For what its worth, a way around the stadimeter bug I read somewhere is as follows (I have still to try but apparently it works)

The bug right now is that no matter what ship you identify the stadimeter is using a standard 20 m mast height. So the rule of the thumb to get the accurate distance is:

stadimeter_reading x real_mast_height / 20

I'll let you know when I try it a few times see if the really works.

Brilliant. Kudos to you, emtguf.

Yet another reason that Subsim is the friendliest and best place on the interwebs.

Nice tutorial however I believe this statement is wrong and feel free bash me on this however the Stadimeter is not broken at all. Features of ships were altered in WW2 to help make it harder to target a ship. Sometimes they would extend the length of the mast or mak something shorter if possible. This way the germans had to keep on their toes and find ways to properly target a ship. This is in fact a built in feature of the game to make targetting harder.

You have to learn from experience where to aim at a target and not expect a standard location on every ship. The only problem with this feature is it that I doubt ships were so varied from the start of the war. It would have taken a while to modify the ships. Allot of the time it was the crew on the ship that made the changes so they could make the trips with a smallest amount of danger possible.

However at the start of the war I am sure they did not have a detailed accurate mesurment on every ship adding to the problem of getting an accurate range.

The only way to ensure an accurate range was experience and trying several methods of targetting. You had to get a feel for how far away something was and if your range was accurate and if they altered the ship by extending the mast or funnels. They could even add more metal to the command deck.

The best thing for getting an accurate reading is experience and knowing what to aim at. Since it would be hard to simulate all the possible changes that could be done to modify the ship (making the ship taller and shorter)
and model them in game it was easier to just make one model and have you figure out what to aim for.

statement about stadimeter being broken is correct. There is a stock bug of target's mast height being stuck at 20m no matter what ship you select in the recognition manual. This will cause totally inaccurate stadimeter readings unless of course the ship has a mast height of 20m.

I have a totally automatic fix for it in my UIs mod. Once you select the ship from the recognition the mast height is automatically set for you to the correct value so that when you use the stadimeter you get correct range readings (if you use the stadimeter correctly that is :03:)

... or a manual solution through ERMc where I draw a green line in the rec manual where the stadimeter will give the correct range to every ship in the game as shown bellow.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4144/...e9608e21_b.jpg

The beauty in this is that it gives a lot of room for errors. Closer you are, better values you get but also the risk to be spotted will increase dramatically, so it add a great level of realism. If the target is far away, you will have a hard time to measure the range and the chances to get a perfect shot are minimal. Also, in stormy condition you will need to work hard to get these values, no computer will do the job for you.

So, no more millions of tons sunk in 1 patrol, exactly as it was in real life. Work hard and be proud of your achievements.

Tryed downloading your mission and using it however the mission starts you in a position where the ship intended is already aware of you and making evasive manovers. making it very hard to use the TDC

Can't download it anywhere ^(

My stadimeter seems to be broken. I put the line on the ships water line, but when i click on range in the TDC, i can only scroll the second line DOWNWARDS, below the first water line and not above it to the mast top.

Anyone have any idea whats going on with this?

Keith.