Funnels....Measure to Funnels with stadimeter

[Mav87th]

Hi All

I did a Collimation test last night on a Dido Light Cruiser.

(ie. made a mission with one Dido anchord 1000 meter from my sub so i could check the ootics of the scope)

The optics turned out to be correct. Dido, with a leanth of 156 meters, filling the scope picture in high power from side to side. High Power scope has a 9° Field of View, and on 1000 meters that should cover 156 meters from left to right - so far so good.

Then i tested the stadimeter range for the Dido. Only when i did the stadimeter ranging measuring on the top of the funnels did the range ring out on 1000 meters.

I have to try this with other ships, but its 100% that with the Dido Light Cruiser you have to measure from the top of the funnel.


EDIT:

New tests

Ranger Tanker - Funnel

[Lognoreng]

I did suspect that, since all my range calcs were too close, i started using the funnels, and got better range readings. This was on random merchants during missions.. It was off with 500m+ most the time when using the masts as reference. Funny theres no info on this anywhere. Might be because they assume everyone use auto targetting. Great to get this confirmed tho

[Decoman]

I wonder, would any camera mod possibly interfere with the functionality of the stadimeter?

[DarkFish]

personally I think measuring from the funnel is much better as the funnel is easier to see. When doing long range attacks in SH4 it was almost impossible to accurately measure the mast height as the lack of anti-aliasing made the mast partially disappear at long ranges.

If I understand correctly SH5 has got AA support so that'll be less of a problem but still the funnel is easier to spot.

[Mav87th]

Decoman - from my mod experiences with Optics and stadimeter from SH-4 the stadimeter is not effected. I suspect SH-5 to be the same.

[Bilge_Rat]

good work,

I had done a test on a freighter a few days ago and had come to the same conclusion, best range measured from top of funnel.

Ddgrn is using the bidge deck, but I noticed that the bridge deck and funnel are often at the same height.

[ParaB]

I did some testing too and measuring up to the top of the funnels indeed worked better on most ships. Problem is for some it didn't. IMO the ships databases need to be reworked to get 'even' reference points for all ships.

[Lognoreng]

Totally agree that the funnels are better. On long ranges, and under poor light conditions its hard to see where the masts end. Same in sh4 as you were locked to 4X AA.

[Mav87th]

The stadimeter in SH-4 was awesome. You could set the desired amount of ft. to stadimeter for (like choosing the funnel, or the top of the higest bridge or the top of the mast - what ever one had measure ments for in the ONI-208-J)

[gutted]

Can't recall which merchant it was, but it was not the funnel for that one. It was at those horizontal struts on the mast.

[Bilge_Rat]

So do we have a definite answer yet on how to use the stadimeter properly?

Do you measure to top of funnel, bridge decks, masts?

I searched this forum and the Ubi forum, but there seems to be very little discussion of this issue.

Is there a bug or do we just not know how to use it properly? If someone has the answer, please share it.

[gimpy117]

no wonder i was missing all the time! thank you!

[JamesT73J]

Is it possible that the stadimeter is using a constant for height? I.e. the recog manual is having no effect. It would explain the inconsistencies. I need to do some tests

[karamazovnew]

Since you can't lock (physically) on ships anymore, you need to place your periscope just a bit ahead of the ship, set up your stadimeter and then quickly click to enter the range and click BACK fast when the funnel rests under the center line. If you don't do that, all your automatic speed calculations will be off. In other words, you need to send the consecutive bearing/range readings of the SAME SPOT on a ship or you'll miss.

[gimpy117]

In other words, you need to send the consecutive bearing/range readings of the SAME SPOT on a ship or you'll miss.

:down: needs to be fixed

[kylania]

Wonder why they removed the 'lock' in place if using the stadimeter is gonna be so difficult.

[John Channing]

Wonder why they removed the 'lock' in place if using the stadimeter is gonna be so difficult.

Realism?

JCC

[ironkross]

This is why my torpedos have been missing behind the ships. I was measuring to the mast top and it made it seem closer than actual. And I thought I was getting the speed wrong.

[Frederf]

In other words, you need to send the consecutive bearing/range readings of the SAME SPOT on a ship or you'll miss.

:down: needs to be fixed

Not really, this is the same constraint real captains were under. If the captain reported a few closely timed sightings from wildly different parts of a long target then the plotting party would scratching their heads too. The "fix" is for the captain to have good technique.

Of course some better controls and tools would make good technique a lot easier. First of all the stadimeter should always be active and controlled via mousewheel. Second there should be commands to turn the periscope in bearing no matter what the mouse is doing. These things would make proper juggling of all the necessary factors a little more nature.

The concept of "what is the part of the ship the stadimeter is programmed for?" is complete rubbish. Real captains never had to guess what method was in use because the value was read or estimated and then entered manually into the stadimeter scale. The choice was up to them and didn't require a "lockable" object at all. They could take stadimeter readings of a mountain, lighthouse, cloud, or nothing at all if they wished!

[Bilge_Rat]

Not really, this is the same constraint real captains were under. If the captain reported a few closely timed sightings from wildly different parts of a long target then the plotting party would scratching their heads too. The "fix" is for the captain to have good technique.

Of course some better controls and tools would make good technique a lot easier. First of all the stadimeter should always be active and controlled via mousewheel. Second there should be commands to turn the periscope in bearing no matter what the mouse is doing. These things would make proper juggling of all the necessary factors a little more nature.

The concept of "what is the part of the ship the stadimeter is programmed for?" is complete rubbish. Real captains never had to guess what method was in use because the value was read or estimated and then entered manually into the stadimeter scale. The choice was up to them and didn't require a "lockable" object at all. They could take stadimeter readings of a mountain, lighthouse, cloud, or nothing at all if they wished!

I dont disagree with your statement. real skippers estimated range more or less by eye.

However, in game it would still be nice to have a way to estimate range or at least have some indications from the devs how it is supposed to work. I am still getting inconsistent results.

In the U-110 mission, reading to the top of masts gave me the best results on RN class "A" destroyers.

However, in the Narvik mission, it seems to be the bridge deck for the HMS Warspite.

:damn::damn:

[Arclight]

It's a crapshoot. :nope:

For QE battleship, needed to measure the 2 little 'ventilation funnels' (what do you call those?) on the rear superstructure, for those 16k transports there's no discernable measuring point at all.

Still wondering if it is simulating errors in known data, like RFB introduced for SH4, or really a bug.

[karamazovnew]

The concept of "what is the part of the ship the stadimeter is programmed for?" is complete rubbish. Real captains never had to guess what method was in use because the value was read or estimated and then entered manually into the stadimeter scale. The choice was up to them and didn't require a "lockable" object at all. They could take stadimeter readings of a mountain, lighthouse, cloud, or nothing at all if they wished!

I've been crying about the "lock" feature of the stadimeter for an entire year. One of the first things I requested from SH5 was for the stadimeter to be free. You're only allowed to use it when the game thinks that there's a ship in your scope. There's no way to input the height manually. If you remember, SH4 did allow this through modding but it wasn't perfect. We might be able to do it again. However we do needed actual recognition manuals not pretty pictures. The idea of filtering the pages by nr of funnels, type of superstructure and so on, was great, but it can't hold on it's own.

All these things are moddable but I can't help wondering if the devs are actually ignoring us on purpose. Look at the Stalker Community. The latest Staler game features the best mod ideas of the previous 2 titles. Ubi might've forgotten that some newbies actually started the game because they saw subsim and thought "wow, cool, dials, plots, I'll give this one a try". Why do we have to mod into the game things that have already been modded before as "must-haves"? And why did they take out features that were actually good? :nope: The best made manual recognition system was in SH3. It had all the values. They took it out in SH4, we cried about it, and now they do it even worse...

[Arclight]

All the old stuff is there. And there are tons of planned features they didn't have time for to implement. :hmmm:

[gimpy117]

It's a crapshoot. :nope:

For QE battleship, needed to measure the 2 little 'ventilation funnels' (what do you call those?) on the rear superstructure, for those 16k transports there's no discernable measuring point at all.

Still wondering if it is simulating errors in known data, like RFB introduced for SH4, or really a bug.

agreed....had to measure a mast on a destroyer...and a funnel on a merchant...:nope: we need a standard point

[karamazovnew]

And there are tons of planned features they didn't have time for to implement. :hmmm:

What's the point of releasing a new title then?

[Arclight]

Alright, good question. :rotfl2:

But seriously, there's a ton of new stuff already, and more waiting to be implemented. Patches should get us most of the way there, if not all the way.

I doubt it's the developers (by that I mean the team that actually does the coding) who decide the deadline and budget. imo A few more months and a couple of bucks, and we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

[karamazovnew]

My point also, Archlight. However, think about it. When releasing an incomplete and bugged game, the reviews will not look pretty. If you're already planning to spend more money on the game, why not wait a bit longer before releasing. As the game is now, I think they actually threw it to the wolves. I don't think patches will be too... uhmm... comprehensive :-?

[kylania]

What's the point of releasing a new title then?

Money. That's the only thing UbiSoft is worried about. Why else do you think SH5 was $50 and clearly unfinished and saddled with "you can't resell this game without us getting a cut" DRM?

[gimpy117]

My point also, Archlight. However, think about it. When releasing an incomplete and bugged game, the reviews will not look pretty. If you're already planning to spend more money on the game, why not wait a bit longer before releasing. As the game is now, I think they actually threw it to the wolves. I don't think patches will be too... uhmm... comprehensive :-?

with this economy im sure there was pressure to make money...dont blame the devs...

[kylania]

with this economy im sure there was pressure to make money...dont blame the devs...

The devs themselves have said you can't separate "UbiSoft The Evil Empire" from "UbiSoft Romania The Heroic Fearless Developers". :) But we still do! :yep:

[Arclight]

My point also, Archlight. However, think about it. When releasing an incomplete and bugged game, the reviews will not look pretty. If you're already planning to spend more money on the game, why not wait a bit longer before releasing. As the game is now, I think they actually threw it to the wolves. I don't think patches will be too... uhmm... comprehensive :-?
Yeah, they're not really giving it a fair chance, are they? :-?

That's just how business goes; it's a small market, so profits are relatively small. As a result, budgets are relatively small, which in turn causes rather tight deadlines.

They're doing the best they can within the constraints. In the end, someone crunching the numbers just says "we need to release it now or too much will be spend to make a profit". Game gets thrown out there (to the wolves, perhaps) and they just see how it does.

The fact that a more polished release is more likely to get more sales doesn't even factor into it, they just look at sales for 3&4 and make an estimate. If sales are good, support will be provided longer and the budget for the next title might be a bit bigger. If sales are bad, the series is scrapped.

SH5 is pretty ambitious though; such a mayor overhaul in the same timeframe they had to copy-paste SH3 and add fleetboats... I blame 'Elanaiba' for that, but at the same time I love him for it; without this ambitious effort, the shear potential we see in SH5 would not be there.

Plus, SH5 actually works fairly well. Haven't had a single crash, 4 on the other hand crashed if you pressed 'A'. :lol:



Imho they're not ignoring us, far from it. A lot of stuff we asked for was added. It's all just the result of working for a big time company whose primary concern is making money, rather than making the 'perfect' game.

[karamazovnew]

with this economy im sure there was pressure to make money...dont blame the devs...

I'm not blaming anyone because blaming doesn't help anyway. I might appear to be ranting, but trust me, at the moment the tutorial mission ended, I was actually still hoping for the best. But then... :nope:

I just want to understand. I want to understand why I-war 2 sold so bad, I want to understand why Microprose and Looking Glass went down. But most of all I want to understand how Ubi could think that releasing an unfinished buggy game would actually work. It's like baking a cake and not putting in the sugar. "You can add all the sugar you want at home". No you can't. It needs to be baked with the sugar IN it. ;)

Edit: roger that Archlight, we're on the same Vibe :D