Questions about game mechanics and realism settings in Career Mode

[blubalou]

First off, I'm looking to determine the correlation between Gameplay (Realism) Settings and Career Mode difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard.) I want Manual Targeting but also prefer getting map contact updates from visual or sonar contacts.

The first time I started a career, I chose 'Normal', then after a 3,000 mile Pacific cruise, I figured out Normal did not allow me to make TDC entries, so I started over with Hard as my selection. Now I'm required (and able) to generate my own targeting solution, but I'm not sure if I'm getting map contact updates. (Last night, while playing my career, I engaged a convoy in light fog, and received only gray contacts...., but I'm thinking that was because of the poor visibility? But then why didn't radar or sonar provide the red contacts?)

A couple of other items that seem to behave differently in Career Mode as compared to Quick Missions where I can control the Realism Settings....

1. Control over the direction of the hydrophone. In Career Mode I seem unable to control that, whereas I would like to be able to move it around the boat to hear for myself what's out there in all directions. What determines how that works?

2. Locking a target ('L' key) is a handy helper that I like (albeit not realistic) but this also did not work for me during my convoy encounter. Is this possibly also related to the poor visibility? i.e. do I need a red contact in order to lock it?

BTW, I played SH III for a while a long time ago (could it be 10 years ago already?!) but I'm more or less a Noob to the game and the subsim forums. So thanks in advance for any help!!!

-blu