Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: TheMercinary60 on January 25, 2013, 03:01:23 AM
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was just wondering if anyone still plays these, and if so, maybe could give me some ideas on mods on steam? ive been to a couple differnt fourms and they dont really touch on that issue
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Your best bet is to go to Subsim Review. They're a website devoted to all things in naval gaming, in particular the Silent Hunter games.
I still have SH3. SH5 adds the ability to roam the inside of the U-boat at will, but if that was the only improvement in gameplay, then I stick with SH3.
The only other thing I would do is add this nifty mod called Jace11 Bearing Details, and another called Nav cursor Protractor Tools.
They allow you to use your map sheet to do your own plotting easier. The bearing details changes the look of your u-boat on the map so you have a 360 degree compass rose around the boat, useful sometimes to manually draw out lines. The Protrator tool changes the look of your mouse pointer to instead be another 360 degree compass ring (a rose that is upside down and counter clockwise for the numbers). This lets you drag out a line and use the rose to get it pretty accurate on how you draw it.
This lets you do this.
If you take a bearing and range measurement with your stadimeter periscope, you can go to your map screen and draw out the bearing and range, then make a point. If you do that every 3 minutes and 15 seconds, you will see a line developing.
Why 3 minutes and 15 seconds between readings? Well, it is math. Distance = rate x time. I'll spare you the math, but a ship going 1 nautical mile an hour will travel 100 yards in 3 minutes and 15 seconds.
If you make a running plot like I do, you will see the enemy ship has moved 700 meters between making a plot of him. You now know his speed, which is 7 knots. You also can see his course and can extend that out on the map, run ahead and submerge about 1000 meters off of the line and wait. You can also set the speed of the target to be 7 knots in the torpedo data computer.
Eventually he will be along and run right through your crosshairs.
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Your best bet is to go to Subsim Review. They're a website devoted to all things in naval gaming, in particular the Silent Hunter games.
I still have SH3. SH5 adds the ability to roam the inside of the U-boat at will, but if that was the only improvement in gameplay, then I stick with SH3.
The only other thing I would do is add this nifty mod called Jace11 Bearing Details, and another called Nav cursor Protractor Tools.
They allow you to use your map sheet to do your own plotting easier. The bearing details changes the look of your u-boat on the map so you have a 360 degree compass rose around the boat, useful sometimes to manually draw out lines. The Protrator tool changes the look of your mouse pointer to instead be another 360 degree compass ring (a rose that is upside down and counter clockwise for the numbers). This lets you drag out a line and use the rose to get it pretty accurate on how you draw it.
This lets you do this.
If you take a bearing and range measurement with your stadimeter periscope, you can go to your map screen and draw out the bearing and range, then make a point. If you do that every 3 minutes and 15 seconds, you will see a line developing.
Why 3 minutes and 15 seconds between readings? Well, it is math. Distance = rate x time. I'll spare you the math, but a ship going 1 nautical mile an hour will travel 100 yards in 3 minutes and 15 seconds.
If you make a running plot like I do, you will see the enemy ship has moved 700 meters between making a plot of him. You now know his speed, which is 7 knots. You also can see his course and can extend that out on the map, run ahead and submerge about 1000 meters off of the line and wait. You can also set the speed of the target to be 7 knots in the torpedo data computer.
Eventually he will be along and run right through your crosshairs.
yea i looked there, i think i was there back when it was still a new thing for me but for some reason trying to read anything remotely technical for me latley is like trying to read a foreign language. i was looking at some of those "super mods" for better graphics and maybe some new ships but im not sure if the steam version is compatible with them. and as far as the plotting and everything goes, i use manual targeting. ive never even wanted tto get into all the math involved, i suppose that probably detracts a little, but my math has always been very poor and i dont need anymore headaches involved haha
as far as 5 goes, from what i last heard (maybe a month after it came out) it was buggy, the system they used to try and prevent people from trying to download it for free annoyed more people then the good it did, and was just all around not very well liked. although 4 and the add-on are very nice in my opinion
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Go for the Grey Wolves megamod.
http://www.thegreywolves.com/
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I'm still playing SH3. Now that I got a better computer, nothing is holding me back. I have grey wolves expansion and SH3 commander. Playing through steam.
Currently on patrol 14. March, 1941. Type VIIB. I have figured out that you can not save in the Med I have saved the game in lots of locations in the med and it corrupts every time.
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Tip: Never save in contact range of any other vessel. Known to screw up save games (and sink ships).
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The man you want to talk to about historical mission scenarios for SH3 and SH4 is MGD (look for him in the WW1 arena lately).
He was a Submariner in the U.S. Navy, and has thoroughly researched and written some extremely accurate historical scenarios built around historical battles involving both Convoys and Battle Groups, for both of the above game versions.
Although we haven't played much lately, we used to do multiplayer on a regular basis...some of the other regulars were Roc, Filth, 50cals, and Sim.
Lots of fun, and not too much computer horsepower requirement. Gamefly (formerly Direct2Drive) stills lists SH3 ($9.99 direct download) as being available but I didn't see SH4 listed.
Make sure you install the latest v1.4b patch.
CptA
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Go for the Grey Wolves megamod.
http://www.thegreywolves.com/
This mod is a must have.
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Been along time since ive played think I may have to grab it this weekend
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I hosted a Tournament for few years for Silent Hunter 3, Grey Wolves mod - however its been inactive since September 2011.
Different brackets, most played on 100% realism, to see who can sink the most tonnage until they get sunk.
Some good times, I didn't continue the tournament since Silent Hunter 4 had to many flaws and 5 was out of the question.
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i could never go on line :cry
i might try it again on my new i7 pc :)
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Tip: Never save in contact range of any other vessel. Known to screw up save games (and sink ships).
Yeah, ive read all the tips on how to save. I dive, run a sound check then resurface if clear. I dont save closer than 50km of land. But it will not save for me in the med, which makes going on patrol there a marathon gaming experience. Sometimes i leave it on days at a time lol.
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Well, that sux :huh
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Well the good thing is this...
It's March 1941. I am poised to enter Gibraltar again for the 2nd time in my ultimate career. I plan on cruising to Malta, Suda Bay and Egypt, so by the time I return to St Nazairre, it will be time to transfer to a different flotilla and switch to a Type IX for Drumbeat Action.
The bad thing is... I have to do that whole cruise without saving. :bhead
I have my career planned out on when to transfer and upgrade and such so this will probably be my last Med Cruise. I might come back after I switch back from Type IX to Type VIIC with flak towers, but I doubt it.
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The man you want to talk to about historical mission scenarios for SH3 and SH4 is MGD (look for him in the WW1 arena lately).
He was a Submariner in the U.S. Navy, and has thoroughly researched and written some extremely accurate historical scenarios built around historical battles involving both Convoys and Battle Groups, for both of the above game versions.
Although we haven't played much lately, we used to do multiplayer on a regular basis...some of the other regulars were Roc, Filth, 50cals, and Sim.
Lots of fun, and not too much computer horsepower requirement. Gamefly (formerly Direct2Drive) stills lists SH3 ($9.99 direct download) as being available but I didn't see SH4 listed.
Make sure you install the latest v1.4b patch.
CptA
Those were some FUN times..
<S>
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Alright, got the Grey Wolves mod installed, so far pretty different, my big question is on the radio message how do i read the coordinate system? For example CB2753
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Alright, got the Grey Wolves mod installed, so far pretty different, my big question is on the radio message how do i read the coordinate system? For example CB2753
The radio messages in the GWX mod mean absolutely nothing. And later on they get down right annoying.
They are just chatter between BDU and other Uboats. The only real traffic is the stuff that shows up on the map.
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The radio messages in the GWX mod mean absolutely nothing. And later on they get down right annoying.
They are just chatter between BDU and other Uboats. The only real traffic is the stuff that shows up on the map.
well damn, ad here i was thinking i could try and intercept a few strays, from what i understand though its pretty realistic. they never realized we cracked their code and they just loved to talk
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With SH3 Commander you can control how radio messages and other things effect the game in TC.
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Love the SH series
.. really got into the pacific theater beginning with the pig boats out of Cavite in the early days of WW2.
Gettin into the Balao class boats *really* is a huge leap.
Personal best encounter: Late 1944, in a Balao
Was runnin South along east coastline of Japan
..Tokyo was out there about 30 miles abeam ..
..it was nearing 2am in the morning.
Rainin so hard I could not see much beyond the bow.
Our last refit had added a pretty decent surface radar and if ever there was a night for it..
..we were trackin surface targets closing from behind us and I was angling into
the projected track at full speed ..they were going to be close comin up on our left.
..sonar said it was multiple screws .. a capitol ship ..and perhaps a few escorts?
At 900 yards I still could not see anything but blackness filled with heavy rain and we had at least one
CLOSE that we were intercepting .. I stayed on the surface ..caught a fleeting glimps of a huge silhoutte
of superstructure .. a Pagoda ..and fired 4 from the front as fast as we could pump them out.
..hard left rudder . . we passed within 30 yards of the aft end of what could be a battleship..
..just as all 4 ripped into her side.. a short spread blooming right in the middle of the shape
and lighting it up.
The Yamato or her sister the Musashi.
Rudder amidships, and put 4 out the back ..they all caught that big monster
in a short spread from the screws forward .. and now it was time to hide.
Did an arc right, still on the surface runnin like my hair was on fire, full speed ..comin up on a parrallel course with the wounded monster.
We had only had visual for seconds ..the rain and darkness swallowed the burnin battlewagon before our sub even began to turn.
..using radar as my eyes to avoid the escorts ..the big battleship was still runnin away from us..and fast!
I managed to put a couple thousand yard between us and the escorts, now circling far behind us..
..probably thinkin we had submerged and gone quiet.
The battlewagon just plain ran off and left ..we lost all trace of it about daylight.
This close to Japan I finally gave the order to take her down and slowed to best cruise-patrol speed.
I could not beleive that monster had taken *eight* of our best and just shrugged them off.
On a slim hope I continued on course .. ears out ...throughout the morning.
Noon came and went ..no sign.
About 2 in the afternoon smoke was spotted on the horizon along with faint screw sounds.
Quiet, stealthy ..we closed.
It was makin 4 knots .. somethin obviously burning out there ..far too much smoke for a funnel.
It was the monster from the night engagement!
..listing to port badly, burning from midship to stern, but still making 4 knots!
Full sweep of the area ..nothing else around ..we had her!
Closed in classic beam attack ..put 4 into her amidships ..cranked hard left until rear tubes came to bear..
..put 4 more into her ..all from 900 yards.
That big monster took them *all* .. began to slow ..
..tipped ever so slowly onto her side ..and the waves swallowed the Yamato.
-Frank aka GE (never had another mission to equal that one in years of playing)
..
(http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q260/1grayeagle/games/SH4Img2008-12-11_145522_671.jpg)
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Nice story GE :)
I remember the first time I loaded up SH3 with GWX and other mods back in 2008-2009. I made a post on another forum:
"Just started a new campaign using Sub Commander and a boatload of mods. September 1939: As the German war machine overruns Poland I'm in the Baltic sailing east from the Denmark-straights towards Danzig/Gdansk, looking for Polish ships to engage. Just south of Sweden my watch crew spot a Polish merchantman; I order the chief to close at flank speed and the watch officer to man the deck gun. After a brief action the Polish vessel is a burning hulk and sinking slowly. While my boat returns to its previous course I take a last look at my quarry trough the binocs... The hulk is burning profusely, periodically erupting in fuel explosions sending huge fireballs into the air and blanketing the area with black oily smoke. There's a lot of debris in the water... and bodies. My heart sinks as I observe a lone Polish sailor swimming away from the sinking ship, and on the far side three or four more survivors are paddling away on a makeshift raft. I'm almost tearing up.
I love this game."
I still love this game!
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Nice story GE!
I just can't sail the Med, as promised above this last weekend I sailed through the Straits. On to Malta, then Suda Bay then Alexandria. Played all day! starting at 0800. It approached 0200 hours real time. I was about 100km NW of Alexandria and had just torpedoed a Small Merchant being escorted by a Town Class DD. The Merchant did not sink and eventually the Townie kept on going.
I thought to myself, I better pause the game since I am so close to Alexandria. Even at 100m and Silent Run I didn't want to risk it.
Woke up Sunday morning. Blue Screen of Death. :bhead
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Been playing since Sunday February 3rd at 1500. Still in Med... 150 KM north of Oran.
I entered the Med on March 14th. Sailed to Malta, Suda then Alexandria then back to Malta. In my last engagement I was depth charged by two Black Swan Class for several hours. Experienced the first flooding of my entire super campaign.
I have yet to find any of the big Malta Convoys, only two or three ships being escorted by two DDs. Aircraft swarming near Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria. Impossible to stay surfaced during day in these areas.
Currently sitting at 26000 Tons Sunk. 3 Bow and 1 Stern Torp left. It is now April 11th. Planning on covering Eastern approach to Gibraltar, exhausting torpedoes and heading back to St Nazairre. Bad news is I will not be able to play tomorrow as I am going to a Hockey Game and won't return till Friday afternoon.
Oh well, back to the cellar.
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So, for someone who doesn't have a submarine sim (but used played one waaaay back in the '80's), would you recommend SH3 or SH5? Or is there something better out there?
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I have silent hunter 5, I love it, but like GVing in aces high, I'm useless at it.
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So, for someone who doesn't have a submarine sim (but used played one waaaay back in the '80's), would you recommend SH3 or SH5? Or is there something better out there?
I can't vouch for SH5, as I have not played it. But from what I have heard (like all the other SH releases) it was filled with bugs and not finished. Also from what I heard it does not go past a certain year in the war. SH3 stock has the entire war.
With the GWX mod it makes SH3 an excellent game I definitely reccomend it.
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If you want to play with German subs go SH3 or SH5 (get both, their not exactly new games anymore). If you want play with U.S. subs, get SH4. Whatever you get, mod the snot out of them to get the best experience. Find mods over at the subsim forums.
If modern subs interest you there is also Sonalyst's "Dangerous Waters". You get to play with the Seawolf, 688i, Akula, Kilo, Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate, MH-60R Seahawk and P-3C Orion. Compared to the SH-series graphics kinda suck, but the game is still great for naval war buffs.
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I have SH5 and used to have SH3.
To be honest 3 is waaaaay better than 5 imho.
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I used to love playing sub sims. Maybe have to check one of these out after the next computer upgrade.
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Ok, so I bought and downloaded SH3 and downloaded the GWX mod. For the life of me I couldn't even get the vanilla game to load on my Win7 rig. I spent over an hour reading posts and trying stuff to no avail. Then I stumbled upon 1 little post on how to fix the nVidia/Windows bug where Windows reports the refresh rate at 59Hz even though the driver is set for 60Hz.
Well, I went into the nVidia control panel and created a custom resolution of 1920x1200 60.001Hz and BAM! Windows reports 60Hz refresh rate and the game loads and plays just fine.
I'm off to tinker with the video settings in the main.cfg file to find a combo of resolution and fullscreen/non-fullscreen that I like.
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The GWX Manual is great, very helpful.
Also, SH3 Commander is a great Mod too. Allows you to adjust important game settings, like Fatigue. Which I have turned off BTW.
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For me it's SH4 ... hunting the Pac theater from Dec 7th, 1941 to the end ..
early days finding a convoy with no escorts and just plain runnin outta deck gun ammo
..ya .. fish in a barrel :)
..then comes the Japanese air patrols, the lethal DD's and escorts ..and hunting the shallows of the Java Sea
where it's *dangerous* to be in a sub ..when you can't submerge :)
Timing is *everything* ..even night engagements in the Java Sea are lethal if you make a wrong move.
Then there's the Sea of Japan .. shades of Run Silent, Run Deep!
Can almost hear Clark Gable 'We're going for a Bow Shot!'
Ya baby!
-Frank aka GE
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Well I finally got out of the Med. Transferred flotillas, now running a Type IXB out of Lorient with the 2nd.
It is now May 1941, going to participate in Rhienubung and sink the HMS Hood before the Bismark does :D
Then I'm gonna go look for the Ark Royal. :cheers:
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alright, you guys didnt steer me wrong on three, so what do you recommend for 4? from what i can tell theres the 3-4 major mod out there that seem popular. curious what you guys like from them
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Sorry, haven't played 4 yet; I'm still on 3. Probably will though when I'm done with my current campaign. When I looked at the subsim forums some time ago it seemed like the fleet boat mod was the way to go, but I'm sure there are many others.
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Sorry, haven't played 4 yet; I'm still on 3. Probably will though when I'm done with my current campaign. When I looked at the subsim forums some time ago it seemed like the fleet boat mod was the way to go, but I'm sure there are many others.
Same here... SH3 only. But from what i have read the trigger maru mod is good.
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see, ive looked at both and it seems like theyre both pretty good but one lacks something the other have so i cant really decide what to try, thought maybe someone might give me a push haha. but thanks any way
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I know this thread is older now, but is there anywhere I can DL the GW mod. The download links from greywolves website go to a filefront page that doesnt have anything to download?
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When I grabbed it, I used the individual file links on their download page (under the "Download GWX3 Gold" buttons). The links are to Jimbuna's Mediafire links and that's how I got GWX.
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Will try that.
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Any luck?
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Yeah, sorry been really busy and havent been back to forums. I am running across an issue with getting ammo to the deck gun. I have GW3 and SHCommander mods loaded. That is all.
Anybody else have this problem? I can use the weapons officer and see the ammo, but I cant get it available for use?
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There are several types of ammo. You probably don't have AP and AA, only HE. Switch to HE by clicking on the image of the HE shell when manning the deck gun. Afterwards the crew will use the correct ammo.
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There are several types of ammo. You probably don't have AP and AA, only HE. Switch to HE by clicking on the image of the HE shell when manning the deck gun. Afterwards the crew will use the correct ammo.
GWX removes AP shells; your deck gun only has HE. The game has it hard-coded to automatically load the gun with AP, but since there is none you get nothing. Once you click on the shell icon while in the gun, it will be ready for you each time you return to the gun.
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That helps, TY!
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I am still having this issue to a certain extent. If I give the order to fire on a target with deck gun, then the ammo is loaded, if I want to initiate the attack myself, I can't get the ammo to load. I have done it once, but I dont know how I did it. Is there a certain sequence?
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I'm not sure I understand the problem: Are you trying to get the crew to attack? Or are you trying to fire the gun yourself?
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I am still having this issue to a certain extent. If I give the order to fire on a target with deck gun, then the ammo is loaded, if I want to initiate the attack myself, I can't get the ammo to load. I have done it once, but I dont know how I did it. Is there a certain sequence?
When you're in the deck gun and want to fire, check the big ammo icon on the right side of the screen. It will show the type (HE for GWX) and two numbers under it. The left number is the number of loaded shells (for deck gun it would be 1 for loaded, for AA gun it will vary with model, but typically be 20 or whatever number is in the clip being loaded). The right number is the remaining number in stock. If the left number is 0, click on the shell icon to start the loading process - you MUST have at least one crewman assigned to the deck gun station or there's nobody to load it for you.
Once you have a shell loaded, you can fire and it will be automatically reloaded until you're out of stock. If you move to a different station and come back, it should be automatically loaded as long as a crewman is assigned to the deck gun station.
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I have SH3 with Greywolves gold? It might be outdated, been a year or two.
Anyways, I seemed to always try to hunt the battleships, going into the ports, slowly, submerged, scope up, and hoping to see the mines before crash into them and blow up.
Best story I have:
I think it was my first patrol of new career, I went up to the north side of Scotland, major port there, I forget name of it. I intended to enter the port. I was heading West, and there ahead of me, appeared the dream: carrier, battleship on the horizon, and lots of destroyers, heading East, directly at me. So I dove past periscope depth, hoping to sneak under the lead destroyer. Well, in the first pass, he dropped wasser bombens, and one of them hit me, blew up the entire conning tower. Both scopes, AA gun, Radio antenna, the whole deal up there. I still had the intention of trying to surface and firing on the CV from close up, I still hydrophones. The destroyer came back around. I NOW realized that the max depth of this area was like 90meters. I don't remember how close I got to the ocean floor. Either way, 90meters is still only in the green section of the depth gauge. I may have lasted a turn or two, but within a two minutes maybe, that same destroyer dropped again, blew me up. All hands lost. Got owned. Makes sense I guess, the lead destroyer of a CV group would have the most skilled captain probably of the whole English Navy. Yep, not enough depth for even a chance to get away. That was the most stuff I ever saw on the surface.
Park on ocean floor?
What has always bothered me about SH3, even with Grey Wolves Gold - no matter how gently I try to land on the ocean floor, I get major damage. I have the windows 98 'Command: Aces of the Deep' game also, and in that game, hunting at correct depth, about 160 - 180 meters, and we could land on ocean floor, and repair the most of the sub before blowing the compressed air in hopes of surfacing. Sometimes had to blow some of that while running to lower depth though too. There was luck here, sometimes a day later just before running out of air, we could get off the ground, which meant we could then use the electric engines to climb out or just float up. "Stuck in the mud" sometimes so couldn't engage motor. Hated that we couldn't repair on floor in SH3, it just keeps breaking more systems if try to park.
AA gun:
other thing, a plane could be buzzing around me and I would be unable to find him in the air. Invisible? Seemed like the SH3 deck view was sooo zoomed in that couldn't even find dam enemy plane... boo.
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Park on ocean floor?
What has always bothered me about SH3, even with Grey Wolves Gold - no matter how gently I try to land on the ocean floor, I get major damage.
There's a mod (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=957) for that...I'm not using it, but have read about it. You might even be able to fix it by editing a config file.
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When you're in the deck gun and want to fire, check the big ammo icon on the right side of the screen. It will show the type (HE for GWX) and two numbers under it. The left number is the number of loaded shells (for deck gun it would be 1 for loaded, for AA gun it will vary with model, but typically be 20 or whatever number is in the clip being loaded). The right number is the remaining number in stock. If the left number is 0, click on the shell icon to start the loading process - you MUST have at least one crewman assigned to the deck gun station or there's nobody to load it for you.
Once you have a shell loaded, you can fire and it will be automatically reloaded until you're out of stock. If you move to a different station and come back, it should be automatically loaded as long as a crewman is assigned to the deck gun station.
Lets see if I can elaborate some. The steps I use when conducting a surface attack are surface, and I either use the WO to man the deck gun or the crew menu using surface attack option.
Now, if I go to the Deck gun, it is not loaded and has no rounds available at that point. If I go to the bridge, use WO menu or the Binos mounted there to order the crew to attack with the Deck gun, the gun gets loaded an I can then move to it and control it myself.
Now once I do this 1 time per patrol, I can then go to the deck gun at any time and the ammo is available.
Hope that explains it a little better.
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Yeah, you have to do that once per patrol.
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Lets see if I can elaborate some. The steps I use when conducting a surface attack are surface, and I either use the WO to man the deck gun or the crew menu using surface attack option.
Now, if I go to the Deck gun, it is not loaded and has no rounds available at that point. If I go to the bridge, use WO menu or the Binos mounted there to order the crew to attack with the Deck gun, the gun gets loaded an I can then move to it and control it myself.
Now once I do this 1 time per patrol, I can then go to the deck gun at any time and the ammo is available.
Hope that explains it a little better.
That is pretty much what I described - except you did not indicate that you click on the ammo icon on the lower-right of the screen to initially get the HE rounds loaded. You can do that instead of ordering the guys to attack something to get the ammo loaded. And yes, you only need to do that the first time on a patrol.