Docking at another port

[Duncan Idaho]

Originally Posted by wetgoat

Wouldn't BDU begin to wonder why you and your crew never came home!

Well, other than the fact you have a radio on your sub, (and I have always assumed that at times the radioman talks with others). Also, when you dock at a port other than your home port, your office has a phone, so even if your radioman wasn't doing his job, you surely would have called in to say 'Hello' to your commanders.

Just my thoughts.

[Sawdust]

As far as role-playing the realism... When you dock at a non-home port, it is still a German navy port. BdU could still send you information and you would still have to do a lot of Kriegsmarine paperwork.
You'd pr'y have to sign for torpedoes and fuel costs, all being charged back to your Flotilla.

So, it's not like you've gone AWOL or all "Heart of Darkness" on the navy! :P

[btaft]

So by resupplying at a different port does this mean you can effectively continue your patrol indefinitely and rack up all sorts of medals based on tonnage etc?

[yankee-V]

You must dock at a German controlled port that has facilities for U-Boats. Right? I went to Willhelmshaven when I was based at Kiel and refuled - reloaded. This was after getting pounced in the North Sea and wasting my eels (all five in a Type IIA ). It saved a lot of transit time, and got me some renown in the long run.

I don't know if you can sail into Gdansk, or Bergen for instance and get fuel and torps on demand.

thx for the clearing up! sounds like renown can get nicely racked up this way!

Originally Posted by Sawdust

To clear things up.

Yes, you can resupply at a non-home port. Just get close to the port, hit ESC and choose "Dock at: <portname>"

You will enter your "office", and you can do some stuff, but not everything (e.g., you can't upgrade your U-boat). But, when you go back to sea you will have all torpedoes reloaded, all gun ammo reloaded, your U-boat will be fully repaired, and you will have been refueled.

When you do this, your new "mission" will be to go to your home port and the grid to which you are assigned will be "NULL"

This can be a convenient option if you are near a friendly port and your home port is far away.

I just ran a test of the method above and found that when I went back to check the save, the patrol was incremented by 1. So, if you were on patrol 1 and stopped by a friendly port to top off - when you leave the non-home port, you are on patrol 2. Doesn't this mean patrol 1 ended?

I thought I had tried this before, but it to me it seemed that I botched patrol 1 by not returning to home port. I suppose thats why I saw this as a non-option. Do you think this a valid way to proceed? This method doesn't exactly follow orders, IMHO... What are your thoughts? :hmm:

By the way, has anybody tried the MilkCow mod?

[JoachimV]

no never tried it, is it good?

[Floater]

Originally Posted by Adolf Sunkendork

I just ran a test of the method above and found that when I went back to check the save, the patrol was incremented by 1. So, if you were on patrol 1 and stopped by a friendly port to top off - when you leave the non-home port, you are on patrol 2. Doesn't this mean patrol 1 ended?

I thought I had tried this before, but it to me it seemed that I botched patrol 1 by not returning to home port. I suppose thats why I saw this as a non-option. Do you think this a valid way to proceed? This method doesn't exactly follow orders, IMHO... What are your thoughts? :hmm:

Don't worry - patrol numbers are just numbers. Going to a friendly port to resupply is fine - IMO, the best thing to do then is head straight for your home port to pick up your new patrol. Doesn't matter what number it is; you'll get your renown from having a patrol area to visit, then returning to base.

Historically, it's pretty accurate. U-boats would sometimes call in to ports other than their flotilla's base in order to get a temporary refit so they could "go home" - they wouldn't do anything much on the way from that base and their flotilla's, but SH3 allows you to do that. Doenitz wouldn't.

[Apocal]

Be advised, if you pull into a different port, you recieve any medals, promotions, etc. accorded to you, but those for your crew are lost.

I'm confused - 2 different stories going here... :hmm:

If you move onto mission 2, then your renown would be reset to zero - right?

I was looking for a way to continue mission #1 and increase renown/awards/promotions/etc...

[Sawdust]

Originally Posted by von Buelow

If you move onto mission 2, then your renown would be reset to zero - right?
I was looking for a way to continue mission #1 and increase renown/awards/promotions/etc...

I think the game would count it as being two different patrols. But you don't lose any renown...you only lose renown when you use it to "buy" upgrades to your boat or crew.

Perhaps you're thinking that 1 patrol (with 1 reload) with 80,000 tons sunk is better than 2 patrols with 40,000 tons each (for example) ? From a gameplay point of view, it is a meaningless distinction. As far as medals and promotions, I'm not sure this matters to the game.

In any case, it is a completely voluntary option. As for me, I would only re-supply at a non-home port if there was a special reason (such as a damaged sub far from home port), not as a way to artificially rack up a lot of tonnage in a "single patrol". (It's not like the folks at Brest wouldn't have heard that you got extra torpedoes at Wilhelmshaven! (I'm sure the Kriegsmarine had accountants.) :P How else could you have sunk 25 ships with a 14 torpedo load-out? )

How else could you have sunk 25 ships with a 14 torpedo load-out?

Deck gun!

Perhaps you're thinking that 1 patrol (with 1 reload) with 80,000 tons sunk is better than 2 patrols with 40,000 tons each (for example)

Yes, was, but now that you put it that way, ...I guess you're right Having the medals & promotions is more valuable to me, since it helps out the endurances and fix times. That one post where the guy got 46 clasps on his first patrol... that's nice, if it's true.

[WolfyBrandon]

I just docked at another port last night during my career. The patrol number does infact increase. I remember I read something about when your in port it accounts for around 1 or 2 weeks of your career. After reloading and continuing with my patrol I notised that all the ships I sunk were erased. I checked my save files and the renown from before I docked tell after I docked did not increase. I sure hope i get the renown for them when I return to my home port or im going to load one of my previous saved games.

Wolfy