Just got Silent Hunter 3, I think I'm doing it wrong. Is there a guide?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Jonny K

I spent maybe 5 hours studying the manual, reading some online FAQs, and watching the tutorial videos to try and learn this game, and I think I've gotten a decent understanding.

Welcome aboard! Steam Holiday Sale buyer? If so, you made a great purchase. But you're going to need to un-learn a few things if you're a newbie to sim games.

You may want to mine this thread for newbie material: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=96026

1. I start a new campaign and realize I need to pick my crew, have no idea how to do that or how it should be balanced, can't find any guides. Add one senior officer and leave it at that.

This isn't as vitally important as you think it'd be when you're first starting out. Your new crew is going to be very green - meaning that those little bars above the compartments that symbolize that compartment's effectiveness will not be very full. This gets better as your crew gains experience and earns promotions. I wouldn't worry about it too much for now.

2. Start a mission, learn I must travel half way around the world. Set course, put time compression on highest setting.

The game has certain issues with running TC at the highest setting. You'll miss ships and planes will appear right on top of you. I don't use anything higher than 512x or 1024x unless I'm in friendly waters.

3. Suddenly time compression ends and I'm being shot by a battle ship or something. I'm freaking out in a panic to figure out what's going on, I do an emergency dive, and just as I dive the ship runs over me. My sub leaks, the crew freaks out, and then we all die.

See above. This is the peril of using high time compression.

3. Micro manage the trip, spending about 4 hours of my real-life time turning the time compression up and down, submerging and surfacing, trying to only travel on the surface during the night (even though my battery power only seems to last 5 hours or so).

It's a game of patience. I'm not sure if 4 hours is really necessary to get where you're going, but be prepared to sit for a while doing nothing. It is a submarine simulator after all.

Your battery power should be enough to last you through the game day. You just have to realize that the faster you run, the less amount of time your battery will last. I recommend no more than 3-4 knots submerged and no more thna 9 knots on the surface unless you're chasing something. You don't really have to worry about travelling submerged during the day in the early years of the war - say up until about mid-1941 - or when you're in friendly waters.

4. While traveling I suddenly have massive issues with crew fatigue. Everybody's got an exclamation next to them. I try to swap them around to rest, but it doesn't work too well. I don't have enough rest places for my senior crew. I micro manage this stuff like mad.

Ah, fatigue. There's a lot of us who hate micro managing that stuff, so we turn it off.

"How" you may ask? Mods! SH3 out of the box is a decent game, but there are many little issues that could be much better. The "standard" mod that many people use around here is the Grey Wolves Mod. It's a big download, but it comes with an installer (if you're using the Steam version of the game, you'll need to change the install directory path, but other than that, it works fine). I'd recommend that heartily. It adds new campaigns, new airplanes, new ship types, new visual effects. It's amazing the difference between stock and GWX.

SH3 Commander is a companion program that allows you to change lots of little tweaks to the game - such as turning off fatigue entirely. It's a very unobtrusive little program. Just install it and run it whenever you want to play SH3.

Welcome aboard again. You'll find that the Subsim forums are full of some of the most helpful people anywhere.