First, thank you very much for this most excellent and immersive mod.
What I love also is that it strives for as much realism as possible, so I have a number of small suggestions for a future update:
1) Would it be possible to decrease the patrol radius of secondary patrol grids from 120 km to 40-60 km? U-boats were usually requested to patrol a small quadrant, far smaller than 120 km. Also, since it is recommended to complete patrols in a single setting without saving, the area in which the player is unable to save without breaking his patrol mission is quite large.
2) Instead, 120 km radius missions could be integrated with new types of orders, in which BdU requests the u-boat to patrol possible convoy traffic lines between two quadrants back and forth either, North-South or East-West, for a number of hours. These are more compable with larger patrol radius.
3) After firing all their torpedoes, u-boats would often be requested to remain on patrol and serve as weather stations until they could return to base after or around a set date. I propose that after reporting on your status with no torpedoes, you would either receive orders to return to base OR to reach a set patrol grid (usually closer to possible future operations) and send regular weather reports for a number of hours.
When you reach the radius and lay inside the radious, you would receive interval blue messages from BdU to report weather, regularly, each 4 and 8 hours. When your time is completed, you'd either be ordered to head to another patrol grid and report weather again, or odds would be increasingly that you'd be ask to return to base to resupply.
Of course, you can still decide to return to base nonetheless, but this would impact on your Rating and possible Renown gains. Also, under a set fuel percentage you would always be requested to return to base.
What do you think? Would these changes be possible?
Thanks!