The usage of the TC
 

Hi again...

This qeustion have already been discussed before I guess, but anyway...
I´ve been playing/simming SH4 for a while now, crisscrossing the Pacific and learned a lot about subs, WW2 history and the game itself. Yes, I´m making slow progress intercepting Convoys, manual targeting and sometimes even hitting a boat with my torps. I enjoyed hours and even days of real time cruising, feeling like a hardcore simmer and a bit like a subcaptain aswell. Listening to Glenn Miller on the grammophon and watch the beauty of ROW. I sometimes left my computer on during the nights and let the sub rest submerged or go ahead 1/4. (When I used the TC I felt like I was cheating). Some of my non subsimming Quakeplaying friends said; - Isn´t it boring, why do you not timecompress the boat through the game. How can it be fun looking at an empty ocean for hours and perhaps dive ocasionally for aeroplanes???

Yes I explained; - This is the "real" submariners style, I wanna do it the right way. This is about getting close to a psychological immersion; feeling like you actaully are there.

But, That was then... Now I TC me cross the water in an accelerating rate to and from patrol areas and only stops If I´m lucky a run into something Japanese to sink. Am I getting bored of this game? Yes I must admit, doing it the hardway was fun for start, but when you crisscrossing the Pacific Ocean over and over again it isn´t funny anymore. Then the TC comes in handy. It´s a blessed thing when you don´t gets any shipcontacts in your assigned patrol area and frustrated move on to the next one. Heck, I have even TC me out of depthcharges attacks going slow and silent and deep. Or when You finishied all the sinking up in EastchinaSea and your base Freemantle in Australia is waiting for you....

So the TC isn´t so bad after all, sooner or later you´ll use it to some extend I think

Personally, this is one of the reasons why I also miss the end-of-patrol teleport of SHIII.

I don't usually have a whole lot of time to play, so I am a big user of TC. But what I really hate is the return home, with torpedoes expended, and often with deck gun ammo low or out.

Since I have air-warning radar, and later surface radar, I'm going to go deep, slow and quiet at any hint of danger on the return to port. And it get's really, REALLY, boring going through the same old process - set speed to 9kn (unless I have lots of fuel left), hit TC to 4096 or so, drop out of TC for radar contact, dive deep, set speed to 2kn, hit TC again, wait a bit (or until night), surface, set speed to 9kn, hit TC - now repeat over and over and over again just to get back to port so I can refit and get back to actually doing something in the game.

When SHIII first came out, I actually docked my boat back home the first few times out (backing into the pen at Brest was interesting the first time). But after awhile, it just got boring, especially as I don't have hours and days to sit and play. So I use TC and teleport in SHIII, and TC in SHIV, but I'd also like the teleport option in SHIV.

It's not near enough of a flaw to make me stop playing it :D But it seems an oversight on the part of the devs. It should have been there as an option. Nobody has to use it in SHIII, but it's there for those who want it.