UBER-Realism Thread

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by JScones

Even then it's hard to avoid that tell-tale slowing down that SH3 exhibits whenever there is a ship or convoy near by.

Very true. I tried 128x and even then I still get a noticable pause when a convoy is loaded.

When I get that tell-tale momentary judder from a convoyI wasn't expecting, I just ignore it and proceed along whatever course I've plotted. If I blunder into the convoy, fine. If I miss it, tough luck. It's still annoying, though.

Ignorance would be bliss, eh?

I play the same as OLC except I never go above 128 when in patrol zone on surface and 256 when submerged or en route to patrol zone.

Always do a quick observation scope check for planes before surfacing.

Always fire a min of 2 fish at targets greater than 4500 TNS

Never engage escorts but hope to one day engage a capital ship.

Always use crew for deck gun and flak guns.

Always stop the boat when loading external spare fish and never in winds greater than 7mps

Never abort reloading of an external fish once started, so if a plane comes then i'll just have to fight it out :-(

Gun reload time set to 15 secs

Random crush depths

Sabotage and Malfuntions enabled

NVDrifters excellent Longer Repair times...and absolute must.

Great topic by the way, someone should put together an SH3 Commanders Handbook with all these realism tips included

[siber]

I was going to ask about deck gun reload times... I know you can set a minimum time with SH3Commander, but what would a realistic reload time be? I've yet to find a definitive answer (although, tbh, I haven't really tried to search very hard ).

I've a mate who used to be in the Royal Artillery, and he said that with a crew of three, his 105mm gun took about 4-6 seconds to reload... but said gun would be stationary, lashed down and stable... Also, ammo would be to hand.

I understand u-boats had to have ammo passed up from below, round by round. Add this to a pitching wet deck and the additional time it takes to lay the gun each shot because of the movement, and this time's got to be increased somewhat.

What settings do you all use? :hmm:

[aj906]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

• I set "Maximum TC" to 256. As has already been noted, high TC all but removes the possibility of air attacks.
• I set "When Hunting TC" to 256. If you have this set lower than your Maximum TC it can be a give away. For example, if it were set at 32 (the default) then when a ship is spotted I will know whether or not it is an enemy ship, even from 16km, just by trying to go high on the TC while shadowing it. Setting this TC the same as the max TC forces me to check the flag.
• I never stop submerged. Maintaining a constant depth in a U-boat that wasn't moving was barely possible, and trying it made a lot of noise IRL. SH3 doesn't model this noise, so I always keep my U-boat moving at least a little bit. Sitting perfectly still at PD (or any depth) is effectively cheating in SH3.
• I never ping for depth when enemies are around. IRL, pinging the sea floor while escorts are around would have alerted all nearby escorts to your presence, but SH3 doesn't model this. You can ping and they don't hear it. I therefore don't allow myself to ping for depth when enemy ships are around, I just use the depth thing on the navmap. Sometimes, in waters 100-200m depth (I never go into very shallow waters) I have hit the bottom while trying to put a few extra meters between me and the DD's that are hunting me. I really like this touch! The "Can I, can't I?" question of whether to try for those extra few meters, with the sound of DD's going Ping! above you, can be pretty cool.
• I always let the crew fire the guns. The reasons for this are obvious I think.
• I always follow my orders. If BdU tell me to go to grid AM11, it doesn't seem realistic to me that I ignore them and go to DH53.
• I play DiD (Dead is Dead). This stops me from getting silly ideas like fighting escorts or raiding ports. If you try this, I strongly recommend setting "When being hunted TC" to 1 because the seconds/minutes gained by having TC automatically dropped to 1 when you're attacked can make all the difference. The downside is that DC attacks have to be played out in realtime if the escorts manage to detect me, but even that cloud has a silver lining: it's a little extra incentive to try to make sure I don't get detected at all.

I play with weapon officer assistance on simply because in RL, there would have been a helping hand to juggle the necessary input data. I also use external view but only because I love the eye-candy of GWX and the great desktops that can be produced from it. Other than that, it's "realistic"

I am surprised to learn that the depth ping has no effect as to whether or not you are "heard". As a matter of course, when I know there is anything within sonar range I just don't use it and sink by degrees. I had just assumed pinging the depth was tantamount to suicide I also try not to use the periscope to judge depth which I believe is a bit unrelaistic. Even at night at 180metres you can still clearly make out the rivets on the bow of your boat... (or at least, I can..)

I have to say, I'm more of a winged-wonder than a silent stalker, but the diversion of SH3+GWX2.0 has opened a whole new world to me!

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by siber

I was going to ask about deck gun reload times... I know you can set a minimum time with SH3Commander, but what would a realistic reload time be? I've yet to find a definitive answer (although, tbh, I haven't really tried to search very hard ).

This was once was a very hotly debated topic indeed.
My two cents:
The reload time in GWX is realistic according to quite a few sources i.e. there's no need, IMO, to use this SH3 commander option. The option is there for anyone who disagrees to set their own "realistic" reload times. I suppose it's also there for anyone who would like to have a high-caliber minigun on their U-boat.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

This was once was a very hotly debated topic indeed.

siber's post just had be reading through a few of the old deck gun threads, ahh the memories.

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

The reload time in GWX is realistic according to quite a few sources i.e. there's no need, IMO, to use this SH3 commander option. The option is there for anyone who disagrees to set their own "realistic" reload times. I suppose it's also there for anyone who would like to have a high-caliber minigun on their U-boat.

Or for anyone who uses RUb...:rotfl:

BTW, I see your last career was finally retired.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by JScones

BTW, I see your last career was finally retired.

Er, yes, lol, don't remind me!

[bert8for3]

I play pretty much the same as people have said here. Thought it might be an idea just to recap for convenience the points made (apologies if I missed any) with acknowledgment to previous posters and doing some editing to shorten a bit, then some of mine added.

1. I set "Maximum TC" to 256.
2. I set "When Hunting TC" to 256.
3. I never stop submerged.
4. I never ping for depth when enemies are around.
5. I always let the crew fire the guns.
6. I always follow my orders.
7. I play DiD (Dead is Dead).
8. persicope stabilisation (?)
9. Always do a quick observation scope check for planes before surfacing.
10. Always fire a min of 2 fish at targets greater than 4500 TNS
11. Never engage escorts but hope to one day engage a capital ship.
12. Always stop the boat when loading external spare fish and never in winds greater than 7mps. Never abort reloading of an external
fish once started, so if a plane comes then i'll just have to fight it out :-(
13. Gun reload time set to 15 secs
14. Random crush depths
15. Sabotage and Malfuntions enabled
16. NVDrifters excellent Longer Repair times...and absolute must.
17. I play with weapon officer assistance on simply because in RL, there would have been a helping hand to juggle the necessary
input data.
18. I also use external view but only because I love the eye-candy of GWX and the great desktops that can be produced from it. Other
than that, it's "realistic"

Here's my own additions:

19. I keep crew fatigue on the default setting and move them around to simulate watches. I don't do it all the time, mind you, and when I do, I don't stick like glue to a proper rotation. I mainly do it when I'm on 1X (see below). For a while I used to do it when in higher (max 256 also for long distance) TC by dropping to 1X every 4 hours and then rotating and then putting TC back to 256 (or whatever lower), but it was a pain. I know some people ditch fatigue, and there are valid reasons for that, but I find personally that it adds a bit of atmosphere.

20. I put torp load on manual rather than automatic. I just prefer to have control to avoid risk of auto loading (and therefore noise) if by chance I'm not on silent running and have some people in the torpedo rooms. It may not actually make a difference, but again I like the atmosphere of it.

21. I stick to 1X from the time I make contact with a target, throughout attack and afterwards until I lose or abandon contact. With a couple of small exceptions. If I pick up a sound contact at long range, then I may use TC but no more than 16X or 32X to close the range a bit. But I make sure to go to 1X prior to visual contact. Likewise if I'm flanking a convoy to get ahead after visual contact or to make another attack, and if I'm flanking out of visual contact, then I somtimes use TC but again not more than 16X or 32X. Finally, if I've gone deep after an attack, and if the escorts are hunting but are nowhere near me, then I'll also use a bit of TC to get some distance so that I can surface. My exceptions are basically to save a bit of RL playing time when there's going to be a dead stretch of time otherwise at 1X and because my 1X play otherwise makes for long periods of inactivity anyway. eg I just finished a third attack on a convoy last night. It took me a couple of two-hour or so playing sessions to disengage after the second attack and then flank around the convoy into position for the third attack. Once I was confident that the convoy hadn't altered course, and I was abeam the flank escort, I used 16X to pull ahead a bit faster.

22. I don't use WO reports for targeting. I did until recently, but decided to wean myself off, as the range reports are just too accurate and make it easy to get target course and speed, at least on single ship targets. Most of the time they were useless anyway with convoys as the nearest target is generally an escort, although you could plot over time and get a mean course and speed. Now I've gone to visual obs of target track and intersecting bearings for target speed. Also OLC's Gui tools, but I'm not yet practiced with them.

Not that any of this is imho a code or the way to do it, just mine.

[onelifecrisis]

I play without fatigue because my PC can't handle what is, IMHO, the only good fatigue model for SH3: RUB 1xTC! For anyone who doesn't know: RUB 1xTC is a misnomer because it actually works at any TC up to and including your 3D TC setting (default 32). By increasing 3D TC to match your maximum TC you can have the RUB 1xTC "battle fatigue" model working all the time... the only problem is that SH3 will render everything all the time, even when you're looking at your map at max TC. This puts quite a strain on your system at higher TC settings. Modern machines should be able to handle it without breaking a sweat, but my 3YO rig tends to crumple under the pressure when a convoy is around.

[msalama]

Thanks everyone, good tips all around!

I recently went to 100% realism, and to my great amazement still seem to hit the buggers even I decided to use the WO's contact info for the time being though, but still do my own plotting and maths. What's funny is that it's all starting to make good sense to me - though one really needs some P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E to get anything done

OLC's way of never stopping the electrics while at PD is a good one BTW, so I of course copied it right away But how about going down to 100m and then stopping the works? I'm sure I've read and / or heard stories of captains doing that when resting their crews, &c...

[siber]

I suppose that turning off the motors at depth should be ok, but I understand that if you do this whilst under attack, the hunting surface ships will blow you out of the water with ease not possible in real life...

Sometimes I'll stop everything at 50m in my assigned patrol grid when the visibility's bad in order to listen with hydrophones for contacts whilst also saving fuel.

[Fubar2Niner]

Hi all.

I just stumbled across this topic and was wondering if someone can explain the DiD mod, and tell me where I might find it. I've noticed it listed in quite a few sigs, and have tried searching but have never found it. Thanks for any help.

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

[msalama]

DiD means "dead is dead". It's not a mod, but a way of playing the game where you never "try again" if your Kaleun dies or surrenders...

[Fubar2Niner]

Thanks for clearing that up msalama. In that case I been playing that way all along

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

[rifleman13]

Did any u-boats there did any "bow shots"?

A destroyer coming head to head with a u-boat? Did this happen? The reason I asked this because there was a sub film I watched titled "Run Silent, Run Deep" and it shows a US sub torpedoeing a Jap destroyer at the bow.

Any thoughts?