So I'm the worst sailor to ever boot up a naval game...

[Capt_Confoozed]

...at least I think so.

Even after reading every scrap of info I could on how to track/plot target courses (including the excellent stuff in the SH3 wiki!), I still don't understand it. It's not that I "get it" but don't do well at it; I actually don't understand, at all.

Say I'm heading due North, bearing 0...and my sonarman calls out a contact bearing 340. To me that means he's 20 degrees to port, i.e. west. A few minutes later, the sonarman then calls out same contact now bearing 322. Ok, now he's 38 degrees to port. But heading which way? South-to-north? East-to-West? Somewhere in between? How can I tell? All the protractor/compass/ruler/angles/markings advice doesn't compute for me, I'm afraid; I just can't seem to conceptualize it. I can't get it to work in my head, much less in the game.

Am I doomed to go back to using those on-map marker lines?

[Capt_Confoozed]

Thanks.

I decided I am, in fact, going to lower the realism settings and let my crew do all the tracking and targetting. I'll just fire the torpedoes.

I've sucked at math and geometry pretty much all my life, so when I look at some of the diagrams and explanations for this stuff, then try to mess with all the different tools, my eyes glaze over and my mind goes to cotton.

I'm not willing to get so frustrated over what is, after all, just a game.

Thats why Captains have plebs, to do the crap for you. There called CREW

[Kaptan Tommy]

Hey Capt_Confoozed, Ive yet to even try the manual target thing. I'm with you on the "it's a game" attitude. "Game" to me should be synonymous with "fun", and fun, so far, hasn't included complicated TDC stuff.

If I happen to change course while still locked on a faraway target, I'm always amazed at how all those dials on the targeting screen start spinning - and the line changes on the plot screen. I look at all that and say "How am I supposed to do all that"? Feeling guilty because there are a lot of U-Boat Commanders here that enjoy this aspect of the 'game', I fiddle around with some of the dials to see what happens to the 'aim line'. This confuses me even more and I simply tell myself that I signed on here as the Captain, not the Weapons Officer, Navigator, Engineer, or any other bottom feeder. I tell them what I want done, and they do it. I wanna press the button after they tell me everything is a go. I want ALL the credit without ANY of the work (just like in real life...).

So, someday I'll start a career just so I can try that targeting thing - and not worry about killing my current Ocean Ace.

[djdemo]

It's difficult, and I've started a new campaign with manual targetting...

It is worth 'learning' and doing once or twice, but may get tedious for a whole campaign...

BUT - the sense of satisfaction when you hit a ship, and you made the fire solution, is much greater than letting the computer do it.

I only wish you could chose during a mission whether to let the XO do it, or whether to do it yourself... rather than have to chose one or the other at the start.

But my tonnage has gone WAY down since doing it myself, as it takes time to set up a solution, so no more popping up in the middle of a convoy and firing of torps left right and centre.

[Kaptan Tommy]

Yeah, I agree. It would be nice if you could 'slide' in and out of manual targeting. After all, you could have quaffed too many bottles of apple juice the night before and be in no condition to plot anything...

[Capt_Confoozed]

So how, exactly, do you gents make your way to a contact after it is first detected? I think I have realism set currently at 79%, and when my sonarman calls out "Contact bearing 266" I just point my boat in that direction and go full ahead until I can spot it visually.

Then I just maneuver into a firing position based on sight, and nothing else.

[Kaptan Tommy]

I pretty much do the same thing. I head in the general direction and try to catch a glimps of the target before I take to periscope depth. I'm counting on the fact that I'm a much smaller silhouette (especially head on) that whatever it is I'm after and will see them before they see me.

And if it's a small(er) target (small cargo, fishing type boat, etc), and the seas permit, I'll just Bogart on in with the deck gun crew blazing away and sink them that way.

[Godalmighty83]

its SH3 tradition for new players to kill themselves getting out of the harbour.

[Marhkimov]

Originally Posted by Godalmighty83

its SH3 tradition for new players to kill themselves getting out of the harbour.

Also when they return to the harbor. I remember my third patrol well...

[Capt_Confoozed]

Oh I'm fine with plotting courses that keep me off rocks and docks and such. It's figuring out how to get to my contact without seeing it first that's the problem.

And I haven't been able to use my durned deck gun since I got it. Nothing but hugely rough seas for the past several weeks grrr...

...although seeing the watch crew calmly peering through their binoculars while 15 feet underwater never gets old.

[U-104]

Originally Posted by CV-707

If it helps, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

Yeah, I'm in the same U-boat!

[hunter301]

I have just starting manually plotting my own torpedo attacks. Although I have not been able to complete torpedo academy yet I am having a blast trying now that I know what I am looking at. I keep restarting the same academy training over and over again changing the way I set the the dials and seeing the difference it makes in my shots. I willl do this over and over again first for the small coastal merchant standing still. Then I will go after the large victory cargo ship retrying different shots and seeing the results of the different settings. Then I start over and try going after the fast moving fuel ship. "I DO NOT" keep trying to do all of the requirements at once. That will come naturally once I feel comfortable with the individual setups. Once that happens, then I will try to do them at on the same mission. If I can't do the individual items comfortably than I have no reason trying to rush thru doing them all at once.
Anyway that's just my theory. I have plenty of time for long boring patrols. I could even start a career patrol and when I come up on a complicated firing situation I can then wait until I am good enough for it.

[Kalach]

Originally Posted by Capt_Confoozed

So how, exactly, do you gents make your way to a contact after it is first detected? I think I have realism set currently at 79%, and when my sonarman calls out "Contact bearing 266" I just point my boat in that direction and go full ahead until I can spot it visually.

Then I just maneuver into a firing position based on sight, and nothing else.

I plot my contacts current position with it's past positions (on the map) and draw a line, then just line yourself up at 90* to his projected path. If you're in the right spot you only have to wait for it to come to you instead of following it.

[CB..]

i have to admit that the only manual targeting i do is via the F6 screen --clicking the manual "over-ride" button and swinging the dails until the green torp angle lines are approximaitly where i think the ship will be--

it's kinda a half way house soloution---add a little spread to the torps to give your self a better chance and launch a full spread--

this doesn't really work terribly well on the high realism map option -but it's still more interesting than asking the wep officer--

it's kinda a WW1 targeting option--