Silent Hunter III fans

[Curval]

I've had a weird occurance on my computer this weekend.

My DVD drive will recognise movies but when I put a game disk in...any game...it does not recognise that there is a disk in the drive.

It just happened....any ideas?

[beet1e]

Curv, not sure what OS you have, but could it be to do with autorun having been disabled?

[Curval]

XP Service Pack 2.

If the autorun was disabled why does it pick up the movies?

Also...the game disks do not show up in "My Computer" either.  The drive shows as empty even when SH3, BF Vietnam or Rome Total War are in the drive.

[Curval]

I think my DVD drive is knackered.  Only thing it will recognise is movies, not data disks, game disks, picture disks, nor CDs.



I suspect the youngsters.

[ahgod69]

I love this game, granted I never (cough) bought it.  But wait till you get to the later years and the freakin Sunderlands come looking for you as you return to the pens.  Made the unfortuante mistake of heading in to port when a TF was leaving the base.  Funny thing was I had never seen a friendly TF until then.  Tossers got me killed.  Kind of hard to dive in 15 feet of water

Great game though, and at 100% realism is very difficult.

[Redwing]

What I dislike about the game is the lack of wolfpack tactics, i.e. multiple boats attacking the same convoy.
Consequently I found the only worthwhile tactic when attacking convoys alone to be to intercept them, dive to maybe 100 meters and wait until the leading escort ship has passed overhead. If your interception point was correct in relation to the convoy's course you can come up to periscope depth in the midst of the convoy at about 90° aob. At night, no one will ever spot your periscope.
After that, slowly dive to safety below the thermal layer and get away in silent run.
I do this regularly and sometimes don't even get DC'd.
Later in the war you may have to keep some more distance to the leading escort ship as simply letting him pass overhead can become risky when the allied detection devices get more advanced, but basically the tactic seems to always work, as long as you remain deep enough and in silent run.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by ahgod69
Great game though, and at 100% realism is very difficult.

True, but always remember that a real U boat did not have a crew of one.

My realism is only 65%. I could boost it to 81% at a stroke by changing to manual targeting and manually setting the TDC. But... I have taken the view that in real life, the same guy did not range the enemy contact in the attack periscope and then run across to the TDC to plan a solution. And because of the steep learning curve, I had avoided the manual targeting/TDC.

However, I decided to give that a try last night. But I can't get the recognition manual to work. You're supposed to be able to flick through the pages till you get to the ship that matches what you see in the periscope. But the page buttons don't work. The book remains stuck on the "Armed Trawler" section. Anyone have any tips?

[deSelys]

Beet, on the cover of the book you have up and down arrows. It will allow you to chose the book according to the nationality of your target.

All merchant ships are in the same book.

Even with ma,ual targeting, you can ask your WO to plot a solution for you. I don't know how good he is .

My main gripe with auto targeting is the instantaneous and 100% accurate firing solution that you get as soon as you put your crosshairs on a ship.

[mora]

Originally posted by beet1e
My realism is only 65%. I could boost it to 81% at a stroke by changing to manual targeting and manually setting the TDC. But... I have taken the view that in real life, the same guy did not range the enemy contact in the attack periscope and then run across to the TDC to plan a solution. And because of the steep learning curve, I had avoided the manual targeting/TDC.

IRL it was the captain on the periscope in an attack situation. He identified, measured speed and AOB. For realism those should be put in manually, but AFAIK it's not possible in SH3.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by deSelys
Beet, on the cover of the book you have up and down arrows. It will allow you to chose the book according to the nationality of your target.

All merchant ships are in the same book.

That was it! I think my book was set to the first country in alphabetical order - Albania LOL. But the book I open seems to have details only of warships, not merchants. The "Museum" is a single entity, subdivided into countries and types of ship. The recognition manual on the uboat doesn't seem to work like that. What am I doing wrong?

[Nefarious]

Handelshciffe, if you play in German text. When you open the rec book, its one chapter up for me.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Nefarious
Handelshciffe, if you play in German text. When you open the rec book, its one chapter up for me.

ah yes, that's it - has all the ships in it. I'll be OK now!

[Nefarious]

I havnt tried it, but they have a new UBoat Commander Version at Subsim.

From what Ive read about, it seems like a great addition, unfortunatley I probably wont D/L until, I start a new Career. Speaking of which I started patrol 12 today.

Patrol 11 I caught a Large Convoy that had 3 T3 Tankers in it, needless to say all three sit on the bottom. Netted 50K Tons, with a couple C2's C3's and a C Class Destroyer I caught piddiling at 5 knots.

Got to be careful operating in Am53, while deep reloading torps I passed a few mines around 60, 70 meters.

[beet1e]

Needless to say, I'll use time compression for those long cruises to the assigned sector. I don't suppose anyone would do any different - unless they wanted to sit in front of the monitor for 3-4 days...

That works fine on the open ocean. If a ship is spotted, the watch will call "Ship spotted!", and the game will go back to x1 time compression. The ship spotted will be some distance away, and you can plan an attack.

However, there are some situations where using x1024 TC can land you in the chit.

• Surprise appearance by a DD
• Aerial attack

If using x1024, you'll suddenly find yourself being pounded by a DD in some situations. Worse are the aerial attacks. I went sailing up the Irish sea yesterday (west of mainland Britain, east of Ireland), and as I didn't want to take 3 days, I used x1024. Those sudden aerial attacks are lethal! -no chance to prepare.

So what's the answer - stay submerged at periscope depth, and use x1024 TC, or stay at surface in real time, or a combination?

Recommendations please!

I suppose I could always whine like a gamer dork on the SH3 board - waaaah, get rid of planes! They have "no place" in a *game* such as this!  OR... waaaah, get rid of day!

[Redwing]

Depends mostly on weather conditions.

When I'm close to England and in bad weather I usually stay submerged during the day, going ahead slow at 1024 times compression. Batteries usually last for almost an entire day at that setting, you gain a couple miles and can recharge at night (also using 1024 time compression) for another day.

It also highly depends on your watchmen. In bad weather be sure to put your best men out there, if possible an officer as well. As everyone gains more experience the suprise attacks will become less of a problem so you can use time compression without worrying to much about it.
Later in the war you get radar warning equipment which helps some more... they may find you more easily, but at least give away their presence long before they pose a threat.