I have been playing for many years now. I currently play on 100% realism (difficulty), and I play "Dead is Dead", meaning if I die I start over in 1939 again.
I have survived the war once, but not at 100% difficulty. My goal now is to survive at 100%.
I started off with a relatively low difficulty level. The biggest thing to overcome is developing a good sense of Situational Awareness. It is difficult on a 2D computer screen to get a sense in your mind of which way the boat is pointing, where targets are, and where they are heading relative to your own heading.
For this reason, I recommend running the game with Map Contacts turned On. This will give you a "God's Eye" view of the battlefield showing any ships that have been sighted by the bridge crew or that are within visible range (or locked
) in a scope view. This lets you go to the map or attack view and instantly get a perspective of where you are relative to targets, and where they are going. It also allows you to get dead-precise speeds of targets by drawing a point on the map where they are now, waiting 3 minutes 15 seconds, and drawing another point on the map and drawing a line between them. The length of the line is the speed in knots.
You may wish to start off with an auto TDC setting. This gives you basically a point-and-shoot torpedo firing capability. You can shoot at any target from any angle and your torpedo will hit the target. Angle matters only for getting a good detonation probability (high impact angles often will make the torpedo skip off the hull without detonating) unless you run magnetic torps under their hull in which case angle does not matter.
Changing to manual TDC entry is one of the first goals I would shoot for. Without this, the game is pretty much an arcade. A big part of the satisfaction of the game is maneuvering into a good firing position and manually using the TDC to make hits on ships.
Here are the available options and my suggestions.
http://www.subsim.com/ssr/sh3_rc1/sc...h3review27.jpg
Limited Batteries
Might as well go with this turned on from the start. Learn to drive your sub within its natural limits.
Limited Compressed Air
Same with this. Run with it on from the start. You aren't likely to ever run out of this anyway. If you use so much of this that you are running low odds are your sub is soon to be destroyed anyway.
Limited O2
Run with this on from the start also. Again, not likely to ever be a real problem. If you have not escaped a depth charge attack before the air runs out you probably will not be escaping from it.
Limited Fuel
Run with this on from the start also. As long as you drive around at 2/3 speed you will run out of ammunition long before fuel most of the time.
Realistic Vulnerability
May as well run with this on also.
Realistic Repair Time
I'm kind of ambivalent on this one. I think you should run with it on. If you die from a damaged sub, just reload the game from your last save and move on. You need to develop a sense of what your boat can take and how long it takes to fix things. You should strive to get qualified repair petty officers and a repair qualified officer as soon as possible to max out your repair capabilities.
Realistic Ship Sinking Time
Sure, run with this on also. It will mean you will probably put two fish into every ship to make sure they go down in a reasonable amount of time. This is my usual budget.
Manual Targeting System
I'd run with this off for several patrols, but this is the first thing I would strive to master. Using manual TDC with 90-degree attacks is not difficult if you know the target's speed.
No Map Contact Update
Keep this off for sure. This is the hardest setting to turn on. Once you turn this on, nothing shows on your maps. Everything is in your head from what you see from the bridge or scope and what you hear from the hydrophone. Once you turn this on, from there on out everything about your target is a best guess. Expect more torpedo misses.
Realistic Sensors
Sure, turn this on.
Dud Torpedoes
You may want to run with this off for a while. You need to get feedback as to whether you are hitting things or not with your torpedoes. You can actually see duds on the attack map (they stop when they hit things), but you will need the satisfaction of explosions.
However, nothing really detrimental to you happens if you get a dud, so you may turn it on from the start if you want.
Realistic Reload
Turn it on. Learn how to make proper attacks.
No Event Camera
Do not turn this on. This is a huge learning aid. Plus the eye candy is fun. Whenever your torpedo runs near a target, depth charges are coming near you, or a ship sinks, you get a nice little view of the action. It's fun.
No External View
Do not turn this on, either. This is a huge, huge eye candy thing and lots of people keep this on no matter how good they are. Frankly the game gets boring with this off. I'm only doing it to beat the challenge of making it through the war without being able to fly around and see things I should not be able to see.
But it is very nice to fly over convoys and get a feel for where they are and where they are going, where the juicy targets are, and where the escorts are, and what kinds of escorts there are.
It's fun and instructive to watch your torpedoes home in and explode (or miss or dud). It's fun to watch ships blow up and sink. It's fun and useful to watch escorts and depth charges rain down on you so you can learn how to evade.
This setting makes up for the inherent lack of situational awareness.
No Stabilize View
Turn it on. Might as well learn to deal with periscopes and binoculars pitching in a rough sea from the start.
No Noise Meter
Leave it off. You will want your noise meter as you learn how close you can get to escorts and under what conditions to avoid detection.
That's what I have for now.
Steve