[Robin40]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

The reason to have X ships in the British (or any other "enemy") roster is that they will spawn from that enemy roster and therefore be enemy ships (according to the way the game reckons it) and behave as enemy ships when approached or attacked by your u-boat - but they may not look like enemy ships. They may not be flying an enemy flag, may not be flying any flag at all, may have no external markings to identify their nationality, or may even be "disguised" as ships from a different nation.

The point is, it won't be as obvious at first glance whether or not such a ship is legitimate target; sometimes a decision has to be made about that based on the ship's behavior, location and apparent destination, visible cargo, etc. So it becomes more complicated than just spotting a ship and IDing it as "enemy" or "neutral" based solely on its flag or markings. There may not be any flag or markings, or that ship that looks Swedish may be sailing into an English port with war materials strapped to its deck. The decision whether or not to attack is not always so simple any more.

Edit: it might be easier if we thought and spoke of the 'X' ships not as neutral ships, but as mystery ships where X = unknown. Because when they appear in the game they might be neutral or they might not be. There's no way to know because when one appears in the game you can't always tell which roster it spawned from based only on the usual criteria (flags and markings).

got it!