Miscelleneous

[snwcrsh]

Hi again... I am back (after a ridiculous amount of time with GWX/OLB, no sleep :o). And again some questions, these should be easy, but I couldn't find the specific information i needed by searching.

1) Back to the sonar, or rather hydrophone. Actually I am only curious how accurate it is, as compared to visual observations. I had a hell of a time setting up an attack against a single british mercheant in the Nordsee. Weather was rough and it was night, it was close to impossible to get a visual read on this thing.

Basically I could do all necessary calculations with the hydrophone and the map; getting speed with 1-2 measurings for the distance, with that i also have its course. Range is easy with the ruler and as for the AoB there's the angle tool.

But I guess that would be to easy :) How close is this to the real thing?

2) I apologize for my lack of knowledge here: What do the blinking lights mean? I know red lights is to preserve night vision but i couldn't find a pattern when they blink? Just being curious here.

3) When ingame radio messages talk about coordinates, they give 4 numbers, i.e. AM2342 -- how does that translate to the map secors which only have 2 numbers?

4) Lastly, this is more something I noticed: You cannot refuel at a base before you have reached (and cleared) your patrol area. Rather you can, but you grid and orders will get nulled. Is this intentional?

Thanks again -- and while I am here, I want to thank all the developers involved into GWX and OLC -- these mods sure rock the hell. I always been a fan of submarine simulations (ahh, good old Silent Service...), but SH3+GWX+OLC ... is excelsior.

I just wish the same was available for a pacific campaign with US submarines :-)

[High Voltage]

3) Although i have not yet installed GWX2 and still play on GWX, i believe that the coordiantes still do not correspond to real contacts and are just added for "atmosphere"...

I also believe the blinking lights may just be random and don't actually have any meaning.

Am I wrong about these?

[GoldenRivet]

3) Although i have not yet installed GWX2 and still play on GWX, i believe that the coordiantes still do not correspond to real contacts and are just added for "atmosphere"...

I also believe the blinking lights may just be random and don't actually have any meaning.

Am I wrong about these?
each set of coordinats on the grid map had a set of subcoordinates.

AM23 would posess 9 sub coordinates for example (at least i think it was 9)

when a skipper knew his exact position he could radio in a more precise location of a convoy or ship by saying that he was in grid AM2342 generally this was a more precise way of plotting on the kriegsmarine grid map. (The KM grid map in SH3 is very limited in this regard.) High voltage is correct in stating that the messages you receive about sinking ships and ships in distress is simply for immersion and historical accuracy... there will likely never be a ship in distress if you manage to travel to the coordinates. be aware that sometimes your radio operator will receive a message with latitude and longitude coordinates as well... these messages are also for immersion and realism and there is no way in the game for you to determine lat long.

to answer question 1: Sound travels much further in water than it does through the air. The hydrophone will always give you sound contact over the horizon and beyond visual range. You will hear a target on hydrophones long before you will be capable of seeing it with the naked eye. As far as the accuracy goes, that depends entirely upon the user. You will notice that depending on the range to the contact, the sound of the particular contact might cover an arc of perhaps 5 or 10 degrees on the hydrophon screen. also contacts can blend in together if there is a great number of them in a tight grouping making it hard for you to single them out from the noise clutter.

2) Blinking lights? Perhaps this is a simple matter of something in the command room getting in between you and the light as the boat rocks back and forth. if even the smallest object gets between your point of view and the light, the light source will appear to go dim... try viewing the light from a different angle and it should stop "blinking"

4) due to the hard coded constraints of Silent Hunter 3 the modders have no way of changing this side effect without Ubisoft's SDK program. So for now there is nothing that can be done about it. The game thinks you have docked and therfore have completed that patrol, but... when you start the patrol again it has no record of your patrol area and defaults to "NULL"... you will either have to use a program called SH3 Commander to exit out of SH3 and set the patrol grid back to your original grid... or simply ignore the "NULL" message.

[snwcrsh]

Thank you for the fast answers, Kaleuns!



to answer question 1: Sound travels much further in water than it does through the air. The hydrophone will always give you sound contact over the horizon and beyond visual range. You will hear a target on hydrophones long before you will be capable of seeing it with the naked eye. As far as the accuracy goes, that depends entirely upon the user. You will notice that depending on the range to the contact, the sound of the particular contact might cover an arc of perhaps 5 or 10 degrees on the hydrophon screen. also contacts can blend in together if there is a great number of them in a tight grouping making it hard for you to single them out from the noise clutter.


I am aware that the hydrophone has a much better range, it was only about the accuracy. And of course it depends on what marks i actually make when listening to it. But I was rather referring tho that sonar dude. How accurate will he perform. Probably a petty officer with Radio/Sonar skill would be better?



2) Blinking lights? Perhaps this is a simple matter of something in the command room getting in between you and the light as the boat rocks back and forth. if even the smallest object gets between your point of view and the light, the light source will appear to go dim... try viewing the light from a different angle and it should stop "blinking"


It definitely wasn't the angle, nor did it look in any way like a glitch: The lights that turn red/white sometimes blink, 1 second on, 1 second off. Sometimes in red and sometimes in white status. The one at the Captain's bed blinks as well, it looks rather scripted to my eye.



4) due to the hard coded constraints of Silent Hunter 3 the modders have no way of changing this side effect without Ubisoft's SDK program.


Thought so - thanks for the help!

[GoldenRivet]

perhaps the blinking lights in the sub is a video card issue... you might try the latest drivers for your card.

thats the only two reasons i can think of that they would blink on and off red and white... video card drivers or something in the way of the lights.

there is a third possiblity, Bernard is playing with the light switch :rotfl:

FYI: in case you didnt know ill save others from explaining - bernard is the fictional character all of us blame wierd occurances and sometimes our own mistakes on.

[snwcrsh]

Hmm. I am not convinced this is a video glitch. I will look more closely, but I think they even fade when changing state -- this would be one weird glitch...

I was starting to wonder about Bernard but I figured I'd learn about him sooner or later. Guess it's sooner. He must have really nifty skills if he can fool with my bridge lights in this manner. Ill make a video of it... coming soon...

[HW3]

The blinking lights is a hard coded bug that can't be fixed with the type IX subs.

[GoldenRivet]

The blinking lights is a hard coded bug that can't be fixed with the type IX subs.

does this affect all users?

I have not noticed this, but then again i have not spent a great deal of time in the IX type either.

good heads up HW3

[HW3]

I have it in the type IXB I'm running in WAW 3. I seem to remember this coming up quite awhile back and no solution being found for it.