GWX KC Edition - some questions
 

First off, this release is amazing, game wise and graphically but I have a few questions that are probably applicable to all SH3 versions.

I am on patrol in grid BE late October 1940 and the weather as been windspeed 16 for almost 3 weeks. It is a terrible patrol and I have only sunk 1 ship with two torpedoes, my fuel is down to 50% and my crew exhausted but I will not return to base with all these torpedoes available. My questions are.

How long do these storms last?
I located a convoy but was detected by a corvette that made my life a misery for several hours and despite watching my profile and my RPMs I was eventually down to 160 metres before I lost him.

So what is the hydrophone range of these sub hunters? I could not surface and engage with deck gun because of weather.
Finally, I have always gone to flank speed when depth charges are dropped (depending on how far from my boat). Is this correct or should I wait until they start going off and then increase speed also how long do I have to go back to 50 RPM after the last one drops?
Any information or advice would be welcome

:Kaleun_Salute:

Bugs and tactics
 

SH3 weather is a bug. Apparently the internal range of wind speed is much higher than 15m/s and the game "clips" the value, with the result it can stick at 15 m/s for long periods. I understand the weather refreshes about every 20 hours. The Atlantic is a stormy place, but high wind speeds should shift direction continually and come and go much faster as depressions pass by. Rest assured that the GWXKC team have chosen the best available work around patch.

I don't think there is a dead zone due to depth charge explosions. There is a mod that introduces it but it is a bit buggy and I don't think it will be in GWXKC. However the escorts should have a dead zone behind them ("in the baffles") and will be travelling fast, so you should be fairly safe for about 20s or so after they pass over.
Going to flank speed is done to move you as far away as possible from your last detected position so you are out of the escorts' search zone when they try to reacquire you. The downside is that if there are multiple escorts with the convoy you will pull more distant ones in. You have to work out how close they are dropping and decide when to stop sprinting and start creeping away.

GWX always had super sensitive escort hydrophones, the famous "laser guided escorts", which seem to be good out to about 8km. I think this is an incorrect use of cold war sensor capabilities and it was the major reason for my switch to NYGM. In this period the prime sensor was active sonar, which would bang away all day with a range of around 1.5km (see https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7qjuo7). The passive function of ASDIC was used for added information about a known target or for ambushing a deep submarine. There were exceptions to this however! I don't know how much this has been tweaked.
I've only had a brief dabble with GWXKC and I have to say that so far I'm blown away by how rock solid, slick and professional it is. I don't know about the game play yet....

Thanks for reply
 

It appears to be rock solid stability wise but not sure about the weather. In the end I managed to sink 3 vessels but had to return because the weather was too bad for me to load in the external torpedoes.
Just leaving port now and the weather is fine. Do you know if there is a way to start patrol outside harbour. I love the send of but it gets tiresome.

Bad news
 

There's a start patrol at sea option in the SH3 commander launcher for SH3. Unfortunately this is NOT compatible with Knights Cross GWX.


At the moment...

I don't mean to interrupt here, but thought a smidge of background info might be helpful.

GWX - Knight's Cross uses the Hsie bad weather hardcode fix which does mitigate the SH3 bad weather bug, but as you have seen, it does not remove the bug.

The SH3 weather bug is just no fun at all.

Also, if you see mention of the EnvSimAct_10 and/or its construction by Stiebler... DO NOT use it. It is deeply incompatible with GWX-KC.

Reasons why can be gleaned from archive posts from years past via google and understanding how it all works following research.

Cheers, gents.

Thank you
 

Regards to the weather bug, I can live with it. I was in the RN for 12 years and know just how long bad weather can last so it does not break immersion for me.

I wrote my own batch file that takes the gramophone folder, renames and random sorts the the outcome and it works fine. I do lose the original title names but that is acceptable to me. I have it in the folder and click before loading the game.

The ship models are really great, in fact so good that the other day I was tempted to spare an old merchant vessel because as a sailor I found it beautiful to look at. In the end I did my duty with sorrow in my heart.

Any future developments planned, not that any are really needed.

Thank you again.
:Kaleun_Salute: