About conserving fuel
 

Heard some say that navigating surfaced and submerged in turn can conserve fuel, but I wonder why. Of course it doesn't consume diesel when below water, but the battery still must be recharged by burning it, based on conservation law of energy, how come this way be more cost-effective? And I still haven't taken into account the energy loss due to the energy conversion efficiency of the generators.

i wonder if such a detail is modelled in this sim at all.

When surfaced and the diesel engine is set to run at the same output power, say 1/3 ahead, if the battery is being charged, my boat will go slower than when the battery is fully charged, so I guess the electric energy in the battery does come from diesel and not from nowhere.

Yep, but try this: empty your Fuel tanks, empty your batteries.
blow ballast to surface, and wait.
will the batteries charge, will you suclk energy out of thin air?
will you go to periscope again and continue your voyage under water?

you don't mean these things could happen in SH3, do u?:o

Stranger things have been known to hapen in games, particularly this one.

omg，but still i would rather not exploit this loophole, one reason is that my watch officer will not return to his position on bridge automatically after surfacing, don't want to manually drive him to his post hundreds of times in my traverse across the Atlantic.

Your watch officer has to be put there by you it does not mater how many times you kick him up that ladder he wont go on his own the lazy sod.

Can you blame him, it is cold and wet up there. You notice he appears to be the first through the hatch on a crash dive.:arrgh!:
But he does his job when he is there.

:D
Yeah, you probably gotta beat him with a stick "pour encourager les autres"!

Welcome to one of the biggest urban myths/loopholes of SH3 :DL