Celestial Navigation Revisited

[11Bravo]

I'm back after reinstalling SH3...my game computer is old and it crashed during testing and it corrupted the install. Took a while but everything is back up. Then I worked 15 hours today at my real job, so I will have to answer questions tomorrow.

Star positions seem to be accurate to the day and year, but I need the accurate sextant completed to confirm that. This weekend I want to complete this "voyage" and have the sextant finished and ready for download.

The next "voyage" will test the star positions in the game, and maybe some sun and moon positions.

Reaper7 I had your app up and running! Nice. I need to spend some time testing it though.

[vanjast]

This weekend I want to complete this "voyage" and have the sextant finished and ready for download.

Curious

The next "voyage" will test the star positions in the game, and maybe some sun and moon positions.

Ah.. the Sun.. the Moon ??... AFAIK.. they (developers) fooked this up completely.

If you can correct this.. great stuff

[vanjast]

Originally Posted by vanjast

They (developers) fooked this up completely.

Longitude is not too much a problem... but it's Latitude that's way off - correcting this to USNO's almanac will be interesting.

Maybe the developers forgot that the world shape is an orange and not a perfect sphere

[postalbyke]

@Reaper: That would be totally sweet.

I did get some "relatively" reliable lats out of polaris as measured by obs. peri, but I don't know how close I was cause I didn't like the map that came with the prior mod (sorry, guys). The lines were too coarse for my liking, I like a nice fine line or a grid of dots. I tried to modify the map myself, but I don't think I came up with a satisfactory solution for myself.
Also, I decided that the Nav had my back since I couldn't read the map :P .

[11Bravo]

Originally Posted by vanjast

Longitude is not too much a problem... but it's Latitude that's way off - correcting this to USNO's almanac will be interesting.

Maybe the developers forgot that the world shape is an orange and not a perfect sphere

I agree that sun and moon seemed wrong when I looked at them years ago. And I suspect it is the "shape" of the SH3 world.

[11Bravo]

Originally Posted by reaper7

Brilliant, the Devs created a proper star system. Well done on proving this.
Not that we know that, I shall move forward with coding the clocks.
Did you get to test my external code for time zones?

Still testing but it is very slooooowwwww because my system resources shoot up to 100% and the windowed SH3 runs jerky and slow. At least it runs now that I maxed out the RAM.

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by 11Bravo

I agree that sun and moon seemed wrong when I looked at them years ago. And I suspect it is the "shape" of the SH3 world.

Hi mate, forgot to mention that the last version I sent you can be run fullscreen.
As its not displaying any messages for debugging.

[Myxale]

I finally took the time and read tru the whole thread, and I = mindblown.

It was great reading tru all the research and notes. I really got excited to see this baby hitting my sub as soon as it's done!

Bravo, maestro!

[Wolfstriked]

Since its 1Bravo is now a HAHD member,will this be exclusive to HAHD?

[11Bravo]

Originally Posted by reaper7

Hi mate, forgot to mention that the last version I sent you can be run fullscreen.
As its not displaying any messages for debugging.

Great.

[11Bravo]

Originally Posted by Wolfstriked

Since its 1Bravo is now a HAHD member,will this be exclusive to HAHD?

This thread is open to all and I will continue to post my personal work on navigation here. My work with HAHD will be for HAHD only and will be released or discussed as they see fit.

[11Bravo]

Originally Posted by Myxale

I finally took the time and read tru the whole thread, and I = mindblown.

It was great reading tru all the research and notes. I really got excited to see this baby hitting my sub as soon as it's done!

Bravo, maestro!

Thanks. Every modder likes to hear that his efforts are appreciated. It makes the difference sometimes at 3 AM on whether to sleep in or get up early to do some work on SH3...

I decided to operate in the open, showing my thinking and and my mistakes and my learning from my mistakes. Every week I will post my findings, and make available for downloading the mini mods I used to conduct my research. Eventually, like minded Kaleuns can make their own observations and together we can push this already excellent game to new heights. This weekend I will release my ugly sextants and the all important correction factors that make them accurate. I will include a SH3 star chart for the test mission so you can shoot some stars and plot your position.

Part of the fun of this game is learning new skills that were necessary for the submarine forces to be successful. Even if you don't plan on hardcore navigation and even if everything can't get implemented in 100% realistic version, there will be value in even the most casual player to give it a try. I have tremendous respect for those who challenge the forces of nature, let alone the forces of man during war.

[postalbyke]

I just tried the application, my only complaint so far is excessive lag put on my computer, which is admittedly very old :P I'll try it again another night with vanilla and load up my old "known location" missions and see how well it all goes off!

edit: old computer running gwx/magui/typeIIatuneup/typeIIinterior2.2 fps without is ~30 at 512 TC, with is ~1 at 256 TC or above.

[11Bravo]

Originally Posted by postalbyke

I just tried the application, my only complaint so far is excessive lag put on my computer, which is admittedly very old :P I'll try it again another night with vanilla and load up my old "known location" missions and see how well it all goes off!

edit: old computer running gwx/magui/typeIIatuneup/typeIIinterior2.2 fps without is ~30 at 512 TC, with is ~1 at 256 TC or above.

You are probably replying to reaper7. His latest app runs full screen without the diagnostic information and is supposed to take fewer resources. Ask him for it.

If you downloaded my minimods, I have some navigation missions from known positions and some utility mods that help create a lighter setup for testing. I also have an old computer ...

[11Bravo]

The crew of U-13 finished testing the flak station sextant with good results. Here is the shot of Alioth along with the Altitude correction factors determined from the camera calibration described earlier. The error from my know position was 14 minutes of arc which works out 28 km on planet SH3.

Finding the stars is bit more difficult because you can't use the bearing information available at the observation scope. But with some star charts and with experience it becomes easier. I made some star charts that will be available for download.