Liars! (False Flags)

[GoldenRivet]

Some of the prize regulations were specifically modified by Hitler.

he had some pretty specific orders to leave the American ships alone... however, i have sent several US ships to the bottom traveling in convoy with enemy escorts and considered those valid targets without any consequences

[lecek]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Some of the prize regulations were specifically modified by Hitler.

he had some pretty specific orders to leave the American ships alone... however, i have sent several US ships to the bottom traveling in convoy with enemy escorts and considered those valid targets without any consequences

I can confirm that. I just sank a rare unescorted convoy. 3 US ships and 2 GB ships. All ships showed as red in the map.


It seems US ships with false flags or in convoy are fair game.

[Lite_ly Salted]

I was watching a video by Lite_ly Salted called "Liars!" wherein his crew found nothing suspicious either. He sunk the ship based on other things and low and behold the life boats where red. (A good watch if you haven't seen it.)

Thanks for the shoutout!

[Contemplative Flame]

This is very interesting. I had no idea this game had this level of detail, nor this type of content. I have will have to consider getting it more closely.

[Einzelganger]

Having officers in the boarding party with the Linguist, Merchant & Navigator skills is important but even than i've found they don't always pick up on suspicious ships.

I've picked up the merchant ''Rio Iguazu'' under Argentinian flag heading North East in AM97. Clearly on course for an English port like Liverpool but when questioned their destination was said to be the port of Rotterdam. My officer with the Navigator skill unbelievably somehow agreed this appeared to be correct. The documents were checked, it was found not to be unusual to have HE shells and spare parts go to Rotterdam. Being that close to the Welsh coast i didn't buy it and contrary to all indications given i decided to sink the ship. I was wondering if the game was going to penalize me but was quickly reassured when the lifeboats where showing an English flag on the map.

My other unusual example was the merchant ''Monte Nuria'' under Portugese flag in AM56, so on approach to the straight between Northern Ireland & Scotland. Said to be heading to the port of Lisbon which did not make a lot of sense to me out there but was cleared as correct. I don't recall exactly the kind of cargo being carried but there was also nothing suspicious about it. Since he was taking a rather long detour to Lisbon i did not trust it and decided to sink the ship. Turns out this one too was actually an English freighter.

So maybe the game has those moments where you can't really find hard proof of irregularities and are ultimately left to go with your gut feeling ? Had i picked them up elsewhere i would probably have let them go.

I did appreciate having to worry about the consequences of my decision as i'm sure in real life there would have been situations where you couldn't be completely sure too

[lecek]

I too like that you can't always be sure.


One of the things with SH3, I played perhaps 2K hours with that game. Maybe more. No steam client to count them, but played it a lot. I made test missions and timed dives and explored crush depth behavior, torpedo behavior, ship weak spots, you name it. It was all systematic, scientific, and rigorous.


It made me a very good player.


In some ways it made me appreciate the ship operation model. For example, I don't know if very many people noticed, but when you surface the boat in SH3 it runs low in the water while the engine exhaust fills in the ballast tanks. Real U-Boats did this to save on compressed air. In SH3 if you wanted peak performance when surfacing without any delay you had to blow the tanks.



It also ruined the game a bit for me. Because under the hood, that game was very deterministic. Without mods, the ship escorts regardless of difficulty give up after 15 minutes of no contact. Exactly 15 minutes. To the second. This made the decoys useless, it just made the escorts stick around longer. (Also the decoys didn't last long enough.) Eventually I would time my attacks and where I would wipe out up to 5 ships of the front row of a convoy with simultaneous detonations. (Actually about 4 or 5 seconds from first torpedo to last. It is easier than you might think.) Afterwards I would dive and evade. Exactly 15 minutes later I would move to the surface and silent speed. Then end run the convoy, rinse repeat. Routinely sank the whole convoy except the neutrals. No damage, no missed torpedoes, never detected even by the escorts until the late game.


This might sound awesome cool. Like I am an awesome U-Boat commander. But the reality is that I just understood the game under the hood so much that the predictability of the game became impossible not to take advantage of. It ruined the immersion.



U-Boat on the other hand, is much less transparent under the hood. Crush depth is not so predictable, neutral ships are not so predictable and more. Though I have been purposely avoiding the kind of experiments I did for SH3, lest I find the same predictability under the hood.


I just wish U-Boat used a curved map with great circle routes instead of the flat map it uses. Ahh well.

[Crazy Ian]

The one thing that irks me is when you send over a navigator, who's got the option on pressing them about their current course vs. their 'intended destination'.

Pulling a Freighter over just 20nm to the south of Ireland on a course ENE which claimed it was bound for Vigo, and the vesels Master will act like this is a totally legitimate route, is very frustrating.