Yes, the hotfixes have dealt with each of my issues in turn, or most of them. The save game state error was the worst, and with that fixed I can progress.
Was able to pick up my last campaign early in the patrol, the one where it stopped saving. But I must have had a good one just after arriving in my assigned grid, so picked it up from there. I chose the BF grid for my next patrol. In the first, my fuel only lasted about three weeks, before I returned to base with 25% remaining. I forgot you can increase fuel efficiency by assigning your engine man sailors to help. I was thinking that wasn't all that impressive endurance, and I had been careful with fuel the entire patrol. But this time I gave the engineer some help and it extended the range considerably, up to 30%, but never quite that as they cannot be on duty all the time.
BF grid has proven to be my best grid for the happy times in this sim, and here we put under three freighters for 12k. One was a Swedish neutral we boarded to find contraband and sank him by stern tube. Not much, but I want to work hard to find targets, and having turned off the enhanced encounters setting it's closer to what I want. To conserve even more fuel I went through the Channel, rather than roundabout the British Isles where we would have burned 50% just getting there. Going through the Channel was 15%, but I had to dodge a number of patrols, and aircraft too. I don't want to get trapped here, but I reasoned that it's still very early in the war and we would have a shot at it. Got through in a couple of days with only one aircraft managing to drop on us, but well astern by the time they hit. Long careers will get a lot of specialization points which will be key to overcome this boat's biggest drawbacks, especially dive time and detectability. I'll be looking to get a blueprint and shift in to the IXC as soon as possible.
How do we download external torpedoes?
