Back at the game - need tips

[Hooston]

With auto targeting it's simply a matter of sinking all the escorts using point and shoot, then wiping out the merchants. Manual targeting makes hitting an active escort extremely difficult as it takes too long to establish angle on bow and speed. A different game!
Contacts on the map allows you to establish target course and speed with the "3 minutes 15 seconds" trick. In real life measuring range accurately was very difficult so that approach did not usually work. I also find that the tactical overview is too helpful, even when operating on the surface.

Mission goals is not really a SH3 campaign thing. You can try the single missions for that, and GWX has a lot of extra ones. You can go raid a port if you like but that is generally far too easy as there are too few nets and mines, your navigation is perfect and there are no tides.

Dud torpedoes are a huge factor with the HSie/Steibler hard coded fixes in most megamods. It really forces you to tailor what you do depending on the weather.

Crew management is pretty basic in SH3. "Uboat" is the game if you want that, but after spending a huge amount of effort modelling the boat that game seems very "gamey". i think maybe the money ran out or the marketing people got at it.

The weapons officer help is not a big deal. You can always choose to not ask him. Until recently I sometimes used him to identify targets to save clicking through the ID manual.

[ubootmate]

Okay...let's see.

Originally Posted by Hooston

With auto targeting it's simply a matter of sinking all the escorts using point and shoot, then wiping out the merchants. Manual targeting makes hitting an active escort extremely difficult as it takes too long to establish angle on bow and speed. A different game!

Sounds indeed challenging.
So how does one do it then?
Hitting fast approaching destroyers if you don't have any time and tools to correctly determine course and speed?
Can you still log on a target via attack periscope or Uzo?
And does it still tell you the targets speed and direction it is coming from?

Originally Posted by Hooston

Contacts on the map allows you to establish target course and speed with the "3 minutes 15 seconds" trick. In real life measuring range accurately was very difficult so that approach did not usually work. I also find that the tactical overview is too helpful, even when operating on the surface.

When using it the first contact says: ship detected and then shows general course (i.e. south south west), slow, medium or fast target and the red or black show you whether its a war or merchant vessel...
What sort of message do you receive when this option is deactivated?
Is the map then simply not accessible or does it show you nothing at all?

Originally Posted by Hooston

Mission goals is not really a SH3 campaign thing. You can try the single missions for that, and GWX has a lot of extra ones. You can go raid a port if you like but that is generally far too easy as there are too few nets and mines, your navigation is perfect and there are no tides.

Too bad, I think the lack of proper radio traffic and varied mission goals renders this powerful tool (radio was an asset especially back then) ueless in this game and takes all the realistic feel away from an otherwise entertaining game.

Originally Posted by Hooston

Dud torpedoes are a huge factor with the HSie/Steibler hard coded fixes in most megamods. It really forces you to tailor what you do depending on the weather.

I might still keep this one unchecked though.
I know malfunctioning/sabotaged torpedoes were a real thing - especially later in war when most torpedoes were produced by slave laborers because most german men were in military service but I often run out of torpedoes with all of them exploding. When you have 2-4 (or even more) dud torpedoes per patrol I just can't imagine how bad this would have to be...

Originally Posted by Hooston

Crew management is pretty basic in SH3. "Uboat" is the game if you want that, but after spending a huge amount of effort modelling the boat that game seems very "gamey". i think maybe the money ran out or the marketing people got at it.

Well I would love to do it in this game not playing another game just to increase the crew nursing factor.

Originally Posted by Hooston

The weapons officer help is not a big deal. You can always choose to not ask him. Until recently I sometimes used him to identify targets to save clicking through the ID manual.

What does he actually do besides identifying the exact ship type?
I mean when you have disabled auto targeting and map overview, what exactly does the WO do to help you out on the tasks that all of a sudden you have do do for yourself?

I really am thinking about it.
I get you when you say it's a different game without most of the help.
But then again, what does a commander have his crew for if he has to do everything by himself? Why developing a crew when you have to do it all alone from guessing and predicting the course, navigating in position and manually targeting and firing the torpedoes to crash diving to escape the escorts?


Are there any tutorials that center on manual targeting and plotting enemy course without help of overview map?


Greetings from
Ubootmate

[Hooston]

Go watch this guy





or if you are not quite so "hardcore realism" try this guy

[ubootmate]

Well, first of all thank you.

When I do things, I want to do them right.
So recommending Tonic87 to me is certainly very much appreciated.
I watched large parts of 3 episodes now and while I have to admit that the gameplay is vastly different from what I did so far, its also tough to get a real handle on how to reach that next level.

While this is awesome to watch he doesn't really explain things in detail, at least not constantly, so you have to pick up things only in parts.
I think it would be better to really look at basic tutorials how to operate without the overview map and target computing available.

I think I will look for something like that first before watching this guy play.
He already is on a level I might never even reach at all. While his narrations are entertaining when you just watch these episodes for pure entratainment they are not very helpful if you are looking for detailed, step by step explanations on how to play at ultimate level - so it simply doesn't really get you there fast enough...

I will get back to this guy once I have the required basics down from somewhere else....

Greetings from Ubootmate

[Shadowblade]

Originally Posted by ubootmate

But then again, what does a commander have his crew for if he has to do everything by himself? Why developing a crew when you have to do it all alone from guessing and predicting the course, navigating in position and manually targeting and firing the torpedoes to crash diving to escape the escorts?

yeah, I had similar questions regarding stuff like crew fatigue managent and other settings or duties on uboat. Some can be fun (like effectively using deck gun & flak to sink the ships), some are not fun (I had to disable crew fatigue managent because babysitting my crew should be done by officers).