To everyone that thinks manual targetting is too difficult...

See if you still find it so easy with the Contact Map Updates turned Off, and your boat not at a dead stop. You might also want to try it from the Bridge, instead of the Chart.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Snestorm

See if you still find it so easy with the Contact Map Updates turned Off, and your boat not at a dead stop.

This. I could never stand the map contact updates, since they give perfect / almost perfect data in real time of the target. Target spotted: BOOM! Perfect updating GPS view on the map with exact range and course just few ruler lines away. It's the same reason for why I don't use the weapons officer, he is just way too fast and way too accurate.

Too bad there is not something in between the two options, since playing without any contact updates can be a pain too. I especially miss the lines on the map telling me the direction of a sound the hydrophone man just picked. If there are tens of them (convoy), I usually have better things to do than constantly checking the compass degrees on the map. And I wouldn't mind the crew doing rough estimates of the target's range and bearing. Oh well...

[Paulski]

Guys, no offence but this thread isn't about hardcore 100% difficulty. I started this thread to convince the players that play with either auto targetting or weapons officer help, to make the step to manual targetting by doing it the easiest way possible.

Sure it's not 100% realistic, but it does feel better to sink a ship this way than the ways I did before. And sure, at some point I will try map contact updates off, but atm I'm fine with how I play it I now play on 83% realism, wich may not impress the hardcore simmers, but I am impressed with myself. I never expected I would turn the difficulty up this quickly as I did now

But please, let's not make a realism discussion out of this

A few nooby questions:
1. What is the TDC and AOB?
2. What is the target recognition manual?
3. What is a torpedo?
4. What is a U-Boat?
5. What is "Great Britain"?

[Fish In The Water]

Originally Posted by Bernhard Bernard

A few nooby questions:
1. What is the TDC and AOB?
2. What is the target recognition manual?
3. What is a torpedo?
4. What is a U-Boat?
5. What is "Great Britain"?

Easy there mate...

Why do your questions have to be so hard?

Well you know, it's difficult sometimes to command a sub without knowing all these difficult things. When I was in U-63 back in 1940, I didn't have to worry about nations or torpedoes and what-not. It was a bit like point-and-shoot and it worked!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Paulski

Guys, no offence but this thread isn't about hardcore 100% difficulty. I started this thread to convince the players that play with either auto targetting or weapons officer help, to make the step to manual targetting by doing it the easiest way possible.

Sure it's not 100% realistic, but it does feel better to sink a ship this way than the ways I did before. And sure, at some point I will try map contact updates off, but atm I'm fine with how I play it I now play on 83% realism, wich may not impress the hardcore simmers, but I am impressed with myself. I never expected I would turn the difficulty up this quickly as I did now

Precisely...everyone should play the game at the realism level they feel most comfortable with.

Originally Posted by Paulski

But please, let's not make a realism discussion out of this

Well, it would appear the poster after you is making every effort to ensure that.

[Bakkels]

Actually I use the same method as you Paulski. Only I try not to use the notebook at all. For example, I use the 3:15 rule to get a target's speed:
you mark the position of your target on the navmap, immediately start the chronometer, and after 3 minutes and 15 seconds mark the position again. The distance the target covered in meters (divided by 100 I believe) in that time, is the speed in knots.
AoB and distance I get the same way as you do.
And I like to manually put it all in the TDC. Don't know why, I just like actually turning all those pretty dials and buttons

[benitorios]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

This. I could never stand the map contact updates, since they give perfect / almost perfect data in real time of the target. Target spotted: BOOM! Perfect updating GPS view on the map with exact range and course just few ruler lines away. It's the same reason for why I don't use the weapons officer, he is just way too fast and way too accurate.

Too bad there is not something in between the two options, since playing without any contact updates can be a pain too. I especially miss the lines on the map telling me the direction of a sound the hydrophone man just picked. If there are tens of them (convoy), I usually have better things to do than constantly checking the compass degrees on the map. And I wouldn't mind the crew doing rough estimates of the target's range and bearing. Oh well...

I've been using a mod called the Map update Mod for some time now, and I think it provides what you're looking for: basically, the contacts won't show on map above a certain zoom level, making it virtually impossible to plot a course, let alone calculate speed from the map alone. But they do show for low zoom levels, so you can see contact reports, planes, and ship sunk locations.
On the other hand, the mod preserves the sonar bearing lines on map, which makes it somewhat easier to have situational awareness when you have many sonar/hydrophone contacts all at once.

I remember I had to tweak a couple of things manually in the mod to make it to my liking, but in the end it provided exactly what i was looking for: some useful info on map but removing the perfect info on ship location. Hope that works for you as well.
I can look up the link to the mod if you want. It's somewhere in the downloads section.

[max-peck]

I'm using this too.
It's very good

[Olsin]

I guess it was inevitable...play around with this sim long enough and it's onjly a matter of time before you give manual targetting a crack.....
I've been happy with the arcade feel of sh3 but after reading a few posts i finally reached the "how hard can it be!" point and gave it a go.
I waited for a single contat which turned out to be a small merchant and lined myself up ahead of the merchant at a roughly 90 degree angle perpendicular to the merchants projected heading.

Opened the TDC and clicked the manual/auto tab to green..

I've played around with these controls before but never in connection with a contact. Anyway...a quick 30 seconds play around revealed that the "bearing" dial seemed to adjust the angle the torpedo left the boat and the "range" dial was the range to the contact.

Exit TDC and opened the map.

Using the plotting tool i measured the distance from the front of my boat straight out at 00 degrees to the projected path of the oncoming merchant which was 900 meters and also noted the merchants speed of 7 knots.

Exit map and opened TDC

Dialled the speed dial up to 7 and dialled the range dial up to 900 meters. I then adjusted the bearing dial until the green line showing my torpedo's path was straight out at 00 degrees from my boat....the pointer on the bearing dial was at 13 - which i presumed to mean 13 degrees - when the torpedo angle from the boat was 00 degrees.

Went to periscope and pressed "q" to open the torpedo door and waited until the middle of the merchant was showing at 13 degrees in the periscope. Also noted that the merchant was at just under 900 meters at that point.

Fired.

40 seconds later a direct hit midships. I hadn't used the AoB dial at all and can't remember now what it was set on..didn't think about checking the gyroangle either.....did i luck out and those dials were within parameters anyway or was that a valid approach to manual targetting?

I can't see how i could have done that though if i was in the thick of a convoy unless i purposly only targetted maybe one or two of the richest pickings and left it at that...The remainder of the time used for extraction and reallignement to catch the convoy further along it's course.

And what about zigzagging targets..how on earth do you get a solution on them..is it just about getting close enough so that their slow turning manouvers provides no protection?

[max-peck]

You can still treat it as a standard Fast-90 attack.

Why?

Because the ship is constant helming along a base course.

See pic




The ship sails along the green path as you watch it. But you can treat it as following the base course (in red).

The 3.15 rule still applies.

Mark your two points to get the speed.




This will be the average speed he is making along his base course.

And set your AOB as if the ship was travelling along the base course (red line)

Finally, a rule of thumb if you are short of time.

Once a ship has started constant helmig, it will make about two thirds of the speed it was making before.
I use this quick rule of thumb a lot and hit most of the time

Finally: if weather permits use magnetic pistols, as you may be hitting him at an angle, and an impact pistol may bounce off.

Good luck

[Bakkels]

Originally Posted by max-peck

Finally, a rule of thumb if you are short of time.

Once a ship has started constant helmig, it will make about two thirds of the speed it was making before.
I use this quick rule of thumb a lot and hit most of the time

Hey thanks for this. I could never be bothered to do the calculation for a rule of thumb myself, but still I like todo the manual aiming. I just went with my gut feeling for the target's speed when zigzagging. This should increase my hit-ratio a bit

[Paulski]

By the way, does anyone now if the TDC (when set on auto) takes into account the u-boot's speed when not stationary?

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by benitorios

I can look up the link to the mod if you want. It's somewhere in the downloads section.

Thanks for the kind offer mate . There is no need for that, as I don't have SH3 installed at the moment. But once I give it a go again, I'll look this mod up myself. I should have known someone has already created something like this.