How do you...?
 

Gents,

I would like to know how you patrol out for contacts? I can't seem to rely on my sonarman to tell me when there are contacts around (I noticed the sonar contacts only get updated when TC is set to or below 250x). Do you regularly stop and manually listen to the sonar array... or what?

I am usually cruising to my patrol area at about 3000x TC... and almost NEVER get contact reports while on the way there or back.

Mind, I am on the 2nd patrol with no radar yet, but it is going to be hugely annoying if I have to man the sonar station myself all the time...

Slow speed and max 1024xTC

I try not to go over 256x TC, but if it's an area I don't expect many contacts, I will go higher. I feel fairly sure that high TC will have the same effect as in SH3, with more contacts missed.

When in a place that I feel might carry a high density of traffic, I tend to make regular checks on the hydrophone.

After making a sweep (at 'All Stop', of course), I normally draw a circle on my map, originating at my location and with a radius of about 20km, to allow me to see approximately which area I've checked. I then sail on and make another check as I approach the edge of that area (or just beyond it). This way I shouldn't really miss many ships that happen to pass within hydrophone range.

Of course, it makes for a slower game, with the constant diving, checking hydrophone, and surfacing again. Still, it keeps the crew awake ;)

However, the current state of SH5 is a real nuisance, since all map drawings are lost between saves. Grrr.

Thank you! :) I did just that on my way back through the channel, and stumbled on two separate carriers, escorted by DDs, I was of course torpedoless.

Another set of questions:

Is there any way to get an ID on ship other than scrolling through the recognition book? All I see so far is; unknown/warship/merchant

Is there any way to get use my sonarman's special abilities other than running over to him, clicking and selecting the option in the dialog panel?

If you open the crew management screen (can't remember the button), you can activate their special abilities from there.

Heh, yeah I would defiantly drop the tc to more reasonable rate. If you can't spot a ship flying past at 3000X, how could you expect your AI to? :O:

I wonder, if you were to actually watch a merchant ship fly past at 3000X, would it appear to be all stretched out? :hmmm:

This doesn't work for me. I can only use those icons to assign upgrade points to my crewmembers. clicking or dble clicking on an ability icon does nothing.