SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Is anyone else here navigating like this.

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- - Is anyone else here navigating like this. (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=87371)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dowly

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karl-Heinz Jaeger

A navigator option would be pretty sweet, and make things that much more realistic and tis a shame it wasn't included as a feature in the game. However I was thinking perhaps as a compromise to our ever growing wish list of features some of our resident modders may be able to work on a Navigator mod, which would factor your Navigators fatigue, experience and morale into plotting calculations which could result in errors in course and speed so as to let you drift off position sometimes by small amounts and sometimes by large amounts. It would be a far higher degree of error in heavy seas and under storm sails and this would add a whole new dimension to the sim. What you would actually experience is your position on the map updating periodically, exactly like a contact report and the frequency and accuracy of it would depend on all the above mentioned factors. I think that would be a fair compromise for those who wish manual nav was possible, and thoughts??

Just like in B17 II! :yep:

There's a B17 II??!! I got the first one, The Mighty Eighth and left it by the wayside long ago as a hugely incomplete game with too many non workable features. Is the 2nd one much of an improvement over the first, ie worth getting?? :hmm:

Not to drift off-topic, I wish I had the skills to be able to mod SHIII even just a little. It would be nice to be able to overhaul all the bugs and features I don't like, tweak here, replace here. Pity theres still so much to be done even after all this time.

Astronavigation works well in FS2004, there's even a sextant available. But it won't work properly in SH3. We simply don't have the necessary tools to navigate. Besides, I think it's a bit too hardcore for a softcore game. :hmm:

If you want to learn real navigation, get FS2004 with the MAAM DC-3 and the associated bubble-sextant mod. With some tweaking the sextant can be made compatible with all aircraft.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karl-Heinz Jaeger

Hehe, thereÂ´s B17 Flying Fortress and B17 II: The mighty eight. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karl-Heinz Jaeger

(...) would factor your Navigators fatigue, experience and morale into plotting calculations which could result in errors in course and speed so as to let you drift off position sometimes by small amounts and sometimes by large amounts. It would be a far higher degree of error in heavy seas and under storm sails and this would add a whole new dimension to the sim. What you would actually experience is your position on the map updating periodically, exactly like a contact report and the frequency and accuracy of it would depend on all the above mentioned factors. I think that would be a fair compromise for those who wish manual nav was possible, and thoughts??

Navigator fatigue and all that wouldn't affect course and speed - He's reading these off a gauge. Well, gauges. The navigational error of a DR plot comes from currents, wind drifts, yaw, and to a lesser extend, compass error.

The map could still be updated continually. I can plot a DR position for two weeks from now - Wether or not we'll be there, I don't know, and really, no one does. I can plot one for this very precise moment, but again, we don't know if it's correct. Once you have two observed position, you can deduce drift (Well, current, really) from that, then counter its effect to get back on course, and obtain estimated positions. But that assumes that the current will stay constant over the period of time between two fixes, which it might not. You might also have currents and stream charts, with tidal tables and all... Good luck.

Add to that leeway, which is hard to predict, and what you have is a magnificient piece of guesswork.

After that, you have your only way to obtain a fix at sea, and that's celnav. So you'd have to have a very precise chronometer, with the matching celestial sphere, and - unless you want people to start bitching about realism again - a very complex optical model, to take into account dip, refraction, etc. Then you'd need almanacs, for the historical period covered by the game. And a calculator, and about a page of paper per LOP.

Then you advance the LOP. See the chapter about DR and EP.

Then you obtain another LOP.

On top of all the other thing one needs to do when one is playin SHIII... I'd call it hardcore. It's technically feasible, but it'd be pretty damned hardcore. I couldn't do it right off the bat... So I'd say most casual players wouldn't bother. I wouldn't bother, except maybe to practice before an exam.

I'd much rather the developpers spent their time on other things, that would have a broader appeal :)

The idea of a navigational error variable is interesting, however. It might grow in relation to how long you haven't seen the sky, wether or not you can see land, and so on... And the value would be affected by your navigator. That'd be great.

But manually going up there with a sextant? Screw that. Unless it's LAN :-D