SH3 Steam + GWX General Questions

[promitheas]

Hello again lovely people.

I've been reading several posts on here about mods and other stuff, and a common theme I've seen is that certain patches are for all intents and purposes "required" to play the game well.

I found this lovely guide (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2724925&postcount=4) by duce_de_zoop (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/member.php?u=417407) which seems to outline in great detail how to get from a fresh Steam Silent Hunter 3 installation, to one with
GWX
H.SIE patch
4GB patch (unnecessary for me as I'm on Linux running under proton which forces the same behaviour but I can still apply it with wine)
ARB WideGui 1920x1080
Tycho Sh3 Patch
and JSGME.


Since I'm probably going to have to/want to do all this anyway at some point, better now than later as I'm still only on my 3rd patrol in my current campaign. On that note, My question is if there is a possibility of copying my saves somewhere safe, going through all the steps outlined in the guide above, and then restoring them. At this moment I have GWX, Ahnenerbe's WideGui mod, and a couple other smaller ones like Thompsen's Sound pack. :icon333: Would the fact that I have these mods active at the time of my last save affect my campaign if I restore it after the guide above, considering I will be activating largely the same mods (other than the WideGui mod)?

My next two questions are about the UI, so if I end up applying ARB WideGui in the end the questions might not be relevant but I'll ask them anyway. The first is this: :icon333: My Karte 1 in the NavMap is in Russian. I can read very little Russian, and can make out a couple words, but the fact that the text is quite small (in general) adds to the difficulty of uunderstanding the map. How can this be changed?

Second question about UI: :icon333: I've watched

Bstanko6's video guide on the RAOBF (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JQbA-BgWD4&t=182s)

and made (i.e downloaded 2 images from a user on here and simply edited them into one image, I genuinely can't find the thread in question but if anyone can and link to it below it would be wonderful. I take no credit xD) a cheatsheet for the RAOBF. However when calculating range for example, at the beginning when you need to count notches, I've tried it several times and keep getting a range less than what I can measure on the map. Here is the cheatsheet: https://imgur.com/a/TJygbVA

Remember, I'm using Ahnenerbe's 1920 x 1080 WideGui mod so that is the periscope design I am using. :icon333: Furthermore, do you count the middle wires as ticks or do you ignore them?

:icon333: And lastly, here is a screenshot of my active mods: https://imgur.com/a/aoae6Li. I've noticed that my crew wears their regular military clothing instead of civilian casual clothing, which makes me think that there is something not going great with my mod order. Is this just something i need to play around with until I find a combination that works?

Many thanks in advance guys!!! I'll be waiting for advice before proceeding with anything, as I have a pretty stable setup for this game right now.
:Kaleun_Salute::Kaleun_Cheers:

[Hooston]

Have to tread carefully as there have been some heated arguments about some youtube videos :03:. The world of SH3 is somewhat messed up about this.

The theory is that the apparent angular size of something (e.g. the target mast) is related to the actual size in m and the range. if you know two you can get the third. To avoid horrid tangents it's best done with arcs, which is perfectly good for small angles.


Specifically range in m = (180/pi) * size of target in m / angular size of target in degrees

This sum can be done using an electronic calculator, or a mechanical calculator like your attack disk/RAOBF, or on a piece of paper, or in your head, or by asking your cat. Many of these methods were available in WW2.



Most SH3 GUI's use degrees for both vertical and horizontal scales, Unfortunately this is all messed up by the availability of x1.5 or x6 or even sometimes x10 magnifications. You need to find out at what magnification the ticks are degrees and may have to multiply the formula above by four. 180/pi=57 and 4*180/pi=229. The RAOBF will have been set up for a specific magnification. Probably... it's been a while since I've used it.



To make life easier (but in our case more difficult) snipers, artillerymen and real ww2 attack scopes like to measure angles in mil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliradian) or milliradians as this gets rid of the horrible 180/pi

range in km = size of target in m / angular size of the target in mil

There are a few GUI's which use tens of mil for the vertical scale. The calculators may, or may not, have been adjusted for this.

Lastly - a little secret. The range does not really matter much if your boat is pointed more or less straight at the target (gyro angle near zero). in real life the recognition manual was not very useful and the target length and mast height would not be known accurately; you can see this from the wildly inaccurate tonnage claims made by real life Kaleuns. Educated guesswork is usually good enough and is also realistic.

Last lastly - if in a hurry fire a spread around 10 degrees ahead of the target. Surprising how often this works.

[promitheas]

Have to tread carefully as there have been some heated arguments about some youtube videos :03:. The world of SH3 is somewhat messed up about this.

The theory is that the apparent angular size of something (e.g. the target mast) is related to the actual size in m and the range. if you know two you can get the third. To avoid horrid tangents it's best done with arcs, which is perfectly good for small angles.



Specifically range in m = (180/pi) * size of target in m / angular size of target in degrees


This sum can be done using an electronic calculator, or a mechanical calculator like your attack disk/RAOBF, or on a piece of paper, or in your head, or by asking your cat. Many of these methods were available in WW2.



Most SH3 GUI's use degrees for both vertical and horizontal scales, Unfortunately this is all messed up by the availability of x1.5 or x6 or even sometimes x10 magnifications. You need to find out at what magnification the ticks are degrees and may have to multiply the formula above by four. 180/pi=57 and 4*180/pi=229. The RAOBF will have been set up for a specific magnification. Probably... it's been a while since I've used it.



To make life easier (but in our case more difficult) snipers, artillerymen and real ww2 attack scopes like to measure angles in mil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliradian) or milliradians as this gets rid of the horrible 180/pi


range in km = size of target in m / angular size of the target in mil


There are a few GUI's which use mil for the vertical scale. The calculators may, or may not, have been adjusted for this.


Lastly - a little secret. The range does not really matter much if your boat is pointed more or less straight at the target. Educated guesswork is usually fine and is also realistic.


Last lastly - if in a hurry fire a spread around 10 degrees ahead of the target. Surprising how often this works.

Hmmm, so far I was using 6x magnification as the video said to use max. Perhaps for my periscope design that is wrong and I need to use 1.5x. Thanks!

[Hooston]

I think the RAOBF is set up for x6 magnification. Assuming the GUI graphics are compatible with the RAOBF it sounds like you are doing it right.
Try turning map contacts on and run the Convoy Attack training academy mission. The destroyer should be passing about 1km in front of you and will not attack until you do something unpleasant so you can practice on it at leisure.

As I said, don't get too worried about the range, it's the target speed that is the hard bit. There's a whole other argument about how to measure that...
Take a look at Tonci87's youtube channel to see a real attempt at using realistic methods.

[promitheas]

I think the RAOBF is set up for x6 magnification. Assuming the GUI graphics are compatible with the RAOBF it sounds like you are doing it right.
Try turning map contacts on and run the Convoy Attack training academy mission. The destroyer should be passing about 1km in front of you and will not attack until you do something unpleasant so you can practice on it at leisure.

As I said, don't get too worried about the range, it's the target speed that is the hard bit. There's a whole other argument about how to measure that...
Take a look at Tonci87's youtube channel to see a real attempt at using realistic methods.

Thanks, ill give it a shot. Do you happen to have any insight into any of the other stuff in my OP by any chance?

[Hooston]

Save games are very dodgy in SH3. The game saves a copy of some of the game state against your username and merges this with data from the master program data when you load. The process is very delicate, has a bug somewhere and certainly cannot cope with mismatches due to introducing new mods. The more that is going on in the game the more likely this is to fail - even if you have not changed mods! Modding mid-career when the boat is in port seems to be fairly safe, but no guarantees.
The Russian language thing sounds like you have got data from OneAlex somehow. Most maps are in English or German or somewhere inbetween.
No idea about the crew's clothes. My crew have got very relaxed about it, but I will have to talk to Matrosenobergefreiter Lube about his bikini.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/2580/O8NPzX.png

[promitheas]

Save games are very dodgy in SH3. The game saves a copy of some of the game state against your username and merges this with data from the master program data when you load. The process is very delicate, has a bug somewhere and certainly cannot cope with mismatches due to introducing new mods. The more that is going on in the game the more likely this is to fail - even if you have not changed mods! Modding mid-career when the boat is in port seems to be fairly safe, but no guarantees.
The Russian language thing sounds like you have got data from OneAlex somehow. Most maps are in English or German or somewhere inbetween.
No idea about the crew's clothes. My crew have got very relaxed about it, but I will have to talk to Matrosenobergefreiter Lube about his bikini.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/2580/O8NPzX.png

:haha:

I ended up reinstalling it last night and patching it with everything necessary for ARB WideGui. Still have yet to play for an extended amount of time to check stability, but it feels like itll work. Ill be writing up a detailed guide for how to do it on Linux soon as I had to do some stuff in a different way to get it to work.

As for saving, I avoid it while on patrol, but if i absolutely have to i try to get far away from any ships/wrecks/units/land and do it there.

Thanks!