How to pick up survivors?

[kimmy]

Greetings to my fellow admirals!

I could use a little guidance from my more veteran collegues here. In the manual, I read that you can pick up survivors with light ships(I assume DD/CL?) by getting close to a sinking ship, provided there are no enemies nearby.

So, I just soundly trashed the Italian fleet as Austria-Hungary(it was only my 3rd engagement since I bought the game too!), and I'd like to be a good sport and take some prisoners, but I don't get any option to. I have some solo DDs and CLs practically on top of enemy and friendly shipwrecks, their speed is at 0, no enemies near... no pop-up or anything. Is there a button I need to press somewhere? Is it due to the fact that it's night or cause the wind force is Strong Breeze?

Hope someone can help me out here, I've used the forum search as well as google, but I couldn't find the answer.

Thanks in advance!

(junior admiral) Kimmy

[Roumba]

You cannot start rescuing survivors at night. Dawn/Dusk are fine though. I don't know about sea-states, though.

[kimmy]

That explains it! All my battles so far took place at night, mostly.

Thank you kindly

[tbr]

Are you playing at "Captain" setting and directly controlling the ships? I have never taken on sirvivors with a directly controlled ship or force.

If you have AI controlled DD or CL in Support or Screening forces and then approach the wrecks (or own ships in "sinking state") with your main force you get the option to detach one or more DD/CL to take on survivors. They do so under AI control and rejoin their original force after having taken on the surivors. My record was a single 600 ton DD taking on more than 800 survivors from about half of the RN homefleet...

[kimmy]

Ah yes I do play at Captain(hey, it's only my first campaign! ^_^' ), I manually steered them onto the wrecks to make sure they got close enough... well, that'd explain it I guess, thank you!

[fredsanford]

In many ways, "Captain" is not exactly the same as "easy". It's more of a "micro-manager's" setting. The game is actually easier imo at admiral or rear admiral.

And yes, you can't pick up survivors at night.

[director]

If you play at Rear-Admiral setting the game will prompt you and ask if you want to detach a ship to pick up survivors.

[janic]

What did you get from picking up enemy or friendly survivors

[garrisonchisholm]

You get a number of victory points equal to the survivors rescued- a small drop in the bucket when a battle could be won 1 million to 600,000, but it also is rather nice being the chivalrous chap.

[babylon218]

A quick point on the 'no collecting survivors at night': at Coronel, didn't Scharnhorst and Gniesenau pick up survivors from Monmouth and the British Flagship, even though it was night? Furthermore, didn't the British do the same with the German Protected Cruisers as the Falklands Battle stretched into the night? It seems odd that we can't collect survivors at night.

[Noname117]

Jul 5, 2017 9:49:27 GMT -6 babylon218 said:

A quick point on the 'no collecting survivors at night': at Coronel, didn't Scharnhorst and Gniesenau pick up survivors from Monmouth and the British Flagship, even though it was night? Furthermore, didn't the British do the same with the German Protected Cruisers as the Falklands Battle stretched into the night? It seems odd that we can't collect survivors at night.

Just looked up both battles; appears that there were no survivors from the British ships at Coronel, and a picture from the Falklands battle shows them picking up survivors in the day after the battle.

That being said I do believe there were times in WWII where survivors were rescued during the night.

And it is a bit silly that survivors don't get rescued after the fight is over. Would be hard to implement but if you've sunk all the enemy ships, or it's night time and the enemy is retreating and your ships are still out, you should probably still get the survivors.

[garrisonchisholm]

I recently accomplished a first in this regard, at least for me. I had a destroyer sunk at twilight, and before I could get back to it it was deep night. I brought my 3 destroyers to a stop right over the spot and prayed no enemy forces would show up in the night- as twilight dawned again, I got the pop-up asking if I would like to pick up survivors. 23 men were saved. Pretty darn happy with that I am.

[garrisonchisholm]

Jul 5, 2017 10:08:35 GMT -6 Noname117 said:

Jul 5, 2017 9:49:27 GMT -6 babylon218 said:

A quick point on the 'no collecting survivors at night': at Coronel, didn't Scharnhorst and Gniesenau pick up survivors from Monmouth and the British Flagship, even though it was night? Furthermore, didn't the British do the same with the German Protected Cruisers as the Falklands Battle stretched into the night? It seems odd that we can't collect survivors at night.

Just looked up both battles; appears that there were no survivors from the British ships at Coronel, and a picture from the Falklands battle shows them picking up survivors in the day after the battle.

That being said I do believe there were times in WWII where survivors were rescued during the night.

And it is a bit silly that survivors don't get rescued after the fight is over. Would be hard to implement but if you've sunk all the enemy ships, or it's night time and the enemy is retreating and your ships are still out, you should probably still get the survivors.

Frederick actually directly responded to this question some time ago, though I am not sure where to look-  to paraphrase, he said the first documented night-time rescue of sailors of a sunk ship occurred in WWII, so for that reason RTW does not allow it.  I am sure someone with a better memory could find the thread...