overtenemy
Augur
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2007
- Messages
- 293
Index:
Cleve Blakestein:
Part 1: Set Sail for Fail
Part 2: Blakestein's Blue Balls
Part 3: Convoy Quest
Part 4: Convoy Quest Redux: Deluxe Enhanced Ultimate Edition
Part 5: More Like the BULLSHIT of Scapa Flow (and other assorted comedy)
TheNamelessPrick:
Part 6: Hijack
Part 7: The Second Coming: Worst Update EVER
Part 8: How to Fail 101*: Shallow Waters + Terrible Weather = This Update
CHAPTER 1: THE RISE OF ALLAH: THE RECKONING
CHAPTER 2: COPYPASTA FOR THE FÜHRER
CHAPTER 3: DUD FOR THE DUD GOD!
CHAPTER 4: HERP THAT DERP, HERR KALEUN!
CHAPTER 5: ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A CONVOY
CHAPTER 6: CONVOYS. CONVOYS NEVER CHANGE.
CHAPTER 7: WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' TORPEDOES
In an effort to raise general Codex awareness about gnarly video games as well as dispel myths of SH3 + G.W.X. superiority, I've decided to at least briefly LP Operation Monsun. For those of you who are unaware of the Silent Hunter series, they're WW2 submarine simulators that gained probably most of its current fan base and popularity with SH3. It's pretty much Das Boot: the video game. Unfortunately, like a great deal of potentially good games, they're invariably released in a state of buggy shitstormitude that puts anything released by Bohemia Interactive to shame. (Silent Hunter 5 was released without a properly working stadimeter. If you don't know what that is, you'll see later.) Fortunately, after a few official patches, modders appear and save the day, eventually coalescing their works into giant megamods that dramatically alter the game. The most popular of these is the Silent Hunter 3 Grey Wolves Expansion mod, or G.W.X. It gets alot of press and is generally considered to the ultimate in pretending to be Jurgen Proch- well, a u-boat captain.
I'm challenging the notion.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=134922
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=158764
In this corner, we have Operation Monsun, a robust megamod made primarily by one man. It's for Silent Hunter 4 + expansion and thusly incorporates all of its core improvements over SH3 while re-adding the Atlantic theater as well as the u-boats that weren't otherwise present. The optional expansion to it includes improved destroyer AI, various environmental effects, a new attack periscope, and probably some other crap that I've forgotten about. What I find, personally, is that G.W.X. features a great deal of atmospheric fluff that, while pleasant, doesn't actually constitute gameplay. SH4 + OM, in my experience, has better destroyer AI (painful fucking destroyer AI if you use the hardest optional mod. I use the slightly wimpier one), various cool features like aircraft dropped homing torpedoes that will fucking destroy you, and of course a much better campaign - Lurker's (the OM modder) real claim to fame. The dude models all his convoys and transports after historical records. It makes it more difficult, generally, to find convoys and ships. You can check his cited sources in the OM thread, as well as his Run Silent, Run Deep Campaign thread. It also should be noted that it's possible to get various atmospheric fluff mods separate from OM to make the experience a bit more like G.W.X., but I don't bother.
Also, be advised that I'm not really an expert at this. My word isn't gospel. If you see me do something wrong, point it out and I'll be a better player for it. That said, I will be explaining most of my actions as well as various features the screenshots show me using so as to familiarize any newcomers. I also haven't played in a long time, so the first updates will probably be rocky at best, but hey, it'll be funnier that way. Did I mention this is going to be ironman? Coz it is. If I die I'll just restart at a different port at a different time. Oh and I was gonna post Das Boot pictures along the way but I deleted it recently so meh.
Anyway, I think that's enough bullshit for now. Time to put on my oilskin and my captain hat...
]Part 1: Set Sail for Fail
Here is where you select your captain's name, the year you start in, the Flotilla you start in, and what u-boat you'll be using. In OM, you may only use u-boats that were historically available to the flotilla you've chosen. At least, I think so, because I'm having trouble seeing how he reconciles the availability of the type XXI in this mod with the fact that only a few of them ever made war patrols.
Anyway, on my choices here: we need to send some limey cunts to the bottom and I feel Cleve is the perfect ubermensch for the job. I'm starting so early because I haven't played in a long time and starting later will get me real fucked, real fast. When I get my sea legs back so to speak, I'll probably do something retarded, die, and restart slightly before or during Black May to make things more interesting. I'm using a type IX because it carries more torpedoes than the other currently available classes, and because I fully intend to miss a bunch before I'm settled in, I'm giving myself a bit of buffer.
Back in the office, there isn't much to do. There's no real upgrades to put on the ship, and we don't have any renown so we can't use it to put on any really good crewmen, so we'll get to all that crap later. For now, the only useful thing to do in port is re-arrange the torpedo selection. There are currently two types available: steam powered, which goes faster, farther, and is less prone to failure. Sounds good right? Except it leaves a visible wake, which means if the ship you're shooting spots it early enough, it can actually change course and avoid your shot. For that reason, even if you have a really good firing solution, I rarely if ever do long range shots with them. That said, however, I generally prefer them to the alternative: the electric powered, wakeless PIECE OF SHIT. First off, it's slow as fuck so I find myself considerably more likely to miss. Secondly, and this is the real kicker, they dud like the wind. Like it's their job. All torpedoes have a chance of hitting and not exploding, but these ones have perfected it to a science. I carry a few of them, because occasionally I'm able to make use of its inability to be spotted, particularly if I'm firing at a convoy and I want to hit two ships that are different ranges. In that case, I like to fire the wakeless torpedoes at the farthest, wait, then launch the considerably faster steam versions at the closer one so the detonations on both ships are close. Not only does this prevent the farther target from seeing the torpedoes and changing course, but it also prevents it from changing course after seeing one if its pals go up in flames.
For that reason, I keep two steam, and two electric loaded in the front tubes, then have two electric backups because I simply use them less. All other torpedoes on the boat are steam. Anyway, time to undock.
You'll notice that the map shows the Pacific theater. Presumably it's hardcoded, and he can't change it. We're actually based out of Wilhelmshaven.
Already, if you've played SH3 you'll note the lack of band and nurses, respectively playing music and throwing roses.
The time of day is different because my screen capture program went nuts and I restarted.
I'll take this time to explain the interface. On the lower right you have a meter that shows fuel, battery, compressed air, and CO2 levels on the ship, depending on what button you have pressed. Next is the engine. You can set 5 different speeds forward, and 4 backward, or alternatively change the dial to a more specific selector in which you can simply choose what knots to go. The next is the compass. The top of considered your bearing 0. If you click 20 degrees left of it, the ship will turn 20 degrees left. You may alternatively bring up a panel that allows you to adjust the rudder instead. And last is the depth in meters. That's the shallow depth meter, allowing you to more easily click on precise depths around periscope level. The alternate shows lower depths. On the left you have the various commands available to you. Every gray panel has an entirely different set of blue/yellow icons for different commands. There's alot. We'll explain them as we go.
Also, the pair of binoculars you can barely see in the screenshot are mounted on the deck. It's called the target bearing transmitter. They see far as hell and are what you use to do collect data for surface attacks.
I go to the map and set a course for our destination. Normally, you'd want to head north and go all the way around England, but since Cleve is so incredibly manly we're going to go straight through the English channel. Untermensch shy away from this for a variety of reasons, such as: it's fucking stupid. It's narrow, constantly patrolled, and worst of all is very very shallow. You really can't hope to escape depth charges. Even in the middle in some places it's only roughly 20 meters deep. In any event, we're not worried, because even if the boat goes down, I have it on good authority that Cleve's titanium bones can survive crush depths at least 100 meters. I'm pretty sure he'll survive. As a side note, in my foolishness I actually clicked crash dive instead of plot course while in the harbor. That was smart.
Things go acceptably. Forced to dive once by an aircraft a bit northeast of the Channel. No big deal. First ship contact is made a little after the entrance, west northwest of Calais. Bearing 80.
A quick look with the TBT shows that it's fucking BULLSHIT. Note how it says "patrol craft" in the ship type when I hover over it. The game doesn't automatically identify what ship you're looking at, but it does tell you the type of ship it is, and patrol craft are rubbish. They're little boats with a machine gun or cannon or two on them. Smaller even than a corvette. They occasionally possess some kind of ASW (anti-submarine warfare) ability but they're not worth worrying about, or bothering with. However, we ought to be safe since we're in the canal, and the waters are awfully shallow. I dive, and run submerged for a few hours. The sonar man picks up various warships passing by, and I confirm that they're all "patrol crafts" of various sorts with the periscope. After a few hours, however, the sonarman picks up what he believes to be a merchant, bearing roughly 350, heading our way!
If this boat was commanded by a subhuman troglodyte he'd probably take note of all the dangers of attacking a merchant ship in broad daylight, surrounded by patrol ships in roughly 25 meters of water. Luckily for Codexian spectators as well as the crew of U-whatever, we suffer from no such affliction and will be attacking without hesitation. Regrettably, for our first attack, I documented this somewhat poorly, so screenshots will be more scarce than I'd like.
Alright, he's coming in our direction and will probably pass very close to us. Getting a good shot will require almost no effort. This will be a good time to demonstrate the Fast 90 targeting method. Alright, the first thing you need to do when beginning a torpedo attack is identify the ship or ships you're firing at. Normally, playing on 100% realism, you have to do this manually, by staring at the target til your fucking eyes bleed while comparing it to pictures in the recognition manual. OM, however, adds such a ridiculous amount of merchant ships that flipping through the pages to identify the target would take so long by the time you actually found the correct entry, Grimoire 2 plus expansion would be released. To counteract this, there's a button to make your damn crew ID it, leaving you to just find the entry. (which still takes long) To demonstrate just how many new ships this mod has, look at the designation. It's an M-KF-M (I). That means there's also an A, B, C, D...maybe they skip a few letters, I dunno. But they're all variations of the same boat. And there's probably no less than 5. And it's like that for every single merchant, of which there are many. KF-K-M and KF-KF-M-K and M-K-K-M and maybe even K-K-K for all I know.
Anyway, it's decline in one area, but incline in another. I'll take it.
So this particular merchant is a M-KM-M (I). The next thing you need to is determine range. In the above screenshot, you'll notice there's a double image of the ship. That's the stadimeter at work. In regular SH, you'd simply drag the mirror image down onto the real one until the waterline of the mirror image touches the highest mast of the actual boat. If you've identified the ship correctly, you'll get its range. But OM includes a mod called KiUB, that replaces the old attack periscope with a new one, and requires an extra step.
The range isn't found automatically. When you bring up the stadimeter, there'll be a black line accompanying it. When you place the image in position over the highest mast, wherever the black line rests on those little green lines going up is the height in degrees. So, using this cool little tool right here, you must now move the middle circle until the degree you specified is lined up with the black line on the top. Once that's done, you look at the ship's mast height, which is in this case 29m. Find 29 on the innermost circle. It's to the right a bit. The second number on the inner circle will then correspond with the mast height to give you the range. You can see in this screenshot 29 is aligned in between 5 and 6, so 5500 meters is the range.
I realize that's probably a little irritating to follow without having the game right in front of you to mess with, so for anyone who cares, here's the KiUB manual. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=152590
Meh, and here's what I mean about somewhat poor documentation. The following screenshots are a bit spaced out. With the range found, we go into the navigation map and measure out with the ruler 5500m on whichever bearing you took the measurement, which in this case was 346. If I was zoomed in more, you'd see what direction our sub was facing (roughly west-southwest) and a circle around it telling you bearings, making it easier to draw the line accurately.
Now, we've got one position plotted. Now we have to...oh for fuck's sake I'm retarded. I forgot to engage the chronometer. What I meant to say is we'd wait 3 minutes and then take another range and bearing, but I forgot to start the stopwatch that comes with the game.
Right, so mark 2 was made with the chronometer started, and mark 3 was made 3 minutes later. I fucked up the bearing a bit on mark 3, but it should be okay. Now, you take the ruler and draw a line between them, and seeing what range the boat has traveled. It says here 450. Provided you've done everything correctly, that means the boat is going 4.5 knots. We'll just say it's going 5, which is very probable and a common speed for the slower merchant boats to be traveling at alone.
Look on the right, and what bearing I have the scope at. This is the difference between fast 90 targeting, and shooting normally. Putting the scope to 0 and turning on manual input to the torpedo data computer, we set the speed to 5, and the angle to 90. Which way depends on where the ship is coming from. In this case, it's port. After that's done, we reactivate automatic TDC input. On u-boats, the bearing and angle on bow are tied directly into the periscope. This means as I move the periscope right or left, the angle on bow will adjust itself automatically to the correct number, provided the original entry was correct and there's been no change in course. But the AOB, right now, isn't close to 90. We have to make it that way.
Angle on bow is a complicated term essentially describing on what bearing you are from the enemy. If the enemy is coming straight at you, it's 0. If you're to the left of him at a perfect right angle, it'd be 90 degrees port. This means the AOB constantly changes at the ship moves, hence the periscope's handy feature of constant updates. What we have in this screenshot is a line, using the first two marks I made, showing the ship's projected course. In the upper left is my boat, I position it so when the ship intersects with my bearing 0, the AOB will be roughly 90 degrees. If you look really hard, you can see a protractor marking, going through the course and towards my ship, showing that it's roughly 90. We're shooting close so it doesn't need to be exact. Plus, fast 90 is a forgiving method of targeting - slight deviations will still usually produce hits.
So now it's on bearing 70, and we're just waiting for it to get closer to 0 so we can fire. I've change the settings on both steam torpedoes to run fast, which decreases range but increases speed, to use magnetic detonators, and to run at a depth of about 10 meters. The ship has a draft of 9.5.
So back to fast 90, the advantages of this are a tolerance for error, and the fact that we no longer have to worry about range. If you're firing at a perfect 90 degree angle, range becomes irrelevant. Why?
That's why. You simply fire when the ship is at a certain bearing depending on its speed. If it's closer, it has less time to travel to get to bearing 0, and the torpedo has less time to reach the range of the target. If it's farther, it has a longer way to travel, and so does the torpedo. If your calculations are correct, they intersect.
More detailed guide if anyone cares: http://www.subsowespac.org/forum/index. ... 375.0.html
In our case, having the KiUB mod, we keep the periscope on the target until the dial in the very upper right, impact angle, reads 90. Easy eh?
But I seem to have forgotten one minor detail.
I left my periscope up in broad fucking daylight the ENTIRE TIME, and now this cunt has seen me. He's starting to zig and zag, and is probably increasing his speed. I fire the first torpedo slightly early, anticipating the speed increase, and the other on time. What's worse, is that he's probably sent out a signal and those "patrol craft" are coming for me RIGHT NOW, rather than when the torpedoes actually hit, costing us precious time.
That's the first torpedo hitting - way back. Not an optimal hit. Expecting the second one to miss and definitely not expecting the ship to sink on account of that lousy hit, I go to prime the other torpedoes...the electric ones I complained about earlier, since we don't have time for a reload.
Smoke on the horizon...patrol craft beelining for us. There's another one as well. Gotta make this quick. Fortunately, the other torpedo hits in roughly the same spot, and they appear to have caused too much flooding for the ship to move, or destroyed its propeller. It's nearly at a dead stop. Makes these next shots easy.
I go to clear all the TDC data. Don't need it anymore. Since the ship isn't moving, we need only point the periscope at it and FIRE!
Jesus fucking CHRIST, both of the electric torpedoes dud, despite using an impact fuse and having an excellent impact angle. Were I the sort of lesser man that resorts to memes, I'd probably have posted several thousand emoticons now. With the patrol craft ever approaching, and this asshole not sinking, I'm wondering if we'll even manage to get the kill. I decide to start turning to use the aft tubes when...
Enemy destroyed message. Jesus fucking christ, those two wakeless torpedoes were a complete waste.
But at least this dude's dead and we can jet. Now that I think about it, you're also supposed to check the ship's flag to make sure you're not destroying neutrals. I didn't bother. Pretty sure it was hostile.
Now the patrols are pretty damn close and we've only got 23 meters of water to play around in. We dive to 20 and run silent while adjusting course to the northeast. Silent running makes you go slower, and prevents things like repairing and torpedo loading that cause noise for enemy hydrophones to pick up. Fortunately, there's really nothing to screenshot, as I heard a few explosions that may have been depth charges, but nothing close. After a while of silent running, night comes and we've left the scene of the crime reasonably safely behind us.
I surface and set engines ahead standard. Come daybreak, we're accosted by an enemy aircraft.
I order the dive, but it can take a few minutes. Meanwhile I scan the horizon for the aircraft, seeing nothing. As we slip under the water, I can hear the engines buzzing above us. Bomb detonations ensue as we're only 10 meters under. I decide to run the rest of the channel submerged by day, surfacing only by night. The rest of the trip occurs without serious incident.
Aaand we've finally reached our designated patrol point, slightly northwest of Spain there. That'll be all for now. I realize that was an awful lot of explanation, but explaining the features is a bit of a one time thing. Now that fast 90 targeting is out of the way, we'll usually sink ships without any incredibly verbose commentary.
Anyway, suggestions? Screenshots too big, too small? Probably update in a day or two.
Cleve Blakestein:
Part 1: Set Sail for Fail
Part 2: Blakestein's Blue Balls
Part 3: Convoy Quest
Part 4: Convoy Quest Redux: Deluxe Enhanced Ultimate Edition
Part 5: More Like the BULLSHIT of Scapa Flow (and other assorted comedy)
TheNamelessPrick:
Part 6: Hijack
Part 7: The Second Coming: Worst Update EVER
Part 8: How to Fail 101*: Shallow Waters + Terrible Weather = This Update
CHAPTER 1: THE RISE OF ALLAH: THE RECKONING
CHAPTER 2: COPYPASTA FOR THE FÜHRER
CHAPTER 3: DUD FOR THE DUD GOD!
CHAPTER 4: HERP THAT DERP, HERR KALEUN!
CHAPTER 5: ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A CONVOY
CHAPTER 6: CONVOYS. CONVOYS NEVER CHANGE.
CHAPTER 7: WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' TORPEDOES
In an effort to raise general Codex awareness about gnarly video games as well as dispel myths of SH3 + G.W.X. superiority, I've decided to at least briefly LP Operation Monsun. For those of you who are unaware of the Silent Hunter series, they're WW2 submarine simulators that gained probably most of its current fan base and popularity with SH3. It's pretty much Das Boot: the video game. Unfortunately, like a great deal of potentially good games, they're invariably released in a state of buggy shitstormitude that puts anything released by Bohemia Interactive to shame. (Silent Hunter 5 was released without a properly working stadimeter. If you don't know what that is, you'll see later.) Fortunately, after a few official patches, modders appear and save the day, eventually coalescing their works into giant megamods that dramatically alter the game. The most popular of these is the Silent Hunter 3 Grey Wolves Expansion mod, or G.W.X. It gets alot of press and is generally considered to the ultimate in pretending to be Jurgen Proch- well, a u-boat captain.
I'm challenging the notion.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=134922
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=158764
In this corner, we have Operation Monsun, a robust megamod made primarily by one man. It's for Silent Hunter 4 + expansion and thusly incorporates all of its core improvements over SH3 while re-adding the Atlantic theater as well as the u-boats that weren't otherwise present. The optional expansion to it includes improved destroyer AI, various environmental effects, a new attack periscope, and probably some other crap that I've forgotten about. What I find, personally, is that G.W.X. features a great deal of atmospheric fluff that, while pleasant, doesn't actually constitute gameplay. SH4 + OM, in my experience, has better destroyer AI (painful fucking destroyer AI if you use the hardest optional mod. I use the slightly wimpier one), various cool features like aircraft dropped homing torpedoes that will fucking destroy you, and of course a much better campaign - Lurker's (the OM modder) real claim to fame. The dude models all his convoys and transports after historical records. It makes it more difficult, generally, to find convoys and ships. You can check his cited sources in the OM thread, as well as his Run Silent, Run Deep Campaign thread. It also should be noted that it's possible to get various atmospheric fluff mods separate from OM to make the experience a bit more like G.W.X., but I don't bother.
Also, be advised that I'm not really an expert at this. My word isn't gospel. If you see me do something wrong, point it out and I'll be a better player for it. That said, I will be explaining most of my actions as well as various features the screenshots show me using so as to familiarize any newcomers. I also haven't played in a long time, so the first updates will probably be rocky at best, but hey, it'll be funnier that way. Did I mention this is going to be ironman? Coz it is. If I die I'll just restart at a different port at a different time. Oh and I was gonna post Das Boot pictures along the way but I deleted it recently so meh.
Anyway, I think that's enough bullshit for now. Time to put on my oilskin and my captain hat...
]Part 1: Set Sail for Fail
Here is where you select your captain's name, the year you start in, the Flotilla you start in, and what u-boat you'll be using. In OM, you may only use u-boats that were historically available to the flotilla you've chosen. At least, I think so, because I'm having trouble seeing how he reconciles the availability of the type XXI in this mod with the fact that only a few of them ever made war patrols.
Anyway, on my choices here: we need to send some limey cunts to the bottom and I feel Cleve is the perfect ubermensch for the job. I'm starting so early because I haven't played in a long time and starting later will get me real fucked, real fast. When I get my sea legs back so to speak, I'll probably do something retarded, die, and restart slightly before or during Black May to make things more interesting. I'm using a type IX because it carries more torpedoes than the other currently available classes, and because I fully intend to miss a bunch before I'm settled in, I'm giving myself a bit of buffer.
Back in the office, there isn't much to do. There's no real upgrades to put on the ship, and we don't have any renown so we can't use it to put on any really good crewmen, so we'll get to all that crap later. For now, the only useful thing to do in port is re-arrange the torpedo selection. There are currently two types available: steam powered, which goes faster, farther, and is less prone to failure. Sounds good right? Except it leaves a visible wake, which means if the ship you're shooting spots it early enough, it can actually change course and avoid your shot. For that reason, even if you have a really good firing solution, I rarely if ever do long range shots with them. That said, however, I generally prefer them to the alternative: the electric powered, wakeless PIECE OF SHIT. First off, it's slow as fuck so I find myself considerably more likely to miss. Secondly, and this is the real kicker, they dud like the wind. Like it's their job. All torpedoes have a chance of hitting and not exploding, but these ones have perfected it to a science. I carry a few of them, because occasionally I'm able to make use of its inability to be spotted, particularly if I'm firing at a convoy and I want to hit two ships that are different ranges. In that case, I like to fire the wakeless torpedoes at the farthest, wait, then launch the considerably faster steam versions at the closer one so the detonations on both ships are close. Not only does this prevent the farther target from seeing the torpedoes and changing course, but it also prevents it from changing course after seeing one if its pals go up in flames.
For that reason, I keep two steam, and two electric loaded in the front tubes, then have two electric backups because I simply use them less. All other torpedoes on the boat are steam. Anyway, time to undock.
You'll notice that the map shows the Pacific theater. Presumably it's hardcoded, and he can't change it. We're actually based out of Wilhelmshaven.
Already, if you've played SH3 you'll note the lack of band and nurses, respectively playing music and throwing roses.
The time of day is different because my screen capture program went nuts and I restarted.
I'll take this time to explain the interface. On the lower right you have a meter that shows fuel, battery, compressed air, and CO2 levels on the ship, depending on what button you have pressed. Next is the engine. You can set 5 different speeds forward, and 4 backward, or alternatively change the dial to a more specific selector in which you can simply choose what knots to go. The next is the compass. The top of considered your bearing 0. If you click 20 degrees left of it, the ship will turn 20 degrees left. You may alternatively bring up a panel that allows you to adjust the rudder instead. And last is the depth in meters. That's the shallow depth meter, allowing you to more easily click on precise depths around periscope level. The alternate shows lower depths. On the left you have the various commands available to you. Every gray panel has an entirely different set of blue/yellow icons for different commands. There's alot. We'll explain them as we go.
Also, the pair of binoculars you can barely see in the screenshot are mounted on the deck. It's called the target bearing transmitter. They see far as hell and are what you use to do collect data for surface attacks.
I go to the map and set a course for our destination. Normally, you'd want to head north and go all the way around England, but since Cleve is so incredibly manly we're going to go straight through the English channel. Untermensch shy away from this for a variety of reasons, such as: it's fucking stupid. It's narrow, constantly patrolled, and worst of all is very very shallow. You really can't hope to escape depth charges. Even in the middle in some places it's only roughly 20 meters deep. In any event, we're not worried, because even if the boat goes down, I have it on good authority that Cleve's titanium bones can survive crush depths at least 100 meters. I'm pretty sure he'll survive. As a side note, in my foolishness I actually clicked crash dive instead of plot course while in the harbor. That was smart.
Things go acceptably. Forced to dive once by an aircraft a bit northeast of the Channel. No big deal. First ship contact is made a little after the entrance, west northwest of Calais. Bearing 80.
A quick look with the TBT shows that it's fucking BULLSHIT. Note how it says "patrol craft" in the ship type when I hover over it. The game doesn't automatically identify what ship you're looking at, but it does tell you the type of ship it is, and patrol craft are rubbish. They're little boats with a machine gun or cannon or two on them. Smaller even than a corvette. They occasionally possess some kind of ASW (anti-submarine warfare) ability but they're not worth worrying about, or bothering with. However, we ought to be safe since we're in the canal, and the waters are awfully shallow. I dive, and run submerged for a few hours. The sonar man picks up various warships passing by, and I confirm that they're all "patrol crafts" of various sorts with the periscope. After a few hours, however, the sonarman picks up what he believes to be a merchant, bearing roughly 350, heading our way!
If this boat was commanded by a subhuman troglodyte he'd probably take note of all the dangers of attacking a merchant ship in broad daylight, surrounded by patrol ships in roughly 25 meters of water. Luckily for Codexian spectators as well as the crew of U-whatever, we suffer from no such affliction and will be attacking without hesitation. Regrettably, for our first attack, I documented this somewhat poorly, so screenshots will be more scarce than I'd like.
Alright, he's coming in our direction and will probably pass very close to us. Getting a good shot will require almost no effort. This will be a good time to demonstrate the Fast 90 targeting method. Alright, the first thing you need to do when beginning a torpedo attack is identify the ship or ships you're firing at. Normally, playing on 100% realism, you have to do this manually, by staring at the target til your fucking eyes bleed while comparing it to pictures in the recognition manual. OM, however, adds such a ridiculous amount of merchant ships that flipping through the pages to identify the target would take so long by the time you actually found the correct entry, Grimoire 2 plus expansion would be released. To counteract this, there's a button to make your damn crew ID it, leaving you to just find the entry. (which still takes long) To demonstrate just how many new ships this mod has, look at the designation. It's an M-KF-M (I). That means there's also an A, B, C, D...maybe they skip a few letters, I dunno. But they're all variations of the same boat. And there's probably no less than 5. And it's like that for every single merchant, of which there are many. KF-K-M and KF-KF-M-K and M-K-K-M and maybe even K-K-K for all I know.
Anyway, it's decline in one area, but incline in another. I'll take it.
So this particular merchant is a M-KM-M (I). The next thing you need to is determine range. In the above screenshot, you'll notice there's a double image of the ship. That's the stadimeter at work. In regular SH, you'd simply drag the mirror image down onto the real one until the waterline of the mirror image touches the highest mast of the actual boat. If you've identified the ship correctly, you'll get its range. But OM includes a mod called KiUB, that replaces the old attack periscope with a new one, and requires an extra step.
The range isn't found automatically. When you bring up the stadimeter, there'll be a black line accompanying it. When you place the image in position over the highest mast, wherever the black line rests on those little green lines going up is the height in degrees. So, using this cool little tool right here, you must now move the middle circle until the degree you specified is lined up with the black line on the top. Once that's done, you look at the ship's mast height, which is in this case 29m. Find 29 on the innermost circle. It's to the right a bit. The second number on the inner circle will then correspond with the mast height to give you the range. You can see in this screenshot 29 is aligned in between 5 and 6, so 5500 meters is the range.
I realize that's probably a little irritating to follow without having the game right in front of you to mess with, so for anyone who cares, here's the KiUB manual. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=152590
Meh, and here's what I mean about somewhat poor documentation. The following screenshots are a bit spaced out. With the range found, we go into the navigation map and measure out with the ruler 5500m on whichever bearing you took the measurement, which in this case was 346. If I was zoomed in more, you'd see what direction our sub was facing (roughly west-southwest) and a circle around it telling you bearings, making it easier to draw the line accurately.
Now, we've got one position plotted. Now we have to...oh for fuck's sake I'm retarded. I forgot to engage the chronometer. What I meant to say is we'd wait 3 minutes and then take another range and bearing, but I forgot to start the stopwatch that comes with the game.
Right, so mark 2 was made with the chronometer started, and mark 3 was made 3 minutes later. I fucked up the bearing a bit on mark 3, but it should be okay. Now, you take the ruler and draw a line between them, and seeing what range the boat has traveled. It says here 450. Provided you've done everything correctly, that means the boat is going 4.5 knots. We'll just say it's going 5, which is very probable and a common speed for the slower merchant boats to be traveling at alone.
Look on the right, and what bearing I have the scope at. This is the difference between fast 90 targeting, and shooting normally. Putting the scope to 0 and turning on manual input to the torpedo data computer, we set the speed to 5, and the angle to 90. Which way depends on where the ship is coming from. In this case, it's port. After that's done, we reactivate automatic TDC input. On u-boats, the bearing and angle on bow are tied directly into the periscope. This means as I move the periscope right or left, the angle on bow will adjust itself automatically to the correct number, provided the original entry was correct and there's been no change in course. But the AOB, right now, isn't close to 90. We have to make it that way.
Angle on bow is a complicated term essentially describing on what bearing you are from the enemy. If the enemy is coming straight at you, it's 0. If you're to the left of him at a perfect right angle, it'd be 90 degrees port. This means the AOB constantly changes at the ship moves, hence the periscope's handy feature of constant updates. What we have in this screenshot is a line, using the first two marks I made, showing the ship's projected course. In the upper left is my boat, I position it so when the ship intersects with my bearing 0, the AOB will be roughly 90 degrees. If you look really hard, you can see a protractor marking, going through the course and towards my ship, showing that it's roughly 90. We're shooting close so it doesn't need to be exact. Plus, fast 90 is a forgiving method of targeting - slight deviations will still usually produce hits.
So now it's on bearing 70, and we're just waiting for it to get closer to 0 so we can fire. I've change the settings on both steam torpedoes to run fast, which decreases range but increases speed, to use magnetic detonators, and to run at a depth of about 10 meters. The ship has a draft of 9.5.
So back to fast 90, the advantages of this are a tolerance for error, and the fact that we no longer have to worry about range. If you're firing at a perfect 90 degree angle, range becomes irrelevant. Why?
That's why. You simply fire when the ship is at a certain bearing depending on its speed. If it's closer, it has less time to travel to get to bearing 0, and the torpedo has less time to reach the range of the target. If it's farther, it has a longer way to travel, and so does the torpedo. If your calculations are correct, they intersect.
More detailed guide if anyone cares: http://www.subsowespac.org/forum/index. ... 375.0.html
In our case, having the KiUB mod, we keep the periscope on the target until the dial in the very upper right, impact angle, reads 90. Easy eh?
But I seem to have forgotten one minor detail.
I left my periscope up in broad fucking daylight the ENTIRE TIME, and now this cunt has seen me. He's starting to zig and zag, and is probably increasing his speed. I fire the first torpedo slightly early, anticipating the speed increase, and the other on time. What's worse, is that he's probably sent out a signal and those "patrol craft" are coming for me RIGHT NOW, rather than when the torpedoes actually hit, costing us precious time.
That's the first torpedo hitting - way back. Not an optimal hit. Expecting the second one to miss and definitely not expecting the ship to sink on account of that lousy hit, I go to prime the other torpedoes...the electric ones I complained about earlier, since we don't have time for a reload.
Smoke on the horizon...patrol craft beelining for us. There's another one as well. Gotta make this quick. Fortunately, the other torpedo hits in roughly the same spot, and they appear to have caused too much flooding for the ship to move, or destroyed its propeller. It's nearly at a dead stop. Makes these next shots easy.
I go to clear all the TDC data. Don't need it anymore. Since the ship isn't moving, we need only point the periscope at it and FIRE!
Jesus fucking CHRIST, both of the electric torpedoes dud, despite using an impact fuse and having an excellent impact angle. Were I the sort of lesser man that resorts to memes, I'd probably have posted several thousand emoticons now. With the patrol craft ever approaching, and this asshole not sinking, I'm wondering if we'll even manage to get the kill. I decide to start turning to use the aft tubes when...
Enemy destroyed message. Jesus fucking christ, those two wakeless torpedoes were a complete waste.
But at least this dude's dead and we can jet. Now that I think about it, you're also supposed to check the ship's flag to make sure you're not destroying neutrals. I didn't bother. Pretty sure it was hostile.
Now the patrols are pretty damn close and we've only got 23 meters of water to play around in. We dive to 20 and run silent while adjusting course to the northeast. Silent running makes you go slower, and prevents things like repairing and torpedo loading that cause noise for enemy hydrophones to pick up. Fortunately, there's really nothing to screenshot, as I heard a few explosions that may have been depth charges, but nothing close. After a while of silent running, night comes and we've left the scene of the crime reasonably safely behind us.
I surface and set engines ahead standard. Come daybreak, we're accosted by an enemy aircraft.
I order the dive, but it can take a few minutes. Meanwhile I scan the horizon for the aircraft, seeing nothing. As we slip under the water, I can hear the engines buzzing above us. Bomb detonations ensue as we're only 10 meters under. I decide to run the rest of the channel submerged by day, surfacing only by night. The rest of the trip occurs without serious incident.
Aaand we've finally reached our designated patrol point, slightly northwest of Spain there. That'll be all for now. I realize that was an awful lot of explanation, but explaining the features is a bit of a one time thing. Now that fast 90 targeting is out of the way, we'll usually sink ships without any incredibly verbose commentary.
Anyway, suggestions? Screenshots too big, too small? Probably update in a day or two.