please advise oh wise ones,
 

hello Community :)

Finally, after umpty-third try, I succeeded in completing the first single mission without getting drownded or having to wait to see if my crippled victim would eventually succumb, so good, but I can see there is a lot to understand yet.
I have just tried to access the community manual, but the server was not found - temporarily I am sure - and the next thread I tried was on how to sink a ship, and that quickly got too techy for me, so here I am, just to ask small guidance on a couple of things, nothing very involved ( how do you eat an elephant sandwhich? - one bite at a time!).

Fustly, what are the hydrophones and how do I use them? Nothing seems to happen on 'normal sweep'.

Second, I always rig for silent running when trying to sneak past the destroyers - is that right and does it mean I am made slower?

Third, why is it that, although I assign a full complement of crew members to damage control, with an officer and some expert folk included, they do not seem to DO anything when I click on a damaged compartment. Once I saw a red wrench animation signifying repairs were taking place, and a time measurement, but I don't know how I got that, or when - or how to get it again...:huh:

many thank you's for your help :D

When silent running, you can't do any repairs nor reload torpedoes and so on. An yes, you should be silent running when approaching a convoy. And yes, it makes you slower, as 'silent' means 'making less noise', and that means your propeller cannot make too many turns per minute. You can order full ahead or ahead flank, but then it's not going to be 'silent' any more.

As to the hydrophones - your crew is not good at the beginnig, but later, when you get your sonar guy, he will report ship contacts as far as 30 kms away. The hydrphones are to hear any sound of interest in the water. IN the water, and that means you should be submerged so that you can use them with success. Extremely useful, when trying to escape and being chased. :)

Good luck.

Good evening, matey! Im not as "wise" as many others here, but i can try to help you out.

The hydrophones are like a "Microphone" under sea, that lets you listen do distant sounds, like the propeller and engine sounds from a ship. This gives you the ability to detect the enemy, often long before you can see them.
When you are submerged, your sonarman will report to you if there are any noises out there. Then you can press the H key, and listen for yourself..;)

Silent running is always your friend, atleast if you are running GWX.. You are definitely not discovered by them as fast as you would have been if you went at flank speed right under their keel. But; there are situations where speed is your friend, especially if the DD's just unloaded a ton of depthcharges on top of you. Then you must get away in a hurry. But remember to run silent & deep if you have any possibility of doing so.

Damage control: Make sure that you are not in silent running. Also remember that you cannot repair the deck gun, tower or flak-guns when submerged, for obvious reasons.

Hope this helps a bit, mate! :up:

EDIT: Abd, you beat me to it!:up:

Hydrophones - Press H to manually use the Hydrphone station. As already said, this is an underwater microphone. Max range approx 30 - 40km(in GWX).

Silent Running - Pressing Z puts your boat in Silent Running. If you are at flank then you speed will be dropped to about 2-3kts and all extra 'noise' is shutdown.

Repairs - These can only be carried out when NOT in silent running. Press Z again.


BTW - Some of the single missions are alot harder than the campaign. Just so you know.;)

EDIT - We've all jumped over this one. Oh well, we've all said pretty much the same thing so it must be true.:D

yeah hydraphones are perhaps one of the most useful tools on a u-boat. in gwx you can even pick up organics (animals) apparently:up:

aahhhh!! Thank you everyone, very helpful. Wonderful.

mooncatt, I am not sure I WANT to pick up organic animal echoes - sounds rude! :rotfl:

Cor, can't wait to get back in on the next one now. Have to go out tonight, hmph.

:)

:rotfl: :rotfl: yeah someone posted on here a while ago saying they were following some weird niose thru the hydraphones for ages, turned out to be a dolphin or a whale or summat, brilliant touch to the game tho

You had a question on General Sweep on the hydros.....upgrade the hydrophones when you can and also put in a crew member with strong renown. You will find the better phones and a good crewman there will yield more contacts and track warships better:know:

i have a queston actually bout sonar/hydra/radar. when you give a crew member an ability i.e torpman etc is there is a specific one for sonar??? i can only find the one that looks like a lightening bolt symbol but thats for a radio man will this be the same for sonar man or is it different if so which one is it??

PAWZ,
Welcome to the looney bin. You might find a useful thing or two in my webbie :D

thank you WarHawk:up:

Brag, I will go and take a look when I get back here later tonight - thanks :)

Yes, the bolt is for radioman/sonar, so have 2 on your boat.

Having two is a good idea, but I never place them in the sonar room at the same time. They work in shifts, and the other guy is just a petty officer without any given speciality. The higher the rank (in GWX), the better they do their job.

To say the truth I prefer to have 3 'lightening guys' so that if one of them gets killed or transferred, I still have two of them. And as soon as I can I award all of them all the possible medals (they get awarded sometimes before my officers do).