Thanks for the input. I have realisting sinking times, and I too enjoy the uncertainity.

Next is mastering hits and doing this 'sweetspots' thing veterans speak of.

I got the basic idea, so theory is there - only application is left. I will try to find calm seas and loners to apply my scientific methods now :D

However I notice in '39 Dec it is quite often than not I find the 15m/s winds with heavy rainfall. Perhaps because I go 2048x TC against the general concensus of 128 should be the max TC. At least I am positive that this is not a constant situation, sometimes I get other weather too. Summary = heavy seas OFTEN but not always.

Some other random bits that I would like to share and ask for your comments is below, (I will not thread spam & post 5 threads for 5 random bits)

1. It's the beginning of the war ('39 Dec) sneaking into harbors in II A is unbelievebly easy. As I know that I am no master of anything, I wonder if I am not playing the same game with some people who say sneaking into harbours is too risky. or maybe they have stock SH3 while I have GWX Gold? But then general idea is stock=easy, GWX=difficult, right? What do you think on this?
   
   What I am doing is this:
   1. Approach to ~30 km of harbour
   2. submerge to 15m
   3. silent mode=ON
   4. set speed=1kn
   5. plot a safe enough course (=always go on an imaginary 'lane' in the middle of the strait/port) if necessary draw ruler lines on two sides of the coast and measure exact center and travel on that.
      Even if that hits a mine, with 1 kn speed & 15m deep mine will not damage you more than 20 mins repair times even with LRT=ON
   6. when around 800 m to harbour port, stop and listen, if it's safe enough, raise observation periscope, map visually, pick the targets, mark on map
   7. maneuver to ideal attack location for the best possible target ship
   8. fire and do one of these
      • slowly go back as you came
      • stop and reload now or anytime in the next 3 hours plus to 16 hours time frame & repeat the attack
      • This 3 hours of 'cool down' time frame is just assuming the destroyers/trawlers are 'aware' of enemy presence and would find me (actually in game they cannot - I guess - anyway

I had so many other stuff to ask you but can't remember any now, I will post later on if n when it comes back.

Thanks

Glad I came across this thread. I ran my first full patrol with a new character earlier (I'm using GWX 3 and the Merchant Fleet Mod, both of which I'm fairly new to) and I was in an area with a couple of sub-5k tonners and I sank one quckly, and the other one took its sweet time sinking. I didn't want to waste another eel on it so I used accelerated time to watch it eventually drop down into the sea, tip up the bow to an 80 degree angle or so and start to drop in. However, with about 30' of the end of the ship left above the water, it stopped sinking. The ship was 90% underwater, but the very front of the ship stuck out of the water, like some kind of monument lol. I waited and waited and it never dropped. I got credit for the kill, so I just left.

On the way back to the base, in a nearly identical area of the map (BF32 or BF33?) I tried to sink another ship and it did the same thing. It left the very tip of the ship sticking out of the water, and wouldn't go under, except I didn't get credit for sinking that one LOL. Weird.

privateer called it though, the slow sinkers really change this game up and add a nice level of anticipation, depth and realism to the experience...

Given the location the ships may have been in water so shallow that even with one section resting on the bottom another part was still above the surface. Much of the Channel is relatively shallow, at least in the game.

Whether or not you get credit for the kill probably depends on the number of hit points involved for the ship in question rather than how far under the water it is at any given moment. Once it's taken enough damage to be considered a total loss it will register as "sunk" no matter what its apparent condition, and until it takes that much damage it won't. I've had ships show as "sunk" when they're still entirely on the surface (although obviously sitting lower and lower in the water).

I have to say though that I've never had one go almost entirely under and not show up as "sunk" by that point. Did you stick around very long after it got that far down? 'Cause if you get too far away before the game registers a ship as sunk, you won't get credit for it even if the "kill" was inevitable over time given the amount of damage you caused. Once you get beyond a certain range of another vessel, the game stops rendering it - so if it hasn't shown up as sunk by then it never actually sinks in terms of how the game registers such events.

You said it, Foggy. I quickly became jaded from the damage model of stock SH3. The same old, tired sinking effects, the ship predictably breaking in half or going up like a fireworks factory fire, or getting the same result from repeatedly pounding the upper structure of the hull with the deck gun. Ships sink from losing their buoyancy and that results from holes in the hull. Pounding the funnel or upperworks with shells in stock SH3 resulted in the same old "hit points = X and poof, she's gone!"

I love watching my victims sink. It reminds me of my childhood. I had a fleet of plastic boats I used to play with in the bathtub. It could be at bath time, but usually I would not be in the tub with them, I'd fill up the tub and play with my boats. I'd take one of my Mom's kitchen knives and drill a small hole in the keel, then put some of my Mattel or Corgi cars in them to weigh them down and then watch them sink. To vary their sinking patterns I'd drill the holes in different locations or use weights in different locations. My eldest brother used to make home made explosives and demolish his toys, then mine and my youngest brother's.

We were twisted little buggers!

Now, I get to watch lovely sinkings and no water is required! This game was made for me, or I was made for it.

After I had hit her I'ts take approx 45 minutes,
 

Good info, Frau (thanks for the explanation!). I think I hung around for probably what would have been half an hour to an hour in accelerated game time, so it might have possibly sunk had I stuck around longer, and the thought had occurred to me that I needed to fire another eel at the last part of the ship sticking out of the water to make it go all the way down, but I was out of eels (both fore and aft) and the sea was too rough to use the deck gun. Hurling insults at it didn't seem to make it sink either... :O:

IIRC I've read other accounts of players watching a ship "sink" in shallow water only to rest on the bottom with part if it still sticking up through the surface, and the game never designating the ship as a kill they got credit for. Don't know how long they stuck around for it either, or whether or not putting another torpedo into it would've made a difference.

I guess it's possible that a ship sinking in shallow water like that could take its final, fatal damage from the sea floor and not because of any damage done directly by the ammo that hits it. In that case maybe nature gets the kill, and not the kaleun... in much the same way that you can put a torpedo into something and then have the Luftwaffe come along and bomb it, and even if it sinks you don't get the credit because it was the air attack that took care of the final hit point.