Quote:
Originally Posted by jenrick
I saw you link over on SimHQ, figured I'd follow the main thread over here.
I'm really enjoying what you're doing and where it's going. I get the concept of combining the director and the range finder for usability, however as someone else noted I do like the authenticity of having them split. Range finding, particularly stereoscopic is hard to do in real life well and it's almost impossible to simulate on a monitor to the degree of fidelity needed for warfare. I would think having a rangefinder station that user can utilize as they prefer, but the main action being in the fire director. The FD is where a lot of the tactical versus technical decisions are made, which to me as the player is the interesting part.
I'll DL the tech demo you put together and give it a go. Keep up the great work! 
-Jenrick |
Good to see you here Jenrick!
Yes, there is a few dilemman to deal with regarding the rangefinder(RF).
As it is now, it's just a switch to turn on/off in the firedirector.
This is good while there is no AI crew to help you out. You would loose valueable time switching to a whole different station to input new distance data to the computer.
Try for example to use the radar for RF targets.
It will be a whole different story when I finishing programming AI crew that can help keeping the target in sight or do the RF for you.
As you say, it was a hard job on a real ship. And there were several RF-stations sending data to the computer. Firedirector didn't really have anything to do with it.
Second problem, is there any point to have a real stereoscopic RF?
Now the resolution is quite low, for performance reasons. This leads to the RF being useless above some 10k-12k distance, because the pixels are too big to see any change of focus...
In the AA-station I used an approach closer to what you see in the game, Destroyer Command. One ball is the target distance, move your ball there and you got your distance setting.
Maybe I will make something similar to the main battery aswell!
Luckily it is quite easy to change and modify! So expect different versions of RF to try over time!
Let me know how the trial went! Sank any ships? And how did you find their distance?
Cheers