lol, I must have just missed you on the SH4 forum, Mike.

Excellent job :up:

So when you have your position, how do you mark your location on the SH3 navmap if it doesn't have Lon/Lat markers?

It does. Look at the edge of the map-view carefuly, and pan the view.

I'm going nuts here. I'm running GWX 2.0 and I'm not seeing Lon/Lat numbers on my chart in the F5 view.

JMR
all around the perimeter of the F5 screen are alternating black/white, hacture marks. they represent the degrees. What most of us have been doing in counting (left or right) from prime-meridian, or at the beginning of a patrol, the Lat/Long of the port is given and we count from there.

Most times, when nav is primary, I draw in vertical & horizontal lines connecting those hacture marks, top with the bottom, and left with the right to give me a geo coord chart.

Hi, does anyone know how do you convert the positions from the campaign_LND.mis to real lat/lon values ?

for ex

[Unit 60]
Name=Heligoland
Class=NavalBase
Type=407
Origin=German
Side=2
Commander=0
CargoExt=-1
CargoInt=-1
CfgDate=19380101
DeleteOnLastWaypoint=true
DockedShip=false
GameEntryDate=19380101
GameEntryTime=0
GameExitDate=19450503
GameExitTime=2359
EvolveFromEntryDate=false
Long=946687.000000 <<<<<<<<<<<<<
Lat=6500844.000000 <<<<<<<<<<<<<
Height=-27.334999
Heading=180.000000
Speed=0.000000
CrewRating=2
DelayMin=0
ReportPosMin=-1
ReportPosProbability=100
RandStartRadius=0.000000
NextWP=0


thank you

I believe you divide those numbers by: 120,000

I came up with 54 deg 10.4 min N by 007 deg 53.3 min E.

btw: any negatives (-) numbers LAT = South, LONG = West

I don't know if this will have any bearing, but check this thread post 1 and 4

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=134939

That looks about right in my atlas. :)

This is how I determine Geo Coord in SH3.

If you'll notice the F5 screen, I've taken the "ruler" tool and connected the hacture marks at the top of the chart with those at the bottom (Meridians); and likewise, I've connected the hacture marks on the left(west) side of the chart with those on the right.

These hacture marks, the alternating white/black marks around the perimeter of the chart, are the Latitude & Longitude degrees. They only show up when you're within a certain range. If you zoom in/out too far, they will disappear from the chart.

You will also note, that I've used the ruler tool to draw in the Longitudes from my homeport, Lorient, using Roman Numerals. That way it's easy for me to keep track without having to go all the way back to the prime meridian to recount.

Too time consuming, you say? Well, think about it for a second, what was everyone doing in RL to prepare for a voyage? The grunts were restocking with ammo, victuals, fuel...
...the Navigator was futsing with charts, publication, notams, mine-field locations, wx reports.

I personally take the time to draw my course using the ruler tool from the mouth of the harbor.

I no longer need worry about the helmsman falling asleep at the wheel and drifting all over creation. 6SJ7GT's Python script with Stellarium now lets me navigate and rely on the heavens above to show me the way. I pretty much do most of my navigation on plotting sheets off screen, and so far, comparing them to the F5 screen, they are identical.

It takes 10 hours between evening twilight round of stars FIX to dawn twilight round of stars FIX, and unless you're sitting at the cpu with your eyes plasterd on the screen you'll miss the suttle drift (or in storm, major drift). I convert km into nm and use D=SxT to determine my DR and assumed position and plot my sight reductions from there...and viola, the heavens have placed where I really am, not where I thought I was using DR alone.

I've noticed, along with everyone else, that the game retards DR by about 40 nm or so...still, with Python and Stellarium, I no longer worry about it.

Cheers,



http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1489/1sh3cm8.th.jpg

*Thumbs up*
Some very good suggestions don1reed that I'm gonna try out as I get time to play again. :up:

I like it! Will give it a go when current patrol finished :up:

Little off topic, but in the real world, how do you use a sextant on the deck of a heaving ship?

One question:
How do you guys make SH hide your sub icon on the nav map ?

I have some edited files 'UnitSub*.tga' in 'data\menu\gui\units\'.
But when in the game, I still see a flickering little dot on the map (instead of the sub icon). This is really annoying because I always have to look away from that to not >>accidently<< cheat by seeing my acutal position when I shouldn't. :-?

That I have asked myself too from time to time. Perhaps it takes just a bit longer to get a reading you are satisfied with ? Would make it harder to navigate, that's true.

@jmr: The construction of a sextant allows the navigator to view the horizon through the horizon glass. The heavenly body is viewed and reflected by a mirror at the top of the index arm to be co-viewed through the horizon glass, and by slowly turning the micrometer drum at the bottom of the index arm, brings the horizon and body together as one.

The stars appears as pinpoints whereas the sun, moon and planets need corrections for semi-diameter and oblateness and horizontal parallax(moon) due to their relative larger size.

While the deck is pitching, the navigator tries to remain plumb & level, keeping the heavenly body and horizon in near proximity in the glass. He waits until his craft is atop a wave (not in a trough) to make his final adjustment to bring the horizon the body together as one and yells (if very windy) "MARK!). His time-keeper jots down the watch time while the navigator reads his arc and gives the angle to the time-keeper and goes and makes either a round of star sights or 3 or more sights of the sun/moon to get an average. Its a balancing act to be sure, but becomes second nature to those who do it for a living.

@ichso: It's been awhile since I eliminated my icon and I don't exactly remember where I got the mod; but the mod for SH4 may work for SH3 also...it's worth a try.

Look for the mod "no_sub_on_map" by Thendash.

cheers,

To all,

I put everything needed for celestial nav in an archive here. It's not a game mod so much as a hybrid. I take the sub position from a savegame and put it into a planetarium program. Don was one of the people that adopted this and helped me put it together. He says it works on SH3 also, so the savegame files must be similar to sh4.

there is a tutorial here if you want to try celnav.

For anyone that wants to try this, let me know if there are any problems.
Celestial Navigation in Silent Hunter

Fair skies and smooth sailing,
Mike

Great work, Mike! :yep:


-...-

ichso: you'll have to convert from *.DDS to *.TGA for the no_sub_on_map to work, however.

btw: it's the same three files that Vanjast changed in his original RealNav mod.

Then it's probably some weird graphic effect.

I recently built me a new computer and I am now using a Nvidia card. Before it had been an ATI card. I also experience some glitches in the external sceneries. So it may be because of the graphics drivers or something.

Currently I'm using Vanjast's tgas from his RealNav mod for SH3 to hide my boat on the nav map.

you might try removing then reinstalling. IIRC all I used from his mod was just those three tga's in the UNITS directory.

I also use just those 3 files. I checked them and there are just transparent tga-files.

I think it's on most or even all the zoom levels, didn't check it on purpose yet.
Or it has something to do with the higher resolution patch ? That's the only thing that I'm using now and that I wasn't already using before.