First Career. First patrol. 0 Alive, 46 dead.
 

Just completed the training missions and went out on my first patrol.

Had to get to patrol grid AK 39, and on the way encontered a couple of ships, sunk one of 'em, and managed to escape the plane shooting at me. One crew member wounded, 5 dead. I was pretty sad at this point, but still eager to sink allied shipping.

Get to grid AK 39, and instruct my radio operator to switch on the Das Boot theme tune. I'm on the bridge screaming "Not yet my friends! Not yet!" and suddenly WHAM! a plane appears.

ALARM! Just as I begin to dive, I feel the boat shaking around me. At this point it's too late. The depth charges have been dropped. Up pops the screen. "Your U-boat has been destroyed". At first I was in complete shock, but then as reality set in, and the Das Boot title track still playing, my eyes started watering. I shed a tear for my virtual crewmen.

0 Alive, 0 Wounded, 46 dead.

What a game. I must do better next time.

Noob question: What does the ! mean, when it's displayed on your crewmen in the crew view?

Re: First Career. First patrol. 0 Alive, 46 dead.
 

Probably one reason why your watch crew didn't spot that plane in time. It means their fatiuged and need rest. If they're fatigued they do not do their job with any great proficiency.


I dont have a gridmap in front of me, but AK sound like its fairly close to england. Id stay submerged by day and only run on the surface at night. Early war, you own the night. Enjoy it while it lasts ;)

Cool, thanks Ducimus. Is there any way I could just press a button to have my crew switch shifts, or do I have to do it manually via drag and drop?

Do not use any of the "Crew" buttons, because they often cause a lockup or crash to desktop. The drag and drop is unfortunately the safest way to go.

What was the weather? What TC were you running at?

I would change in SH3/Data/Cfg/SIM the coefficient for visual sensitivity from .01 to .02.

This seems to solve that problem of aircraft attacking you in perfect visibility with no warning.

Not to worry, they are still just as deady in medium or poor visbility, escpecially if they have radar.

Personnaly id look into getting one of the fatigue mods rather then suffer the stock fatigue model. You're quickly going to find yourself playing "lemmings in das boot" from juggling them around so much.

Acutally, if your not into fine tunning/modding your game, id grab the latest version of the Grey wolves mod. ( link here: http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=50034 ) Theres alot of goodness in that mod, and its far more realistic then vanilla SH3.

haha, look at these new heros... all hot air and smoke. Better luck next time Kaleun.

He'll learn in time...lol. :o

You didn't mention what boat you had, but, you may consider another go at the flak tutorial. :rotfl:

Hahaha, I'll need it!

I forgot that little detail, my crew were dying for god's sake! :rotfl:

I'll keep that in mind. I was running at 1024 TC, and the weather was perfectly fine and clear. Hmm...I'll give your soluting a go.

My assumption has been a type7, early war, somewhere in the vacinity, or waters directly near england.

oh and blizzard, dont feel to bad. Aircraft have ended two of my careers :D

You should have seen what happed to my U-333, it was rather dramatic, but suffice to say, those damn buzzards got me good :D

Are you using the realistic depth charge mod? I'm guessing not, if you were your boat probably would not have been blown out of the water.
Hey I just realised something, planes drop 'depth charges' in SHIII right? Or do they have 'bombs' that the realdc mod doesnt change?

And therein lies a big part of the problem: 1024TC is WAY too much to be running surfaced on a clear day and within aircraft range (which by the way is way too long, at least for the Hurrcane). The thing is, you'll only have 1/1024 of the time to react, as opposed to running TC=1. The sequence of events is:

1) An aircraft gets close enough to spot you.
2) Your threat indicator turns yellow or red.
3) The Aircraft spots you.
4) The indicator turns red, if it hasn't already.
5) He starts his attack (and aircraft are fast!)
6) Your crew sees him.
7) Only now does your TC drop to 1.

All of points 1 thru 6 takes a few moments or minutes, but at 1024 - only fraction of a second - and you're toast!

I use max TC=128 when aircraft may appear, and then I keep my finger on the backspace button and my eyes on the threat indicator. When it turns red, I drop to TC=1 and go to the tower to see what may be seen. But it would be cheating to take action, until the aircraft has been spotted.

Oh, and do keep up the speed at day - you can always save fuel at night :)

BRGDS
Sven

Threat indicator? I'm not sure what that is.

Frankly, maybe it's just me but I'm disappointed in the air power in this game. I can cruise on the surface through the Bay of Biscay in late 1941 on 1024 TC and not run into a single aircraft. I would have to say of my last three patrols in 1941 I haven't spotted or been attacked by a single enemy aircraft.

Do aircraft appear more at lower time compressions? I'm all for realism, but I also don't want to spend 2 full days staring at my monitor crossing the Bay of Biscay.

The treat indicator is the little sub that changes colors from green /yellow /red .Green is good, Red you are on the verge of being spotted or detected if not already.

Time compression is a great thing if you use it wisely. If you are in a danger area. go slow TC of 64 is about as fast a you want if you are trying to spot aircraft and you want enough time to react.

As for the aircraft issue, yes going that fast will somewhat disable aircraft. Go 250 to 512 and you will see plenty of aircraft . :o

Yeah, never good to cruise on the surface in good weather during the day at 1024 TC. Use a lower TC value and from time to time drop down to real time for a little while. I also submerge from time to time to make a hydrophone check. This is especially true if you're relatively near the shore. When in doubt, cruise submerged and you can safely go to 1024 TC.

But planes never really cause too much disruption to our missions. Of course I have the VIIC with two, twin 20mm guns and the crew does a good job of sweeping the planes from the sky - I usually take over for a few shots myself since it's fun as hell. Had one guy get killed when he shot at a plane that dove on us, the damn thing crashed into the boat. Another time had two guys wounded but the medic patched them up in no time. The only time it got a bit exciting was when 12 Sunder lands jumped us at once. We were chasing a T2 so things got a bit hectic. The pitter-patter of machine impacts all around us, the droning sounds of airplane engines, bomb gyzers all around us and the crack of our cannon. Whoooo, gotta love it!

We bagged two of the Sunderlands then dove since it got too hot. Tailed the T2 submerged for about an hour then finished her off with clear skies.

Thanks MarshalLaw. I didn't know what the Threat Indicator was since I play with that turned off. I thought all that showed was how visible you would be if someone were looking. Like running flank speed on a clear day would give you a red sub even if no one was around to notice. I didn't know it showed if they noticed you or not. Now I see why turning it off is an increase in difficulty.

And thanks for the tidbit about the aircraft. Not that I wanna get pounded by aircraft, but to me the Bay of Biscay was more or less a safe haven since there were never any enemy ships and never any aircraft so it was like a little cruise vacation before rounding Spain and getting into the good stuff. I'll have to try 512 from now on and see if that makes a difference.