I'm on my second patrol with my 1940 career. I patrolled a grid northwest of Lisbon for 24 hours on my first patrol – no contacts – then tried to follow a convoy that must have kept zig-zagging – no contacts again.
Then I got assigned to AM34 for my second patrol out of St. Nazaire, so naturally I opted to head through the Irish Seas and past the Hebrides. Just east of Dublin, I got notification of a convoy and successfully plotted an intercept course by use of the compass and speed estimation (pretty exciting for me, since I've only been playing the game for two days). So I guess you could say I'm one of those who won't pass up a convoy if it comes right to him.
I nailed a merchant vessel on the far side of the convoy and dove to 94 metres, depth under keel 10. Spent two hours evading destroyers, but took no damage and made my way northwards running silent and bolting at 45 degree angles every time I heard splashes.
This game is amazing. The first day I played I was using the external view, but now I've gotten so good at visualizing the movements of the destroyers based on the hydrophone operator's reports that I don't bother. I stick to the command room view, and occasionally peek over my navigator's shoulder.
This makes me wonder something though – in terms of simulating being a Kaleun (not simulating every operation of a sub) – would you say it's more or less realistic to have the weapons officer plot the solution based on information you give him from the notepad than it is for you, the Kaleun, to go and do all the TDC stuff manually?
I'm of two minds on this – for one, the notepad system is a bit unrealistic, but then if you were to measure range without the stadimeter, the game has no way for you to pass that independently-gathered info on to the weapons officer. I want to learn how to do all this stuff myself, and I've read Wazoo's page about charting and solutions, but at the moment, I'm happy to just be the Kaleun (though sometimes the desire to blast a patrol boat to bits with the 88 is too great to resist, I admit).
What do you guys like to do with regards to being the Kaleun / being every officer? How do you divide it up? I personally love passing information on to my capable crew and directing the approach, escape, and target selection. That feels nice and Kaleun-like to me, but I suspect I'm in the minority as most here are a bit more hardcore. I'm just a newb, though. Give it a week or two and I'm sure I'll be screwing up firing solutions myself again.
Sorry for the wall of text. I'm just new and excited as all hell about this game!
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