Sonar range vs visual range
 

When in patrol areas do most of you stay on the surface hoping for contacts or do you submerge to the appropriate depth for hydrophones to work?

I have the KBD 360 hydrophone upgrade installed and I believe it's range is 20 km for merchants and 100 km for larger convoys. How far can your watch crew see visually when running on the surface?

Render range is 40km, you'll never see/hear anything beyond that. Ships will pop into or out of existence when they pass that range.

Hydrophone range is generally around 30-35km for initial contact from what I've seen.

The starter hydrophone works on the surface and this means you'll have approximately 1000% more fun since you'll catch a lot more contacts. Once you upgrade your hydrophones, or use a mod like UHS which correctly stops surface hydrophone contacts, you'll be lucky to find a ship, ever. You'll have to spend the time ducking under the surface every 2 hours, hoping you're close enough to something to hear it. At first it's "realistic" and "fun", then it's "tedious" and "stupid". :O:

I usually end up meeting enough targets or a convoy on the way to a patrol zone so that I sometimes don't make it there at all. Otherwise I just poke around known shipping routes for targets.

I've just finished the British Coastal Waters and now on Blockade of Germany. Am I going to have a really horrible time with this damn KBD hydrophone then :)

I thought you had to be in range of a patrol point for a certain period for it to be completed. Are you saying that on the way, if you encounter some ships and sink them, they count towards patrol completion even if you're not near the patrol point?

In the campaign files patrol objectives are represented by a Map Zone. The ones early on near the east coast of England are around 70km in diameter and later in the Atlantic around 200-250km in diameter. There are triggers for these patrol objectives saying "If a ship is sunk in this map zone it counts".

So if you're in that map zone it'll count. :)

I got got message to relocate to another patrol point off the coast of Iceland after finding nothing either visually or via hydrophone at the first point. I have a horrible feeling I'm in for a depressingly tedious time with this KBD hydrophone :)

I'm also playing at 50% realism with unlimited fuel but limited Co2 and Batteries. Anyone out there playing with limited fuel? I get the impression limited fuel would be a real pain in the arse.

You usually have enough fuel to reach your patrol point, spend a good amount of time there and make it back to base OK. You'll want to have modded keys or buttons to Max Range at Current Speed and Range to Course End, so you can easily check if you have enough gas to get back home.

All of that is assuming that you're cruising at standard speed and not flank or full. You can also burn up a lot more fuel being decks awash a lot or by using high speeds during intercepts.

As I've said in a few other threads I've not played for a while. I was wondering, is decks awash doable now? As I recall there were issuse with the hatch - has that been sorted?

I'm gonna get the game going again tomorrow - can't resist it any longer lol

Hmmm, sank a Merchant on my way to the 2nd patrol point and notice it doesn't count towards mission. Looking at the description I have to sink 5 AMC ships. Thanks to the obviously retarded policy to documentation, could someone tell me what the F AMC ships are :)

What is decks awash? I'm keen to learn all tricks in the absence of decent manuals to make sure I don't get frustrated and bin this game like I did SH4 around patch 2 also ;)

The ships you need spawn in Loch Ewe, and travel north from there.

Decks awash is when you're at 6-7m depth, so your decks are underwater. You're slower, but you also are harder to see. The hatch closes at 7m, so.. either try really hard to stay at 6, or if you need to dive rise up quickly, climb down, then crash dive.

Decks awash is when a sub runs with it's decks underwater. This leaves only the conning tower above the sea line and obviously makes it harder to see.

In Sh3 my weapon of choice is the Mk IX B Uboat which has a slow diving time - I tend to run decks awash if I'm in an area where I might be attacked by aircraft, as I'm half underwater anyway it alows me to dive quicker. It's also useful if sneaking into harbours.

I just noticed your stipulation that I may have to duck under the water every 2 hours to make use of the hydrophone. 2 hours is a specific figure to quote and is likely a subtelty of the mechanics of a submarine that I'm not aware of, why the 2 hour figure and how do you come to that figure?

Hmmm, how deep do I need to be for my KBD hydrophone to be functioning?

I really should also try and get a hold of SH3 to see what I missed out on during that era :)

There's no real rule to this , it's up to the captain to decide when to check. I normally do it around the 2 hour mark too, but there's nothing to stop you doing it whenever you want.

I'm confused about these patrol point missions in Blockage of Germany. I've been sent to one patrol point after not finding anything at the first and after not finding anything at the second I've now got a message to go back to the first area.

All I'm seeing in these areas are Merchant radio contacts. I've already sunk a Merchant and it apparently doesn't count towards anything. What the hell are AMC ships and do I need to sink AMC ships in these patrol areas to complete the patrol before moving on to the other mission area to find and sink a carrier?