Yea, i would say the Hydrophone / sonarman issues are the biggest issue with the sim in its current state (well after the campign is running good).
I un-installed OH11 v1.1 and installed Base mod+Environment after failing to enter Keil. That cured the problem so i've left it as that to continue to my next patrol.
Starting my next patrol i left through the Keil cannal and off to the East coast of Britian (just below Inverness) without encountering a single ship of any description! I figured without the extra traffic it might be so, then i figured maybe somethings wrong....however, about 50km of the coast surfaced in perfect waveless / cloudless weather my watch crew reported smoke on the horizon....i use Handsolo's smoke mod so you can actually see smoke on the horizon.
I jumped out of bed (in boat!) and lept to the conning tower to take a look, i could see nothing.
I asked my Watch officer who reported nearest visual contact was 120º @ 15000m . This was strange, beacause through the UZO i could see nothing?
I swung the boat around to the contact and hit full speed....waited until the report of contact @ 12000m and still could see nothing. I dived to a depth of 40m and asked the Sonarman who reported nothing.
I jumped into the Sonarman's station and could hear a warship+Merchant now at 240º.
.
Deciding i had to take leave of the sim and investigate, i surfaced and swung the boat around to the direction of the merchant sound and hit full speed ahead.
I then went out in search (With free cam) of the original visual contact and what did i find......a fishing boat!!!, this throw me as i was not expecting to see any new ships with just the base mod installed!, but obviously this is why i could not hear it, or see any smoke.
After a while i came up against the Warship and dived..i can hear the merchant in the distance. that is where i have it saved.
Basically, could any of you clever modders import the sound bites from SH3 and fix the Sonarman? i cant belive how much better SH3 was where the Hydrophone was concerned. In SH3 you could submerge near a convoy and he would shout out (un-prompted) each and every ship in the vicinity and ID them and tell you if they were speeding up and closing or otherwise, you could ping of them to get a range, disifer which ship they were by sound....it was like night and day compared to SH5, it was like well a Sonarman!!
Thanks