Manual Targeting - Is There a Halfway-House
 

I'm pretty new to this game (kudos to you all for keeping this forum and, to an extent, the game alive nearly a decade on). I'm playing the stock game with GWX and SH3 Commander.

I've been playing with most of the settings ticked apart from the big two. It's getting a little bit too easy for me to intercept a ship then fire off the eels. I'm just not sure I'm ready for 100% difficulty*.

I'm curious as to the effects the two separate boxes have. WO Assistance, and Manual Targeting. I can pretty much intercept a ship/convoy and get myself lined up to 90 degrees to the target almost without fail. How much of a stretch is it from here?

Also, if I play Naval Academy using manual targeting does the game walk me through the ins and outs?

I absolutely love this game, and can't believe I'd never so much as heard of it 6 months ago but I'm just finding it a bit easy playing the way I am now.

Cheers in advance...

:salute:

*I say difficulty as opposed to realism deliberately

There's absolutely nothing wrong with using WO assistance for targeting, especially if you add the h.sie realism and gameplay hard code fixes, found here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=174225 Target range will no longer be exact, but rather an estimate, so your WO won't say "Range, 5923 meters, Sir." Instead you will get "Range, 6000 meters, Sir." Makes it slightly more difficult to hit the target and you will experience more duds and malfunctioning torps too as well as a lot more. As far as learning manual targeting, there is a lot of info at this site, and some wonderful tutorials written by others.

:salute:

welcome aboard
 

ParaHandy!:Kaleun_Salute:

Ahoy!

I feel like we may be in a similar boat, so to speak.
I recently got interested in this game and really enjoy it, however one of my big draws was the thought of doing the manual targeting. For me, that means no weapons officer assist and manual targeting checked on!

Personally I am at 68% realism I think. I like to keep camera's and action cam type stuff on.

From what you are doing now it doesn't sound like it would be a big leap. Here are some resources I used to help acquaint me with manual targeting methods, primarily the fast 90 I believe it is called.

You may find that a bit more challenging. Just wait till you try to sink a juicy target in stormy weather and you can't get a good or confidence fix on their speed, and when you finally do the fish explodes halfway to target :wah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0rTksSnjho
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=1080

Good hunting :D

I like to keep WO on, just for confirm the identification of ships and I never use him to compute a fire solution.
I mean, I always do the ID process by myself and then, when I have choosen the target ID, I just ask for the WO "opinion" to know if I guessed correctly or not.
In this way I'm able to estimate my successful IDs rate and is something around 80%.

About manual targeting: I'm currently playing my very first war patrol (secondo patrol in GWX, starting in 1939) and I'm doing manual tageting.
I think it is no difficult, and indeed a fun part of the game.

The method mentioned by Nukesub, the "Fast 90° attack" is a good starting point.
Then you can read and learn about the "Straight shot" and the "Perfect shot" methods (you can find a document about them if you download hsGUI mod). Here is a post in which I talk about them.

Team work
 

In real life they had the "attack team" plotting each firing. The captain didn't do it all. He was at the scope and so would feed the details to his team. The 'solution' was calculated by the team.

I suggest to keep the WO for those difficult times or lazy times. The duds will get you either way! <grin>

Happy Hunting

This is a great post about Manual Targetting and Intercepting the targets. You should check it out http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=88961

Oh, yes, really helpful (was the first tutorial I red and really helped me a lot).
Just for completness I post here a link to the paulwasserman site/tutorial:
Wazoo's Manual Charting & Targeting Tutorial [v 2.3]

Some really helpful replies here, thanks to you all. I'm definitely going to give this a try. Can I ask, is there a way to start a career with SH3 Commander and still go through naval academy?

Manual targeting means you need to, or are allowed to (depends on how you look at it), change the TDC dials and notepad thingy. Instead of them being automatically set when you lock onto something.

Weapon officer assistance allows him to set the propper TDC settings when you wish to consult him. So this allows both ways in a sense. Doing everything yourself by ignoring him, or let the crew do the difficult solution part when you are lost or unsure.

The naval academy missions do not change one bit if you set manual targeting or weapon officer realism settings. It just means you need to/can do more stuff on your own. The videos on the DVD (and thesedays also on youtube) are considered the 'tutorial' by Ubisoft. There is no handholding in the game academy missions. Well, maybe slightly during the first navigation mission.

Sure, when the game has started, just select the academy instead of the campaign part. Makes no difference.

I played with manual targeting with map contacts on for years. I think this is a fine way to learn to operate the TDC while having the benefit of a "god's eye view" of the tactical situation on the nav and attack maps.

With map contacts on, it should be relatively trivial to set up a 90 degree attack approach and also exactly determine target speed and heading.

Raise your scope, lock the enemy ship, and it will show up on your maps. You can even lock to them in poor visibility when you cannot actually see them! :)

Then you just zoom in on them and draw a line through them and you get a nice target course track to intercept. Draw a mark on them and another one on them 3 minutes and 15 seconds later and you have their exact speed.

At this point, you just drive 90 degrees to intercept and set your TDC Angle of Attack to 90 degrees starboard or port (depending on whether your sub is on the starboard or port side of the target) and then move the scope left or right until the gyroangle reads 0 degrees. Then fire when the target crosses your vertical crosshair.

Things don't get really fuzzy until you turn off map contacts. :D

Steve

That's a great thread, I'm going thru the stages now. One part I seem to come unstuck at is inputting the speed and range into the data notepad. I can input AOB fine (I'm ahead of the target at a 90 deg angle to his path so I assume it's 90 STB I enter) but I can't seem to enter the other two pieces of data.

Definitely getting the hang of it now. I've started a career with a Type VII out of Wilhelmshaven. First patrol in October '39 and I've sunk 3 merchants for about 15000GRT NW of the Orkneys. WE assistance off and manual data gathering. I'm using the easy method, lining up a shot at 90deg and then inputting the range and speed on the TDC.

Loving this. It's a great feeling waiting til the right moment and pressing that fire button. :rock:

Look at the direction of the needle, and compare this to the direction the target moves through your view. ;)

If you use the notepad thing, then for entering range you need to first make sure the target has been properly ID-ed and first placing the line on the waterline, then using the stadimeter to put the line at the top of the target where the flag would be (due to rendering issues the flag or the ultimate top of the mast may not be shown, so you might need to guesstimate where it is.)

With the notepad you don't really measure speed. But you measure bearing drift angle. The stopwatch takes care of time. Using the previous values range and AOB the notepad 'computer' computes the distance the target has moved over this angle, and from that the speed over that period. For this to be accurate, range and angle on the bow needs to be accurate. Additionally, the bearing drift angle should not be chosen too small. The time period should be as long as is practical. Just a matter of seconds is not going to help accuracy in speed.

If you already know the speed and range through other means (plotting, or 'fixed wire' method) then it is easier to enter the values directly into the TDC dials on the Attack map screen (F6). First make sure you set the Auto-TDC switch to Manual. Then you can set the dials. Then set the Auto-TDC switch back and do your aiming business. Just realize that the range dial needs to be set for the moment of firing. It is not updated over time, in contrast to the AOB when you move the periscope. If you shoot perpendicular to the target track then the range doesn't change very much as the target gets close to the 90 degree AOB point (closest point of approach), compared to when it was further away with lower AOB. So you don't have to be really quick in setting it. And if you have plotted the target track then you can measure the minimal distance to the track, and enter that.

And if he learn and use the "Straight shot" method and/or the "Perfect shot" method he doesn't need to estimate range at all, that's the beauty of these methods! :up: