About stars and constellations...

[Ryder7]

Hi everybody,I'm an average Silent Hunter3 player, not used about maritime navigation irl, but as for other kind of simulators, I do enjoy a bit of realism and the fact that I have to learn things. Thanks to this forum, I've learned a lot about SH3 and about its main mods (personnaly I usually play with GWX3, MAgui, and a few other small mods) but I still have a lot to practice and learn.
Recently, I saw a very old YT video of a guy navigating only with compas and watch so I installed a mod from subsim that removes the real-time GPS alike icon of my sub on the map (also had to make blank files for the particular icons made by GWX for each type of sub). Now this is way more fun, but then, I've watched Alpheratz's excellent videos about real navigation in SH5 and had a total blast about coastal and celestial navigation, very fascinating and a bit difficult for me. Then I wondered if there is a way to have some sort of sextant for SH3, and found one here, that looks and works in fact much more like ancient navigation tools in terms of angular precision, but well, still better than nothing for a start I guess. (Apparently a ''realNav" mod for SH3 was mentionned but i wasn't able to find it anywhere, only a modification of the sextant provided with it. I managed to make it appear in my HUD by editting the menu.ini)

My questions are:


-How accurate are the stars positions in SH3 for that period of time?
-Is there a way to make the sky darker at night and stars a bit bigger/brighter?
-Do I have any chance that almanach and charts provided by Alpheratz for SH5 twos may work for SH3?


I'd be more than happy if I were able to make some sort of working celestial navigation for SH3, but my knowledges are far too much limited I'm affraid, so if somebody have piece of advices or knows about mods I don't, please tell me more.


(I do have a SH5 steam version, but never gave it a try because of my crappy computer, and being repelled by both the Ubi thing and loading times I gave up about that for now.)


Anyways, thanks for the excellent community you have here!


Ryder7 from France.

[Hooston]

I think the map projection is going to be a big problem. Strangely, given the excellent attention to detail elsewhere, SH3 is a "flat earther" game. All the distances are those measured "on the map" rather than on a real globe. This means, for example, that it's a very long way from Scotland to Narvik in Norway. It makes it very difficult to properly simulate maximum ranges for the various boats.

I am not aware of any mods which solve this, although SH3 folks always surprise me...

[Aktungbby]

Ryder7!...on the surface after 3 years of 'silent running'!:Kaleun_Salute:

[FUBAR295]

There is a mod that allows for celestial navigation :

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=113975&highlight=RealNav

I have tried it and it works, so if you have interest, check out that thread.

[Ryder7]

Hooston: Wow, thanks for that information. Silent Hunter 3 occurs on the DiscWorld, then... Do you know if they changed this for SH4 and 5?



Aktungbby: Thanks! Yeah, it seems that submarine enthusiats are that kind of shady undercover people with deep feelings.


FUBAR295: thank you very much for that. I'm gonna give this a try ASAP.

[Sean C]

If you need any help with the actual process, let me know! :up:

[Hooston]

I guess SH3's change in map E/W scale as you go north does not necessarily have to affect celestial navigation, it's just annoying in campaigns. Once you realise the problem it gnaws at you. Sorry about that.

The flat earther problem is carried through to the 3d screens in that ships do not sink below the horizon at long ranges. Fortunately there are mods for that, which I have never managed to get working.

I've never tried SH4 and 5, my ancient laptop only just manages to run SH3!

[Ryder7]

Once you realise the problem it gnaws at you. Sorry about that.
(...)
I've never tried SH4 and 5, my ancient laptop only just manages to run SH3!


No worries, it's kinda fun anyway to know such details about various simulators, but I'll go with it.


Same situation here about "ancient" hardware lol

[Ryder7]

If you need any help with the actual process, let me know! :up:


Well, I took a look at your website, it seems indeed that you are involved about celestial navigation! :o



As for now, I checked the link FUBAR295 gave me here:https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...hlight=RealNav (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=113975&highlight=RealNav)
I wasn't able to download any material since links are very old, but this sent me to this: https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=163113&highlight=stellarium
where I learnt about python script that sends your savegame coordinates and time to Stellarium, but this didn't work because both Python and Stellarium last versions being too much different.


Finally, I found this post https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=135215&highlight=Stellarium about mods and charts needed for celestial nav in both SH3 and 4, with a more recent script. (Some links are working, and I still have to take a look at those files in case I find answers there before asking too many stupid questions, but it was very late then. Sub simulators really are time consuming, both playing and modding lol...)


I had better results with those scripts and with reverting to an older Stellarium version, but was only able to insert my savegame coordinates in it, whereas the time of day remains the actual IRL one. (There are some explanations, but they are more oriented about SH4, even if SH3 is also mentioned, since both games seem to have the same engine, and I assume those guys started their work with 3 and evolved it for 4, but there are maybe differences I am not able to identify).


So, this is where I'm stuck for now. I have a few questions though:


-Do you have any other method than Stellarium, maybe another program, or in-game itself to make your celestial readings? I do have an old sextant-like thing I managed to display in my GUI, but I don't know if there are any FOV issues I must check before readings, and more annoying for me, I find stars really hard to see because nights are very bright and they are very small.


-On the assumption I manage to make Stellarium displaying both my position and time in-game, how is it possible to make the readings in this program?


I certainly will have tons of questions about celestial navigation itself in the future, but for now I am looking for a way to make things work so I can start my educational course on that matter with the best foot forward.



Thanks.


EDIT: I just figured out that you have to manually input date and time with the script, and that you only have to point the celestial body in Stellarium to have some readings... Well, gotta read a lot of stuff about celestial nav and posts on subsim about it, now.