Torpedo doors
 

A little irritated b/c I cycled through my 5 torpedo tubes, opened each and got 5 low ominous sepulchral sounds. Wanted to flood all 5 prior to imminent firing. #1 goes off fine. I go to fire #2 and a few seconds later as I hit the #3 fire button I realize I'm hearing the door opening sounds again! :damn:

Re-opened #4 and #5 but was targeting convoy ships at 2.5 - 3.5 k and the door delay for #2 and #3 scuttled those shots. :down:

I have gotten this error as well.

You do not need to go to the conning tower to do this. Right click on weapons officer to got to his station. There you can open and close the tubes in the panel in the upper front of him.

That happened to me a few times, and I solved it by simply opening the tube again, even though I had opened it previously. It has become such an ingrained habit, that I just do it, without investigating the problem. If there is one.

My advice to new players:

Set up a throwaway career, go out in harbor, with external cams on, and work through various scenarios.

• Open Tube 1.. did you think it was starboard or port? Use the cam to go down and look. Where is tube 1, where is tube 3?
• Do a Salvo open, then shoot.... Jump to cam and time how fast it happens.
• Do a salvo shot and observe. You can be shooting at a mudbank, just get a sense of how the torps come out.
• Run off four separate shots, instead of a salvo. You will probably find you hit better.

And, if you want, go out in your throwaway career and sink neutrals, whatever. Do single missions over and over and over again.

Torpedo skills are -- 80%? -- of the game (feel free to pile in, here).

I had trouble clicking them since I run it in a windowed mode. The conning tower buttons are easier to click.

Less then 50% i think.

Acquisition of targets (ie plotting accurate and effecient intercepts from radio reports), Undetected Approach and Evasion are equally important IMO. In a lot of instances, I think Evasion might be your biggest skill. Silent and deeeeep.

But I think the rest of your suggestions are spot on.

Noted and discarded
 

It was sort of a musing question for people who have been here a few years. I know you have spent a lot of time in your first 3 months posting over 1000 posts, but that doesn't give you much time at sea, does it?

Gargamel, thanks for the tip. I saw that post but at the time was so new I didn't know what you were talking about.

Ending up getting 44,000 GRT for the patrol instead of 54,000, so no big deal. :sunny:

All of my previous careers count as throwaways because of the learning curve. ;)

Self-grading my skills after a month:

Undetected approach: C-
Undetected ambush/positioning: B+
Torpedo skills: C-
Interception: B+
Flak gun: F (should just take it out and put a hibachi on the deck)
Deck gun: C
Evasion after detection (early war): B+
PATIENCE: C-
Awareness of enemy ASW number/type/location: C-

To the skills already mentioned by others I'll add the last category. I encountered my first really sneaky Flower corvette last mission (low speed lurker, June 1940) and an undetected S-class that surprised me when I surfaced the mission before that. Battlefield awareness is pretty huge also and I'm still working on that one. :)

Hey, sorry for offering my opinion. Figured your comment of Feel free to pile in here was opening it up for discussion.

Nevermind then, as obviously you feel new members are not as worthy as senior ones.

Gotcha.

I think all of us can say that. The AI will ALWAYS be better than you in this regard.

I could think of quite a few things to put in the FlaK position:
- More powerful, capable radio equipment. Larger radar array?
- Another deck gun.
- Said hibachi. Or maybe a drum grill with a side smoker... yum.
- A stage for the ballet, band and chorus.
- A sail.
- Mine dispenser.

If you want to open all the tubes and have them stay open until fired, you can do it from the Weapons Officer station, the Conning Tower or the Attack Periscope outer view. This last is silly because you have to go through the Conning Tower to get there.

I would erect a sail - give me a third option i could use instead of battery or engine power. Especially as we get alot of wind in the game anyways (often over BF5)

Trouble is I'd probably end up having too MUCH canvass up and capsize my u-boat, especially in winds of 15 M/S :o

At the TDC screen you can open the doors one after the other (keys w and q opens and closes the selected tube) and they stay open until you close them again or shoot an eel. In this case only the selected or empty tube will be closed.

If you change to periscope view, switching the selected tube will close all the other tubes but the new selected one. Firing a tube does not close the other tubes. You can select the next tube and all tubes keep their status.
Prepare your setup accordingly and you can shoot your torpedos without delay and at the periscope stations.

If you open the tubes in 3D - they behave like they have been opened at the TDC screen.

In short: changing the selected tube in periscope view closes all doors but the new selected one. If this new tube was closed - all tubes are closed now.

If you open all the tubes with the selector switches at the stations I mentioned, they will stay open until fired. Selecting a new tube will not close the others.