Assisted Plotting Mod + Contacts.cfg

[rudewarrior]

Hi everyone,

I have been messing with the Assisted Plotting Mod and looking at Contacts.cfg. I am trying to find a balance for how the contacts appear on the nav map to suit my tastes. What I would like to get is to have the contacts appear as they normally do at lower/middle zoom levels. Specifically, for a convoy, I'd like to have the convoy appear as a single square at the lower zoom levels. At the middle zoom levels, I'd like to have the formation of squares/diamonds that represent the individual ships. And at the highest levels of zoom, I'd like it to act like the assisted plotting mod, i.e. ships are not visible, unless you move your cursor over it, then you get the circle.

Could someone tell me which lines in the Contacts.cfg would achieve this effect? What would be even better is if someone could specifically explain what all the lines in Contacts.cfg that deal with Display Range and Decay Time actually do? Then I might be able to achieve this effect on my own.

Thanx in advance for the help.

[rudewarrior]

Okay, let me try this again, but I'll just start with a simpler couple of questions:

1. I have installed the merchant fleet mod over a copy of GWX. In the data/sea folder, with the exception of the Iceberg and Buoy files, do all of the files represent ships? If there are any that do not (such as Iceberg and Buoy), what are they?

2. When playing the game, on high zoom levels, when clicking on a ship on the navmap (i.e. clicking on the _shp.tga icon) a set of dashed lines extend out from the front of the _shp.tga icon, indicating its course. Which .tga file is this from?

Thanx for the help.

[LGN1]

Hi rudewarrior,

maybe this helps you:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=1179

Cheers, LGN1

[rudewarrior]

Hi rudewarrior,

maybe this helps you:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=1179

Cheers, LGN1

Hi LGN1,

I actually came across your thread while doing research. Admirable work, and I have to admit, I've stolen a couple of your ideas (as well as OLC's) to get the mix that I want. :D

I have been using h.sie's fix for sh3.exe, and since it now has inaccuracy built in to the watch officers estimation of contact distance, it got me to thinking. What I didn't like about my set up was that it was too easy to get range info at high or even medium zoom because of the _shp.tga files. I wanted some error built in. So what I have done is set the game to where I can only zoom in such that the map scale is 2500 m. I have also rigged the game such that when ship/warship icons appear on the map at the scale they are also using the largest icons, with one of the square (merchant) icons being about 125 m wide. I have also done the same for submarines, meaning that my boat is represented by a large circle. This gives me plenty of minor error built in, combined with a way to easily recognize the general formation of the ships, especially when they are changing course. Something I think would be easy to recognize IRL. This way I can also keep them from sneaking up on me, which I don't think would necessarily happen with the way the game would model it.

My other option was to do what you did and put an empty file in for all of the _shp.tga files, but that seemed too cumbersome, and if I just set a maximum zoom, error was built in anyway. The only problem is I can't use the Pato mod for determining distance using my submarine, but that may have been a little too accurate anyway.

I am using your dotted line for the sonar contacts, though. It makes it a little harder to tell how far away they are underwater, and I think that is important in this set up as well. Thanx for the hard work!:salute: