Lost at Sea II, or Carrier Burning (with pictures!)

[Safe-Keeper]

So I start a new campaign, skipping the tutorial mission (which I apparently shouldn't do as it seems to be a prerequisite for the 17 Promotion Points for your crew), and set out on my first patrol after requesting the British Supplies objective. After going around Denmark and the British Isles, I find myself in the mission area, and find myself greeted with a task force contact. Turns out to be a carrier surrounded by a ring of destroyers.

Given that I'm quite a distance out, and that TDC is still pretty much useless at the moment, I know I can't hit them unless I get really, really lucky. After a brief thinking pause, and an attempt to sneak closer before they pass me, I fire a salvo and crash dive to 200 meters. I watch the torps fly away into the void on my tactical map, and pretty much give them up -- they don't seem to be heading towards the hydrophone readings at all. Then, all of a sudden, as I'm trying to find them with the external view, I see the carrier burst into flames and the relevant officer rewards me by yelling "Torpedotreffer!".

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier1.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier2.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier3.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier4.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier5.jpg

I get a message saying we're too deep, and order 150m. Then, some time later while I'm still taking pics of the carrier, damage reports. I get back to internal view, and find myself in the conning tower with valves showering the compartment with water. I barely have time to order the sub to surface and go to the map to look for destroyers before the game switches to external camera and swoops up to the surface, showing me some empty ocean for five seconds before cutting to the statistics screen with a dark blue background. It'd be really nice if they told you how you died, not just that your sub was destroyed (oh, was it? Why thanks for telling me, or I'd never have realized).

I'm 100% sure I ordered 150m (she should be able to go that deep according to my knowledge about Type VII's, and the depth meter), and I'm equally 100% certain I got no "We've been detected" or "Depth charges in the water" messages. Then again, it's not as if you never do. I realize that dying this way makes for good comedy, but is a little advance warning too much to ask? In SHIII it takes a while to die from diving too deep, and you're alerted when destroyers spot you.

Carrier wasn't listed as a kill either. I guess it was able to get the fires and flooding under control and limp back home.

[Frederf]

Picture links are a bit messed.

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier1.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier2.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier3.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier4.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/Carrier5.jpg

The carrier probably would have sailed home with 1 HP left. The fires are largely aesthetic. Stock SH5 behavior is to make ship HP more important than flooding, not that 1 lucky hit on a big warship would've caused a lot of flooding anyway.

As for why your sub went Kaput.. no idea. Did you hit the bottom? Was your hull integrity reduced?

[Safe-Keeper]

Yeah, I'm aware that damage mechanics aren't really in yet. The part I wrote about extinguishing fires and flooding was mostly for flavour.

I was in the open sea, so I shouldn't have hit the bottom, and I was moving at Half speed. Last time I checked the escorts they were nowhere near me. But the best explanation I can come up with was that one of them found me, rushed over to me, and depth charged me.

I really liked the burning carrier, though, reminded me of the scene in The Sum of All Fears where that carrier in the North Sea is attacked by Backfire bombers.

[Trublion]

I have the same type of issues: my sub actually sinks....

If I go deeper than 50m at 1knots, I will start going down and I have to set to full speed to be able to go back up. I am not sure what the problem is... I did give the nav guy a few points in fast diving... but I did not read fast sinking...

When I order periscope depth, the boat goes first to 17m then go back up to 13m. Never happened in the previous version of the game.


Anyone else having these issues?

[Safe-Keeper]

Quite possible I just did. The boat was at a 45 degree dive angle when I got the death screen I talked about in the OP.

Which is just ridiculous, because I was at Half Speed ahead, and while I know GWX simulated a slight downward drift at a standstill, a plummet is just... wow.

Another one for the patches to fix, I suppose.

[kylania]

The few times I've been down below 150 I've gone from seemingly fine, perhaps slightly worried to INSTA DEAD. No consistent damage results, no warnings, just "you're dead". There needs to be more of an area where it's clear you're gonna die if you keep going but enough time to save yourself.

[Frederf]

Oh yeah, forgot about that. It's stock behavior to increase the downward drift the deeper you go. People have been telling that it takes ahead flank at 200m or so just to keep from sinking. At some point no amount of up planing can overcome this sink effect and you plummet. I think blow ballast might (Shift+R) might overcome it but I haven't tested.

I think the VIIA had problems holding its depth underwater at less than 4 and a half knots

[Safe-Keeper]

So that's why U-96 went straight to the bottom in Das Boot... it ran on the SH5 engine.

[Frederf]

Originally Posted by MattDizzle

I think the VIIA had problems holding its depth underwater at less than 4 and a half knots

I would imagine that is "depthkeeping" as in how the boat could precisely it could keep exactly X meters depth. Speed gives the planes something to work with and those are much better at fine control. I would seriously doubt that speed is necessary to prevent totally sinking like a lead anchor in real life unless your engineer severely screwed up the ballast tanks.