I'm actually playing SH-5! Questions though.
 

I was out of the subsim world for quite a while, my go to was always SH3 with GWX (of course), or SH-4 RFB. SH-5 was a lost cause to me then I came back and saw all the work put in to it.



With TWOS it is pretty amazing, it plays well on my laptop, CTDs happen but I get hours of solid playtime between them. I've done a lot of reading and I think I'm pretty solid on a lot of the gotchas like campaign transitions etc. though I haven't actually gotten there yet. I'm just shocked at the work the modders did.



In all that reading however I'm unclear on a couple of things.



How "on rails" is the campaign, for example I'm doing (I think I remember right) NW Approaches and assigned a patrol area, I tagged 3 merchants in route, I'm halfway there and down to half of my torpedoes. Is it campaign breaking to just hang out where I am (which seems kind of rich), pick up a couple more merchants then head back to port?



Is the whole map active? Say instead of grid AMxx I decide to head down off the Canary Islands (DB?) like I might in SH3, any chance of targets? Will BdU be upset?



Finally: I saw in some posts (maybe right, maybe wrong) that upgrades from the VIIA to VIIB etc. are based on Rating but if I look at my Rating score after 3 patrols in KSD Commander it's 0.



Rank: Oberleutnant zur see
Awards: Eisernes Kreuz 2. Klasse, U-Boot-Kriegsabzeichen
Commanded: U-33(VIIA)
Current Location: 2ndFlotilla
Home Base: Memel, Kiel, Wilhelmshaven, Kiel, Wilhelmshaven
Merit: 1900
Raiting: 0
Sinking tonnage: 54,821
Sunk merchant ships : 14
Torpedoes launched: 22
Impact: 6
Missed: 13
No exact data: 3
Number of patrols: 5
Total time at sea: 48 days
Current Status: out to sea 2/5/1940



Getting used to manual targeting (again, 6 / 13, wow did't realized I was that bad). Used the deck gun a lot.

TWOS includes Open Horizons mod which pretty much opens the campaign. You are not going to break campaign by not following capmaign objectives, these are fully optional now. How it works is, you can complete objective within its time frame to get some more renown, but if you don't, objective will deactivate when its time runs out and you will continue your patrol.

Yes, whole map should be active - from looking at campaign files, they include traffic in areas outside of campaign scope, so even if you, say, break out of Mediterranean to hunt some convoys in Atlantic, traffic should still be there.

What matters for BdU is tonnage, everything else is secondary. Completing patrol in assigned area nets you additional renown, but BdU will still be pleased if you choose to sail in opposite direction and find targets there.

No idea about this one, sorry, other than your renown possibly being affected by sinking neutrals.

Thank you sir! Quite a thorough response.



:Kaleun_Salute: