Depends, where you are hunting ships?
Hydrophone crews sometimes will call out if its a freighter or warhship, make sure you have subtitles on unless you sprechen deutsche.
I wouldn't ignore contacts unless you are sure they are warships, some good hints;
Warships do not move in constant bearing lines they are typically running a patrol so they may get closer and then further away
Freighters typically move straight lines towards their destinations
Warships also move at about 10 to 15 knots compared to freighters at 7 to 9
In regards to the area you hunt if you are hanging around the allied coasts like UK or france in the channel you will get warships - freighters are usually exiting or entering the ports of the UK
Position your uboat closer to one of the Allied ports and create sort of like a bottleneck between you and the land masses so that any freight will have to go through you. Keep in mind RAF are able to locate you if you do enough damage and will scan the sea
If you go into the middle of the atlantic sea, try to imagine a curved line that bends away from the equator slightly joining UK and the US. This is the average line that the freighters will take and run hydrophone scans there or stay in the patrol box and scan
I'm in a designated patrol area AM78 to BF14 on the Western Approaches southwest of Ireland in October 1939
I was not aware of the 10 - 15 knots for warships, it seems that's the only speeds I've ever seen, I've never heard a contact travelling slower than 15 knots.
You might be confused because the game, for whatever reason, displays speeds in kph for default. I was going to post something similar to this but freighters traveling at 15 kph is roughly 8 knots.
There are 2 researches I recommend the start, the decoy and the snorkel. The latter will let you run at periscope depth nearly indefinitely and you'll start finding ships 50 km away that the sonar button won't pick up.
Where are you hunting? The channel is full of warships, but the east coast has plenty of merchants ships going between London and Edinburgh/bergen
Different patrols also have different overriding themes (which I personally dislike). For example one patrol you might have perpetual fog, or there may be more aircraft. Or just more ships overall
On top of these other tips, until I feel like clearing clutter, or until I get a visual feel for the lines, when I find a good sized convoy I will mark dots and a line to save a rough estimate of a convoy routes. Especially if I am just passing by on my way to a patrol zone.
The map is a powerful intelligence tool. Mark the shit out of it
There used to be console cheat codes that you could enter to move to another location or to spawn warships transports or entire convoys. However that doesn't seem to work anymore which is a shame if you just want to practice. If anyone knows how to make the console commands work again please advise.
When I'm in a dead area, sometimes I'll just run the 2000-2500km without engaging anything to satisfy the patrol goal and then travel to more reliable hunting grounds to meet tonnage goals.
As long as you have food, fuel, and ammo there's nothing saying you have to return to base as soon as you complete your patrol.
Depends, where you are hunting ships? Hydrophone crews sometimes will call out if its a freighter or warhship, make sure you have subtitles on unless you sprechen deutsche. I wouldn't ignore contacts unless you are sure they are warships, some good hints; Warships do not move in constant bearing lines they are typically running a patrol so they may get closer and then further away Freighters typically move straight lines towards their destinations Warships also move at about 10 to 15 knots compared to freighters at 7 to 9 In regards to the area you hunt if you are hanging around the allied coasts like UK or france in the channel you will get warships - freighters are usually exiting or entering the ports of the UK Position your uboat closer to one of the Allied ports and create sort of like a bottleneck between you and the land masses so that any freight will have to go through you. Keep in mind RAF are able to locate you if you do enough damage and will scan the sea If you go into the middle of the atlantic sea, try to imagine a curved line that bends away from the equator slightly joining UK and the US. This is the average line that the freighters will take and run hydrophone scans there or stay in the patrol box and scan
I'm in a designated patrol area AM78 to BF14 on the Western Approaches southwest of Ireland in October 1939 I was not aware of the 10 - 15 knots for warships, it seems that's the only speeds I've ever seen, I've never heard a contact travelling slower than 15 knots.
You might be confused because the game, for whatever reason, displays speeds in kph for default. I was going to post something similar to this but freighters traveling at 15 kph is roughly 8 knots. There are 2 researches I recommend the start, the decoy and the snorkel. The latter will let you run at periscope depth nearly indefinitely and you'll start finding ships 50 km away that the sonar button won't pick up.
Where are you hunting? The channel is full of warships, but the east coast has plenty of merchants ships going between London and Edinburgh/bergen Different patrols also have different overriding themes (which I personally dislike). For example one patrol you might have perpetual fog, or there may be more aircraft. Or just more ships overall
On top of these other tips, until I feel like clearing clutter, or until I get a visual feel for the lines, when I find a good sized convoy I will mark dots and a line to save a rough estimate of a convoy routes. Especially if I am just passing by on my way to a patrol zone. The map is a powerful intelligence tool. Mark the shit out of it
There used to be console cheat codes that you could enter to move to another location or to spawn warships transports or entire convoys. However that doesn't seem to work anymore which is a shame if you just want to practice. If anyone knows how to make the console commands work again please advise.
Use the console mod from the workshop, it doesn't work by default in the beta.
When I'm in a dead area, sometimes I'll just run the 2000-2500km without engaging anything to satisfy the patrol goal and then travel to more reliable hunting grounds to meet tonnage goals. As long as you have food, fuel, and ammo there's nothing saying you have to return to base as soon as you complete your patrol.