Warning, it takes ages to get type VIIB

[Delayed_Revelations]

Edit: Turns out my type IID fuel was bugged, also, Important edit at the bottom...

Like many of us, i started with the type IIA to try him out, good lil sub, i enjoy him, and the upgraded type IID, great fun... but one serious problem, the FUEL!!!...

As you progress in the campaign, your need to travel increases, and these guys become a real pain because for every single mission you have to constantly switch between electric and diesal just to get the distance you need, and my fingers literally hurt from all that clicking.

I write this post to educate everybody, that you wont be able to get the type VIIB until completing stage 3 of the Atlantic Theatre questline. And those quests nearly never pop up for me, not to mention completing stage 3 is ALOT of quests in itself...

So just be warned that my personal experience of starting off with the type IIA altho is fun, it does get very finger clicking heavy, so consider the option of starting with the type VIIB and unlocking type IIA later on for abit of fun...

Edit: To clarify, the Type IIA and type IID are fine for missions east of england, but soon you will have only missions west of england and in the atlantic and its at this time im saying your issues with fuel will begin

IMPORTANT EDIT: So i am dumb, stage 3 atlantic theatre is a mission from Wilshelmhaven to build a weather station in the north pole, i made the mistake of going to La Rochelle as soon as it was available, effectively preventing myself getting the type VIIB and doing all the atlantic stuff in the type IID, whilst my freaking type IID was bugged as it turns out

[Ducku]

The laws of physics dont allow for range to be extended by switching from diesel to electric. I dont know if this is some kind of cheese in the game but i do know that charging the batteries also costs fuel. What I do is just assign 2 sailors to my engine engineer which massively increases range. Also stay on half speed when cruising for best range. Once you can get 2 engineers you can have very good efficiency around the clock.

Besides that i agree that the progression is rather slow. if it already takes nearly a year to get to the IID I wonder if Ill ever get the VIIC before the end of the war.

[TomKerbal]

Originally posted by Ducku:

The laws of physics dont allow for range to be extended by switching from diesel to electric. I dont know if this is some kind of cheese in the game but i do know that charging the batteries also costs fuel. What I do is just assign 2 sailors to my engine engineer which massively increases range. Also stay on half speed when cruising for best range. Once you can get 2 engineers you can have very good efficiency around the clock.

Besides that i agree that the progression is rather slow. if it already takes nearly a year to get to the IID I wonder if Ill ever get the VIIC before the end of the war.

Yes I fully agree

[Boba Fatt]

Use type IID when you finish Stage 2 of 'Tonnage War', solves your main problem with fuel and it can be done very quick, like before 1940 quick.

[StuKa]

Originally posted by Ducku:

The laws of physics dont allow for range to be extended by switching from diesel to electric. I dont know if this is some kind of cheese in the game but i do know that charging the batteries also costs fuel. What I do is just assign 2 sailors to my engine engineer which massively increases range. Also stay on half speed when cruising for best range. Once you can get 2 engineers you can have very good efficiency around the clock.

Besides that i agree that the progression is rather slow. if it already takes nearly a year to get to the IID I wonder if Ill ever get the VIIC before the end of the war.

Are you returning to port as soon as you hit your designated mission tonnage? I just unlocked the IID in late October, and I very often went back to port with some torpedos, but more often than not I'd sink one or two extra ships past the patrol requirements. I also did 2 minelaying missions at the start.

[Delayed_Revelations]

Originally posted by Boba Fatt:

Use type IID when you finish Stage 2 of 'Tonnage War', solves your main problem with fuel and it can be done very quick, like before 1940 quick.

Iv found type IID to be just as bad with fuel, coming from wilshelmhaven, anything west of england requires alternating electric and diesal. Coming from port of rochelle, i need todo the same if im going to iceland or scotland area.

If you guys are getting more out of your type IID than what im getting then perhaps im bugged

[Ducku]

Originally posted by StuKa:

Originally posted by Ducku:

The laws of physics dont allow for range to be extended by switching from diesel to electric. I dont know if this is some kind of cheese in the game but i do know that charging the batteries also costs fuel. What I do is just assign 2 sailors to my engine engineer which massively increases range. Also stay on half speed when cruising for best range. Once you can get 2 engineers you can have very good efficiency around the clock.

Besides that i agree that the progression is rather slow. if it already takes nearly a year to get to the IID I wonder if Ill ever get the VIIC before the end of the war.

Are you returning to port as soon as you hit your designated mission tonnage? I just unlocked the IID in late October, and I very often went back to port with some torpedos, but more often than not I'd sink one or two extra ships past the patrol requirements. I also did 2 minelaying missions at the start.

I mostly run out of torps before running out of fuel. I had one mission to recover an enigma machine in the western waters of the UK, which did squeeze me for fuel quite a bit. But for patrols on the east coast ive found no issues.

[Delayed_Revelations]

Originally posted by Ducku:

The laws of physics dont allow for range to be extended by switching from diesel to electric. I dont know if this is some kind of cheese in the game but i do know that charging the batteries also costs fuel. What I do is just assign 2 sailors to my engine engineer which massively increases range. Also stay on half speed when cruising for best range. Once you can get 2 engineers you can have very good efficiency around the clock.

Besides that i agree that the progression is rather slow. if it already takes nearly a year to get to the IID I wonder if Ill ever get the VIIC before the end of the war.

Yes i also thought to myself hang on a minute, the laws of physics dont allow for this... But its literally the only way i can complete some missions atm

[Boba Fatt]

Originally posted by Delayed_Revelations:

Originally posted by Boba Fatt:

Use type IID when you finish Stage 2 of 'Tonnage War', solves your main problem with fuel and it can be done very quick, like before 1940 quick.

Iv found type IID to be just as bad with fuel, coming from wilshelmhaven, anything west of england requires alternating electric and diesal. Coming from port of rochelle, i need todo the same if im going to iceland or scotland area.

If you guys are getting more out of your type IID than what im getting then perhaps im bugged

The IID fuel was bugged, being identical to IIA. It is fixed in Preview 6 for me, although I had to change boats (back to IIA and then again on the IID) in my save. Or you can start a new campaign.

[Sabre_One]

Try going to the Quartermaster's upgrade ship menu and just upgrade without the points. I did it as an experiment and it worked. I'm testing out the VIIC/41 on my fourth mission in January 1940.

It's obviously a bug, but I'm curious if others observe it too.

[Delayed_Revelations]

Originally posted by StuKa:

Originally posted by Ducku:

Are you returning to port as soon as you hit your designated mission tonnage? I just unlocked the IID in late October, and I very often went back to port with some torpedos, but more often than not I'd sink one or two extra ships past the patrol requirements. I also did 2 minelaying missions at the start.

Its the type VIIB that im saying takes a long time to get, i also unlocked type IID quite early on :)

[Delayed_Revelations]

Originally posted by Ducku:

Originally posted by StuKa:

Are you returning to port as soon as you hit your designated mission tonnage? I just unlocked the IID in late October, and I very often went back to port with some torpedos, but more often than not I'd sink one or two extra ships past the patrol requirements. I also did 2 minelaying missions at the start.

I mostly run out of torps before running out of fuel. I had one mission to recover an enigma machine in the western waters of the UK, which did squeeze me for fuel quite a bit. But for patrols on the east coast ive found no issues.

Yeh so your still in the east, you will find the missions in the east dry up fast, and nearly all missions are over in the atlantic, and thats where the issues with the fuel im on about begin, because to get type VIIB, that mission is over in ireland and iceland

[Hecter94]

The Type IIA and IID really do require you to manage your fuel quite a bit.

It wasn't impossible to manage, but definitely a challenge.
I did the Hopen Island weather station with the bugged IID that had the fuel of the IIA, and that ended with me limping back into port on electric engines because I was completely out of fuel.


Making sure you keep an officer + two sailors on both engines and navigation helps a lot, and using Dive schedules to automatically switch between electric and diesel engines to conserve fuel helps a lot too.

[Delayed_Revelations]

Originally posted by Hecter94:

The Type IIA and IID really do require you to manage your fuel quite a bit.

It wasn't impossible to manage, but definitely a challenge.
I did the Hopen Island weather station with the bugged IID that had the fuel of the IIA, and that ended with me limping back into port on electric engines because I was completely out of fuel.


Making sure you keep an officer + two sailors on both engines and navigation helps a lot, and using Dive schedules to automatically switch between electric and diesel engines to conserve fuel helps a lot too.

Thats so smart i didnt think about using the dive schedule to switch between electric and diesal.. my fingers thank you for your input!!!

[StuKa]

Originally posted by Delayed_Revelations:

Originally posted by Ducku:

The laws of physics dont allow for range to be extended by switching from diesel to electric. I dont know if this is some kind of cheese in the game but i do know that charging the batteries also costs fuel. What I do is just assign 2 sailors to my engine engineer which massively increases range. Also stay on half speed when cruising for best range. Once you can get 2 engineers you can have very good efficiency around the clock.

Besides that i agree that the progression is rather slow. if it already takes nearly a year to get to the IID I wonder if Ill ever get the VIIC before the end of the war.

Yes i also thought to myself hang on a minute, the laws of physics dont allow for this... But its literally the only way i can complete some missions atm

Are you just running flank speed all the time with no crew management of engines and navigation?

The IID with no crew management (which stretches fuel to ridiculous levels) at forward 3 gets a range of 7900km. That is more than enough fuel to handle operations on the east side of the UK / Ireland even with going around to the north to avoid the Channel.

2 sailors on the engines and navigation boosts this to 14000km - more than 1/3rd the distance needed to circumnavigate the globe. It's a 3700km trip for a very safe route around the north, around Ireland, and down into Cardiff. If that's still not enough then transit on 2 speed, that's 18700 km range.

[Delayed_Revelations]

Originally posted by StuKa:

Originally posted by Delayed_Revelations:

Yes i also thought to myself hang on a minute, the laws of physics dont allow for this... But its literally the only way i can complete some missions atm

Are you just running flank speed all the time with no crew management of engines and navigation?

The IID with no crew management (which stretches fuel to ridiculous levels) at forward 3 gets a range of 7900km. That is more than enough fuel to handle operations on the east side of the UK / Ireland even with going around to the north to avoid the Channel.

2 sailors on the engines and navigation boosts this to 14000km - more than 1/3rd the distance needed to circumnavigate the globe. It's a 3700km trip for a very safe route around the north, around Ireland, and down into Cardiff. If that's still not enough then transit on 2 speed, that's 18700 km range.

You sure thats the type IID???... cz if so then im bugged, with 2 sailors on engines and speed 2 i get 5800 kilometers..