[siber]

Hi alowen. I hope I can help answer your questions:

1: In your periscope view, the presence of triangles indicates the you're using auto-targetting. In this mode, all you've got to do is find a target in the scope and lock it and your weapons officer plots the torpedo solution, continually and automatically updating it. However, if your boat's pointing the wrong way (ie. the compass at the top of the scope is away from 0/360 degrees) the torpedo's going to have to turn around after being fired. Therefore, the colour of the triangle indicates how 'good' the shot solution provided by your weapons officer is. Red indicates that the torpedo will have to turn a lot after leaving the tube, Orange shows that it'll have to turn a bit, while Green means the ship's within about 10 degrees of the torpedo's direction once fired. Essentially, if you shoot when the triangle's red, the shot will more than likely miss. Orange shots have a better chance of hitting, while with a green triangle, a shot at that moment will probably hit the target. Note however that 'hitting the target' does not neccessarily mean that the torpedo will
detonate. It might go under the target's hull without exploding if it's running deep, or bounce off if the impact pistol doesn't work!

2: It's possible that your graphics card can't handle the spray simulated while moving waves break over your decks when using the UZO. There's a way to switch this spray off in UZO view which significantly improves performance - I think it's SHIFT+PgUp (or perhaps CTRL+PgUp - one raises the attack scope fully, the other turns off spray) but I hope someone else can confirm or correct me as I'm not entirely sure...

3: Personally, I'd recommend the GWX mod, but there are other supermods too, NGYM tonnage war etc. These bundle together lots of things, including a number of mods. If you're having problems with spray in UZO, I'd recommend HarbourLite mod - if only for the sake of your graphics card - to reduce lag in ports and also urge you be very careful if you install 16km vision - allows you to detect enemy vessels at longer range - as this slows my computer down enormously. Other than that, see other threads to see what others recommend.

Also, the "ALLLAAARM!!!!" cry you refer to is integral to GWX. If you install this supermod, you'll get it back!

Finally, I'd urge you to move on to more realistic settings - specifically disabling auto-targetting - as soon as you feel confident to try targetting yourself. You'll spend the first few torpedo loads firing eels off to a beach somewhere without hitting anything, but when you do start hitting ships, it's much more satisfying knowing that your calculated solution was correct. Together with this, install a supermod asap, before you get used to stock SHIII's AI. The supermods have beefed the AI up and it'll come as a shock if you're used to dumb vanilla!

EDIT: Argh! Seth AND Indiana beat me to it: Morale - don't write such long posts... lol!