Ship kills not counting

[Darthlucky]

It's early 1940, I slipped inside a large convoy and fired a full five torpedo spread, I hit an Ore Carrier, Large Merchant, two Empire types and a Greek flagged Small Merchant that blundered into a torpedo bound for another Large Merchant. The Large and Small merchants sink, the other three develop a list and slow down. The escorts blow up a lot of empty water, and I sneak out.

I surface at a safe distance, and set up for a night surface attack on the three cripples, who are sailing in group, but are lagging behind the convoy. I get ahead of them, put the decks awash, and wait. I fire three torpedoes and all three hit, I get the "she's going down" message twice, and the Ore Carrier and one of the Empire types sink. The last empire type goes dead in the water, and I wait as an escort comes over, sniffs around and then sails away without ever finding me.

As I'm setting up a stern shot on the last ship...it just vanishes, like a sunken ship or downed airplane does after a few minutes. Yet, I've got no credit for the kill, nothing in the log, and no message of it going down. Anyone else have this issue?

[Darthlucky]

Also, I feel that I should not have been flagged for sinking that Greek ship, we may not be at war, but the cheeky git had a pair of Shermans on deck....fair game I say

[Sailor Steve]

What was your physical location when you attacked? If they were near the end of their trip the whole convoy may have vanished and you weren't in a position to see it. They can't reorganize and sail into port, so the game has them disappear at their last waypoint.

Also, what was the weather? There is a chance that the crippled ship sank due to heavy seas and you didn't get the credit. Always look at the map. A grey sinking mark will tell you if that happened.

As to the neutral ship, the game isn't that sophisticated. It doesn't matter what the cargo is. If it's flagged as a neutral then it's neutral, and BdU doesn't really care what you think.

[Zosimus]

And that's why you should change the penalty for neutral to 0. It's bad enough that you waste torpedoes on a ship and get no credit. You don't need a renown hit too.

[Darthlucky]

I was in BF15, it was an outbound convoy, the weather was clear and the ocean was calm...for once. The convoy was still there, once I hit the stragglers, the trailing escort was still close enough to come investigate. The ship just stopped....then bam, gone.

[Sailor Steve]

That's interesting. I have no idea why it would do that.

[Darthlucky]

Actually, this is the second time this has happened with an Empire type, just brushed off the first time as an oddity.

[sik1977]

Edit: sorry I went a bit off course below. But I also had this ship vanishing issue once with a task force, where I had crippled a Southampton Class Cruiser, which had slowed down to under 5 knots while its escorts had left at their 21 knots speed after not being able to find me... the cruiser was 6-7 kilometers ahead of me and was in my scope at around 3 degrees or so. I increased my subs speed to 6 knots and catch up a bit and maneuver around it to finish it. I increased time compression, and after a few secs brought it back to normal, but the cruiser had vanished. I couldnt find it, and the weather wasn't too bad, just light fog and I have 20km atmosphere. WTF happened?!! it obviously didnt sink, as no log entry... it just vanished...

I can confirm that I have had similar issues on at least two occasions in my current career. And both times, I could replicate the problem by loading a save and sinking the same ship (3 times).

Once, it was a lone Heavy Merchant 01 (L01B from Merchant Fleet Mod 3.2) which i sank once with my torpedoes and 2 times with my deck guns to make sure its not a one off bug. Amazingly, once the deck gun crew stopped shelling the ship (because they knew the ship was going down), there was no 'She's going down' message and no log entry of sunk merchant. I even tried manually shelling the crap out of the dead ship, but no she's going down message. Basically the game stopped acknowledging that I sunk that merchant (and it was a British ship, so not a neutral).

Second occassion, (another MFM) Tanker 02, which was travelling with another Tanker 01, and sunk them both with deck guns, but only Tanker 01 was logged and had the 'She's going down' message for. Tried it two times with deck guns, but no difference.

And before anyone thinks its the two ships which are bugged, I have sunk many same named ships on other occasions, and they always log properly.

BTW, anyone knows whats the penalty for sinking neutrals? their tonnage is still recorded in my log and final score, but i guess i get no renown for it (as if i needed more renown - but still, whats the penalty?).

[Admiral Halsey]

I think I know what it is. You might be experiencing ghost ships of ships you've already sunk. It happens when you load and save within 50 or so miles of sinking you've caused.

[Darthlucky]

I didn't save during this convoy battle, it was all one shot. I've only had this with Empires though, no other ship has done this to me.

[sik1977]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

I think I know what it is. You might be experiencing ghost ships of ships you've already sunk. It happens when you load and save within 50 or so miles of sinking you've caused.

If that's a thing, that does explain the two Tankers occasion i mentioned above (as they were part of a convoy and I had sunk similar tankers in that convoy and later these two showed up on the same convoy path as if lagging behind the convoy by 20kms or so)... but one of the tankers did log while the other didn't. Regardless, this does not explain the Heavy Merchant 01 occasion, which was travelling alone and not sunk before...

[The Dark Wolf]

Sounds like The Mary Celeste,