[Usurpator]

Hello everyone! Since last update I have been adding some sound effects and fixing bugs. Everything is on track and going well! I mentioned in the previous update that the map is done, but I didn’t say how it works, so here is a quick summary:

Everything you draw on the map can be seen by the other players. Each player has a map layer, with a corresponding color. You can only draw and erase on your own layer. The layers can be toggled on and off with the portrait buttons to the right in the image. In the image, two players are playing, the goose and stork are their Steam profile images. The dotted lines are sketch lines, that are not shared with the other players.

The u-boats position is visible on the map until you dive, at which point the symbol turns gray, and the position is no longer updated. Other ships, torpedoes, etc, are not visible on the map.

The toolbar to the left has all the draw tools. You can draw crosses, timestamps, lines, circles, write text, erase, and rotate the protractor.

The tools in the top toolbar are toggle buttons that affect the behaviour of each draw tool. They are, from left to right: Toggle sketch mode, toggle protractor follow, snap to point, show angle, show distance, reverse compass, show travel time, show protractor, reset protractor rotation, undo, redo.

In sketch mode, lines and circles are dotted, and are not seen by the other players. If protractor follow is on, the protractor always follows the mouse cursor. If it is off, the protractor stays when you start drawing the line. Snap mode snaps the cursor to nearby lines or points.

Show angle displays the angle of a drawn line. This does not affect lines that are already drawn, it only affects lines you draw after this is turned on. This information is shared with the other players. This is also true of the show distance, and travel time toggles. The point of this is that lines can mean different things in different contexts. For example the point of drawing a line might be to plot a course, in which case showing travel time and angles is a good idea. A line drawn by the sonar operator can mean the angle of a sonar observation. In this case, not showing the distance (because it is an unknown factor) is good practice. I decided to make these options toggles, instead of having 10 different line tools for different situations.

Reverse compass means that circles are drawn starting with the edge instead of the center (as if you started drawing the circle by placing the pen side of the compass first, instead of the needle side). This is useful if you want to draw a circle that is tangent to a line, for example if you want to draw the turn radius of the u-boat.

The show travel time tool shows the time it would take to travel the length of a line at a certain speed. The speed can be changed with a slider, or by pressing the + and - keys on the keypad. This is useful for planning intercepts, plotting courses etc.

Show protractor toggles showing the protractor when drawing lines. Sometimes the protractor might be in the way, and then it is a good option to have.
The reset protractor button resets the protractor rotation to compass north.
The undo and redo buttons work as you might expect them to. The game uses a dynamically growing undo stack, so you can undo/redo as many times as you want.

All buttons have hotkeys. If you disconnect and reconnect to a session, all lines are saved. Lines and circles can be drawn to an exact length and angle by inputting the desired value on the keypad while drawing.

This explains the basics. We will make tutorial videos about this, and how to do manual navigation/dead reckoning later.

/Oscar