A Navigation Observation

[subcpo]

I have been Navigating Submarines for a long time...some things I wish we could have...

1. When plotting your courses with your waypoints, it would be easier to insert a point between two points and the alter your track from that inserted point.

2. Current/Leeway/Set and Drift

3. With the plotting tools, the bearing circle should have North Relative...North, not south.

4. There should be a tool that plots your course and shows the course, not a degree of bearing.

That is all....:D

[theluckyone17]

1. Plot two points. Select the first point. Hold CTRL down, and plot the point in the middle.

2. ?

3. ?

4. ?

[subcpo]

Ahh cool, thanks Luckyone. I will use that next time I play.

[d@rk51d3]

SH2 allowed you to drag plotted points to new locations, IIRC.
A feature I miss dearly.

[subcpo]

That would be awesome!

Ubi needs to sit down with a Nautical Chart and see what is involved with laying down a track to navigate by.

[panthercules]

SH2 allowed you to drag plotted points to new locations, IIRC.
A feature I miss dearly.

Not sure what you're getting at here - I drag plotted points to new locations all the time in SH3 and SH4, usually when I'm doing an end-around and misjudge the enemy course (or they zig-zag) so I have to alter the waypoints of my plotted end-around. What is it you did in SH2 that you can't do with SH4?

[theluckyone17]

Gotta agree with /\ . Last I knew, you could click on a point to select it, then drag it to where you want it. It can get annoying, when you're setting up a patrol area.

[swdw]

1. Plot two points. Select the first point. Hold CTRL down, and plot the point in the middle.
2. Leeway / drift / set http://www.penwith.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=23777

3. North relative- also known as "relative north"
http://books.google.com/books?id=j1SFbvybvugC&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=%22relative+north%22&source=web&ots=Uk7ppiP0TI&sig=z_wTEbf22mdT3lA0_3RPquMjXAI
I understand the frustration here for you Chief, but they've reversed the compass during the plot so an inexperienced person can see what their heading is going to be w/o adding/subtracting 180 degrees from where the plot line crosses the compass markings. ;)

4. When you plot a course in SH4 the plotting tools (protractor,etc, not the plot button in the nav toolbar) do not give the compass bearing, but the bearing off the heading/ line you are drawing, (which is why they have the comapss tool that overlays the lines you draw.) This has irritated me at times too.

Like I said, subcpo will remember the vernacular much better ;) The idea is that you report contacts by bearing and your course/direction by compass headings.

As for including leeway/set/drift in the game Chief, don't know how many people would be interested in calculating those. The idea is the computer handles that for you ,"the CO", just like the navigator does on a real boat when he's ordered to "plot a course for X,Y". The compass heading to account for the variables you mentioned is included in the plotted course ahead of time isn't it? Since the required corrections along the way are also calculated by someone like you, the end result in the game is you get there w/o the CO doing all the navigation. Frustrating for you, and I understand that. But there may not be enough interest by most players to have to do this, especially since we have no charts showing ocean current /tide locations, direction, and speed- although we can get wind speed and direction through a weather report.

Now if this was a sailing era sim, where the tools were much cruder and you had to make adjustments periodically, I could see bringing it in. Since LORAN-A was online in late 1942, it made continuous position monitoring useable since boats ran on the surface most of the time in those days.