Questions: TDC tutorial

[Von Due]

I just got Wolfpack and in all honesty, I haven't really learned to operate the boat...yet but I am a bit puzzled when I start the TDC tutorial.

At first, I had no bots, I looked around but within a few minutes the boat reached crush depth. I had not touched any valves at that point.
On 2nd attempt, I watched the depth meter as it showed the boat slowly sinking right from the start of the mission.

I played around with the main tanks but the sink rate was unchanged.
I then blew the trim tanks which had som water in them but the sink rate, if anything, increased.
I saw to it that the negative tank was empty and the bilge pump showed no water. Still the boat sank.
If I set any speed ahead, the boat would sink even more rapidly regardless of plane settings.

I then enabled bots and ordered to surface the boat. Nothing happened other than the boat sank yet again.

Is this a known issue or am I doing something terribly wrong?

[Onkel Neal]

Have never heard of this happening. What version ?

[Von Due]

Thanks for the reply! Version is 0.24c bought on Steam. I kind of forgot about this (real life and all) but now when I started it up again, with bots and then without, I don't sink anymore. Another thing is the bots can't seem to get me to periscope depth unless I manually set the trim tanks They will get me to about 8.5-9 meters but that's it. The sinking was persistent when I first started the game after setting everything up in Options but now, with the same settings, the sinking stopped.

[Onkel Neal]

Yeah, with bots I would not touch the trim tanks, you shouldn't have to. And when at PD, be sure to have a little way on you, anything short of full stop should make it easier to maintain depth.

[Von Due]

I have a few questions still

When the game starts now, all the tanks except the trim are all empty, that is with no water in them. The trim tank starts at a random level, usually between 6-8 m^3. Is this intentional?

Are the trim and negative tanks somehow mixed up or am I getting this entirely wrong?: With only the main tanks filled, the boat settles at around 7.5 m. With mains and negative filled, the boat settles at around 8.5 meters. With negative empty and trim tank full, the boat sinks rapidly and no adjustment on the negative tank will stop the decent. Everywhere I read, it says it is the negative that should cause the descent, not the trim tank. What is going on here?

What would a proper tank/valve operation look like for various scenarios like surfacing, diving, crash diving, holding depth and so on?

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Von Due

I have a few questions still

When the game starts now, all the tanks except the trim are all empty, that is with no water in them. The trim tank starts at a random level, usually between 6-8 m^3. Is this intentional?

Are the trim and negative tanks somehow mixed up or am I getting this entirely wrong?: With only the main tanks filled, the boat settles at around 7.5 m. With mains and negative filled, the boat settles at around 8.5 meters. With negative empty and trim tank full, the boat sinks rapidly and no adjustment on the negative tank will stop the decent. Everywhere I read, it says it is the negative that should cause the descent, not the trim tank. What is going on here?

What would a proper tank/valve operation look like for various scenarios like surfacing, diving, crash diving, holding depth and so on?

Here is what I do, which very closely resembles actual procedures:

Always travel on the surface with negative full. Once aircraft are put in, you will be glad you got in that habit. Don’t bother with the trim tank when you first spawn.

To dive, Switch to electric, great speed ahead, open the vents forward and aft, forward planes hard down, aft center, standby negative, as soon as I can visibly see the boat angling down at the negative station, I blow negative (8-10 meters). Once past 20 m, 10° up on forward, 15 up on aft, til the boat is about 3 to 4° angled up, then 15 on fwd and reapproach periscope depth from below, at dead slow. Close vents. Center the planes. Then trim. For trimming, make very fine adjustments to the two wheels until the rightmost dial stays perfectly stationary.

To surface, change depth with the planes dynamically up to periscope depth at half speed, do your scope check, then great speed ahead, blow ballast, hard up on forward, aft up five, refill negative while blowing. At your option, you could do it historically and stop blowing as soon as the tower hatch comes free, so that you could pop up topside and check and make sure all is clear, and if it is, order to finish blowing, switch to diesel, recenter the planes, compressor, charge.

[Pisces]

The negative tank is only 4 cubic meters. It is intended to make you sink, hence 'negative' buoyancy. The trim tank is 15 cubic meters in size maximum. So if the trim tank is filled to the max, by adding 7-9 cubic meters (on top of the nominal starting level of 6-8 cubic meters) this is essentially the same as filling the negative tank and an extra one. This will make you sink anyhow if the ballast tanks are filled. Maybe slower if the neutral trimtank-level would be at 8. But none the less. Filling the negative tank on top of that only makes it sink faster.

The trim tank at the beginning should be close to the level that makes you neutrally buoyant when the ballast tanks are filled and have neutral diveplanes. Negative tank helps you dive a bit more quickly. As Stosstrupp indicated, for when there is an alarm situation and have planes or destroyers bearing down on you.

As for why you sank immediately in the tutorial mode is a mystery to me. Should not have happened unless you have a stowaway player onboard that messed up your tanks when you were not looking. Or accidentally ordered the dive bot to deep waters.

[Von Due]

Thanks heaps for the reply, guys. Really appreciated!

So, the negative tank is more to add that little extra, kind of what I believed the trim tank would be for but it must be true then: I got the roles of the trim and the negative mixed up.

For now, my sessions are hidden, for 2 reasons. One is I am learning and my way of doing that must be torture for action hungry guest crew. One station at the time and right now I'm trying to work out how to be a good navigator. 2nd reason is, from my rc sim sessions online some years back, I got used to jerks popping in just to ruin the fun for everybody else so until I have this down well enough not to drive my fellow crew members crazy with my ineptitude, and a mic, so I can join a proper boat somewhere, I'll remain hidden.

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Von Due

Thanks heaps for the reply, guys. Really appreciated!

So, the negative tank is more to add that little extra, kind of what I believed the trim tank would be for but it must be true then: I got the roles of the trim and the negative mixed up.

For now, my sessions are hidden, for 2 reasons. One is I am learning and my way of doing that must be torture for action hungry guest crew. One station at the time and right now I'm trying to work out how to be a good navigator. 2nd reason is, from my rc sim sessions online some years back, I got used to jerks popping in just to ruin the fun for everybody else so until I have this down well enough not to drive my fellow crew members crazy with my ineptitude, and a mic, so I can join a proper boat somewhere, I'll remain hidden.

That’s exactly right, the negative tank is to break the surface tension and get the boat under quickly. I completely hear you about trolls ruining things. It’s absolutely imperative that you password protect your lobby if you want to play with others. People in the community are generally very patient and helpful and willing to teach. Neal here also occasionally jumps in with folks to help. I would highly suggest you also join the official Wolfpack discord.

https://discord.gg/dN38NG

[Von Due]

Thanks for the invite! Now call me old (or young as some of you might) but what exactly is discord? Never looked into that one.

Now I will say there is a certain learning curve to this sim but that's absolutely part of the fun! What I really could use is someone knowledgable in the art of all things navigation and plotting to come onboard to share tips, experience, methods (brushing up on the 4 bearing and whoah this is a lot easier than in SH3!!), and I'll leave all the other stuff like the helm, tanks, radio room etc etc to others while I learn. Then onto a new station, rince and repeat.

The way I picture it it'll be:
1: Navigation because every captain likes to be at the right spot at the right time.
2: Helm, hey there is a lot to know about RPM, stealth, steering speed and so on.
3: Diving. Those tanks eh!
4: Radio room. How much info can one get from the hydrophone and (later, hopefully) the RDF.
5: TDC and attacks. That's what we're here for
6: Captaincy. Call it the exam in all things Wolfpack

in that order.

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Von Due

Thanks for the invite! Now call me old (or young as some of you might) but what exactly is discord? Never looked into that one.

Now I will say there is a certain learning curve to this sim but that's absolutely part of the fun! What I really could use is someone knowledgable in the art of all things navigation and plotting to come onboard to share tips, experience, methods (brushing up on the 4 bearing and whoah this is a lot easier than in SH3!!), and I'll leave all the other stuff like the helm, tanks, radio room etc etc to others while I learn. Then onto a new station, rince and repeat.

The way I picture it it'll be:
1: Navigation because every captain likes to be at the right spot at the right time.
2: Helm, hey there is a lot to know about RPM, stealth, steering speed and so on.
3: Diving. Those tanks eh!
4: Radio room. How much info can one get from the hydrophone and (later, hopefully) the RDF.
5: TDC and attacks. That's what we're here for
6: Captaincy. Call it the exam in all things Wolfpack

in that order.

The “captain’s exam” in my opinion is the ability to solo a boat without bots and sink a ship and evade. Better yet, meet the tonnage requirements under those conditions. Then you know you have enough of a working knowledge of each station to be able to jump in if someone drops the ball. Crew is there to make it of course more efficient.

I’m not a fan of 4-bearings. It’s anachronistic (1950s) and just not needed. You can or are very close to seeing the target in Wolfpack on every engagement. So best to use historical methods like plotting or matching.

Navigator is not overly important. You are never lost in Wolfpack. He’s there to plot, both your position underwater and the target (at the option of the skipper since neither of those are needed). What I don’t see enough of in Wolfpack is navigators plotting based on ranges and bearings (classic plotting). Part of that is a function of the 4-bearing method being included in the Wolfpack manual, which I don’t agree with (basic plotting isn’t even mentioned).

Don’t worry too much about the recognition manual. There’s another area where people spend way too much time. People think they need to sit there and identify every ship in the convoy, all you need to do is turn and adjust your speed until the target appears to not move or get closer or further away, presto, course and speed. Just like the real guys did. And I know you are not new and have been in this community awhile, but you will see crewmembers trying to suggest identifying everything etc., hence why I bring it up.

I actually saw you join today, the Discord, so if I see you sometime when I am available, I will ping you and I’d love to join you.

[Von Due]

Hey, I'll sign on for duties any time, just know I am still very much a beginner in this game. And I still need a mic or I'll have to type everything.

As for the 4 bearing method, to me it's the maths. It's just a really neat piece of maths which I like, historically accurate or not. To me, these games are just as much about challenging those old grey cells as it is to play a submariner, perhaps even more so. I've been called a nerd on a few occations.

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Von Due

Hey, I'll sign on for duties any time, just know I am still very much a beginner in this game. And I still need a mic or I'll have to type everything.

As for the 4 bearing method, to me it's the maths. It's just a really neat piece of maths which I like, historically accurate or not. To me, these games are just as much about challenging those old grey cells as it is to play a submariner, perhaps even more so. I've been called a nerd on a few occations.

Oh no, I totally get that about the math. Also yeah, definitely a mic, makes things much much easier.

[Pisces]

You'll find the 4 bearing method a lot harder to get results with because the hydrophone readout isn't as precise as in SHx series games. You don't get readout of a precise bearing (light bulb indicating the edges of the cone), or something drawn on the map. (well, the hydro-operator bot reports bearings) You rather have to listen yourself and try to narrow down the bearing as much as possible from the sound only. The high and low pass filter settings and gain can help with that. But it is quite hard to narrow it down to 1 degree bearings accurately for reliable 4-bearing plots.

In the harder difficulty levels the convoys change course every some interval and you won't have the time to do this anyway. Getting a visual sight and following it is the quickest way to get results.

But I hear yah, it's an interesting technique to try. I just wish we would have more standoff distance at spawn.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Pisces

.... I just wish we would have more standoff distance at spawn.

I absolutely hear you. In one way I'm glad this isn't a SH game with full length patrols, hunts and attacks, in one way I would prefer it to be a SH game with at least the hunt being more prominent. Since fast travel isn't optimal for MP games, at least not in my mind, the idea that someone out there would actually be interested in playing a submariner, or anything else for that matter, for 1-6 months straight is fascinatingly terrifying.