How do I get to Japan?

[Sh!tler]

Not sure if this is a noob question but how do I reach Japan (Honshu Island) where I have been tasked to eliminate merchant shipping?

I am in a porpoise sub, and am down to 50% fuel before I'm even near the target area, so their obviously isn't enough diesel to get back. I started at Pearl Harbor, refuelled at Midway, and made the rest of the trip accross the Pacific. What am I doing wrong?

What is the optimum speed for distance travel?

[Mud]

1/3 , 2/3 at most.

Mud

[Krupp]

Manually adjust the speed to 10 knots.

[AVGWarhawk]

Welcome to save my fuel club. Run your engines at 1/3 or slow. Use the higher speeds for attacks. It is the only way to save fuel.

[Linavitch]

And remember to resuply at Midway (in both directions). In fact you can run at ahead full to Midway then when you have refueled set to 1/3.

[elanaiba]

Originally Posted by Sh!tler

Not sure if this is a noob question but how do I reach Japan (Honshu Island) where I have been tasked to eliminate merchant shipping?

I am in a porpoise sub, and am down to 50% fuel before I'm even near the target area, so their obviously isn't enough diesel to get back. I started at Pearl Harbor, refuelled at Midway, and made the rest of the trip accross the Pacific. What am I doing wrong?

What is the optimum speed for distance travel?

You're running 1.1 right?

[Redwine]

Refit at Midway or Jonhston Atoll... prior to go to the patrol zone, and when back home, sail at 6 knots as much. Even with this, patrol time is very limited.

[Lawndart]

I had this problem on one of my first patrols and found a way around it... Make sure you save a game with the replay, load the replay and go to the end of it. You will have a full tank of gas.

I havent tested this in 1.1, but it worked in 1.0.

[Iron Budokan]

Doesn't 2/3 give a better fuel range than 1/3? Just because you're going slower doesn't mean the diesels are working more efficiently. Of course, dunno if this is modeled in SH4 since my navigator is mute on the subject....

[malkuth74]

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

Doesn't 2/3 give a better fuel range than 1/3? Just because you're going slower doesn't mean the diesels are working more efficiently. Of course, dunno if this is modeled in SH4 since my navigator is mute on the subject....

Nope, slower you go the More fuel you save. It only takes longer to get to said Area.

[fidget]

Yeah, 2/3 works fine for me, as long as I make a pit stop at Midway both ways.

[DeePsix501]

These fuel stats are not accurate to real life are they?

[tycho102]

Originally Posted by Sh!tler

Not sure if this is a noob question but how do I reach Japan (Honshu Island) where I have been tasked to eliminate merchant shipping?

There's two ways. One is at 1/3 speed, the other is at flank. The flank method is more difficult and a little risky.

I will explain:

Ideally you should start this with as much fuel as possible. For the sake of clarity, I'm going to start at Pearl. You also have to modify your configuration files to allow higher time compresions at various events.

Set up a series of waypoints making sure you stay a nice distance from land masses and as straight a route as possible. One of these way points needs to go within the 30km radius of a base -- Midway for this explaination. You're going to "refit" at that base. Zoom out far enough so that you can see the entirety of your route.

Flog it to Midway and refit. Quickly fire off a torpedo in a safe direction. While your boat is still on autopilot, and you're still cruising at flank speed, quickly ratchet up the time compression to something like 1024x and hit the little "dock" icon at the upper-right of the navmap.

The option to "refit" will come back up on the display. In the background of this, your sub will be cruising at flank speed and 1024x compression. Just wait as long as possible. You can be all the way to the Mariana's and still refit from Midway. If a plane pops up, then you're screwed. Just hit the "refit" command and dive/fight. Hopefully you made it quite a distance. Reduce your speed to 1/3 and go from there.

With a little luck, you can get a long way toward Japan before you have to kick out of the refit option.



Note: while the refit option is on-screen, you cannot do anything else. You have to either refit or postpone. This little "cheat" only works because time isn't paused while the choice is on screen. You can also run smack into a ship if you have edited your configuration files to keep a high compression upon detecting a ship, and things are just a little too close (they always seem to be, by design).