Completing First Campaign Mission

[XenonSurf]

Hi SCPOTurner,

The rules for returning to ports and docking are these:
First, consult your Captain's Log to see if BDU sends you to a specific port to dock after your misssion. You may not be able to dock elsewhere, so do this first and locate any new port on your map. It will be visible with a submarine icon.

Second, once you are in a port where you can dock, it's not necessary to enter the bunker actually, watch for a yellow icon with an anchor appearing and flashing at the upper side of the screen. Clicking on it will bring you 3 choices: Ending your Patrol, Refitting, or Postpone which quits the icon menu.

Note that not all allied ports can be docked at, in some big ports you can refit but not dock to end the patrol. Also in rare cases (like the first mission) the docking icon will not appear until you have finished all 'ongoing' missions, in this case or finish the missions or speed up time until you reach the finish time for the mission - in your case September 4th. The docking icon will then appear.

I hope this helps,
cheers,

[SCPOTurner]

Hey, thanks fellows. I feel like a seaman deuce just out of boot camp. I just printed off your instructions for tomorrow morning's underway period. I'm glad to be retired so I can immerse myself in this. I'd have to join 'Submarines Anonymous' except that I have a wife as an accountability partner. Again thanks for the help!

[SCPOTurner]

Very, very frustrating! Started initial career mission on 3 Sept (obviously a training mission). Sank the ships, plotted the course to Kiel as instructed. Entered harbor, approached the gold square and... nada. Checked captain's log, only message was to plot course to Kiel, and dock at Kiel. Besides the regular 'anchor' symbols, the one one in Kiel is the only one with what seems to be the obvious endpoint of the mission... the gold square.
My game is SH5, Battle of the Atlantic, version 1.2.0 The other historic missions run alright, but I'd really like to get over the hump of the first what seems to be the training mission with it's guides and explanations. I'm completely stuck at this point.

[SCPOTurner]

Oh yeah... Entered Kiel on 5 September - two days after start date.

[XenonSurf]

I'm not too familiar with the stock game because I play TWoS where all these stock 'tutorial missions' are skipped, and my response above is based on that.
For the stock game: IIRC you must end all these tutorials and also all missions in the captain's log should read 'accomplished' or similar.
When you finish all tutorials, you should have 'unlocked' all torpedo functions, the mini-map, the tools for the map. Look at the upper screen: are there still tutorial icons? If yes you did not finish them. Do so by repeating the instructions (even if you sunk some ships before, the game doesnt' care too much) and then try to dock once really ALL tutorials are 'technically' finished.

If still you have problems, click on the Search icon here above, chose Advanced search, enter 'mission' in the search text, chose search in titles only and for the generic SH5 forum, you will find lots of people complaining not being able to finish 1st mission. You should get your answers there, I know there is a solution.

Then: For the longer term I advice you to read about TWoS and how it changes the game, most players find the stock game too buggy anyway and play with that. I can not judge this however, I remember I did play the tutorials in the stock game but not to the end, and then for some 'good' reasons I switched to TWoS. And I surely won't switch back to the stock game anytime soon...

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Here's a trick to skip tutorial missions (should also work in the stock game):

You can skip the initial tutorials that you must do in every campaign start by editing the file CarrerHistory.cfg in the savegame folder C:\Users\...\Documents\SH5\data\cfg
Just replace the following:

HasCompletedTutorial=false

Change this into:
HasCompletedTutorial=true

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Problem is: you cannot edit every so often the files every time you find a bug or malfunction...
But at least, this should get you started...

I hope you get responses from more competent players, there are some very good veterans here on this site!

[XenonSurf]

Watch this video, start watching at 17:40, it shows the correct play for docking at Kiel in the stock game.

[SCPOTurner]

Bless you one and all!! The video helped the most. I wasn't completing the mission because I hadn't noticed the anchor symbol in the upper right of the screen. I was too focused on the blue one in the harbor. Auf wiedersehen... for now. (I'd better get some chores done for the wife before I go back aboard the boat!)

[XenonSurf]

For playing the stock game without problems also read here (3rd post):

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=236395