Your Silent Hunter Experience
 

I am just wondering for the whole community, what do you guys usually do for campaign as far as realism wise. Most of us are using 95-100 realism I'm sure but when you die, do you say thats it, career over, or start back from where you are? I know CTD's will kill your experience and you can't help them which is why I save periodically. Just wandering, list your settings/methods of how you do your patrols bellow.:yeah:

I leave it on 68% (threat meter and auto targeting, if I took those two off then it'd be around 85-90%.

For me it's more about the thrill of the stalk than about precisely calculating solutions, although one day I've promised myself I'll go over to manual targeting!

I play GWX3.0 with no other mods. I play 100% but with map contact updates. I try to limit running submerged to only once or twice a day, to limit the accuracy and range capabilty of the sonar effects. I stay in the the patrol area for at least a week, then go to another for at least a week, etc.. until fuel or torpedoes run out/low. Pursuing a convoy negates any area constraints. Only bring down exterior eels when winds are 6 or less and run slow speed. I also start over in 1939 when I die, the longest I have made it is early 1943.

I run at 80% realism. Have manual targeting unchecked, and I have external camera use enabled (for taking screen shots).

I play "Dead is Dead". I don't always start over at 1939 though, I start careers at different times throughout the war depending on my mood. Out of my careers starting in '39 the longest I've made it is to about mid '41.

Patrol wise I head to my designated square, hang out for awhile and if nothing comes my way I head to different hunting grounds. My favorite being the western approach to Gibraltar.

Right now I'm playing with the Warships 3.0 Mod (Also run GWX3.0/SH3Commander). It's a different kind of challenge trying to hunt solo merchants/convoys in the coastal waters with a Type 1934 or 1936 Destroyer. There is some satisfaction to making a high speed run at a convoy, throwing out a spread of torps, and maneuvering to avoid fighting more than 1 escort at a time. Live through that, and the Convoy is a buffet.. That is until the ships start being armed...

I play 100% realism with a little cheat to take screenshots and watch some action. It is a game after all.
I play by the DiD rule and of course I don't reload a game after an unsuccesful attack. I had some moments of glory and some very unlucky ones.
Reloading of external torpedoes only in clear weather conditions. If I am spotted by a plane I either engage it or dive but in this case I assume that the external torpedoes have been thrown to sea to escape so I don't use them. I am trying to keep the game as real as possible.
Under these conditions I have made it to November 1944 where I was sunk in a XXI in grid BF16.

I started playing SH3+GWX three weeks ago. I'm currently playing at 65%.
I do have manual targeting. Sometimes I let my WO do the calculating, sometimes I do it myself. This is also good advice for any player just starting SH3; if you uncheck autotargeting, you're realism goes up quite a bit, but if you check the last option, you can ask your weapons officer to make the calculations. It's (almost) just as easy as auto targeting, you get more renown, and you can choose anytime you encounter a ship to do the targeting yourself. Great way to learn. Besides that, it's also more realistic (and fun) if you have to ask your WO instead of using that annoying triangle.

I unchecked the noise meter. If a destroyer is closeby, you gotta be silent. period. No need for a noise meter imo.
I also have limited fuel, compressed air and batteries. Makes the game a lot more realistic, and the limited batteries calls for strategic choices when engaging submerged. A lot of fun without making the game too difficult.

Map contacts I still have on, seems like the game will become very very hard without it, though I haven't tried it yet. Same goes for camera stabilisation; haven't tried playing without it, but I like my cam nice 'n steady :)
The external cam I leave on also. Partly because I sometimes just want to enjoy the view of my sub, or enemies going down. But also because when I encounter a convoy submerged the web of hydrophone lines prevent me from getting a good idea which ship is where.
Realistic vulnerability: also checked. A U-boat was vulnerable, and the main goal is avoiding getting damaged altogether.
Lastly, I check realistic loading times. Bumps up realism a bit, so I get more renown, and it doesn't make the game that much harder.

My 2 cts.

Some times I play for fun 3% other times its 60%-70% and when I'm serious it's 100% and in all cases dead is dead.

Is there anything you recommend Mr David Cameron (DID) :|\\

That dipstick! :haha:

I play at 100%+ realism.

- No external torpedo reloads at high winds. In fact: sitting completely still.
- Regular status reports to BdU at midnight, during convoy chases and after significant events.
- No instant firing of deck gun.
- Torpedo maintenance: I won't bother during calm seas, but during heavy storms submerge every day to 'service' the torpedoes.
- Dive/trim checks at noon every day. Otherwise no submerging to check for hydrophone contacts.
- When the situation allows, hang about a bit after sinking a ship to provide aid to shipwrecked crew.
- Keeping a real life Kriegstagebuch where I record everything.

I do have map updates on and crew fatigue off, though.

Heh, seems to me your more at 99 percent realism for all those realistic checks, but crew fatigue and map contacts :03: Your crew must be like those Energizer batteries they just keep going, and going and going....:up:

Well here's what I do.

I have 100% Realism, except usualy I have stable periscope view(It's a mounted piece of equipment, not a device being physcially held FYI.) For me, dead is dead, this enforces me to make wise decisions and understand the consequence. I save periodaclly to deal with CTD, but if I screw up, then whats done is done. Never going back to anything, and always try to take care of the crew. Right now I'm on my 3rd patrol, for the first; the Diesel engines went kaput. :nope:. I currently run WAC 4.1 with SH3 Commander. Its different then GWX, for me WAC gives the most sense of realism and adventure. I actually sunk 2 destroyers, of course as you read above I suffered the concequences. :shifty:

Crew management is, AFAIK, impossible to do in any truly realistic manner when it comes to SH3 and fatigue.

On the one hand, to use a "no fatigue" model and possibly have the same man on duty 24/7 for an entire patrol with no ill effects is, obviously, completely unrealistic.

On the other hand, to use any fatigue model that requires you, as the boat's commander, to manually take a man who's on duty and move him to his quarters to get some rest is also completely unrealistic.

So it's not one of those things that can be factored into one's level of realism, IMO. There's just no truly "realistic" way to do it.

I like to get the "real" feeling, so it is 100%, manual targeting. No map contact updates. Dead is dead. Manual navigation (no sub on the map) and no use of the waypoint tool. Never man the deck or AA guns myself.
No external views ( I tried to leave it on only to take screenshots, but found out that in tricky situations I couldn't resist to have a quick look at where the damn Black Swan is... and anyway I already have hundreds of screenshots...lol ). Forcing you to no external view in my opinion is one of the greatest enhancers of "real feeling"
For crew fatigue I use the mod model I am playing. (with NYGM I usually rotate every 12 hours on patrol and every 4 hours in combat situations) TC limit 128 in enemy zones. All attacks at real time from spotting. Radio msg to Bdu every day around midnight together with the night shift of crew.
If I need to reload external torpedoes, I head to the coast and find a sheltered cove where I "anchor" for the duration of the operation.

For Your Information, it is solidly mounted to a highly unstable platform. Even at periscope depth the sub pitches and rolls in all but a dead calm sea. They were not gyro stabilized in any way. A hand-held device such as a pair of binoculars is actually more stable.

Oh, and I use stabilized views as well, because the periscope did have a split-prism unit available in SH4 but not SH3.

69% realism. I still have have external cam on, auto torpedoes, WO help and stabilize view. That last one is necessary, because my computer lags like hell in periscope view. External view is for the pretty stuff. The other two will be disabled eventually.

Using SH3 Commander, I turned off fatigue but turned on malfunctions.

I have increased deck gun ammo (110 increased to 200), to coincide with my unrealistic surface strategy.

And DiD. However, I also save often because my computer is cranky...

We had a thread on this not too long ago, and I made huge long replies I was going to point to in order not to have to do it again.

I'll be hung-and-dried if I can find it now. :damn:

Right now play with either 84 or 87% realism (haven't started a new patrol in quite awhile) and firmly believe the main point of the game is to have fun; what fun constitutes for some people can harshly oppose other people's style. Long as you play by the rules/realism you have set (and potentially other self inforced penalties/game play methods) and play fair and square, if you enjoy the game and are having fun its done it job.

As someone pointed out several weeks ago, the only way to get real 100% realism would be to stop showering completely, hang up all your food randomly about your house/condo/etc and then sleep in your bed (which you haven't washed any of the sheets for at least 6 months or more) to get a genuine 100% realism.

My style of play (hunting warships/task forces and harbor raids when they're juicy targets inside) generally conflicts with a lot of people's preferred way; while I do enjoy it uses a completely 180 stategy of the tactics that were generally applied. My thinking has always been to destroy all the warships/escorts in order to deplete the fleet such that in due time convoys will have no option but to start going unescorted or maybe can only afford 1 escort (had this been the real tactics and outcome).

On a different note......was up at my (now departed) grandmother's place up in Los Angeles with my dad (tagged along so we could both go Japan town after he took care of business with the realator) and found an old skool ice cream man driving around the neighborhood in a van playing the same song they all play. By no means was it a hot day, but buying something from the ice cream man isn't something I've been able to do since I was in elementary school; since then they've all disapeared. Was quite fun for a nostalgic moment :sunny:

That is utter nonsense.

You do not hang up your food randomly, you make sure you can get to everything when you need it and that it does not mess up the trim of your boat (or house).

;)

Having personally been inside a few u-boats they is no exaggeration about the lack of space, then having to take rations for 30-40 days worth that's a lot of food (and no freezer/fridge) to store. While there may be an underlying organization to the entire food supply, you can still end up with all your fruit in the stern compartment depending on the size of your crew at the time.

One of the sports I like to do is deep sea fishing (yea a very very odd one for a girl to enjoy) while on long trips (several days) you start to get ripe pretty fast, then crawling back into your same bunk/stateroom bed being unable to shower just perputuates the stench (granted since everyone is in the same position you get used to it much faster) every day the boat remains out at sea. Even though you get used to/accustomed to the funk that everyone else has towards the end of the trip it can get downright nasty, I couldn't imagine spending an additional 2 weeks on the same boat with some other fisherman that were onboard.