Newbie here, have a few questions
 

First of all, I want to say hi to all members of this great community! Been lurking here for a while.
I'm pretty new to sub sims, just started playing them recently after seeing a let's play on youtube. I like simulators though I'm pretty bad at them and I've always been intrigued by the naval aspect of WW2.
I'm on my first patrol in the SH4. Started as a Porpoise class sub in the Pearl. My first objective was to patrol Japan - Singapore/Luzon shipping lines. After spending a quite amount of time getting there (Pacific is a big ocean) and patrolling for 2 weeks, I haven't seen any enemy ships. I'm using RSRDC mod.
I could go back to Pearl and report my dry patrol but I'm afraid that when returning to Pearl, I won't be able to end the patrol since I haven't finished the mission objective. Also which torpedoes are the best to use early in the war? M14 is known to be useless at the beginning at the war due to the huge amount of malfunctions and M10 lacks the punch to kill off bigger ships, am I right?
TL : DR Can't find convoys, can I end my patrol without any ships sunk and still continue my career?

MK10s are going to be more reliable. They may have a smaller punch, but if the MK14 doesn't reach the target or doesn't explode, the MK10 still wins out. You can use the MK14. Set it to run shallow, set it to contact, and fire for a 45 degree torpedo track angle.

Yes, you can. One bad patrol won't mess you up too bad.

welcome aboard!
 

Welcome to SubSim :sunny:

A warm welcome ‘sickpeople’ to the Subsim family.:subsim:

You will always find someone here to help you.:)

Link to my SH3 – SH4 – SH5 posts::salute:

Step By Step Tutorials & How To Do It.:up:

Also Included Are Some Useful Download Links

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=211804

You can use TDW’Generic File Patcher with STEAM see my Tutorial Post #125

"M10 lacks the punch to kill off bigger ships"

"I haven't seen any enemy ships"

Seems to me the first problem is finding targets, second problem is hitting them, after that start worrying about how many hits it takes to sink one. New to the game and "pretty bad at simulators" it strikes me that you're overdoing the challenge to begin with - RSRDC mod has fewer targets to find in the first place, and playing with full realism including dud torpedoes the first time trying out the game seems kinda masochistic. It's no fun unless it's really really really impossibly difficult? :know:

Welcome to the Foums, sickpeople. Hope you like our little insane asylum. :D :har: :salute:

Look in historical shipping lanes for targets. The Navy doesn't care if you finish the objectives or not they are looking for tonnage.

Use the Mark 14's on slow settings with magnetic detonators. You will still have duds and premature explosions just not as many ... but still too many.

Welcome :sunny:

Sniper, in his defense, I did start the game straight off with TMO and the only thing I didn't check was manual targeting :D It must be a personal preference when starting a simulation like this! :up:

I'm currently on my 3rd patrol. I already have found and sunk 2 ships. One was a one-shot torpedo kill, the other was a bit more difficult, mainly due to the bad weather and dud torpedoes, which forced me to follow the ship for a while until the weather cleared and i could kill him with my deck gun. I'm playing with everything turned on except manual targeting, map contact updates and external view. It's a nice balance between full realism and arcade.
BTW,the game is a blast! It's May 1942 and the Battle of Midway is going to start soon. I'm thinking of going to Midway and try to find the battle or perhaps even sink Japanese Carriers before the SBDs do. :) That would make up for my poor early patrols. I'm probably going to die horribly though.

Welcome aboard sickpeople! :Kaleun_Salute:

With a name like that we need you in The Bilge. You'll fit in nicely. Also we need a newby to clean up after Wolferz and Armistead. :Kaleun_Sick:

"in his defense" I'm not attacking, merely making observations and suggestions. Dud torpedoes are the biggest handicap in the game, in my opinion they overdid the failures by 500% at least. There were several occasions in real life where every exploder in the load was faulty, or 3 out of 4, but in game it's practically every time even if you hit on an angle.

One of the (many) unrealistic aspects of the game is the patrol area - in real life you were supposed to stay inside the boundaries of your patrol area. Sometimes it happened that there was zero action in the area and a sub would radio for permission to move somewhere else rather than coming home with a full load of torpedoes, but it didn't happen often in the beginning of the war.

In game you only have to get to the patrol area and wait 48 hours (or no wait if the message is "destroy enemy merchant shipping") then you can go into Osaka or someplace to sink docked and anchored ships if you want. The assignment might be to sink merchants in the Celebes sea, but if you sink them in Tokyo Bay instead it counts as mission accomplished just the same.

So what I would do as a newbie is turn off dud torpedoes, use Mark 14s, then after completing the assigned mission go look for targets where they are instead of wasting time where they're not. Auto targeting off and map contact updates off combined are actually less handicap than dud torpedoes.