Difficulty surfacing

[larjs]

I have been playing solo with the bots, I have enjoyed it a lot. When using the surface command the boat will not rise above 10 meters unless I manually completely blow the tanks to the right of the dive officer. (he is not doing his job). This cost me my life and the boat to sink on my first mission as the boat had leveled off at 10 meters, I was able to open the hatch and was immediately washed overboard by a wave... bad, bad, bad... I have a feeling the dive officer should be able to get the boat to the surface without my direct involvement in managing valves and speed. Yes I have tried increasing speed to Full in an attempt to get to the surface, no luck. We continue to cruise at 10 meters. When I blow tanks, we pop up. (also on diving these tanks auto fill, so it is not like I can adjust that)

[Bill Brasil]

I had no problem like this...

Anyway check if:

- check if you have 200 on compressed air
- do not turn on bilge pump, it uses your compressed air very quickly
- Negative tank is empty,
- trim tank is correctly set (usually it is between 4 and 6), you need to trim when diving
- blow your ballast at least 20% (from 50 to 40) to start going up fast.

The last alternative, ask your dive man

Let's know the result. I guess it must be one step wrong.

[larjs]

Here is the situation: 1. playing solo with bots. order dive to periscope depth, goes fine. Ballast tanks both flood, compressed air at max, trim tank at about 4.5. After searching for convoy via hydrophone, order to surface. U Boat moves from 12 meters to 10. Speed at dead slow. Move speed to full, depth remains at 10 meters. Blow ballast tanks to 35m3, U Boat rises to 8 meters, blow ballast to 25m3, U Boat rises to 6 meters. (still on full ahead speed) Diving planes set to level, Bot ignores order to surface further. Next time I will attempt to manually control dive plane station In this case I instead blew all tanks fully, finally surfaced... compressed air now reduced but on surface. Of course a crash dive will take longer now. A few glitches with this aspect.

[boris.glevrk]

did you use the surface command (small icon below the depth gauge on bot screen) or did you click a very small number on the depth gauge?

[larjs]

I used the surface command icon and I've also clicked on depth < 10 meters. Interestingly both dive planes will set to max surface, and increasing speed has no effect. BTW, I also use the bot icon to order periscope depth. This works, however to move things along I have to also give an engine command to get to at least half speed on electric as the bot defaults speed at dead slow, and it takes an age to submerge at that speed.

[gardenofthedogs]

6m is pretty much surfaced. Part of the boat will always be below water. At 6m the decks should be above the surface. Mine usually reads closer to 5m so I am guessing that is the draught of the boat.

[TommyGuns]

Originally posted by Bill Brasil:

I had no problem like this...

Anyway check if:

- check if you have 200 on compressed air
- do not turn on bilge pump, it uses your compressed air very quickly
- Negative tank is empty,
- trim tank is correctly set (usually it is between 4 and 6), you need to trim when diving
- blow your ballast at least 20% (from 50 to 40) to start going up fast.

The last alternative, ask your dive man

Let's know the result. I guess it must be one step wrong.

Would you people stop with the "bilge pump uses a lot of air" line.
The bilge pump does NOT use an inordinate amount of air.
So many myths floating around out there.
Another one you are spreading. The trim tank IS NOT usually at 4 or 6. The trim tank will be anywhere at the start of the scenario. You also do not have to adjust your trim at any depth if you do not touch any valves before diving. It will be almost perfect trim every time you dive. You may have to make a tiny adjustment.

[TommyGuns]

In my experience, if you do not use any of the dive bot controls before diving, when you hit F3 and click the 'surface' order, the dive bot will blow the tanks.
If you take over the dive bot station at any point, you must reset him by giving him a depth order or some other order so he regains control. I'm not sure if this works for the ballast tanks though I think it does. I surface or put myself at periscope depth manually every time myself since it is my favorite part of the simulation.

[larjs]

All seems to be in order except my dive bot will not blow the tanks to surface, nor will the dive planes alone surface the boat at any speed. The boat will hover at 10 meters above keel until I blow the tanks manually. I can give the surface order by hitting the icon, or I can click on a depth on the meter... it does not matter. I killed myself twice now getting swept off the boat and then the boat sunk due to the open hatch. Kind of funny really.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by larjs:

All seems to be in order except my dive bot will not blow the tanks to surface, nor will the dive planes alone surface the boat at any speed. The boat will hover at 10 meters above keel until I blow the tanks manually. I can give the surface order by hitting the icon, or I can click on a depth on the meter... it does not matter. I killed myself twice now getting swept off the boat and then the boat sunk due to the open hatch. Kind of funny really.

Well if blowing the tanks manually solves your problem, then just do it.

[Bremer]

I have found that the dive officer is a little slow off the mark to blow the fore and aft ballast tanks. From periscope depth, you should be able to blow them to 40-50 percent with zero negative tank and bob right on up to the surface. In that configuration, the hull is riding low in the water, which makes for an even quicker dive when you go back down.