Neutral Shipping
 

Greetings,
My new Kalun was on his first patrol off Gibraltar when he sighted a DARKENED ship. He closed and identified it as a troop transport. He stalked and sank it only to be credited with sinking a Hospital ship! I cashiered him and removed him from command. (can't live with -5000 renown)

My next Kalun is on his first patrol again near Gib when he too sighted a darkened ship, vis is 'poor' and flag not identifiable. Ship is med cargo so he sank it. It was Spanish! He too has been cashiered and removed from command.

I am now questioning how the two ships were sunk. As I understand it a hospital ship should be well lit up and show a white band and red crosses on the hull, neutral ships too should be identifiable as such, and show appropriate lights including navigation lights. Have the rules changed?

My new captain has been instructed to avoid ships at night and not attack unless it is in convoy or is escorted.

Comments please.

You are right.
According to war rules darkened ships were legitimate targets in some areas.
Hospital ships should be easile identified as such. (In game I have never seen a darkened hospital ship)

The game doesn't understand those things.
If you want you can edit the basic.cfg file like this :

[RENOWN]
RenownReachGridObjCompleted=100
RenownPatrolGridObjCompleted=500
CompletedPatrol=150
NEUTRAL=1 <-- this is normaly -1 which deducts renown.
ALLIED=1
AXIS=-10

Like this you can sink neutrals if they don't comply with the rules.

The first thing you need to understand is that in SH3 there are NO lighted ships! GWX lights up some neutrals, but hardly all. You need to check the flag of every ship you see, or use the mod that restores color codes on the map. You can find this in Jimbuna's link above his signature.

As VonHarris showed, you can edit renown awarded. I think it's wrong to gain renown for sinking a neutral so I have mine set for 0. I also set renown for friendlies to -1, because friendly ships were sunk, and though kaleuns were court-martialed for it they were all found not guilty.

Yeah, I do what Sailor Steve does. But then there's no way to penalize for sinking hospital ships. If I sink one (which I haven't), I manually end the career.

1 . I didn't know that lightned ships were a feature of GWX.
2 . I have set NEUTRAL=1 for one reason : Suppose you find a darkened US tanker in November 1941 heading cleary for the UK. I would sink her no matter what, as she is carrying contraband for sure. I think I must be rewarded for destroying valuable - for the Allies - fuel.
Any comments are accepted.

i have toyed with this idea for a long time and now i would ask how do i change this to what you have VONHARRIS. i think it is a more realistic approach as the sneeky americans were nosing across the atlantic from quite early on - i mean, come on - fair is fair - give us a chance:woot:

Interesting, and when I ran into an undefended US tanker convoy off the coast of Africa in Oct. 1941 I was sorely tempted, but I realized I didn't want to be the man responsible for dragging the US into the war in earnest.

An easier 36k+ I haven't seen outside the Caribbean. :03:

Stay away from Gib?

And according to my current read American and Japanese supplies also got to Germany, via Russia whilst the treaty held. :DL

In the basic.cfg file:
[RENOWN]
RenownReachGridObjCompleted=100
RenownPatrolGridObjCompleted=500
CompletedPatrol=150
NEUTRAL=1 <-- this is normaly -1 which deducts renown.
ALLIED=1
AXIS=-10

and then it is up to me to decide what to do.
For example : I will not fire against a US C2 with all lights on even if she is heading straight at London.

...cheers VONHARRIS - i have done this now:up:

BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

Hi,

my solution to this problem is to randomize the value for 'neutral' via SH3 Commander. So whenever possible I try to identify the ship to avoid sinking a neutral. However, if I'm not able to do this (e.g., long range shots when attacking a convoy) I have a fair chance that I will not be penalized (ships in a convoy were legitimate targets).

I think this is quite realistic because real commanders didn't know what would happen to them when sinking neutrals (legitimate targets or not).

Cheers, LGN1

I believe neutral vessels in a convoy mainly of non-neutrals give up their neutrality for the duration of the convoy. At least that's how I think they treated them IRL

Nothing to comment on, or at least argue with. Your reason is good to you, and mine is good to me. As I said, I also have AXIS set for -1 rather than -10. Several Axis ships were sunk by u-boats, and in every case it was determined that the target was in the wrong place or it was disguised as an Allied ship. I keep my NEUTRAL set at zero so I'm not tempted to just sink all the neutrals.

That is brilliant! How exactly did you set it to get that result?

This is how I play. I track all convoys - "enemy" or "neutral." Most times, a "neutral" convoy is guarded by enemy ships or has enemy targets. Although early war means you might wind up sinking an American destroyer...