hello Kara,

i measured the Bismarck in sh4 and i found that its length is 270m
i see that in .cfgs its length is setted at 251m so i can definetely say that the length for Bismarck is not right

keep up the real good work :up:

something else that i noticed is that if you press on ship's name (in order to bring up the rec manual) the only thing is showing is that length's bar of rec manual .
if i clic on recmanual icon then its ok ...the rec appears
is it possible to make the rec manual appear when i clic on ship's name ?
and also the length's bar of rec is displaced . if it is hard to place the length's bar to the proper place then i think that can be putted tottaly outside of screen (as this bar is not needed at all)
see the pics:
http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/h...an94/kara1.jpg
http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/h...an94/kara2.jpg

Thanks Makman. The recognition manual problem is hardcoded. You'll see the exact same behavior if you go to the Obs Scope or UZO and press on the "SHIP:" label in the notepad. The first time you click it, it works, after that it just shows the small scale and it doesn't go away unless you open up the manual by hand and close it again. For example, for me, the scale under the ships has never been in the right position. I had already explained this small quirk in the small guide. Unfortunately, since I had based and tested the AOB inner circle from my readings on the Bismarck, you can guess what it did to the precision :wah:.

my thought is that the u-jagd rings are well made as it was in original images ( a very tiny misallinged marks there when turn the inner ring 180 degrees but really this is not big deal)
what is needed ,imo, is to find a ship with correct dimensions and see if the original rings works (without changes at the rings set)
if there is not even one ship with correct dimensions then you will have to find the correct dimensions for one ship
i can find the real mast for the bismarck if you like and then use this ship as a guide for the rings (although ...i believe that the rings are ok with its original set)
the problem with the sh4 is that i cannot import the malloys ruler in the game in order to be able to get the EXACT distances on map ( i used some 'time eaters' tricks to confirm the true speed of Bismarck in the mission i created to use for finding its true length ) (becuase ,sometimes , you set the speed- in ME - at 6 knots BUT ,for some reason that only the sh's cursed engine knows,the ship is not doing EXACTLY 6 knots ingame!)
but i can do it (i think ) to get its real mast ...have to try it
do you want me to ...proceed ?

Yeah, part of the problem is that ships start mission at zero speed and accelerate, and this tends to screw the results. :hmmm:

yes Hitman,thats why the ship must be set to start its 'trip' far away from us !
but ,again, i remember when i was creating the TMT mod that for some reason and only for SOME ships was not doing EXACTLY the setted speed (always for these measurments the wind was set to 0).probably has to do with its settings at their .sims (engine power...etc)...i really don't know

For any ship in SH4, there are three heights, the historicaly accurate height of the ship in question, the height (or is it length) set in the config file and the height of the 3d model. None of these dimensions have to (and often don't) match up. Same goes for lengths. The only way to check the model you are testing is to export it from S3D, measure it in a 3D program and that's the length/height to use in testing.

EDIT: Oh yes and you can't measure height accurately ever, due to some very poor mechanics in the game.

you can measure using S3D too, one unit in S3D is 10m.
e.g. if you place a node at the bow of a ship and the coordinates are 0;0;3.2 and you place a node at the stern, coordinates 0;0;-2.8 the length of the ship is (3.2-(-2.8))*10=60m

Yes good point, absolutely right DarkFish, you can do that, but I was thinking mainly that if you have Max, or similar, it's much faster to export and click measure, than it is to try to place nodes and nudge them into position. I should rephrase that the only way to see what length the ship is in game, is to measure the 3D model in some way :DL.

oh Darkfish...if only i knew that when i was making the TMT.... i would have save a lot of time ! ( where are these infos when you need them...).VERY GOOD METHOD you pointed !:up:

@Nisgeis: you can get the length in game .i measured Bismarck's length and found it 'close' to 270m .i am saying 'close' becuase the clock in sh4 is showing only seconds (without demicals) .the time that Bismarck needed to cross the vertical line of peri was something between 87-88 sec .i took it as 87.5 and then length=(6x87.5x1.852)/3.6= 270.08333

i measured it again with the method suggested by Darkfish and the s3d showed length=270.9
the difference is not big deal (the cause of the difference is the exact time that Bismarck needed to pass the vertical line.the exact time was 87.75 and not 87.5 that i guessed it was).BUT if i knew the method that Darkfish suggested i would for sure used that method...you save a lot of time . so, both methods work and that proves that there is not only one way to get the real length (real for the game ...not for real life)

about the mast value:

the mast value that you will set at .cfgs is the value that also the player will see ingame. and this value is exactly the value ( and the only one ) that the game is using to calculate the range (and the player via stadimeter).so,if the mast value is wrong at .cfgs then the calculated ranges will be also wrong . and it doesn't matter if it is a value for mast , you can choose any spot of the ship as a 'hot' spot to aim with stadimeter ( angle....mast...range)
and yes, you can find the accurate mast value (especially at sh4 which has better resolutions) .the only thing that you need is..patience (and as i said,it doesn't have to be the mast's height ...you can choose any part of the ship...the more vissible is..prefered like flags or funnels in some cases)

s3d (or 3d programmes) doesn't seem very helpfull at getting the real mast becuase you don't know where the waterline is for each ship. their .sims files are controling the part of the ship that will be above ( or under) the water and each ship has its own settings at .sims .BUT it will be very nice if someone find a way to get them from s3d . if this happens then it will be a piece of cake the fixes to ships's dimensions
but as i was writting this post .... i remembered something (but i am not sure about this)...someone has allready made some fixes for ships's dimensions for sh4 or no ?

I don't recommend starting until I come up with the new marks and AOBF. If we can trust those we'd be along way into solving this. I'm away from home now but have difficulty sleeping when I think about them :D. An Angular Angle of 72 looks just right and I'd hate to change that but a milirad reticule will be way too big for it. If I make the viewfinder bigger, it will be cut off at the edges on some aspect ratios. But if I leave it as it is I can't convert it to fake a 18 degree Hollywood look (the horizontal and vertical line meet at 18 degrees up/left). And the fake reticule had 0-2-4-6 etc marks which would be too spaced apart. And since I had to move the AOBF inside the viewfinder, I don't want to see any marks. But when I go to an Angular Angle of 80 the original marks show up at the edges. Drives me nuts :damn:.

:hmmm: Wait a sec... I leave it at 72, use the real reticule but move the horizontal part up, make the view finder just a little bigger, then adjust the AOBF inside to cover the marks and fill any outside gap with black. That way I can keep the Stadimeter, the Ship name and the Reject Button outside the AOBF without making the damn thing too small. YES :haha:, can't wait to get home. By the way I've figured how to solve the handle thing. If you want I'll leave the current ones as a visual reminder of where to click at the sides of the screen. But the actual buttons will be invisible and bigger than the panels. When closed, you can click anywere at the sides of the screen to make them appear. When opened, you can click any empty part of the panels to hide them (except for dials and buttons, ofc). :yeah:.

Oh by the way, the panels... do you think they're too bright? I might go with a simple black background with a rubber lens rim and they look just too bright and foggy to me. I think I migh tincrease contrast a bit and lower brightness for most tgas :o

The waterline is the origin of the ship, so, you should be able to measure the height of the mast in S3D that way.

Be warned though, that the ship will 'sink' into the water the further the camera is from the ship, so that will spoil accuracy as the larger the range error will be as the waterline will appear higher and higher.

I have determined that the following procedure will provided an "accurate" mast height for the .cfg

Using S3D create a "test" node and slave it to the main ships node.
Place the "test node" on the keel under the "tallest" mast and note the "y" value.
Move the "test" node to the top of mast and again note the "y" value.
Determine the total number of units from keel to mast top and multiply by 10 to get the length in meters
Open the .sim file with S3D and note the "draught" under unit_ship/obj_hydro/Surfaced and "subtract" the value you generated in the last step.

I have conducted a number of different test today to "validate" the mast height are correct.


During testing I noted that the values for mast height and ship length for ships for OM will have to be redone as they are inaccurate. I will start working on this shortly

hello Lurker,

as i have measured the mast height for Bismarck (and it is for sure correct after a lot of testing in the game) ...i found it 55.55m
but i couldn't find this value via s3d .please measure the bismarck's mast with your method and tell me your result

Please note that all my testing has been on merchant, however I just looked at the Bismarck and there is a "0" value set in the "draught" field in the .sim file. However the value in S3d from the 0 "y" value to the top of the "after mast" is 5.52 which works out to 55.2 meters.

I personally know that a value in the "draught" field will effect were the ship 3d model sits in the water during game play.


Just to let you know the type of testing I did, I pick three merchants at random from the MFM add on in v720 and used the procedure I presented in my last post on each one. Then using the Mission editor created "map zones" of 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, and 2500 meters and placed each of the modified ships on each of the circles and had the ships set to "docked" so that can't move. After launching the single mission set to "manual targeting" mode, ID each ships via the rec-manual and then using the "stock" Stadimeter generated "range" estimates. In all cases the range error was less that 0.05 percent.

Also I conducted test on the "length" values for these merchants. When using S3d to measure from the Bull Nose ( front of the ship ) to the fantail and using those values for ships length to calculate ships speed, the soluation was within .01% of true speed.

FYI the tool I used to confirm my "Length/speed" findings was "Solution Solver 1.3.2 by gutted"