Observations on strategy and tactics

[misha1967]

Originally Posted by gazzmetrik

Thanks for the tips!

After watching Das Boot myself, I started employing the same tactics when on patrol. I do however have some questions.

(1) Is there a hidden key/command to have my sound man look for contacts? During the day hours i dive and hit up the hydrophone station. Sometimes i hear faint prop noises but my sound man doesn't pick them up.

(2) How far can the hydrophone actually pick up sounds? I came from SH4 and i miss the ability to have my sound man pick up contacts and report them.

(3) Does depth affect the distance sounds can be heard?

Thanks for the info!

You're welcome!

Questions, and good ones too.

1) Your sound man is constantly sweeping for contacts when underwater, whether you ask him to or not. The ones you're referring to are contacts that his skill level hasn't risen enough to identify yet. Pumping points into his skill level will vastly improve this. Until then you can, if you like, drop to TC1 at set intervals to do a sweep yourself, but if he's not reporting them it's not because he's not listening, he's just not hearing them because he hasn't got enough experience yet.

2) The ranges for the various hydrophones are listed on the equipment menus. They're typically around 20km, which is far longer than eyeballs.

3) Yes, in theory. Whether this is actually modeled correctly in the game I don't know, as it would take considerable testing. Rule of thumb, though, you should be below 30m for maximum range IF the hydrophone is modeled right.