Big Tip: Use Map Contacts

[Turm]

I've made the same mistake on my first patrol (100% minus external cam), so will be turning on map contacts once I'm back in port. It's just too much hard work at the moment!

I don't like 'giving in' and using easier difficulty levels, but it's probably justified in this case. Thanks for the tip - I think you've convinced me to give in

[Bosje]

besides, turning map contacts off makes the game a lot less realistic, so it's not actually 100% at all
you wouldnt be painstakingly drawing all those lines yourself in real life, there are crewmen to do that for you, it's just that the map contacts reveal far too much information which makes it tempting to turn them off altogether

[SabreHawk]

I've always used map contacts on since SH3, and realisim is at about 38% I think if I remember.

No im not into this 100% stuff, I like to relax and enjoy my game.

And yes as the Captain I aint supposed to be doing everything, I dont remember the Captain in Das Boot working all that hard at that sort of thing, that's what his crew was for.
In fact I only remember seeing him at the map table a couple times in the entire film.

Can someone explain how the difficulty settings works ? There is an option to tick and untick functions you want to have when setting realism, but when you try to begin career you don't have that option to choose except: easy, medium, hard, realistic. So frankly there is no custom option to make your own choices of realism.. ?

[lorka42]

when in bunker, you can hit escape and go to options and change things there.

[himlaviz]

Realism can be many things, mostly I want things to feel and give the illusion of realism, like using the WO in SH3, sure it might be easy mode for some and he might be to correct but its still "realistic" as it mimics how it was really done. No auto homing torpedoes or +10 heat damage torpedoes.

Also important is that one has the same restrictions, limitations as the real thing, no endless supply of torpedoes or fuel.

I wouldn't mind a auto TDC where I have to identify the target but the rest is given to me, though I might have to click a few buttons to get the values so one doesn't just have to aim for autovalues. Preferably without a green, orange, red triangle.

So if I am wrong with the identification things might still go wrong.

[walsh2509]

Ive got map contacts on , that and auto/lead targetting so my % is some 70+%.

But the thing I find strange , when I click on a contact and say its details are 500km from me travelling at 10knts say its heading due South and I am coming up heading North, I draw a line out from the Merchant and mark X at the end of the line again say 500kms. That should take the merchant about 26/27hrs to travel to the end of that line.

To cut the time I travel up along it , I do this I click my boat and drag a waypoint line out up the line the Mrechant is travelling down. As I do this a small ghost icon comes out from the main Merchant ship icon, as to there is would be if I travel at x speed up that line.

But anyway, I sit at the end of the 500km line , put my watch up at run fast forward until In see nearly 50hrs have past. I hit the main Merchant icon on the map at it says the Merchant is 1km from my postition.

I go to torp depth and go to the sonar station and listen , nothing , to double check I hit the Key for contact and up comes No Sound Contacts!

I up back to the surface and look around and travel at speen up the line and back down it .. no sign of any ship or ships.

Not the 1st time this has happened in the game.

With SH3/4 uboat add , when I got a map contact in those games and did the same plotting distance/time/knts I would always find the contacts.

But in this game they seem to just disappear

[SabreHawk]

The ghost ship icon is showing the hypothetical location that ship will be at by the time you reach that waypoint you are setting.
That is of course so long as that ship maintains present course. It could for all you know change course at some point.

Took me a while to figure what that was myself, but that's what it is and I can see where this will be quite helpful when trying to lay in an intercept course. Sure takes a lot of the work out of it.

[Turm]

Originally Posted by Bosje

besides, turning map contacts off makes the game a lot less realistic, so it's not actually 100% at all
you wouldnt be painstakingly drawing all those lines yourself in real life, there are crewmen to do that for you, it's just that the map contacts reveal far too much information which makes it tempting to turn them off altogether

Yes, I wouldn't draw the lines myself, but then I wouldn't ever man the hydrophone either, but I do that due to game limitations and lack of info from the sonarman when under attack. It's the same reason I have a higher work load when flight simming, as I never have a co-pilot or flight engineer to do certain tasks. In combat sims I don't have a bombardier either. In any case, I enjoy taking on all the roles to a degree

Part of the sense of satisfaction for me comes from challenging myself to learn new skills and use them successfully, hence why I prefer map contacts turned off and 'doing it all myself'. Not totally realistic, but that's not necessarily what I'm striving for. I'm looking for good realism in each aspect of submarine warfare (plotting, targeting, etc.), rather than a totally realistic captain-only experience. Each to their own, of course!

As gutted said on the last page, map contacts practically take all chance of missing out of the game, and as you said yourself, they give too much information.

With SH3 and OLC's GUI, I had a pretty high hit rate even from medium ranges and at awkward angles. I could probably do okay with SH5 if the stadimeter would work properly (well, if the ship dimensions were defined properly) and the crew were more useful. Oh, and if map plots were saved between games...

Although I might succumb to using map contacts on my next patrol, I guess that means I'll see all the sensor information too, like passive & visual range of targets - I don't think they fall under separate difficulty settings. That will make it incredibly easy to evade detection... having map contacts is one thing, but having all that information is another matter entirely.

I would much prefer that my own observations resulted in contacts being drawn on the map (automatically, by the crew) for indicative purposes or with some randomised inaccuracy, but without all the detailed and exact information provided as we currently see (heading, speed and so on).

There need to be more scalable options in that area - about what kind of information is shown by the map contacts. Oh, now there's an idea nobody could have ever thought of

You know, rather than map contacts counting for X% of realism (say 10%), each specific piece of data could count separately. 2% reduction if you have speed shown, 2% if you have the heading on, 5% if you have all the sensor information... you get the idea. The "map contacts on" option would just be the master switch to toggle them all on/off.

Ah, why am I singing to the choir anyway?

[karamazovnew]

I understand what all of you are saying. I feel the same way and I wouldn't play the game like this if it didn't have so many bugs. I don't mind calculating things manually, it's just that atm the game has a few bugs and design choices that limit our SH3+SH4 tactics. Map Contacts just gets things moving into the right direction again.

And by the way I've noticed something very interesting. The sonar actually displays very well. It updates all contacts in a circular pattern and it leaves gaps at the front and rear of the sub. It's quite nice. as for the sensor circles, I'm sure we can edit those colors to make them transparent. But they're a great tool to figure out how the game sees you. I just wish they wouldn't disappear when you go below a certain depth.

Also, clicking on a visual contact selects it. Maybe clicking a sound line would allow you to focus on it?

[gutted]

Dont get me wrong, contacts on is a great learning tool. Especially with the sensor circles.

That feature by itself is awesome, as now i can see how far away i can be and at what visibiity/weather and speeds before being detected. This info arms me with the knowledge i need when i turn the map contacts off.

[Chromius]

Well , even with map contacts off atm, I have a bug where when I am plotting on the map if you mouseover the location of an actual ship it shows the "invisible" ship type and speed where the marker would be, so even with map contacts off its purpose is ruined, as I know the markers I made are dead on, with no mystery. I like them off, otherwise It gets a bit to boring for me personally, yes someone else would be plotting the contacts but still. And until that bug is fixed having map contacts off is even more broken.

[AVGWarhawk]

At 100% you need to give points to your crew for them to work...it is called experience. My first 100% patrol my hydrophone man would only say "I can not do that right now" when asked to reveal hidden targets. Now on my second patrol at 100% I gave him experience points and he now tracks ships! You need to work your crew and give them experience points! It is all part of the game, make your crew grow and perform well. Your first patrol at 100% you are pretty much left to work a lot of the functions.

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by Chromius

Well , even with map contacts off atm, I have a bug where when I am plotting on the map if you mouseover the location of an actual ship it shows the "invisible" ship type and speed where the marker would be, so even with map contacts off its purpose is ruined, as I know the markers I made are dead on, with no mystery. I like them off, otherwise It gets a bit to boring for me personally, yes someone else would be plotting the contacts but still. And until that bug is fixed having map contacts off is even more broken.

Between that and the notepad for sonar broken in the current patch, and the sonar indicators on map showing the exact position's of ships I have given up using no map contacts.
At least untill issues are resolved.