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Old 04-28-12, 11:43 AM   #76
reaper7
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Brilliant Posts 11Bravo, some great learning ahead

Did the GMT Fix I sent you work ok
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Old 04-28-12, 02:14 PM   #77
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reaper7 View Post

Did the GMT Fix I sent you work ok
I tested the last 2 of the 3 you mailed me. The first one I could never run because my old computer can't handle the windowed mode. The other 2 I ran full screen and they run but a bit jerky, but I can still test them.

I fire up the app, then the game, then I load my Nav390321_N00W45 test mission. But I get the same results for sunrise and sunset times that I posted above in this thread. The clocks still have the base time zone offset.

N00 W45
Nautical Time Zone +3

Game clocks read
SR Mouse Time 0307
SR Screen Time 0607

Almanac
SR Zone Time 0604
SR GMT 0904

SR=Sunrise time

Are you seeing something different?
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Old 04-29-12, 09:26 AM   #78
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 11Bravo View Post
I tested the last 2 of the 3 you mailed me. The first one I could never run because my old computer can't handle the windowed mode. The other 2 I ran full screen and they run but a bit jerky, but I can still test them.

I fire up the app, then the game, then I load my Nav390321_N00W45 test mission. But I get the same results for sunrise and sunset times that I posted above in this thread. The clocks still have the base time zone offset.

N00 W45
Nautical Time Zone +3

Game clocks read
SR Mouse Time 0307
SR Screen Time 0607

Almanac
SR Zone Time 0604
SR GMT 0904

SR=Sunrise time

Are you seeing something different?

Sent you 2 new files, that hopefully get it working for you.

Can you send me all your test missions.

There are only Nav390321_N00W08 to Nav390321_N00E07 in the downloaded pack.
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Old 04-29-12, 10:09 AM   #79
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Great. Sent you the files. I also updated my download to include the new navigation missions.

Cheers.
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Old 04-29-12, 01:03 PM   #80
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Originally Posted by 11Bravo View Post
Great. Sent you the files. I also updated my download to include the new navigation missions.

Cheers.
Cheers Mate, also re-sent those previous 2 files (I forgot to compile them ) so they had no chance of working.
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Old 05-02-12, 05:25 AM   #81
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@reaper7

I was able to test both apps, but in a limited way, as the performance of my old computer is not very good. My max time compression was 256 which prevents me from cruising very far. Here is what I found...

TimeZones app worked perfectly. The Mouse Time read the correct local Zone Time and the Screen Time read the correct GMT. Matched almanac sunrise and sunset times. Clocks changed crossing time zone lines and continuted to match almanac SR/SS times.

However, this deserves to be tested by someone with more horsepower under the computer case. I can recommend a proper testing regimen, based on my work in this thread, but improved with some other observations to make. If you want me to write it up, let me know.

Navigation app didn't seem to work as designed? Stock behavior only.

Fixing the clocks would be quite a coup. I will concentrate on understanding the stock behavior of the clocks to support your fix and educate those who wondered how those damn things worked all these years.

Great work reaper7!
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Old 05-02-12, 08:44 AM   #82
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This is so thrilling. I haven't been this excited by an SH3 project since the first Open Hatch mod thread surfaced.

I was always interested in real navigation but the limitations really kept me from wanting to go all in with it. This has now really piqued my interest.

I gotta commend you on making some of the most exciting mod work in a long time, and completing your second stage in time for my birthday no less!

I will be watching this closely as you move forward.

EDIT. Btw I found randomly in a download in the SH3 section on this site amongst some of Carnovaro's misc files a sun and moon chart for the lat and long of London for the duration of the war. I don't know if its just taken from the actual almanac or if its actually observed from the game. Not sure if that would help you at all. The moon stuff is only for the different phases of the moon but the sun chart is for rise and set.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=1487
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Old 05-02-12, 12:06 PM   #83
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@P_Funk

Thank you very much for the kind words. They give me the strength to continue when I hit the dead ends or sometimes feel like I'm out of options. I am enjoying the challenge of learning how navigation works in real life, and also how it can be implemented in this game. It is amazing how much detail the developers put into this old game, and it is amazing what modders keep discovering about what they can do with it. SH3 is proving hard to kill.

I downloaded those documents and am reading with interest. I will be posting soon on the plan for the 3rd voyage of U-13. I can tell you now that it will focus on the sunrise and sunset times, and that I will drive the accuracy of predicted SR/SS times from the current many minutes of error to a more than reasonable few seconds of error.
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Old 05-02-12, 12:19 PM   #84
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I can't wait to see whats next. I especially like how clear your presentation is. Very often when someone presents a mod its with very little detail of whats happening and you have to kind of fill in the blanks. I'm very pleased when I see you frequently say "So where are we?" or "So what does that mean?" etc. You give us the raw data and THEN you explain it so that it has some value and all along I'm learning bits and pieces of how it works so that when it comes time to try this I don't just stare blankly at one tutorial.

You give it an excellent frame of reference. More mods should be developed and released with this kind of expository commentary.
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Old 05-02-12, 01:29 PM   #85
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Originally Posted by 11Bravo View Post
@reaper7

Navigation app didn't seem to work as designed? Stock behavior only.

Great work reaper7!

Have you tested it with the latest file I sent Navigation2, I sent this to you and Makman after some code changes.
This has been confirmed by Makman to be working on his machine, should be in you u-boot-hahd email to give it a try.
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Old 05-03-12, 02:52 PM   #86
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Hi Mate,

I've sent you a new version for testing Working better now.
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Old 05-03-12, 05:39 PM   #87
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The night sky is OK.

This projection is an interesting choice

Have you tested the local and global clocks when reloading the game ?
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Old 05-04-12, 02:09 AM   #88
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Originally Posted by reaper7 View Post
Hi Mate,

I've sent you a new version for testing Working better now.
OK, I will have time to test tonight.
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Old 05-04-12, 02:23 AM   #89
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The night sky is OK.

This projection is an interesting choice

Have you tested the local and global clocks when reloading the game ?
vanjast...I have done some limited testing and the the base time zone stuck. I need to do a whole sweep from West to East and East to West before I post the results.

The stars are definitely OK. The clocks can be fixed and made useful, either manually or through code à la reaper7. The sun will be covered in my next series of posts, after the clock tests, and the save game tests, and a demonstration of the map projection oddities.

I considered that map projection above, but rejected it. That one is still a Mercator and SH3 has none of the Mercator stretching of latitude at the poles. The devs gave us longitude stretching instead. Our map projection seems to be the most simple one of all.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Cylindr...rojection.html

This one in particular

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Equirec...rojection.html

That is why we need the "longitude shift" as Step 4 when plotting the 3 star fix, except when you are at latitude 0°. And the shift (actually a stretch) is the 1/cos or sec term. All will be revealed in the next voyage...hopefully.
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Old 05-04-12, 04:53 AM   #90
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The crew of U-13 is enjoying some well deserved leave ashore. BdU is mulling over the results of the first 2 voyages while planning the third.

Now would be a good time to mull over where we have been so we can determine where we should go next.

The goal is in-game celestial navigation. At a minimum that requires working knowledge of how the game handles:

1. Nautical Chart for positions.
2. Time at position and at Greenwich Meridian.
3. Sextant measurement of altitude of heavenly bodies.
4. Almanac Data of those bodies at known assumed positions.

In our previous 2 voyages we have made a dent in all four areas.

1. We used the game editor to explore how lat and lon are actually positions in meters from the intersection of the equator and prime meridian. That knowledge allows one to modify the game map to put in a 1° grid and time zone lines.

2. We used the nautical chart and some rough sunrise/sunset data from almanacs to learn how the clocks behave. One of the clocks seems to track absolute time from a prime meridian. The other clock seems to track relative time within a time zone. Both are offset from Greenwich Mean Time by a base time zone created by starting a mission or campaign.

3. We created an accurate sextant by determining a camera calibration curve to account for how the rendering subsystem displays information on the screen. We learned how to manipulate where the horizon should display on the screen and then measure where it actually does appear, and used that knowledge to determine where a measured star should have appeared.

4. We used an accurate nautical almanac to find the altitudes of stars from an assumed position and compared them to measured altitudes from our actual position. The 3 star fix gave a tight error triangle, but it had to be shifted from the assumed longitude because of the cylindrical map projection for the game.

Each of the topics above required knowing something or assuming something about the other topics first. The reason for that is because that is how celestial navigation works. Your position, the time, and the star positions are all linked together and affect each other. The heavenly bodies are both a clock and a map. We live in a four dimensional world of position and time.

We have the minimum requirements right now for in-game celestial navigation. I have made available for download the minimum tools for doing so and I have openly shared my knowledge of how this works. Anybody could take this and make a cool mod right now and you are free to do so.

But I am going to take the slow boat on this one. I am sure many Kaleuns have an interest in this subject and in the subject of how SH3 works and would like to know more. Most of us are not experts on this but are interested observers. Many of us might not want to do this but are curious how it is done and was done.

BdU has determined they are cautiously optimistic about the results and recommend further testing. In particular they want to see a rigorous testing of the clocks, the timezones, the chart. They want this longitude shift/stretch matter investigated and demonstrated further. They want training materials and documentation developed. And they want another mystery solved. The one about inaccurate sunrise and sunset times in SH3...
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