Why Silent Hunter 4 is a love/hate relationship.
 

This game truly is a roller coaster at times. Great highs... followed by frustrating lows. Times when I think.. 'Wow, this game has really polished up nicely' and also times when I think 'What a bloody complete waste of time!'

First of all my setup... TM, RSRD, NSM and (of course) ROW.

1941 and first patrol in a Porpoise. Upon reaching my patrol area I encountered my first contact; 3 huge liners, two destroyers escorting. The convoys bearing is such that I can't quite catch them at periscope depth, but maybe I can get the attention of the trailing destroyer. I'm at flank speed, I get within about 3000 yrds of his port side before I see his signal light flashing and he slowly turns towards. I'm ranting.. I sunk both destroyers with a single torpedo (was very pleased with myself!). As you can imagine I'm rubbing my hands togethor now. I have 30,000 tons of liner at my mercy so I hit the surface and it's ahead flank to catch 'em up. Because I had NSM installed I knew these big ships would sink slow so instead of wasting torps I ordered the gun crew to begin firing at rear one while I lined up shots from the bridge on the lead. The idea being to slow 'em all right down by putting a couple of torps into each rather than hammering 4 or 5 into a single ship at once and over-killing. Well, I bit off more than I could chew and after drawn out engagement (including a few misses) I ran out of ammo with all three still on the surface even though each of them had taken at least two hits. Luckily, one of them went down eventually -the other two got away.

I head back to Jawa since my base at Manilla is being overun. It's a short run, so I go ahead full and I bump up to about 4000 time compression. However as I near the base and am just about to pull it out of time compression the docking option box pops up. As most of you probably know, you can't pull out of tc while this is up. I go to hit end patrol but the options grayed out! Panick, err.. ok re-arm/re-fuel! anything.. just remove this STUPID menu!!.. no sooner have I driven straight onto the concrete of the dock and the crew are dutifully calling out damage reports. I sigh, put her into reverse seconds before the game displays the all informative death camera. I go to check my saves and break down in tears as I see the entry at the top is Autosave leaving base.

Why I love AND hate this game. It has the same affect on you as a high maintenance blonde at times!

I feel your pain. I almost did the same thing--from now on, I always put my last waypoint in a direction that won't intercept concrete. :yep:

I did the exact same thing at the same base and it’s the open water to the dock that fools you. It was weird seeing me sub halfway in the concrete.

I never TC over 256 .... sorry.

Open ocean yes, I TC quite high, when anywhere near land, no.


RDP

hardcore... you have much more patience than I do. :-?

And I do manual navigation ... no setting waypoints for me either. :o

:lol: its all in the details init....

ahhhhh been there done that....never again...

Happy hunting,


Wilcke

But!
 

Admit that's not a game fault. It is just your preconceptions colliding with unexpected game architecture. Adjust and proceed with caution.:up:

I always set my last way point far away from dock
 

So I have to bring her in manualy and not have those problems. BUT :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

To what happend to you sorry but :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: !

Thanks for the good laugh! :sunny:

Everytime I am done sinking something I do a save update with ship numbers and tonage totals once on the surface so I never lose them.

I use the TC, but never that high. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, but I've never had any troubles saving on any screen/scenario, so before any engagement I always save AT LEAST once before flooding the tubes, or manning the guns. Haven't had any troubles yet.........knock on wood. :up:

I too admit that this has happend to me but instead of hitting the pier I nailed a CA broadside. What made it even more frustrating was that I was also trying to find my home port after the infamous transfer to a new base without being told of the transfer.:damn:

This was fixed in the add-on.

Cool!
 

A few things. Firstly quoted from manual . Required number of torps to ensure sinking target (50% with spread)
Battleships 14
Large carrier 10
Escort carrier 6
Heavy cruiser 6
Light cruiser, merchant,seaplane tenders 4
Where do huge liners fit in .
Secondly Plot a course so that when the box pops up it doesnt run aground and slow down the TC when nearing base .
Problems solved .