I have not been pinged while surfaced, nor decks awash, yet anyway.
I came close to having crew number 2 myself on the last patrol. This was a regular anti-shipping patrol to the Azores, but just as we got there, control reassigned us to BD grid to the north. Headed there and finally reached our patrol area ten days out of port. It wasn't until the seventeenth day that we fired our first torpedoes, sank two medium freighters of 6,000 tons apiece over the course of a few days. A few nights later I got on the tail of a merchant clipping along at a good rate, and assumed we had a tanker or maybe a troopship. Trying to find it at night in a light fog I fouled up somehow in time compression and ran right in to it. It was a glancing blow thankfully but it still nearly wrecked our boat. Many damages, and leaks, injuries. Chaos aboard U-410. Stopped panicking long enough to extricate the boat and pulled off to sink that bastage with two torpedoes, a 9k tanker. But we didn't have enough spare parts to fix most of the damage, and I have neglected giving any of my THREE engineers the skill to make parts out of salvage. One leak remained, with a high flow rate that the pump could keep in check, but if we had to dive it would be the end of the line I think. We were 2500km from port and had to sail it all the way back, the auto option is not available when you have leaks. I had to keep turning the pump on for 2500 kilometers lol. But we made it, thankful to encounter no aircraft. I called for resupply hoping they might have spare parts, but the reply came back, no supply ships in my area. All injured crewmen lived, I've got two medics with the medic skills just for such a situation. Skipper Kurt Hoffman nearly bought it. What a story generator this game is. All of the little additional mechanics and facets this adds beyond Silent Hunter make for a wonderful narrative on every mission.
U-410 is ready to sail again, having been patched up back at La Rochelle. This will be patrol number 14 I think, and we are heading off for the first stage of The Southern Routes off the west coast of Africa. It is April 1941 and we have T3 torpedoes already. Just a few so far, but I shouldn't have these (historically until late 1942). I need to figure out how to shoot underkeel mag shots. Will the torpedo just work as mag if it is passing below the ship? Or do I have to set the pistol?
The mission debrief for the first stage of Southern Routes specifically mentions false flags, and how we are expected to sniff them out. So far in my two careers including the one ended by the release version, I've stopped and boarded probably twelve to fifteen ships, only one of which we determined to be in violation of the rules and could sink her. This has not paid off so far. We have also taken on board a war correspondent for this cruise to Africa.
