Some curious confusions from a newbie....

[Spirit X]

First of all "Hi", new player here.

Quick intro: I'm a 36 year old on the South coast of the UK. Currently been off work under the weather for a few days, so I've been drowning my sorrows by buying myself a new game to pass the hours until I can leave the house again.

I've had the odd weekend-long session on things like 688i and Sub Command before (and I love them) but the vast majority of my sub-simming experience is modern nuclear. Therefore, while I'm familiar with doing my TMA and such, it's been in a rather different context and, after dabbling with SH3 for a while, I can see I have a whole lot of stuff to learn.

I'm sure all you vets may well have heard all the below questions before but please bear with me. After reading various threads and tutorials and searching the forums, there are some things I have found unanswered that are confusing me some.

1.So the main thing I don't realy get is that in all the tutorials and stuff I've been reading on effective TMA (such as this excellent walkthrough for target interception and engagement: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=88961), I see everyone working out the anlges, speeds and ranges using the Nav Map. But how do you get them to show on the Nav Map? The only way I have found is to turn on the 'God's Eye View' option which seems like totally cheating.

My confusion is that if the point of the game is to use your wits and what little info you have available in order to formulate a firing solution, then by turning on the God's Eye View I'm essentially not really left with much to do am I? I mean it's all about judging that range correctly and stuff, but if the game just shows you exactly where any ship is that you have a tiny peek at through the periscope, then all you have to do is measure the range with a ruler, do your 3min 15 secs thing and make a note of the course the ship is on. The data is all just right there on the map! Do you see where I'm coming from here? I feel like I must be misisng something

Isn't the point of it that you wouldn't be able to do it like that? Hence why the manual takes you through visual acquisition of data by use of the periscope and datapad? Don't get me wrong, I sure don't want to offend anyone by implying it's a 'soft' way of playing and reading the forums I find the level of knowledge, depth and harcore commitment to the details by all you guys absolutely astounding. I'm just genuinely curious why this seems to be played this way? And does anyone play with pure visual only data collection? Or is it that, as I suspect, I'm just missing something here?

Ok, with that out of the way, the rest are quick...

2. I've been setting the torpedo computer manually (which has a lovely authentic feel to it) and then putting it back on automatic when I'm done but I've never seen it update anything automatically after that, i.e. I set everything up at say 5000 meters to target, set it on auto, close to 2000 to fire but the computer still says 5000. Is there something else I need to do here?

3. Can someone please clarify if the units used are all meters and kilometers? I was assuming the ruler was telling me nautical miles but then noticed the range dial on the torpedo computer says 'hm' on it, which I assume is 'hundred meters'. Does that mean the ruler is telling me kilometers? (And if so, did they really use kms in the 40s?). If speed is in knots, it just seems weird to me to mix it all up like that.

4. I have installed the game from Steam. I tried putting GWX Gold over my installation last night but then it failed to run (said 'Failed to start game, the app is already running). Is this a known issue with an easy fix? I couldn't find a solution.

Ok, that's it. Just wanna say that I think the amount and quality of work that all you guys put into the mods for these games is just phenomenal and I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before. Well done!

I was actually watching a documentary (one of the Ted Talks on Netflix) the other day about how in computer games, we as people have a natural tendency to work together and work hard with excellent organisation and co-operation between all ranges of social groups. Yet in the real world, we are considerably less effective at this. It's a good watch and an intersting final thought I think.

[palatum]

I'll try to answer 2/4

Originally Posted by Spirit X

2. I've been setting the torpedo computer manually (which has a lovely authentic feel to it) and then putting it back on automatic when I'm done but I've never seen it update anything automatically after that, i.e. I set everything up at say 5000 meters to target, set it on auto, close to 2000 to fire but the computer still says 5000. Is there something else I need to do here?

I assume you mean the red/green button. It doesn't update the range settings, it just updates the gyro angle relative to your scope/UZO heading based on your manual settings.

Originally Posted by Spirit X

3. Can someone please clarify if the units used are all meters and kilometers? I was assuming the ruler was telling me nautical miles but then noticed the range dial on the torpedo computer says 'hm' on it, which I assume is 'hundred meters'. Does that mean the ruler is telling me kilometers? (And if so, did they really use kms in the 40s?). If speed is in knots, it just seems weird to me to mix it all up like that.

I think all units on the map are given in meters/km. I don't know if this is what they used in Kriegsmarine in the 40s. I agree it sounds strange, given then nautical term is nautical mile

Palatum

[palatum]

Oh, and Welcome!!

[palatum]

I agree with you on that God's eye mode feels like cheating, basically all you are left with is determining speed (which isn't that hard), and getting yourself in the right position (based on the target's course).
I have tried to play with no god's eye mode. It works well against single targets, but against a convoy...

The trick is to gather information over time, and many times, to ensure that your target data are correct (speed, heading).

I find that the data gathering (distance and Course/AoB) is the tricky part...

-Palatum

[Gustav Schiebert]

Welcome as well!

Ah, I was like you once. About two weeks ago. I had exactly the same problems and didn't want to resort to 'God mode' map updates.

This is the mod for you:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147667

Troublous Haze pointed that in my direction. It's whole mod (plus a complete 20 min video tutorial) on manual targeting, where you gather range, aob, speed etc all from the scope. Also fixes the TDC so you can input the data and it will update properly. Sunk 200,000 (full realism) tonnes with that, with about a 50% hit rate - a very realistic mod. Well worth a look.

As for units, you're right in that the TDC is in 100s of metres (or hectometres). The KM used nautical miles for navigation, as nms are linked closely to knots (1nm/hr). Metres (and kilometers/hectometers) were used for ranging, attack, gunnery, depth and torpedo purposes.

[HW3]

Welcome aboard Spirit X!

[Laufen zum Ziel]

Welcome aboard Commander.

[Gerald]