More noob questions
 

Hello. I have been playing SH4 1.5 (no mods) for a few weeks and have lots of noob questions that I hope you won't mind answering.

1. How do I interpret the "hull damage" indicator? If it reads 048, what does that mean? At what number should I not dive any longer?
2. When I start a campaign, there are empty slots for my damage control team. I know that I can move people into those slots as needed, but I can also "buy" them with renown and have all the slots filled from the start of the campaign. Is it better to do this or move them as needed?
3. Should you go to battle stations before a torpedo attack? Seeing as how it only involves the torpedo guys I don't see why it's needed. I can see it for a surface attack. What does going to battle stations do for you?
4. Where can I find a description of the different types of torpedoes? I bought some "cutie" torpedos but I have no idea if they are better than the mark 23 ones I had.
5. Why do the batteries not charge any more than 75%?
6. I heard there was a mod somewhere to enable voice commands. Does it work well and where can I get it?
7. How can I re-map the keyboard assignments? I would like to move the time compression controls if possible.

Thanks!

1 - It means you are 48% destroyed, but that means hull integrity only, and individual components will have their own damage status. In unmodded SH4, a hull with 99% damage is still serviceable, but any hair of damage or dive pressure you get beyond that is an instant destruction. I dont remember if any SH4 supermod deals with that, but SH3 GWX ommits this 'percentage', so if you take hits, you have to be carefull on your own intuition regarding high-depth dives and etc, which is a more realistic approach.

2 - You can fill all spaces, even spaces that in real-life would be filled in by crewmen redirected from somewhere else. If that is realistic or not, that is another issue.

3 - If you see your crew screen, you will see that there are actually three horizontal lines of crewmen, which are the set of sailors actually on duty on that watch. There are three watches, every one lasting 8 hours. The one on duty on any given moment is highlighted. The other two watches can be understood as being sleeping or performing other duties, that is, they are not in action. The effectiveness of a given station is proportional not only to the quality of your crewmembers, but also to the number of sailors actually working there. There is a green bar that fills up, depicting this effectiveness. So what happens when you check 'battlestations'? All cremwmen on that station imediatelly go on active duty - in theory, tripling the effectiveness of that station. So yeah, always go to 'battlestations' when you are doing anything relevant.

4 - Cuties are useless pieces of sh*t. They are supposed to be fired from behind, to self-track a following escort. But they are too slow for that. The screen you get when arming gives some info on the torpedoes, such as range and speed. Check the cutie for yourself and you will see what I mean. You can try using them for a completely unrelated task: if you see a large and slow convoy, and you are relatively close and ahead of them, and you have no time to plot a decent attack, you can experiment dropping a couple of cuties on the path of the convoy. They migth hit something, as they are basically slow self-guiding mines. This is however un-historical.

5 - Strange. This should not be happening. They do charge all the way up to 100%.

6, 7 - some other chap here in the forum might help. I really dont know.

3- It increases the efficiency of all your compartments. Plus it is really cool to hear the gongs going off when you hit the "B" key. Sometimes I do it just for fun...I mean, for a drill from time to time on those long crossings of the Pacific. :03:

7- There is a program called "Keymapper". Do a search. It might even be in the downloads section as well, I'm not sure though. It is a nice little program that you can use to set/change key commands without going through the cfg(?) file and doing it manually. You can make one key do multiple commands. For example I set the "S" key to not only surface, but to lower my scopes and go ahead standard on the engines. No more forgetting to lower my scopes when I surface and blindly sail around for days before I notice. :oops: I've done similar things with my sonar and deck guns too.

There's another one called "Set Keys" that I use for SH3 which should work for SH4 as well. I'm not really sure which I like better though.

:)

Thanks Daniel. Regarding the crew stations, is it also true that the deck and AA gun people have shifts or do they solely do those jobs? I don't see different shifts for those slots. Regarding the batteries, I vaguely remember watching a Let's Play on youtube where the guy mentioned this but I don't remember the reasoning or fix for it.

If changing the config file is easy enough, I can do that but need to knwo how. But if it's a hassle I will check out those programs. Thanks.

Here's a fairly detailed description of US torpedoes including the unloved "Cutie"

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTUS_WWII.htm

"B" goes to battlestations! Why wasn't I informed of this?! I've been doing it the hard way, through the crew mgmt tab, since day 1. Chalk up another one of those things that Ubisoft failed to put on their, er uh, manual. They even neglected to put it in the reference card. Is it necessary for me to hunt through the program files to find what all of the stock commands are, or has someone done this on another thread?

Has your sub been damaged? Maybe the batteries got damaged during an attack. That's the only thing I can think of, right now anyway.:hmmm:

I cant think of anything else either.

Maybe he has set the "Recharge Batteries" button to OFF?

:hmmm:

.

I can't remember for sure but I think you are correct that the sub was damaged. I've started a new campaign since then and have not had that problem.