Thanks for the warm welcome and all of the great information!
I'm going to play the unmodded version for a bit until I get comfortable with the boat. I went ahead and learned how to do the manual firing solutions right off the bat and plan on sticking with them. It's pretty satisfying when you put in the work and get the eels on target. This is a great sim!
Some info on my first career:
Currently commanding the U-4, a Type II boat out of Wilhelmshaven. I have two patrols in the books but I've only managed to sink 10500 tons between the two patrols.
A bad storm along the English coast made for some rough hunting on my first patrol. Enemy aircraft forced me down a few times and I ended up spending a lot of time patrolling on the surface during the night, and resting submerged during the day. Got into a side by side sprint with a C2 in rough ocean -- so rough that the conning tower was swamped on a few occasions. He surprised my watch and I never got into a great firing position to begin with - loosed a salvo of two torps once I got along side of him, but both went wide. Broke contact afterwards, low on gas. Headed for home and ran across a coastal merchant. Sunk it and headed home with two torps onboard, but too low on fuel to loiter.
Second patrol went better -- actually ran into two lone ships (a small merchant and a C2) before ever making it to my patrol sector. I sunk both, but they almost refused to go down and I used all 5 torpedoes in doing so. Admittedly, some of my shots could have been placed better, but all 5 found their mark. Scouted my assigned sector to complete the mission and headed home.
Patrol three has me going up near Norway. Norway is still neutral, so I'm not exactly sure what to expect.