Your only required to spend 24 hours in your assigned patrol zone. You dont have to return after that. Most of us won't return until we're out of eels. It's not uncommon to spend 60-70 days at sea.
And anyways, in GWX, the renown bonus for actually hitting your assigned zone has been removed. Some of us, myself included, have added it back in, to feel like we're actually following orders. But once the 24 hours is up, you cna go wherever you want, and that is usually into one of the high traffic areas that are marked on the included (GWX only, not stock, IIRC) map.
Historically, Skippers were court martialed or just reassigned for not shooting at anything (basically the ones that intentionally avoided contact with the enemy). So it's accurate to play till your out of fuel or ammo. And there's enough fuel in the GWX boats to sail to the US, spend a couple few weeks, and sail back.
If your having issues with SHC and the steam install, try UNchecking the auto rollback option. I think the delay caused by Steam forces SHC to ignore all it's own changes, but that's just a theory of mine.
And as I said in the other thread you have here somewhere, expect 10-20 minute load times, especially deep into a patrol. It's just that deep of a game. (or poorly written
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