Thanks to GWX I just wasted 9 hours of my life
 

Well, I'm sure that's what my wife would say about the time I just spent. ;)

I on the other hand had a blast! So did my two buddies that were playing MP with me.

We set up a MP generated mission:
Jan 1942 (game set us to Jan 1) between 9am-6pm (game started us at 1pm).
Large Convoy
Large Veteran Escort group

We started out about 10,000m or so from the convoy. 3 U-boats, all Type VIICs of the '41 variant (when you select the year for your boat). When I zoomed out on the map we were about 400km E of St. Johns.

Difficulty set to hard, veteran crew, unlimited eels.

It took us about 2 hours to pretty much decimate the convoy and escorts. Minor damage to a couple of the boast from depth charges, but nothing serious. By this time the crew is pretty wiped out and we tried to track down one last contact that our watch crew kept reporting but none of us could see (turns out it was a ship that had been sunk, but didn't count for any of us for some reason, and the crew/game thought it was still alive despite it resting on the bottom at 149m down).

As we got ready to surface to quit out of the mission my hydrophone officer started rattling off contacts. A *LOT* of contacts to our ENE. What was this? Yes, it was another convoy besides the one generated for our mission that got generated by GWX I'm guessing.

We immediately started plotting out a course to figure out which way this convoy was headed and try to get an idea of where they were at. After getting a general idea based off an earlier radio contact report we set a course that would take us parallel but somewhat close to this new convoy.

After about an hour we got our first sighting of them, they were about 14km out from us, but still to our ENE and heading away. We all went to work figuring out the convoys heading and trying to get a guestimate at what speed they were moving. After figuring out their heading we set our own parallel to them.

Hours ticked by as we alternated between ahead full standard and ahead full recharge mode (since we were all down to about 60% battery power after the first convoy) with decks awash. Daylight started to give way to night, but there was a full moon this night (and I looked it up on google, and 2 Jan, '42 actually was a full moon). We kept each other company over Teamspeak as we continued to keep an eye on the convoy and watch for any change in direction on their part.

Once we started to lose sight of the convoy we turned our heading into a 45 degree intercept course so we could lay in wait. Once we were in position about 12km ahead of the convoy all we could do is sit and wait.

The first two eels I launched went straight towards the lead destroyer once they had closed to 4000m. From the point those two fish impact it was just pure madness as we tried to sort out all the escorts that were with the convoy and tried to cripple/sink as many merchants as we could as they passed. Once they had passed us we turned to follow with the escorts very angry and making several attempts to seek revenge for us having brought down such hell upon their flock they were supposed to protect.

When all was said and done we had traveled over 60km from our initial starting location. The wreckage markers on the map for the 2nd convoy stretched a good 25km itself.

I don't recall the exact numbers, but we had over 300,000 tons between the three of us when we tallied up warships and merchants.

It was probably the best 9 hours I've ever experienced in SHIII. Actually shadowing and intercepting a convoy without TC with 2 other U-boats.

God this game rocks.

I never done MP. Sounds like great fun. Thanks for sharing :D

Wow, that is impressive. And at 1x TC.:hmm: Sounds like somebody should have eye strain by now.:cool:

Damn I must try out an online game sometime.

During the parallel run we sorta rotated shifts of going afk to take care of our "needs" (bio, food, drink, etc). Come back about every 5 to check in over Teamspeak to see if things were still the same.

Sort of a mini-watch crew I guess. ;)

We all knew from the moment we picked them up on the hydrophone that we were in for a long ride since you can only do MP at 1x TC. Normally not a problem, since you normally start out in good hunting positions relative to the convoy. Pretty much the first thing that was asked was "Everyone got the time to do this?" When the answer was yes from all 3 of us the chase was on.

I've done the whole make contact, plot course, intercept, lay in wait thing solo I don't know how many times in career mode, but usually making use of TC naturally.

To do it all in 1x TC with 2 other U-boats was just...well...just wow.

So many "OMG" moments with the escorts dropping charges on us (thankfully always too deep/shallow or too far ahead/behind thanks to good use of evasive maneuvers).

Watching the sky light up like the 4th of July when the lead Escort got slammed by 2 eels and every other escort tossed up enough flares that the center of the convoy was as bright as a sports stadium during a night game.

As far as playing onilne goes, from my experiences Teamspeak is such a huge plus. Maybe I'm just spoiled in the fact my friends and I play all sorts of games over TS, so for me going without voice comms just feels wierd.

The last week or so of playing one of my friends and I have both been running Gamecam. So we've started to accumulate a bit of in-game video footage of MP from our romps in the Atlantic. Once we've got enough decent shots and such I plan to toss it all together in a video for Youtube or some such.

I did play MP with Mr Chris, Jimbuna and Danlisa some time ago and it's a really fantastic experience. If you have the time to do it try it.

Genferret, are you using Manual TDC?

I'm still in the process of learning how to do it efficiently. So sometimes yes, sometimes no. As I get the hang of it I am slowly starting to do less and less auto targeting.

Using Wazoo's manual for learning how to do both the charting and the targeting.

One of the guys I play with has issues with hitting stuff even with auto on since he pretty much only plays MP with us. So to keep things fun for him we keep auto available.

Great read :rock: MP is a great way to enjoy the game :arrgh!:

Yes Manual is a pain. But oh so rewarding. In multi I think that it would be most fun since its all in real time so you have all the time you need to make accurate solutions.

I have friends that never play my favourite games except for when we play online.

Buggers didn't like Total Annihilation.:nope:

ONLY 9 hours?

Get back there and fire up that server Kaleun, there's a lot more Tommies left to sink :arrgh!:

Hey can I join you guys when you play again?!!! I WOULD LOVE TO DO THIS!! Hit me up on aim
aim=fastfed

Genferret, I don't want to contradict you, but time spent playing SH3 is never wasted.:sunny: