A few more questions...

[Naga]

Hello again. I'm still on my first playthrough and have a few questions. A few pertinent bits of information: Mid 1942, Type VIIC, assigned to flotilla that leaves out of Lorient, I tend to follow the orders given (I.E. patrol a given area, which tend to be north of England, or near the equator, off the west coast of Africa) and not do much exploring.

1. I have found that I am running into fewer and fewer merchant ships, or at least the map updates with the red box and heading are no longer appearing with as much frequency. Could this be a result of me using 1024x time compression? How do I go about making these appear more often?

2. Do the contacts, particularly large convoys, appear randomly, or do they follow assigned routes? If they follow assigned routes, is there somewhere that these routes are listed? Could someone give me some lucrative routes with approximate years of activity for those routes?

That's it for now. I'm sure I will have more soon. Thanks for any information. This community provides some of the best support out of any game community I have ever seen.

[RoaldLarsen]

1) The reduced number of contacts could be a result of using high time compression. This will certainly reduce the number of contacts you make yourself, and may reduce the number of radio message contact reports you receive.

(From a realism point of view, there are too many contact reports in the game, I deliberately run at high TC to reduce the number of contacts.)

2) The contacts appear on assigned routes, but displaced a random distance from a pre-set waypoint. For stock, the game map (brown pull-down in top left corner of <F5> map screen) shows the most common convoy routes as well as some single ship routes. For a supermod, read the manual that came with the mod.

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Naga

1. I have found that I am running into fewer and fewer merchant ships, or at least the map updates with the red box and heading are no longer appearing with as much frequency. Could this be a result of me using 1024x time compression? How do I go about making these appear more often?

Yes, read the quoted text from Letum. With high TC the non-player units kind of jump over your sensor areas.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=150558

Originally Posted by Naga

2. Do the contacts, particularly large convoys, appear randomly, or do they follow assigned routes? If they follow assigned routes, is there somewhere that these routes are listed? Could someone give me some lucrative routes with approximate years of activity for those routes?

They have predetermined routes. Open up the campaign files in the mission editor to see and don't mind getting spoiled. Some of those routes spawn units at certain time intervals, based on random chance (in the random layer), and perhaps with random unit type. In the scripted layer units get spawned only once, exactly at the time as scripted. And then there is the land-layer, but that's just for static scenery.

You didn't mention if you used stock Silent Hutner 3 or a mod(ified campaign). There should be a map with general convoy routes in the documentation folder of the game: SH3_MAP.jpg

[Sailor Steve]

The routes are semi-scripted. The appearance of the convoys along them are randomized. There is no penalty for going exploring once your 24 hours in the assigned grid are completed, but I stay in the grid for the whole patrol anyway, unless I get a report of a convoy close by. I try to be realistic by getting less tonnage, not more; but that's just me. I use a mod that removes almost all the contacts from the map - only the large convoys are reported, and then only occasionally.

[Naga]

Okay. I didn't know about the pull down convoy map. I wish the training missions would cover things like this! Also, what's the highest TC I can use while still being able to reliably receive contact reports? Is there some way (I.E. a mod) to increase this amount? Yes, I'm impatient. That's probably why I've been sunk four times this career. But I digress. On the subjet of mods, I am not currently using any. I have read much about GWX 3.0 and SH3 Cmdr. Would using both of these mods on my next playthrough be a good idea? Thanks for the quick replies.

[RoaldLarsen]

Originally Posted by Naga

Okay. I didn't know about the pull down convoy map. I wish the training missions would cover things like this! Also, what's the highest TC I can use while still being able to reliably receive contact reports? Is there some way (I.E. a mod) to increase this amount? Yes, I'm impatient. That's probably why I've been sunk four times this career. But I digress. On the subjet of mods, I am not currently using any. I have read much about GWX 3.0 and SH3 Cmdr. Would using both of these mods on my next playthrough be a good idea? Thanks for the quick replies.

According to some, 128x is the fastest. This is based on a fair amount of testing. I think there is some evidence that in fact at 128x the number of contacts is somewhat reduced, but that there is a dramatic difference between 128x and 256x.

I don't use GWX, primarily because of having an old graphics card that may run into difficulties with GWX's graphics enhancements, and also because I want to complete my current campaign before I switch to GWX. By all accounts, it is a more rich experience than stock, but I don't know whether it will help you with our impatience issues. It claims to be a realsm mod, and if it is, there will be fewer contacts in it than in stock.

I do use SH3 Commander. I think of it as a tool that enables one to mod the game to taste, rather than as a mod in itself. I consider it essential to allowing me to play the game tweaked my way to a higher standard of realism than stock. It also adds some non-essential but entertaining enhancements such as patrol and career logs.

I would strongly recommend SH3 Commander. Consider GWX if your rig can handle it.

[Naga]

Okay, I just got back to my computer and looked for the "brown pull down in the top left corner of the F5 map screen." I don't see anything there. Any ideas?

[RoaldLarsen]

Oh dear, maybe it was added in by Harbour Traffic or RUB. You can also find the map in the Documentation folder of your Silent Hunter installation. It's called SH3_MAP.jpg.

[Naga]

Yeah, I opened the map .jpg and just use alt-tab to look at it.

A streak of bad weather is now hindering my convoy hunting progress. I can locate the convoy via hydrophone, but can't accurately hit it due to high waves, rain, and fog. More often than not, the enemy (using radar, I assume, since it's mid-late 1942) will start shooting me before I can see them, so I dive and start the whole process over again.

Now that I have the basic hang of the game (85% realism, everything but manual targeting) I think I will start over and use the GWX mod. It's getting kind of tiring going out on these long patrols and not doing much of anything besides chasing convoys I can't see, let alone attack.

I'm also now using SH3 Commander. If I turn the realtime time compression setting up to say, 1024, will that help me spot surface ships before I am right on top of them while at 1024x "warp speed?" I'm just getting tired of staring at the computer screen for hours on end, only to return from a patrol empty-handed.

[sharkbit]

Originally Posted by Naga

Okay, I just got back to my computer and looked for the "brown pull down in the top left corner of the F5 map screen." I don't see anything there. Any ideas?

It is not in stock.
GWX gives you the ability to pull the map down along with some speed/distance charts when you are on the nav(F5) map.

Verrrrry useful.

[sharkbit]

I use time compresion a lot. I use 2048(seems that 4096 doesn't make a huge difference because it locks up fairly often) when crossing the Atlantic to the US and slow it down to around 128 to 512 depending on the situation.

It seems to me that I still get contact reports even at high TC. I have not done any scientific experiments though. The problem though is if you aren't paying attention, by the time you pause the game and start plotting the interception the report may be waaaaaaay out of date.