Difficulty settings.

[Drosta]

Hey all. New to the game and I'm wondering if the difficulty will progress along with the campaign. Or if it's strictly tied to the modifiers in the settings menu. Specifically combat difficulty. The default was easy, and I changed that to medium right away.(Can't imagine how easy it would have been..) But it's still very very easy. Most of the time targets barely move, for example I just sank two warships because they just sat there and let me fire at them. I mean, this is fine once in a while to give me the bonus of perhaps having snuck up on them and caught them by surprise. But even when they're moving it's still pretty easy. I haven't even been fired back on yet. Which is taking away from the tension as I no longer feel like I even need to play it safe. I just surface and go max time compression the whole way too and from objectives except for the start and end.. because the real danger is the pathing AI making me smash into things. Lol..

Anyway. Does it get harder on its own or do I have to make some changes in the settings?

[SpaceBikerV]

1943 and onwards, you’ll have a bad time against radar, hedgehogs, and rocket planes

But intelligence wise? It’s kinda the same whether it’s early war or late

[VipreRX]

Short answer is yes. Things start out fairly easy, which is why it's referred to as "The Happy Times", but as the war progresses and allied tech rolls out doing what you're doing will lead to a quick death.

[er.tz]

disabled stabilization, use the no enemy icons on map, darker nights and no automatic torpedoes aiming, plus everything at high. (100%)

You could add some mods too, historical torpedoes, accurate aircrafts, accurate warships, keep wet the periscope.

[Drosta]

Originally posted by VipreRX:

Short answer is yes. Things start out fairly easy, which is why it's referred to as "The Happy Times", but as the war progresses and allied tech rolls out doing what you're doing will lead to a quick death.

Good. I'll just keep playing then.

Altering the UI to give less information, as well as the stability and whatnot could be good options but I'm hoping the AI's capability to punish me for mistakes will increase. Which would also make those options even more appealing later when I have more experience.

Thanks for the answers.

[Virtual Russian]

Originally posted by er.tz:

disabled stabilization, use the no enemy icons on map, darker nights and no automatic torpedoes aiming, plus everything at high. (100%)

You could add some mods too, historical torpedoes, accurate aircrafts, accurate warships, keep wet the periscope.

I'd also recommend these settings. You really have to slow down and plan your attacks. I also play with Skipper only, while rough around the edges, it is very immersive. I found I enjoyed the game a lot more once I turned off the easy settings. You'll need them to learn the game mechanics at first.

Happy hunting!

[Thoth]

Originally posted by er.tz:

disabled stabilization, ... darker nights

Will disagree with these two. Darker nights will make the binoculars at night useless, and playing not in evenings quite difficult (for wrong reason). You can't see own uboat so dark is it, while game thinks that 2km is clear sight.

No stabilization make UZO unusable, and periscopes uncomfortable.

No contacts is definitively a way to play -- makes the hunt much more tense.

[Drosta]

Originally posted by Thoth:

Originally posted by er.tz:

disabled stabilization, ... darker nights

Will disagree with these two. Darker nights will make the binoculars at night useless, and playing not in evenings quite difficult (for wrong reason). You can't see own uboat so dark is it, while game thinks that 2km is clear sight.

No stabilization make UZO unusable, and periscopes uncomfortable.

No contacts is definitively a way to play -- makes the hunt much more tense.

I like the idea of no contacts, having to triangulate their locations myself with the available information should be cool. Even darker nights still sounds appealing for the reasons you mentioned, I mean, binoculars should still be able to make out a well lit vessel travelling at night but I assume an enemy would get smart about that pretty quick and just you know.. turn the lights off/dim making obtaining visuals at night pretty useless but that sounds like it would add an element I'd like. having to plan my attack runs to be at dawn/dusk to limit my own visibility exposure. Still, im a bit worried about the other half of your comment being that it would be too dark to enjoy the game if playing with certain light levels in real life. if thats what you meant. Generally speaking though, I like realism but dislike having to handicap myself just to make up for bad AI.

After making this post I did the Scapa flow infiltration mission and while it was another exercise in shooting ducks in a barrel (stationary targets) at least the response from the AI was a bit better. I got swarmed by response vessels and had more fun trying to evade them during the escape portion of the mission. Though realistically I should have been sunk. There were times when there were 5+ destroyers directly on top of me and I think they may have only dropped 1 or two depth charges total. I'm attributing that, possibly, to the fact that we were in shallow waters but still.. in any case. like i said, i still had fun in that mission so I'm looking forward to the next.

[SpaceBikerV]

Shallow waters is a uboat’s best friend

[Tommy]

I think the drawing tools included in the base game are totally insufficient to effectively make your own triangulations.

I mean you cannot just draw a parallel line, nor can you properly construct one because with the provided "circle tool" (german name is "Zirkel") it is impossible to draw 2 identical circles in a row as the "spread of the legs" is not retained.

Sorry for that poor description, IDK the proper English terms for these tools.

[SpaceBikerV]

Does one degree of error really make that much of a difference?

[Virtual Russian]

Originally posted by Tommy_H:

I think the drawing tools included in the base game are totally insufficient to effectively make your own triangulations.

I mean you cannot just draw a parallel line, nor can you properly construct one because with the provided "circle tool" (german name is "Zirkel") it is impossible to draw 2 identical circles in a row as the "spread of the legs" is not retained.

Sorry for that poor description, IDK the proper English terms for these tools.

I track and plot ships on the map using the provided tools, they need improvement for sure, but are functional. It absolutely is frustrating that some very basic tool functions seem to have been totally overlooked, completely agree. There are mods that help I think, but I've not tried them. While wishing, an attack disc would also be really great, seems like a no-brainer to include.

Originally posted by Thoth:

Originally posted by er.tz:

disabled stabilization, ... darker nights

Will disagree with these two. Darker nights will make the binoculars at night useless, and playing not in evenings quite difficult (for wrong reason). You can't see own uboat so dark is it, while game thinks that 2km is clear sight.

No stabilization make UZO unusable, and periscopes uncomfortable.

No contacts is definitively a way to play -- makes the hunt much more tense.

I find playing with darker nights very enjoyable. I'm ex-mil, it really is that dark out when you totally leave civilization behind, whether in the field or at sea. Red lights help in game. Pay attention to the moon cycle, it also helps a lot. As a bonus, darker nights mean that if you can barely see them, they likely can't see you at all. It makes sneaking into a convoy much easier to judge, without darker nights I struggle to know how far the escorts can actually see.

No stabilization is just adding realism and difficulty, I get not wanting it. It doesn't really add enjoyment beyond the satisfaction of overcoming it. Historically they were welded to the boat.

[Drosta]

Originally posted by Virtual Russian:

Originally posted by Tommy_H:

I think the drawing tools included in the base game are totally insufficient to effectively make your own triangulations.

I mean you cannot just draw a parallel line, nor can you properly construct one because with the provided "circle tool" (german name is "Zirkel") it is impossible to draw 2 identical circles in a row as the "spread of the legs" is not retained.

Sorry for that poor description, IDK the proper English terms for these tools.

I track and plot ships on the map using the provided tools, they need improvement for sure, but are functional. It absolutely is frustrating that some very basic tool functions seem to have been totally overlooked, completely agree. There are mods that help I think, but I've not tried them. While wishing, an attack disc would also be really great, seems like a no-brainer to include.

Originally posted by Thoth:

Will disagree with these two. Darker nights will make the binoculars at night useless, and playing not in evenings quite difficult (for wrong reason). You can't see own uboat so dark is it, while game thinks that 2km is clear sight.

No stabilization make UZO unusable, and periscopes uncomfortable.

No contacts is definitively a way to play -- makes the hunt much more tense.

I find playing with darker nights very enjoyable. I'm ex-mil, it really is that dark out when you totally leave civilization behind, whether in the field or at sea. Red lights help in game. Pay attention to the moon cycle, it also helps a lot. As a bonus, darker nights mean that if you can barely see them, they likely can't see you at all. It makes sneaking into a convoy much easier to judge, without darker nights I struggle to know how far the escorts can actually see.

No stabilization is just adding realism and difficulty, I get not wanting it. It doesn't really add enjoyment beyond the satisfaction of overcoming it. Historically they were welded to the boat.

The tooltip says that enemy ships always have darker nights enabled regardless of the player setting. But I take your point.

I'll probably have to restart to get some mods and increase the difficulty. It's getting a bit better as the war progresses but i had to sail directly through the English channel surfaced like I was out for a pleasure cruise in order to get some entertainment lol. So it's probably time for a reset. I dunno if I can do the stabilization off. But darker nights and no map contacts would be good. As far as mods I want more music options for the in game radios and I'll probably get the one that lets me put decimals into the targetting computer. Particularly the one for speed. But any other recommendations are appreciated. I want to get the U-boat expanded overhaul too but it sounds from comments as though it isn't up to date yet since the 1.0 release.

[kgoodwinvoodoo]

With Darker Nights make sure to have a dark room.

[Drosta]

So I bit the bullet and restarted with 100% realism. Darker nights is interesting. I'm not sure I love the no stabilization lol. But I'll keep trying. Sunk my first freighter despite choppy weather.