[Sniper297]

"If your always having to turn the PK off what the reason for it?
In the manual and training tutorials they put a lot of relevance in using it during attacks but it's seeming like it's more of a distraction from what you should be doing."

Main reason I hardly ever use it, too much distraction. Plotting on the map works fine if the target is moving at a steady speed on a steady course, and the PK keeps track using that assumption. Main reason it exists is to give a visual picture of the relative positions and movements of the sub and the target if some high speed maneuvering is needed, in real life the sub had to dive deeper so there wouldn't be a visible disturbance on the surface, crank up the speed and do the turns, then slow down to 2 knots before rising to periscope depth again. Game doesn't simulate that, the enemy sees the periscope at the same range whether you're stopped or running fast enough to send up spray 5 feet high. Same applies to running on the surface or decks awash, the white spray is clearly visible on the monitor but the AI enemy can't see it. Use the PK for the approach if it helps, shut it down for the actual attack.

"Even when following something as big as a cruiser when he turns away from you in the training mission and he shows you his ahem...stern he is zigzagging so much you could never keep up in the AOB of the Attack Data Tool. I would prefer to just read what I believe he intends to do and try to shoot where I think he's going to turn."

If I'm reading that correctly you want to use "Kentucky windage" to lead the target strictly by eye - for that you have to set target speed to zero, dial up the stadimeter, point the scope, click SEND RANGE AND BEARING TO TDC so the gyro sets where you're pointing, then fire. What I found myself doing was;

1. Leave the AOB alone, leave speed set at zero. crank the mast height to max and hit the SEND RANGE AND BEARING TO TDC button. Now the fish are set with a zero gyro angle for the bow tubes, so you have to turn the whole sub to aim it. For slow merchant ships that works fine, point the sub ahead of the target, turn the scope to follow the target, fire when the crosshairs are 8 to 10 degrees off center.

2. For the stern tubes you have to point the scope 180 and click the SEND RANGE AND BEARING TO TDC button again. The range remains set at something like 1241 yards, but if the angle is correct the range doesn't actually matter, it's a triangle that will come to a point sooner or later.

3. To use the "angle-off" method when you can't line up the bow or stern in time, look at target, "try to shoot where I think he's going to turn" by rotating the scope in that direction and click the SEND RANGE AND BEARING TO TDC button before each shot.

It's not actually the correct way to do it, but the correct way just seems to complicated for me. This method seems sloppy, so I use automatic targeting and pretend my XO is a whiz on the TDC. In real life you have an approach assistant (usually the XO) and a whole plotting team, in the game you have to do everything yourself, so automatic targeting ON feels more realistic to me.

"This one is definitely one that I keep forgetting to do. Guess it does add some time to your shot. When you done shooting does the torpedo room crew automatically close the doors or do you have to order them to?
What about in a situation when you have to crash dive and go deep and you had ordered the doors to be opened. Does the torpedo room crew close them or wait till the pressure blows the inside hatch open and floods the ship..lol??"

Yeah, doors are shut automatically, in real life there's an interlock that prevents the inner door opening unless the outer is shut, and vice-versa. If you browse in Explorer to \Data\Submarine\NSS_Gato\ you'll find a text file (can be read/edited in notepad) named NSS_Gato.cfg, you'll find datablocks like;

[Properties]
PeriscopeDepth=18.3;meters
SnorkelDepth=15;meters
CrashDepth=40;meters
MaxDepth=132;meters
SurfaceDepth=4.7752;meters
TorpLaunchMaxDepth=30;meters
StormConditions=9,0.1;max wind speed [m/s], max rain intensity [0,1]

30 meters is about 100 feet, so if you go below that the outer doors shut automatically and you have to open them again with the Q key when you come back up. I eliminated that nonsense by editing mine;

[Properties]
PeriscopeDepth=18.3;meters
SnorkelDepth=15;meters
CrashDepth=40;meters
MaxDepth=132;meters
SurfaceDepth=4.7752;meters
TorpLaunchMaxDepth=300;meters
StormConditions=9,0.1;max wind speed [m/s], max rain intensity [0,1]

So once I open the outer doors they stay open until I shoot or shut them, the game doesn't simulate the real world problems caused by opening the doors too deep or leaving them open too long anyway so there's no point to it.

As for adding time to the shot, the delay is actually worse than just having to wait. Real life and in game there's a mechanical spindle inside each tube that engages a nut on the torpedo body, for setting depth, speed, and gyro angle. Connected electrically to the TDC it constantly updates the gyro angle until the moment the fire switch is thrown, then the spindle automatically retracts (so it STOPS UPDATING THE GYRO ANGLE since it's no longer mechanically connected), and the compressed air blows into the back of the tube to shove the torpedo out. The torpedo runs straight for 400 yards, then turns to the heading set in the gyro.

The target is moving, the sub is moving, any delay between the fire command and the fish actually leaving the tube makes the gyro angle wrong. That applies to both manual and automatic targeting, so checking outer doors open is vital - so vital that I used Silent 3ditor to edit my subs' .sim files, where it says;

auto_open = true

I changed all subs so they read;

auto_open = false

That way if the door is shut when I hit fire nothing happens, then I have to hit the Q, wait five seconds, re aim, then fire. Better than having a flawed program open it for me and missing because the solution is ancient history when the fish actually leaves the tube. Still baffles me how ubisoft screwed up that one little subroutine so badly, and how the beta testers missed it.

Almost forgot - as long as you're over 400 yards, closer is better. Within 1000 yards is best, if you're a few degrees off one way or another and he has alert lookouts who instantly see the wake, inside 1000 yards he has no time to react and the errors in aiming don't matter nearly as much as they do at 3000 yards, close in it's still gonna hit somewhere.