I'm new, please help

Hey guys, I tried to read threw a lot of the threads to find the answers to my questions but was unsuccessful. I know you guys probably get these, "I’m new, please help" threads a lot and I’m sorry but I tried this game several months ago and got frustrated and quit, I’m trying to give it another shot.

1. Are there established enemy routes? Or how do you find the enemy convoys? I see the red on the map and I try to move to intercept them but when I get there they are not, or anywhere in the direction of there travel.

2. Does it always take 2-3 torpedoes to sink a ship? I know in real life the magnetic torpedoes went off under their targets and would split the ship in half sometimes. Is there a more efficient way to attack?

3. Upgrading your boat and crew. After the intro mission I just kind of spread out the points and upgraded my ship with what was available. Was this correct or should I have done something different.

4. Lastly I don’t see anyone on multiplayer when I try to get on. Why?

Thank you for your time in advance.

[stoianm]

Originally Posted by CBDennis

Hey guys, I tried to read threw a lot of the threads to find the answers to my questions but was unsuccessful. I know you guys probably get these, "I’m new, please help" threads a lot and I’m sorry but I tried this game several months ago and got frustrated and quit, I’m trying to give it another shot.

1. Are there established enemy routes? Or how do you find the enemy convoys? I see the red on the map and I try to move to intercept them but when I get there they are not, or anywhere in the direction of there travel.

2. Does it always take 2-3 torpedoes to sink a ship? I know in real life the magnetic torpedoes went off under their targets and would split the ship in half sometimes. Is there a more efficient way to attack?

3. Upgrading your boat and crew. After the intro mission I just kind of spread out the points and upgraded my ship with what was available. Was this correct or should I have done something different.

4. Lastly I don’t see anyone on multiplayer when I try to get on. Why?

Thank you for your time in advance.

1. You have a printable Map for Silent Hunter 5 Showing shipping lanes and Air coverage:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=1593
I'm not entirely happy with the intercept image, but since I made it at 5am I won't worry too much about it, but here's how I intercepted a convoy last night. This is with map contacts off, so no ghost to follow for me.



Here you see the first contact report, at 05:26 about a large convoy 614km away, moving towards me at 13kts. What you don't see is that at the time I started this plot it was already 05:45, so I should have taken that into account.

Next comes the big messy picture!



Step 1: I use the protractor to draw from my u-boat to the contact, then out along it's path of travel. When I did this, I made three mistakes. First was waiting so long to start it, second was not bringing the line out far enough and third was not getting the angle of travel perfect.

Step 2: I draw a line from the contact out along it's direction of travel according to it's speed. Since it's traveling at 13kts and was 600km+ away, I picked a multiplier of 20, meaning the line I drew was 260 (13 x 20) km long. If we were closer I might have picked a multiplier of .5 or 2 or something to plot a line 6.5 or 26km long, depending.

Step 3: I use the compass to draw a circle from the end point of the line I drew in step 2 which is equal to my speed (13.6) times the multiplier I used before, which would be a circle with a radius of 272 km.

Step 4: I find the point where the circle crosses the original bearing to the contact, the first protractor line I drew. I measure the angle from the end point of step 2 to the meeting point of bearing and circle then towards the contact. In this case you can kinda see it's 32 degrees.

Step 5: I now take that 32 degrees angle and measuring from the line towards the contact, to my u-boat, then towards the path of travel of the contact and draw out the 32 angle line till it crosses the travel line. This is where I made another mistake, since the original protractor I hadn't drawn out long enough, so I had to use a ruler to make it longer. That's the extra 170km line there.

Step 6: The point where the step 5 angle and the step 2 course lines meet is where I'll intercept. I'll place my waypoint at that point and head towards it at my current speed. It's Mark 1 in that image.

So now I'm chugging along towards the intercept point. I draw a 30km circle around the point to represent basically the hydrophone range around the spot where I should be able to hear the convoy.



What's this!? At 17:28 I get a hydrophone contact from my sonarman saying he hears something coming from the general direction of where the convoy should be. But as you can see I'm still some 80km or so away from the intercept point!

In order to cheat a little I draw out a 50 degree angle from the front of my boat to the left (360 - 310 contact bearing = 50 degrees port) and send my external camera to see what's there.



And there it is! The beautiful, battleship escorted giant convoy! Turns out it was only traveling at 9kts by the time I reached it (which is why I met it ahead and past it rather than right on) and also changed course a bit too I think. It's changes like that which can cause you to miss convoys a lot, especially at ranges of 600km+ like this one was.

So, took me 12 hours or so to intercept it, and I almost missed it, but I got close enough to be able to intercept and sink 4 ships from it!
__________________




The best tactic to intercept a convoy (for me) is the one explained by Kylania (it is working all the time). Read careful and try to understend the ,,Kylania,, post in this tread:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//sho...d.php?t=167603

Very important - you must to start intercepting the convoy at least a few minutens after the BDU reported to you (means maximum only a few minutes after the contact just apears on the map - the most time is past the most you have chances to make wrong calculation and fail)

2.Yes you need 2-3 torps to sink a ship and this sucks because is not like in ,,realism,,. You need to read this thread:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=163930&page=7

If you instal the mod ,,Critical hits for torpedo,, tehn you will need only 1 or max 2 torp to sink a ship. You can download from here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8721542/Crit....1Torpedos.zip

I also recomand ,,critical hits for deckgun,, download from here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8721542/Criticalhitsv1.2.zip

3. Yes you did good. It is corect and important to upgrade your crew
and boat.

4. I have not a clue about your last question.

I START PLAYNG THIS GAME FEW MONTS AGO - I SUGEST YOU TO INSTALL THE MOD MAGNUM OPUS. Read on the forum how to instal a mod, download and install MAGNUM OPUS and give the game a try - after you will instal this mod the game will change 100% in better (not kiding) - in fact become a new better game (means graphic and tactics).
By the way with this mod you will have the printable Map for Silent Hunter 5 Showing shipping lanes and Air coverage icorporate inside of the game (not need to print the map or to exit on desktop to look ate the map).
Link for ,,magnum opus,, mod:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...176123&page=49

Good lock

Thank you so much. Now the only thing thats is happening is when I pull into port at Kiel after completing the British colstal Waters patrol it wont let me end the patrol.

[THE_MASK]

Originally Posted by CBDennis

Thank you so much. Now the only thing thats is happening is when I pull into port at Kiel after completing the British colstal Waters patrol it wont let me end the patrol.

Has your sub base icon moved to wlilhelmshaven .

no it did not, i tried closing the game and restarting my pc, and that has seemed to work for now Thank you

[Gerald]