Battery Endurance not good?

[zylark]

Right under the telegraph, there is a small knob. Press that, and you will be able to set a certain speed of your liking.

Oh, and set speed does not equal actual speed. Actual speed depends upon other factors like weather or if you are manouvering. Set speed should be read as speed achieved when going straight ahead on glass-clear water with no wind.

The same concept is used for the other two dials. Press the knob under the bearing dial, and you can manually set rudder angle left or right. The depth dial will change from low depth representation to great depth representation.

[-Pv-]

Endurance test results.

Platforms:
1942 Porpoise leaving Midway using a saved game on my 3rd patrol. I've been carefully building up my crew skill (assuming those graphs and numbers aren't totally meaningless.)
Eng Room Crew Efficiencies- I=.93, II=.94, III=.98
Weather: 5m/s dir 44
Sub Heading 250

1944 Balao Leaving Midway using one of the default patrol missions.
Eng Room Crew Efficiencies- I=.88, I=.88, III.88
Weather: 5m/s dir 0
Sub Heading 270

Procedure:
On Surface set depth to 70 ft 1/3 speed "Ahead Slow" 11 knots.
Passing 50 ft set speed to 1/3.
Upon reaching 70 ft, mark the time, mark the map,, and set speed 2 knots (both text and voice confirm 2 knots.)
Cruise at set depth/speed using 1024 TC until battery reaches 2% or Oxygen warning of 95% CO2 (whichever comes first.)

Game has no diesel, power, battery, or crew mods. No mods to any submarine model or components.

Results using Porpoise:
2% batt, 95% CO2 = 76.95nm, 48 hours

Results using Balao:
4% batt, 95% CO2 = 91.4nm, 48 hours
Continued until battery reached 3% and 98% CO2 (Crew death at 99% CO2)
Distance = 95.1nm

Procedure for battery charge time:
Surfaced at battery depletion times described above. Mark time from charge lcon changing to bright until icon changes to dark.

Recharge times:
Porpoise- Speed set to 1/3 on surface = :49 min
Porpoise- Seed set to Full on surface = 2hr:47 min

Balao (based on 4%/95%CO2)
Speed set to 1/3 = 1hr:16 min
Speed set to full = 2hr:18 min

Ran same tests using Silent Running. No difference. This setting apprently only affects noise/detection/repair and does not affect CO2 generation or machinery/power savings.

My opinion based on these tests lead me to believe there is no significant reason to use power/range-extending mods as the results are close enough for reasonably accurate game play. I've yet to be forced under for longer than 24 hours at a time and usually have nearly half the battery left when I am. In addition, if you are using high speed under water for extended periods while under attack, you are not doing yourself a favor. I've yet to be forced to manouver while under DC attack for more than a few hours at a time which leaves me with very generous battery margines. As I suspected, the game reasonably models the US fleet boat using any of the four engines not used for propulsion for charging battery.

As far as submerged attacks, again technique has a very large contribution to success and endurance. I've yet to sail away from a high speed attack and evasion with less than 30% of my battery remaining.

My typical high speed attack is as follows (with variation depending on lighting, weather and convoy formation):
Surface speed necessary to get within 1/2 mile of outer contact.
Deck awash (22ft keel depth) at necessary speed to within 4,500 yards of closest escort.
47 ft keel depth at full until within 2,500 yards of closest escort (depending on weather, own profile and escort profile.
Continiously decreasing speed and dipping pariscope until within 1000 yards of torpedo target until reaching 1 knot.
Launch torpedos.
Set 1/3 and dive under convoy at 150ft or more.
Arrive out the other side of the convoy, set pariscope depth and attack targets of opportunity with rear tubes.

Repeat two to three times.

Additional end-arounds provide me with ample time to recharge if I don't use ahead full.

-Pv-