Map & Deck gun woes - What am I doing wrong?

[Stargazer]

Hiya,

I'm out patrolling the North Sea and I'm getting some really off behaviour from my map.

I'm running GWX3 with map colours restored if it helps you to pinpoint what is happening to me.

En-route to my destination, I'll drop out of hyperspace (time compression) and a friendly or neutral ship will appear as a square with the direction indicator marked on it. After a bit of time ignoring it, it fades off and I go back to hyperspace.

While I'm searching my grid, I'll sometimes get a red square appear that I can chase down and shoot at. What is happening more and more often though, is that I'll be told about a ship at bearing whatever and I'll just have a line leading from my sub on the map to nothing.

I chase after it and find nothing. Then when I ask where the sound contact is I'm told there isn't one just for it to magically reappear a few minutes later someplace else entirely.

Also, a ship will be marked on the map for me, I go chasing after it because my grid is as dead as my local highstreet, get there, the marker is still there, but no ship.

Sometimes I can have a ship marked closeby and the external cam only shows my boat. Sometimes I can have nothing marked closeby and the cam picks something other than me, but can I find it? Nope!

This is starting to become a real thorn in the side of what is otherwise a lovely sim. But this map is really strange. Is it something I'm doing wrong, is it configurable?


As for the deck gun, I get it all crewed up, one of the guys is a qualified gunner and my weapons officer tells me we have loads of various different types of ammo to put in it.

But once I'm in control of the gun, I only have the option of AP's, and nobody can find any ammunition. The counters read 0 and that's that.

I've lost out sinking a couple of ships because I've run out of Torpedo's and nobody brought the ammo with them. I swear that I could actually hear the British sailors pointing and laughing at me.

Can anyone explain?

Cheers,

Rob.

[Missing Name]

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Hiya,
As for the deck gun, I get it all crewed up, one of the guys is a qualified gunner and my weapons officer tells me we have loads of various different types of ammo to put in it.

But once I'm in control of the gun, I only have the option of AP's, and nobody can find any ammunition. The counters read 0 and that's that.

It's explained in the manual... if you are using GWX 3.0, you have to manually load HE rounds into the gun, since AP and Flare rounds have been removed. Go to the deck gun and click on the shell.

[frau kaleun]

As for the deck gun, I get it all crewed up, one of the guys is a qualified gunner and my weapons officer tells me we have loads of various different types of ammo to put in it.

But once I'm in control of the gun, I only have the option of AP's, and nobody can find any ammunition. The counters read 0 and that's that.

I think this is how this works, but it's been a while: when you go to the deck gun "screen" in the game, there are three types of ammo shown: AP, HE, SS. (I think those are the three abbreviations.)

The game is hardcoded to have the crew load the AP first when you order the guns manned, provided you don't manually go the screen and select another type of ammo for them. However if you are running GWX, the AP ammo has been removed from your boat's loadout (IIRC this was for the sake of historical accuracy). You are waiting for the "crew" to auto-load the gun, which they can't do because there is no AP ammo for them to load and they are hardwired to load it first before anything else.

I believe the '0' you are seeing for ammo refers only to the amount of AP rounds you have, which in (unmodded) GWX is zero.

Simple solution - go to the deck screen (click on the deck gun icon on the slideout stations bar on the left). Now where the ammo shows on the screen, click on HE (pretty sure it's the one in the middle). The number should change to show you how many HE rounds you have. I'm pretty sure the crew will now start loading and firing the gun.

Easiest solution is to do this early in a patrol, before you ever have occasion to use the gun, just go to that screen and click on the HE ammo which will tell the game you have selected it for use and then when you order the guns manned and loaded the crew should load it automatically without waiting to load AP ammo that isn't there.

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Also, a ship will be marked on the map for me, I go chasing after it because my grid is as dead as my local highstreet, get there, the marker is still there, but no ship.

When you go chasing after a contact that the map has shown you, are you heading towards the spot where the red square was when it first appeared, or are you heading towards a projected intercept point at a spot where the ship is expected to be (given its reported speed and course) at the time you arrive in the vicinity?

Apparent distances on the map can also be very deceiving for the newbie, depending on how close in or out you've zoomed in on a particular area. I had a hard time when I first started with chasing off after every contact that appeared, before I realized that with many of them I never had a snowball's chance in Hades of catching or intercepting them no matter how fast I went or how good my plotting skills were. They were just too far away and moving in the opposite direction at too high a speed, or some combination of the three, right from the get-go and trying to chase them down was just a waste of fuel.

Ship icons that show up on your map are from "reports" of a ship in a particular spot, moving on a particular course at a particular speed. These reports are being passed on to you, if you will, by those who were actually close enough to spot the ship and call in a report of its location, general course, and estimated speed.

Just because it's there doesn't mean you will be able to catch up to it or intercept it, or that you're even supposed to try.

You have to look at where the ship was reported to be at the time the contact info was received, where was it headed, how fast was it going and then look at how far away you already are and how long it will take you to get to where that ship *might* be in 6, 8, 12, 24 hours... and even if you get it right and get to where the ship should have been at a particular time, that doesn't mean it didn't change course or speed at some time after the initial contact was reported.

Hint: click on one of the icons on the map. Info about the contact will often appear. The time the ship was reported, its general course at the time, its estimated speed at that time.

And keep in mind that if you were running in time compression and then noticed an icon on your map, it may be from a contact that was reported several hours ago. Unless it's dead in the water (highly unlikely) it ain't there no more! It's now several hours along on whatever course it's on, which may or may not be the one that was initially reported.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Missing Name

It's explained in the manual... if you are using GWX 3.0, you have to manually load HE rounds into the gun, since AP and Flare rounds have been removed. Go to the deck gun and click on the shell.

Correct....and the manual is a fantastic read

[CherryHarbey]

Originally Posted by Stargazer

What is happening more and more often though, is that I'll be told about a ship at bearing whatever and I'll just have a line leading from my sub on the map to nothing.

I chase after it and find nothing. Then when I ask where the sound contact is I'm told there isn't one just for it to magically reappear a few minutes later someplace else entirely.

The early war hydrophones have dead zones directly ahead and astern of your boat. So if you change your course to head straight at your target your sound man will lose it. Oddly enough if you man the hydrophone station yourself (pressing H) you can still pick them up.
But as frau kaleun says you need to try to work an intercept course to where they will be rather than head straight to where they are now.

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Hiya,

En-route to my destination, I'll drop out of hyperspace (time compression) and a friendly or neutral ship will appear as a square with the direction indicator marked on it. After a bit of time ignoring it, it fades off and I go back to hyperspace.

That is because the contact is no longer "fresh." They fade with time.

Originally Posted by Stargazer

While I'm searching my grid, I'll sometimes get a red square appear that I can chase down and shoot at. What is happening more and more often though, is that I'll be told about a ship at bearing whatever and I'll just have a line leading from my sub on the map to nothing.

I chase after it and find nothing. Then when I ask where the sound contact is I'm told there isn't one just for it to magically reappear a few minutes later someplace else entirely.

The sound contact is actually quite accurate... pretty much on the end of that line is where your target is. Mark the tips of the line over several minutes and you will establish a pretty good path for the ship.

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Also, a ship will be marked on the map for me, I go chasing after it because my grid is as dead as my local highstreet, get there, the marker is still there, but no ship.

Just like duck shooting... you have to lead your bird. Darksun, in a post on 07-16-2006, has an excellent guide for setting up intercepts. Generally, intercepts of something over 100 km away have a fairly low success rate, unless they are heading pretty much for you (and then, perhaps not, as they change course).

Originally Posted by Stargazer

As for the deck gun, I get it all crewed up...But once I'm in control of the gun, I only have the option of AP's, and nobody can find any ammunition. The counters read 0 and that's that.

Assuming you are in GWX... 1) winds need to be at 7 m/s or less. 2) Send your gun crew to the bridge (either have your watch officer do it, or do it yourself). 3) Using your binoculars (not the UZO!!), find your target. Press the space bar. Your crew should begin firing. 4) Go to watch officer, then the deck gun, and have them fire for the waterline at medium range.

Make a note of the range to target, adjust your speed and bearing so that you can bear guns at about 1000-1500 m. Then, clicking on the left hand deckgun icon, you can take over the gun. Find the target, tab twice, set your range very conservatively (if your last range was 1600m, set your gun range at 1200), and start shooting. You want below-the-waterline shots that look like "Splash...... little burst of light" or "splishpop."

Give her 4-5 splishpops and see if she slows down after 5 or 6 minutes of game time. If so, give it another 30 minutes of game time... they can actually sink in that time. If not. give her a few more & give it a few more minutes. Don't be tempted to blast everything off the decks or keep shooting. It takes time for her to flood, and you are just wasting ammo.

Naturally, this applies to 1939-1940 against unarmed merchants.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

The sound contact is actually quite accurate... pretty much on the end of that line is where your target is. Mark the tips of the line over several minutes and you will establish a pretty good path for the ship.

Yep, and keep in mind that if you only make contact with a ship over the hydrophones, that's all you will get. It will not show up as a square on the map until you make visual contact with it, i.e., get close enough to see it from the bridge (if you surface) or through the periscope. If you are tracking it visually and maintaining contact that way, you will see the icon and see it moving. If all you've got is a sound contact from the hydrophones, you'll have to track it using the bearing lines as desirableroasted describes above.

The square icons that show up on the map for ships that you yourself have not seen are from the contact reports sent in to HQ and passed on to the front in case anyone out there is within range to find and intercept them. They will not "move" on the map unless more intel is received updating their positions over time, even though the ships they represent are continuing to move. If you want to hunt those, you have to look at the time the contact was reported, estimated speed and heading, and try to plot the ship's course and likely position at a later time just from that.

[Stargazer]

Thanks for the replies peeps...

I'll have to sit down with the manual tomorrow morning. Perhaps I'll flip through it while en-route to my next mission.

I'll try to keep in mind then that it's only the nearby targets that I'm guaranteed to catch. As for the others, I guess I'll have to try and learn to intercept. I assume that with all things Silent-Hunter, it requires practice and plenty of it too.

As for the deck gun, as was pointed out, I was incorret about what I had as standard initially. I do start with HE rounds not AP's as I first said.

Clicking the shell sure enough does load the gun ready for use and bring the ammo counter up to 220. You said that the other types of shell were removed for realism? Can I assume then that they make a return at a later date?

Thanks again for all this help. It truly is appreciated.

Rob

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Correct....and the manual is a fantastic read

It is. I actually read the whole thing (well, i glossed over the technical ship details, etc, but did read the text for each one).

It's a testament to how much better GWX is over the stock game. Stock manual = 30 some pages. GWX manual = 600 + pages.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Stargazer

As for the deck gun, as was pointed out, I was incorret about what I had as standard initially. I do start with HE rounds not AP's as I first said.

Clicking the shell sure enough does load the gun ready for use and bring the ammo counter up to 220.

Don't feel bad, I can't remember how many times I've given the order to "feuer frei" and then sat here fuming because NOTHING WAS HAPPENING.

And then I would remember that I didn't go to the gun and select HE before trying to make the crew load it.

If nothing else, questions like yours help remind everybody of some of the little quirks of the game that it's all too easy to forget about in the heat of the action.

You said that the other types of shell were removed for realism? Can I assume then that they make a return at a later date?

In GWX I think the deck gun ammo stays the same throughout the war, and honestly the later into the war you get the likelihood of using the gun at all decreases down to zero due to a variety of factors. At some point (in RL) they started removing the deck guns from u-boats entirely, to decrease dive times by losing the weight and/or to replace them with more AA guns because Allied aircraft had become the #1 threat. So having more and different ammo available later in the war would be kinda pointless.

Altho I did think about modding in 1 round of AP ammo, just to see if having it there would let the crew start loading the gun without my help - one round of AP to start the process, and then they'd move right on to the HE as intended. I think the general consensus was that it wouldn't work (maybe there's actually a stock bug that borks up the whole thing no matter what ammo you've got). Can't remember that I ever actually tried it, though, just to see for myself.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Can I assume then that they make a return at a later date?

There will be no change in deck gun ammo as the war progresses and as previously stated.....I doubt you'd need it because eventually most merchants become armed and air power almost overwhelming.

I have noticed on patrols before, usually near an enemy port, that my map says there are enemy warships around, i couldnt see them so went in for a closer look, still nothing, they are moving quite fast in a zigzag pattern, so i goto my external camera and head off towards them. They look like little dingys or summat, WTF are they and why do they show are warships on my map lol??

Ill try get a screenshot if nobody has seen them before.

[Missing Name]

You're probably looking at the Vorpostenboots.

[VONHARRIS]

Originally Posted by Missing Name

You're probably looking at the Vorpostenboots.

I disagree here. DJRenegade mentions enemy ports and there is no way a Vorpostenboot will come near there.
He might be looking at fast torpedo boats Elcos or MTBs.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by DJRenegade

I have noticed on patrols before, usually near an enemy port, that my map says there are enemy warships around, i couldnt see them so went in for a closer look, still nothing, they are moving quite fast in a zigzag pattern, so i goto my external camera and head off towards them. They look like little dingys or summat, WTF are they and why do they show are warships on my map lol??

Ill try get a screenshot if nobody has seen them before.

Sounds like the RAF rescue launch to me....only ship painted yellow IIRC.

Either that or a Luftwaffe recue buoy.