Newbie here, have a few questions

sickpeople · 11-19-14, 03:28 PM

I'm currently on my 3rd patrol. I already have found and sunk 2 ships. One was a one-shot torpedo kill, the other was a bit more difficult, mainly due to the bad weather and dud torpedoes, which forced me to follow the ship for a while until the weather cleared and i could kill him with my deck gun. I'm playing with everything turned on except manual targeting, map contact updates and external view. It's a nice balance between full realism and arcade.
BTW,the game is a blast! It's May 1942 and the Battle of Midway is going to start soon. I'm thinking of going to Midway and try to find the battle or perhaps even sink Japanese Carriers before the SBDs do.

That would make up for my poor early patrols. I'm probably going to die horribly though.

fireftr18 · 11-19-14, 04:53 PM

Welcome aboard sickpeople!

With a name like that we need you in The Bilge. You'll fit in nicely. Also we need a newby to clean up after Wolferz and Armistead.

Sniper297 · 11-19-14, 09:37 PM

"in his defense" I'm not attacking, merely making observations and suggestions. Dud torpedoes are the biggest handicap in the game, in my opinion they overdid the failures by 500% at least. There were several occasions in real life where every exploder in the load was faulty, or 3 out of 4, but in game it's practically every time even if you hit on an angle.

One of the (many) unrealistic aspects of the game is the patrol area - in real life you were supposed to stay inside the boundaries of your patrol area. Sometimes it happened that there was zero action in the area and a sub would radio for permission to move somewhere else rather than coming home with a full load of torpedoes, but it didn't happen often in the beginning of the war.

In game you only have to get to the patrol area and wait 48 hours (or no wait if the message is "destroy enemy merchant shipping") then you can go into Osaka or someplace to sink docked and anchored ships if you want. The assignment might be to sink merchants in the Celebes sea, but if you sink them in Tokyo Bay instead it counts as mission accomplished just the same.

So what I would do as a newbie is turn off dud torpedoes, use Mark 14s, then after completing the assigned mission go look for targets where they are instead of wasting time where they're not. Auto targeting off and map contact updates off combined are actually less handicap than dud torpedoes.

11-19-14, 04:53 PM	#2
fireftr18 Ocean Warrior Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Kentucky Posts: 2,528 Downloads: 77 Uploads: 0	Welcome aboard sickpeople! With a name like that we need you in The Bilge. You'll fit in nicely. Also we need a newby to clean up after Wolferz and Armistead. __________________ Of all the forms of Martial Arts, Karaoke causes the most pain!

11-19-14, 03:28 PM	#1
sickpeople Swabbie Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: Latvia Posts: 9 Downloads: 34 Uploads: 0	I'm currently on my 3rd patrol. I already have found and sunk 2 ships. One was a one-shot torpedo kill, the other was a bit more difficult, mainly due to the bad weather and dud torpedoes, which forced me to follow the ship for a while until the weather cleared and i could kill him with my deck gun. I'm playing with everything turned on except manual targeting, map contact updates and external view. It's a nice balance between full realism and arcade. BTW,the game is a blast! It's May 1942 and the Battle of Midway is going to start soon. I'm thinking of going to Midway and try to find the battle or perhaps even sink Japanese Carriers before the SBDs do. That would make up for my poor early patrols. I'm probably going to die horribly though.

11-19-14, 09:37 PM	#3
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	"in his defense" I'm not attacking, merely making observations and suggestions. Dud torpedoes are the biggest handicap in the game, in my opinion they overdid the failures by 500% at least. There were several occasions in real life where every exploder in the load was faulty, or 3 out of 4, but in game it's practically every time even if you hit on an angle. One of the (many) unrealistic aspects of the game is the patrol area - in real life you were supposed to stay inside the boundaries of your patrol area. Sometimes it happened that there was zero action in the area and a sub would radio for permission to move somewhere else rather than coming home with a full load of torpedoes, but it didn't happen often in the beginning of the war. In game you only have to get to the patrol area and wait 48 hours (or no wait if the message is "destroy enemy merchant shipping") then you can go into Osaka or someplace to sink docked and anchored ships if you want. The assignment might be to sink merchants in the Celebes sea, but if you sink them in Tokyo Bay instead it counts as mission accomplished just the same. So what I would do as a newbie is turn off dud torpedoes, use Mark 14s, then after completing the assigned mission go look for targets where they are instead of wasting time where they're not. Auto targeting off and map contact updates off combined are actually less handicap than dud torpedoes.