and thus making a smaller hole. Torpedo depth, this is probably the most crucial I think. Torpedos by design are meant to break the keel of a ship with its explosion according to real life applications and as such are best achieved by shooting just below the keel. This is where magnetic triggering comes into play. I've done the shoot beneath method successfully only a handful of times and never with a small ship like a destroyer. Those always end up missing and going below the ship. Now, with very large ships like BB's and carriers as well as the huge liner and large merchants shooting into the side never ever gives me a victory with a single shot, but I have done it a couple times with the undershot.

3. diesels. On my last patrol I got hit by an airplane. no biggie, he destroyed 2 of the 4 diesels. one on either side. so I assumed I could still move, albeit slower, surfaced. Nay nay, now surface propulsion. Is this a bug? Why have 4 diesel engines ( 2 to a side ) if not for redundancy in just this kind of situation? Had I not had unlimited batteries and such on I would never have made it back to port ( unless you can charge batteries on the surface without propulsion ).

4. graphical bugs. this isn't a function issue, just a nuisance to me. For one, after one dive and surface the bow planes never go back down again even though the armature goes down. It's like they break off :) second, ship hits, most of the time I get no visible damage with my hits and occasionally additional hits to the same target will "erase" a previous hit and make a new visual damage hit.

5. medals? is there any benefit as to medals themselves thus making the decision on whom to award them to more important?

I think thats all the major points I got right now.

1 - i usually will fire a torp to take out the nearest escort to me to assist in escaping undetected while at the same time i will fire at two or three of the nearest merchants as well at the same time, timing it so they should all hit at the same time. this way the formation is not alerted causing them to scatter and zig zag away. use your own judgement but i find using a 30 second gap between shots is about right for a difference in distance of 1000m.

2 - if your going to take one on, i always wait untill a destroyer is between 400-500m or you will miss most of the time because they zig or speed up to make you miss. you can fire a second fish right away and have it aimed just ahead of the destroyer so if it speeds up the second fish will hit it, this often works to great effect. (note- torpedos will not arm if you are closer than 350m and it will be a dud)

3 - the engine bug is a well known problem no one has yet solved

4 - the damage models for many ships are incomplete or broken so not all ships show damage correctly and some ships actually dont recieve damage correctly. see this post for more info on the issue: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=137911

my best figures show torps travel 25 meters/second at high speed.
if i have 3 ships at 1500, 2000 and 2500 I would fire the fartherest , wait 20 seconds, fire the middle , wait 20 seconds then fire the third. they all hit about the same time.
works for me

good luck