Do you play with auto-TDC or without?
 

Just wanna know. I've tried it manual 2 or 3 times and yes... went wrong everytime :wah:

But the real reason is I'm playing with 12fps as I can't relinquish the nice graphics and my mouse do some teleporting over my screen. :haha:

So for my conscience I think it is okay to do it automatically as you can say to your 1WO or 2WO "hey... look through and give me a nice solution for your practise by using the RAOBF and recognition manual."


How do you do it?

I do it manual all the way, I only ask my WO for distance estimations. I feel this way I get much more fun from hitting a target. On a regular playing evening/night I am usually only able to attack 1-2 targets or perform only 1 convoy attack, cause my way of collecting data is time consuming, but that's ok with me, I don't need to engage multiple targets or eradicate whole the convoy in just 2 hours.

As it was said many times on SubSim forums - any way youplay a game is good, as long as it gives you what you want - fun (or anything else - frustration, stress). If you want to be invincible and sail with 50 knots speed and you play this way - that's ok too. That's just your style, no worse or better than mine. :yep:

As much as I encourage people to try manual targeting (check my signature), as I see it as more entertaining, as much I encourage them to just do what suits them best. http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/4344/crazy2.gif

Can't imagine play it other way than manual. If I sink 1 or 2 ships/patrol.. I'm very happy. More than I ever could be just by locking the target and press "Fire" :doh: This a game of patience, not a shot & lol.

Auto for me. Since I have to do almost eveything. What's the sense of having a crew anyway IMHO.

I use manual but use the fast 90 method almost every time, which is pretty easy.

Thanks for the answers :)

So I'm not as wrong as I thought.:shucks:

I don't do manual.I just line up a good shot,get as close as I can,and fire with my heading meter on "0".I only miss a shot now and then if it's a long one.I don't lock the target either.Works for me.

I personally wasnt feeling satisfied with Auto, but in fairness manual does cause an element of frustration also (probably due to my lack of experience).

I would recommend you go manual when you feel ready and have a couple of save game slots to load up and practice on.

What is the sense to play the game, so, because there is a crew anyway... ? :88)

I'm playing with manual TDC and no mods for it, cause everyone I tested broke the stadimeter.
Aircraft carrier use the deck, warships use the highest mast, other ships use the funnel, except troop transports using top of the roof.
Knowing that thing, you turn around 95% of hit (1 miss for 20 shots), if you fire at around 1 km (1.5 to 0.5 km) with, of course, good targets aspect (you supposed to have worked on that before) and good preliminary work to find the target speed.

Campaign is in realism setting for me (so manual TDC and no external views to ID etc...), I can't see how you could play this game other way without killing the simulation aspect, and the REAL fun of this excellent game, even if there is still some little bugs and no salvo for torpedoes.
Anyway, salvo is the best way to expend torpedoes, so, changing the bearing with same TDC setting is more efficient to send instant very lethal "manual" salvo to a big ship.

"Happy times" part, at this time, for me.
~1 200 000 t of ship sunk, only with this vanilla perfectly working tool.
Some said TDC is broken in vanilla, but it's not true at all, it's working perfect, as designed.

TDC work is really always easy if you made good previous job with interception course and finding the exact speed of the target or the convoy.
here is the only real difficult thing : finding the speed.
Aspect ratio is very natural and easy to find in a second, when you are a bit experienced.

Only the speed of the target need a real work, because TDC is not accurate at long range (as it is in real) and you must wait the target to be quite close (less than 3 km) with doing yourself good and accurate measurment to find it.
Except, of course, if you attack a target on a radio comm, because radio comm will give you the speed of the target/convoy.
In this case, attack become really easier, and you could be much more agressive from the beginning of the attack.

I only hope ennemy will become more dangerous with time.
Because at this time, in "happy times", targets are real sitting ducks with very poor defenses of destroyers.
Still wait my first damage from grenades (already beeing hits by some shells).

So the only thing to remember with TDC is to work well to find the real speed of the target.
Other things is quite easy, in fact, as long as destroyers are not enought agressive and there is so few to protect convoys.

good hunting !

you must not have tested my UIs mod then or if you did you tested a real early version of it. Stadimeter works perfectly now and it's totally automatic...once you select the ship in the rec manual you do nothing more than use the stadimeter like normal.

So just because I play auto and gave a reason, I'm dumb? Do me a favor and go walk off the deck.:nope:

I play manual targeting with map updates (because it is the fire control teams job to assist me in this). I estimate range usually using an active ping (if not escorted) and speed based on trig (which I learned in college). Actually what I do is less complicated than most trig anyways since I tend to use Law of Sines, Law of Cosines, and sometimes triangulation. When I feel really lazy I tend to stick to the fast-90 method. After a year off subsims I was greatful that there was something like Travelly's tutorials to remind which controls do what on the U-Boat.

I use manual with map updates, essentially simulating the crew doing the basic plotting for me (I view SH5 as a captain simulator, and am content letting the crew handle some of the work).

That said, I usually try to get range and speed myself, but double check it against the map updates. I find it to be good practice. I get range using the stadi, and speed by counting the "traverse time" of the target in my sights (don't know the technical term for this method).

Overall I've had generally good success, and I am aware of the other methods for plotting distance, course, and speed, but I find it more fun this way. And really, SH5 is a captain simulator after all. :)

Itkovian

i use both... sorta kinda...
i like the "connect the dots"
but they don't tell me anything about the ship, so i switch to tdc so my first mate will yell out what type of ship (like escort, battleship, capital ship, etc etc etc) then go back to dots for purposes of firing =3

Auto for me, manual if it has the officer option like SH3 - identified target and solution? Just started playing SH5 and love it can't see what the big fuss is about with online connection works smooth, looks fantastic and I like the rpg feeling. SH5 is the best of the series imho. :yeah: