Outer door indicator?

[Sniper297]

One thing that's irritated me since the beginning of Silent Hunter is the torpedo tube outer doors. If you fail to make sure the outer door is open before firing, the sim automatically opens the door then fires the tube - but the delay makes the gyro angle obsolete so the fish invariably misses. In other words the gyro angle NOW is used when you hit the fire button, if the torpedo fires immediately the torpedo track is the same as the TDC solution. If there's a delay due to having the outer door closed the fish follows the track from a few seconds ago instead of the updated track, and misses.

Obvious cure is to make sure the outer door is open before hitting the fire button, but when you get busy it's easy to forget. Hit the Q key to check, if it says "closing tube 3" then you have to hit it again "opening tube 3" then wait a few seconds to make sure it's open before firing.

There's a built in animation in exterior view that shows the outer doors open or shut, how hard would it be to key some kind of indicator to that animation? For example the lights are dark when the tube is empty, blinking when it's loading, steady green when it's loaded and ready to fire. It should be possible for someone who knows programming to change the color from green to red or something when the outer door is open, or change the loaded light to red (or yellow or blue whatever) and only show green if the tube is loaded with the outer door open.

Any takers?

[Fish40]

Dug this up: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=187263&highlight=torpedo+tube+indicator+lights It seems to be a workaround to the problem. It was discussed ages ago, but to my knowledge no true solution.

[TorpX]

I also would like indicators lights on the panel, if someone knows how to do it. Anything that makes the torpedo tubes' operation more realistic would be a plus.

[Sniper297]

Well, that's why I asked for someone who knows programming. My experience was all back in the late 70s and early 80s with BASIC, I spent several years trying to learn C programming and decided it was almost as complicated as women, so beyond my comprehension. The sub's SIM and DAT files have references to the outer door animation, so the trigger programming is there, it just requires some programmer to tap into that animation subroutine to activate some kind of indicator.

Meantime Fish40, thanks for the tip - it works and is better than wasting torpedoes. :salute:

[Fish40]

And from the Torpedo Manual: http://maritime.org/doc/fleetsub/tubes/index.htm As far as the tube indicator lights are concerned, it seems to me that they are lit once the tube is ready to fire in all respects, including muzzle doors being opened. Chapter 10, pp. 121-122.

[merc4ulfate]

Nice find fish40.

688 had the indicator lights like your speaking of.

The mods I play you can not fire if the doors have been closed you have to open them manually.

A rule I go by is called memory. If I have opened them for an attack but at some point I have to dive below 100-150 feet then I know I must reopen the doors. I surface and simply go and my first duty is to reopen the doors.

If someone were to create an indicator light I would find the simplest solution would be light on for doors open ready to fire, light off doors closed unable to fire. There really isn't a need for three lights simply one on or off.

This is eye candy reminder of something a commander had to do any way for firing point procedures.