Time compression question

[Philipp_Thomsen]

So Im the only one to cross the Atlantic at 8192x tc?

[frau kaleun]

@ Captain J. Borne: Running at the most economical surface speed (~7 knots) except when absolutely necessary for offensive/defensive purposes, the range of a VIIB in the game is... I dunno exactly, but a lot. Around 30,000 km IIRC, maybe a bit more. Even based out of a North Sea port I've been able to spend upwards of 5-6 weeks on patrol in the Western Approaches and still get home with plenty of fuel to spare once I ran out of ammo.

On one patrol I made it as far south as Las Palmas and after 7+ weeks out I still would've had enough fuel to get back to Wilhelmshaven if I'd turned around and gone straight home with no diversions - it would've been cutting it close, but the only reason I refueled there was because the hunting had been so good in that area and I wanted the option of hanging around a bit longer.

Unless you're using Commander to assign yourself patrol grids that are historically inaccurate for your u-boat type and flotilla (i.e., too distant from your base to be at all "doable" in any realistic way) or running at a very uneconomical speed for the duration of your patrol, there shouldn't be any issue with getting to the grid, completing a 24 hour patrol (at the very least) and getting back to base.

Just hitting the assigned grid and staying 24 hours and then going home - even if I sailed all the way back - wouldn't be realistic enough for me, even if I managed to use up all my ammo in that short a time. Which would be highly unlikely, unless I happened on a convoy and managed to fire off everything I had at it.

Besides, I keep patrol logs and teleporting home would make the times and dates look really weird. There's no way I could sink a ship with my last torpedo in grid DH73 and be back in base a few hours or minutes later. That's one reason I always sail back to within the required "docking distance" from the place where I'm going to dock. Or at least to within a few hours distance from it.

But, that's my personal preference. I can tell you though that if you are beaming your boat back to base after 24 hours in your grid because your patrols are too uneventful, you are probably gonna have a lot of very short, uneventful patrols. What frontboots did, mostly, was hang around their assigned area and wait for an enemy ship to appear so they could engage it, or for someone else to report enemy shipping close enough to be intercepted. Most of the time was spent waiting and searching, not actively engaging the enemy.

And, yeah, if you consistently run at 1024 TC, you are probably going to miss contacts. And eventually get yourself killed before you know how it happened.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Captain J. Borne

You actually sail back? How do you have the fuel? You know you can end the patrol at your patrol grid after patrolling it for 24 hrs, right? (assuming your playing single player career)

I understand people like to be more realistic about it, but most patrols are so uneventful that I am too bored to drive home, usually im out of fuel by then.

Frau K gave your her answer. Here is mine. I will go as high as 512 while I'm in my patrol zone, but never above 128 while transiting places where aircraft are known to attack. I stay in my patrol zone for at least two weeks, and if I haven't seen anything in that time will move to an adjacent zone. I always budget my fuel carefully, and I always sail back into port and dock my ship the same way I sailed out. Of course I also rarely go above 1x while I'm in the harbor.

But, as Frau K also said, that's just me. I've played enough games in my life. I'm in this one for the history and the feel.

Is this real screenshots from GWX? Or are they mods !? WOW !

GWX is a mod. And they are in there.

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

So Im the only one to cross the Atlantic at 8192x tc?

My computer barely runs it at 1024 in the open ocean. At 8192 it would explode. On the other hand SH4 runs fine at that speed.

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

@ Captain J. Borne: Running at the most economical surface speed (~7 knots) except when absolutely necessary for offensive/defensive purposes, the range of a VIIB in the game is... I dunno exactly, but a lot. Around 30,000 km IIRC, maybe a bit more.

32,000 km, enough for more than 100 days at sea if you are running at 8knts.

Fuel is the last thing you are going to run out of in this game.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Captain J. Borne

Is this real screenshots from GWX? Or are they mods !? WOW !

They are scripted into GWX3.0.

If you have a wellseasoned hydrophone guy you may even be lucky enough to hear a shrimp fart

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

32,000 km, enough for more than 100 days at sea if you are running at 8knts.

Fuel is the last thing you are going to run out of in this game.

The SH3 world is a "Mercator projection" - meaning that the round earth is being projected on a flat surface.
This results in a great deal of distortion in the distances between objects.
for example:
On the round earth it is a voyage of some 3,300 miles (give or take) from Brest France to New York harbor...in the "mercator world" of SH3, that distance is distorted to a whopping 5,300 miles...not quite TWICE the actual distance.
A type VII sub would have no problem travelling at an economic cruise speed from Brest to New York and back acting conservatively but in SH3 you would run out of fuel about half way into your return voyage.
Because the SH3 modders could not change the SH3 world from Flat to spherical, they had to adjust the in game range of the U-boat by increasing it nearly 3 fold.

[K-61]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

So Im the only one to cross the Atlantic at 8192x tc?

My machine can handle 8192 but I seldom use it only in areas where I am absolutely certain I will not miss enemy contacts, which means very few areas once away from my base.

Originally Posted by Captain J. Borne

Is this real screenshots from GWX? Or are they mods !? WOW !

They are Modded into GWX.
The Dolphins:
Base model by Ubisoft; Discovery & 1st tweaks by Sergbuto; Campaign scripting by Rubini; Hi-resolution skin by Tikigod; New hydro behavior, waypoint following, and sound assignment by Ref


The Whales were done by ref.
One of the first new animatons added to SH3 by the way.

It's all in the GWX 3 Manual if you care to read it.
Heck! Most questions can be answered by reading the GWX manual.
Have you seen the AirShips or 'Coptors?
Did you know they exist in GWX?
Can you locate 'Darth Lehmann' or 'Babe'?
Have you been in port and heard the Air Raid sirens go off?
Or seen the V-1's flying over the Sea Forts?
Dude!
You have no idea what is out there!

[VONHARRIS]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

So Im the only one to cross the Atlantic at 8192x tc?

No , I cross the Atlantic at 4096 TC. Not a problem with contacts. Of course when an enemy is spotted I have set the TC to drop to 1 immediately. Same does when radar detectors are available. When a radar warning appears TC drops to 1.

How can you achive a 8192 TC?

[Gargamel]

I fully understand the Human vs AI reaction time issue... but....

Don't you guys get really bored sailing to the Caribbean or other far off places at 8kts at 128x? I mean i go bonkers a 20kts at 1024 waiting to cross vast expanses of mindless ocean. And yes I have unlimited fuel turned on. I'd rather play a more real game, but I get bored too quick.

EDIT: Missed some of the thread, and I was really interested in Frau K's answer, and I got it. Still interested in others answers.

EDIT2: Was having issues with SC3H setting the times, sneaky sneaky way to force ya to read the pdf! Which i have no problem doing! (Side note: I think the GWX PDF is almost more awesome than the mod itself. Insane work people! ). So being able to crank it to 8kx, i'm goign to try more limited fuel patrols.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Don't you guys get really bored sailing to the Caribbean or other far off places at 8kts at 128x? I mean i go bonkers a 20kts at 1024 waiting to cross vast expanses of mindless ocean. And yes I have unlimited fuel turned on. I'd rather play a more real game, but I get bored too quick.

I might get bored if I were sitting there just staring at the monitor for hours at a time, yeah. I won't say I haven't done that, because there are times when it's actually relaxing (a way to "decompress" from a far too hectic work week, for example).

But typically if I'm just sitting there with the game running, I will have the TV on in the same room and find something to watch, or I'll be reading a book, or doing something else that I can stop doing immediately if anything happens in the game that requires my attention. Other times I'll be up doing things in the same room - household chores like dusting or folding laundry. I'll go in and out of the room to do stuff as long as it doesn't involve getting out of earshot or so distracted that I miss an alert.

In a way that increases the realism for me, in RL it's not like a u-boat commander spent an entire patrol standing over the chart table monitoring their progress or up on the bridge assisting with the watch. He had to eat, sleep, and find ways to kill time when nothing was going on that required his immediate oversight or intervention. And with a good crew, that was probably most of the time.

I remember reading in one of Buchheim's books - I think it was U-Boat War - where he quoted Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock saying something like, a u-boat commander's first priority and most important "duty" was to be asleep whenever and however much he could... simply because, once they went into action, it might turn out to be a very long ordeal (either on offense or defense) during which he would have to be awake, alert, and making crucial split-second decisions for hours at a time.

So, you know, for increased realism... plot your course, go to 128 TC, and have a good nap. Just make sure the volume's high enough that any alert will be loud enough to wake you up.

[Kapt Z]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

But typically if I'm just sitting there with the game running, I will have the TV on in the same room and find something to watch, or I'll be reading a book, or doing something else that I can stop doing immediately if anything happens in the game that requires my attention. Other times I'll be up doing things in the same room - household chores like dusting or folding laundry. I'll go in and out of the room to do stuff as long as it doesn't involve getting out of earshot or so distracted that I miss an alert.

I find that my "SH3 time", usually after the girls are in bed and my wife is watching cooking shows, is the only time I get to catch up on my reading or chores anyway. Of course, if I latch onto a juicy convoy the chores might suffer......

I remember reading in one of Buchheim's books - I think it was U-Boat War - where he quoted Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock saying something like, a u-boat commander's first priority and most important "duty" was to be asleep whenever and however much he could... simply because, once they went into action, it might turn out to be a very long ordeal (either on offense or defense) during which he would have to be awake, alert, and making crucial split-second decisions for hours at a time.

Reminds me of a comment I heard somewhere years ago. Always thought it had to do with soldiers or those involved in combat.

Never stand when you can sit
Never sit when you can lay down
Never stay awake when you can sleep

'cause you never know when you'll get another chance

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by VONHARRIS

No , I cross the Atlantic at 4096 TC. Not a problem with contacts. Of course when an enemy is spotted I have set the TC to drop to 1 immediately. Same does when radar detectors are available. When a radar warning appears TC drops to 1.

Except for all the air contacts you miss.

How can you achive a 8192 TC?

SH3 Commander.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Kapt Z

Never stand when you can sit
Never sit when you can lay down
Never stay awake when you can sleep

'cause you never know when you'll get another chance

Or....never do for yourself what you can get another to do for you...an old internal police saying

[Legionary74]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

So Im the only one to cross the Atlantic at 8192x tc?

Not at all, Im always at 8192