Advice/ Thoughts on a few things bothering me.

[dustyg]

Meine Mitseeleute (My fellow Sailors)
It is truly a pleasure to sail with such seasoned veterans as yourselves. As well, I give the “Long Service� medal to all involved with the running and upkeep of this site, for service above and beyond the call.
.
As the noob on the block, I have a few questions I would like some advice on.
1) I’m on a XIIc and the year is 1942, and when I go ask the Sonar op to do a sweep. Nothing happens. There is no error message like, “can’t do that.� Is this because it only comes to play later in the war?
2) Diesel is in very short supply and I hate wasting it, as it could be used by our tanks in North Afrika. Instead of running search patterns all over the Atlantic, is there map with British/USA most used shipping lanes?
3) British passenger liners, although probably filled with Englander, are they fair game? Will count for some nice tonnage, but should we stoop to shooting ships woman and kids?
4) Being such a Noob, my Torp engineers are not that qualified, so I have to get pretty close to my target, sometimes, a hundred and fifty meters or so. Quite often, my fish just bounce off. And sink. I have “Dud Fish� set to off, so they’re not duds. Does anybody know what the optimum distance before the fish arm is?
5) And lastly… Promotions. How do you guys figure who deserves the promotion or the medal? Take for example, obviously the officers will have more points, so who would you promote. Sailor 120/20 Mid 260/100 or the officer with 500/300. And there was an Injury Medal but I could not find the sailor who was injured.

I am sorry if these questions have been dealt with before.
Looking forward to your views on the above, to find out how the Elite do it.
Regards
Dusty

[Crash Dive]

1.) I don't know what the sonar guys problem is.

2.) Refer to your shipping lanes on the map provided with the game. AM52 has alot of traffic

3.) I sink them.

4.) 300 meters is the arming distance, any closer and they don't arm.

5.) I just pass out medals, after awhile they will all get some. Promotions I try to give to the most experienced. Qualifications go where I need to have more qualified personel.

Good hunting Kaluen

[_alphaBeta_]

Originally Posted by dustyg

1) I’m on a XIIc and the year is 1942, and when I go ask the Sonar op to do a sweep. Nothing happens. There is no error message like, “can’t do that.� Is this because it only comes to play later in the war?

If you're talking about the hydrophones, there's no acknowledgement from the sonar man. Unless you're actively following one target, the sonar man always sweeps automatically.

Originally Posted by dustyg

2) Diesel is in very short supply and I hate wasting it, as it could be used by our tanks in North Afrika. Instead of running search patterns all over the Atlantic, is there map with British/USA most used shipping lanes?

If you bought the DVD, it will come with a map that has the convoy routes (well, close to the routes anyway). If you're close enough you'll get reports of convoys so you can move to intercept them (not just rely on bumping into them randomly). You'll want to position yourself in a hot spot to maximize this.

Originally Posted by dustyg

3) British passenger liners, although probably filled with Englander, are they fair game? Will count for some nice tonnage, but should we stoop to shooting ships woman and kids?

If they have a british flag - they're all yours.

Originally Posted by dustyg

4) Being such a Noob, my Torp engineers are not that qualified, so I have to get pretty close to my target, sometimes, a hundred and fifty meters or so. Quite often, my fish just bounce off. And sink. I have “Dud Fish� set to off, so they’re not duds. Does anybody know what the optimum distance before the fish arm is?

Torpedoes take a minimum of 300m to arm. This is a safety factor so the torpedo does not explode too close to the uboat damaging it. Always have more than 300m between you and target.

Originally Posted by dustyg

5) And lastly… Promotions. How do you guys figure who deserves the promotion or the medal? Take for example, obviously the officers will have more points, so who would you promote. Sailor 120/20 Mid 260/100 or the officer with 500/300. And there was an Injury Medal but I could not find the sailor who was injured.

I promote the officers will specialities I really need since this makes their speciality even more meaningful to the compartment's efficiency. But it's really how you want to do it. I wouldn't waste it on anyone in the command room, since that bar is almost always full regardless of crew experience. Go for the torpedomen or something.

Originally Posted by dustyg

I am sorry if these questions have been dealt with before.
Looking forward to your views on the above, to find out how the Elite do it.
Regards
Dusty

We were all there before.

[ludwig]

2) Diesel is in very short supply and I hate wasting it, as it could be used by our tanks in North Afrika. Instead of running search patterns all over the Atlantic, is there map with British/USA most used shipping lanes?

there's a good map shipped with the dvd game, otherwise there are many posts with good search grids in this forum. consider east of scapa flow, easter coast of GB, ireland channel, west of gibraltar

3) British passenger liners, although probably filled with Englander, are they fair game? Will count for some nice tonnage, but should we stoop to shooting ships woman and kids?

as long as they are not neutral they are pretty good tonnage

4) Being such a Noob, my Torp engineers are not that qualified, so I have to get pretty close to my target, sometimes, a hundred and fifty meters or so. Quite often, my fish just bounce off. And sink. I have “Dud Fish� set to off, so they’re not duds. Does anybody know what the optimum distance before the fish arm is?

turon on dud toprs, and don't shoot under 400 meters, otherwise the topr won't arm itself. good range is 500/1000 meters, captains much better than me fire with success up to 4000 meters.


5) And lastly… Promotions. How do you guys figure who deserves the promotion or the medal? Take for example, obviously the officers will have more points, so who would you promote. Sailor 120/20 Mid 260/100 or the officer with 500/300. And there was an Injury Medal but I could not find the sailor who was injured.

I just promote them randomly, the injured guy has probably recovered during the patrol, but he must have been painted in red in the crew graphical interface when he has been injured..

bye
ludwig

[Kalach]

4. As said already, make sure your target is more than 300m away. If it's moving towards you, the range will be shorter so you may need ~500m. I find the ideal range is between 500-1500m.

Also, if you're using Impact torps, try to get them on a 90deg angle and they wont bounce off. If your using mag torps the goal is to get them 1m under the keel, and any angle will do.


5. I give promotions to people who do the most work. eg, A sailor who has been in his quarters the whole patrol proberly wont be promoted. But someone who is doing a job I will promote.

[andy_311]

Neutral ships in convoys I consider prey as if they were British what would a US C3 or C2 with her decks full of planes heading for Liverpool doing there unless she's helping the British war front. see them and Kill them.
I know the game penelises you for sinking a Neutral but that's easly rectified.
And in WWII Neutrals were sunk your the skipper of your boat the choice is yours