[Stavrogin]

Hey everyone. I'm new to the game, and a little limited. I DID buy the game legally, but I'm running it on a Mac using Paul the Tall's Wineskin wrapper, so it doesn't work perfectly (the mouse doesn't work quite right - you can't select things in dropdown menus, which is pretty crippling). But Paul is apparently working on it.

I have a couple of questions, though. So far, I've pretty much been a Kilo driver, and I've had some success with a couple of the Kilo missions. I've been reading the manual, and I understand most of what's going on. BTW, I have virtually no experience with sub sims, but I've got a basic understanding of how a submarine and its systems work.

I don't think I quite understand how the targeting system works. I understand TMA. I understand the geometry and mathematics behind "stacking the dots". That all makes perfect sense. What I don't get is what the torpedo actually does with the solution the TMA gives it. A fundamental question is: Does the torpedo head for the target's currrent position at the moment of firing, or the anticipated position at the torpedo's anticipated moment of impact? So, does the torpedo leave the tube and head for where the target is, or where it expects it WILL be in a few minutes? This question seems particularly crucial when using wakehomers.

Also, much of the writing on combat tactics talks of "firing a spread". How is this actually done? If you're firing three torpedoes, doesn't that require three different solutions? Do you fire one, go back to TMA, tweak the solution and enter it, fire the next, and repeat a third time?

As for leading or lagging a target (for instance, if you wanted to fire a 53-65K into a ship's wake, instead of at the ship), would you just plot a good solution, then perhaps manually alter the bearing a few degrees aft of the target before entering the solution and firing?

It seems to me that wakehomers should be the easiest weapons to use against cargo ships and such, and yet it seems I have little luck with them. It always looks on the target display as though the torpedo is leading the target, at which point the target just turns away, so the torp never actually crosses its wake.

Any help with these questions would be appreciated! And hopefully, Paul the Tall can get his wineskin wrapper figured out so the mouse works soon (he said he'd get to it shortly). Because everything else I've tried in the game works fine - sound, graphics, etc.

Look forward to meeting you all!

Stavrogin