They should be improved, yes.

As always, many thanks guys.

There was talk a while back about 'scope/TBT optics in terms of field of view and scaling with respect to the utility of the calibrations for estimating target size/range.

Was that issue addressed in this patch?

Wonderful news! Thank you!

Two things:

1) While the first post has been updated with the link for the new patch, the announcement news "above the fold" still touts October 2008 as the latest version. Many people just glancing in won't see that there is a new update.

2) Is RFB with this latest patch still compatible with the latest RSRDC for RFB 1.5, or do we need to wait for a new version of RSRDC?

Thanks again. Y'all have given SH4 real staying power.

The new RSRD patch has been out a couple days now (and is compatible). :)

Sonar Controls
 

I prefer to have the sonar controls as they were in RFB 1.4. You could pinpoint sources more easily with that. Also, I would like to get back the home/end camera control.

Is there an easy way to achieve this and still use RFB 1.5?

yeah! lock now works just fine:) Nice you have changed the lenses in deck gun, now is much more convenient. There's something wrong with speeches when underwater. In response to A (mainain depth) or changing to shallower depth I've heard "Dive, dive" speech.
I like new kind of loading and shooting the deck gun during bad weather. Now leaving the shooting to the man make sense. I wonder if their accuracy will raise with gunnery lvl.
New sinking mechanism is great and damages from deck gun looks good too.
Is it possible to add some speeches after torpedo hit and ship sunk? I've recently played SHIII with GWX and miss the joy and excitment of my crew:)
I miss periscope graphics from the earlier RFB. There were some markings on the rubber band around the lense. I know it's not realistic but looked much nicer then plain black screen.
Earlier bearing indicator seemed to me much historically acurate. Large round numbers, with nice green glow at night.

I wonder if you can put in the next version of manual the core SH4 bugs that can't be worked around. Just like in GWX (I do like this mod:))

Thank you very much for your job.

jason210: I think Home/End is for the radar /hydrophone. Home/Del is for height of free camera - it works only with Shift after adding some camera mod fo the RFB in the past.

Loaded up the new RFB. I started a career with the USS Nautilus out of Pearl,start date was one of teh May '42 dates (I think it was May I wrote it down but now I can't find my notes). Anyway . . .

I checked teh duty roster before heading out. The Deck watch billets were filled, and I had one guy to handle the engines on each watch, but the rest of the crew was AWOL and there were the 18 extra hanging around to fill out the crew. I'm guessing this is a bug.

Hi...

I just had a similar problem on a different mission last night... I have RFB and RSRD loaded... Barely had enough people to flesh out one watch rotation... Man - that last port visit must have been a good one...

Quick question: Is there any way to remove the occlusion of the binoculars by the crew and the conning tower? I know that it's unrealistic to see through solid objects, but it's also unrealistic to assume that the officer can't peek around an obstacle or move to the other side of the tower to take a 360-degree view.

Of course it's possible to use the arrow keys to change one's position, but this is too slow (and too annoying) for the purpose. It's too easy to end up flying out over empty air with no gain in realism.

If anything, it's the TBT view that should be occluded, since (unlike the captain's foot) it is actually fixed in place and can't look towards the stern.

So are there any mods to remove binoc occlusion? Thanks for any advice!

Yeah, I saw this was a discussion. I'm also in the no occlusion camp, myself, since the "walk around" camera doesn't feel at all realistic to me.

There was a second TBT typically mounted at the aft end of the fairwater, hence why I've chosen to clip out the sub's superstructure in the TBT camera view.

Binoculars...not sure yet what to do about that. I'm thinking about chucking the whole free camera portion of that view and restore it to a fixed position with a view like the TBT. What do you all think?

Free cam is useful for screenshots, and some folks like the clipped binos. <shrug>

I have to say I love that free roaming bridge camera and the obstructed binoculars
Am I the only one who finds it useful? I mean you can keep track of which bearing you're looking at simply because a part of the bridge or a watchman comes into the view. I think it's great to have to 'walk' to the starboard side of the bridge to be able to take a closer look at that contact which was reported

ah well

does this patch then replace both Rockin Robbins' 'obstructed binoc view' and that recent 'lockfix' mod?

To me, the "walkaround" feels unnatural to the point of unrealism: it's too slow and too imprecise, so that the dance of "look-move-look" feels more like operating a loose marionette than stepping around the tower. It seems we have a choice between one seamless look-around (no occlusion), and an artificially slowed molasses-walk-and-look-around. I think the former feels like being a sub captain, while the latter feels like playing a bad mid-90s first-person shooter.

Plus, ending up levitating over open water is a huge immersion-breaker.

Of course, YMMV.

That's what it was intended to do. I don't think they obstructed the TBT like I did but I'll have to check my patch to see that it is the latest. I was offline for over 3 weeks with a power supply failure. For now my answer is that they obstructed the binoculars, the jury is out on the TBT (last night my version of the patch left it unobstructed) and the lock fix is also in the patch.