Stupid Noob Tricks

[Nisgeis]

You seem to have a very good situational awareness of what was happening. Do you use the free camera to take a peek, or just use sonar and periscope?

[peabody]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

You seem to have a very good situational awareness of what was happening. Do you use the free camera to take a peek, or just use sonar and periscope?

I usually use the map with the "blue lines". I guess that's probably cheating? But wouldn't that be the info you would get from the sonar officer? In game, you get bearing to one target and that's all. Not much help. Oh, I get curious once in a while and take a peek with the camera especially when I see someone zoom off high speed in a weird direction, I wonder why. And I don't know anything about using sonar, first sub sim I've ever played. As time goes by I'll change the way I do things and make it more of a challange, once I understand more. The manual is useless. I've learned most of what I know from this site.

Peabody

[Rockin Robbins]

No, peabody, the easy modes are not "cheating modes" they are "learning modes." Use them with a clear conscience and turn off different helps as you feel comfortable. Imagine if we had to learn the game from scratch in 100% realism mode! We'd all quit.

[peabody]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

No, peabody, the easy modes are not "cheating modes" they are "learning modes." Use them with a clear conscience and turn off different helps as you feel comfortable. Imagine if we had to learn the game from scratch in 100% realism mode! We'd all quit.

Thank you,I am in it to have a good time, but I eventually would like to learn how they did it in real life, it must have been unbeliveabley hard and I certainly have nothing but the greatest respect for the men who risked their lives doing it. Especially with the equipment they had.
I have had several times with two or three merchants (I get a lot of merchant missions) in a line coming toward. If I only went by the info given by the sonarman's contact I would have missed the first ship. For example, he gives the bearing of the closest ship. How do I word this? If I draw a line on the map of their heading and positon myself perpendicular to that line. If ship one is going to be 1200 yds away when it is in firing positon and ship two is going to be 600 yds away in firing position (because they are stagered and not in a straight ling) then I would be getting the positon of the second ship given to me because using simple math (thank you Pythagoras) he is actually closer to me. He is farther away to port but closer in distance. So when I raise the periscope ship one has already passed. If I had bearing on all three ships I would know ship one is almost in position to take a couple torpedos home for lunch. Since I don't yet know how to use the sonar I have to rely on the sonarman for the bearing and "Up scope" when I feel it is time. And have found that doesn't work. So while I am trying to learn the sonar, I use the map, since (correct me if I'm wrong) those would be the bearings I would get in real life. Like Nisgeis comment I wouldn't get the super accurate distance. Am I correct that I can only get actual distance by pinging. The hydophones (is that the proper term) would be able to tell closing or going away but not actual distance, due to the level of the sound? And I certainly don't want to go pinging away at Destroyers! Merchants maybe.
Anyway just being able to sneak in and get out undamaged and alive is an accomplishment for me. The rest will come later.
My only other sim that I play is Falcon4, it is super real, but the big difference is the documentation is excellent. I counted it once and I think it was like 600+ pages and along with a forum similar but not as helpful as this one, I could jump in and do full realistic right away. I think UBI dropped the ball on this one. without the forum I would never be able to even think about ever playing realistic.
Again, I can't say it enough, Thank you all not only for the help but the encouragement. I'll get there someday, then I am going to write my own missions.
Of course now that the "Add-on" is out I hope the supporters of the Pacific fleet don't all disappear.

I think I will go play with the sonar for a while now, I have a great mission saved in the Solomans, like on person commented it was like shooting fish in a barrel. In about a 250 mile section from the refit station to the area when they enter the "corridor" I sank 61 merchants and tankers, that's when I got a little bored and went after the task force at the beginning of this thread. A great place to practice sonar and see if I can figure out what it is telling me.

Peabody

[Rockin Robbins]

WernerSobe's manual targeting tutorials? He has two on TDC/PK work and another one (slurp!) on sonar only targeting. You might have to look on page 5 for my links if his are down. His sonar only targeting is the most fun you can have in SH4 in my opinion (of course it's my opinion, I'm writing it!:rotfl: ). WernerSobe's videos are worth any mod out there in adding to my enjoyment of the game.

[SuperCavitation]

That was a great read, Peabody! Loved it!

[howler93]

Peabody,

loved it! It's amazing to read all the patrol logs of engagements here on this site...talk about an immersive game! A 10 for originality too, Peabody...I've never read a tutorial on what NOT to do. Somehow I think it'll be quite useful for folks
Don't sweat the difficulty level...as previous posters have stated, it's essential to work your way into the 100% range. Since I made the switch to manual targeting, I've had to let go of any hopes to target multiple ships in a convoy...I just can't do it well/quickly enough to pull it off with any reliability. When I try, I always end up with two slightly damaged targets, and nothing to show for my wasted fish in the patrol log. Anyway, keep it up and thanks for the good read!

Howler

p.s. Ditto on the recommendations for WernerSobe's tutorials...helped me tremendously. Learning to use the attack map to cross-check your sonar and visual readings was the key for me. I haven't whiffed on an attack since then, thanks to WernerSobe. Not to say that I don't miss...I just don't have those times when your target slowly lumbers along in front of you, all juicy and fat and waitin' for it with a perfect 90 degree angle, and then you yell, "FIRE!" and all you fish run off in the opposite direction, as if afraid of their target. Glad those days have passed!

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by peabody

I guess that's probably cheating?

No way, that's not cheating. It's about the only way you can get all the information - a bit like with the radar not showing range. It's a bit unfortunate that the sonar range lines on the map are super accurate, but there's no other way to get updates without manning the sonar yourself all the time.

There would normally be two guys manning the sonar stack, one would sweep around see what was happening to make sure there were no surprise visitors during an attack and the second would be handed off contacts to track.

It would be really nice if the sonar man was a bit more helpful, if the game had two and one announced changes in the general ships, like, warship speeding up bearing blah blah blah, instead of just being able to track one target. It would also help if the sonar man could track a specific target and not just the nearest merchant of warship, which is limitting. I would really like to try to build a mental image of what was happening above, using only what the sonar guy said, but alas that's not possible.