I'd be happy to render the OBS scope useless in order to have a sextant. No reply from the scope modders so far, might be an idea to list exactly what needs to be done and then PM them.

Heh ÜberGruber

I am the guy that mods the view angles - so in the cameras.dat department we are ready to go.

What is needed is a new graphical overlay with tickmarks (one for every degree would be preferable) that covers 45~50 degrees. Depending on what we want to run with.

Ill toss a cameras.dat file together tonight with an altered Observationsscope.

Mav:

Drive safely. :up:

We're waiting patiently.

In order not to screw you guys...

Would any of you know what Angular Angle you have on the Conning Deck view in you cameras.dat file........

If i make a file from mine, where it is altered to 60 from 75 then i think your printed sextants (if you use such) will be FUBAR.

I have made one file with the angular angle of any outside view i can think of set to 60 (this is what is giving the best look and feel imo, and it gives larger details as the heaven is not compressed so much). This file is ready for upload - should you desire it.

Well done, Mav.

I'd like to try it, sil vous plait.

Tnx,

OK - its up for useage on this spot

http://files.filefront.com/EXPERIMEN.../fileinfo.html

WARNING - its a modded cameras.dat file from my cameras mod. That meens that the attack scope and internal cameras have been altered. The external cameras have a AA on 60 deg. (most fittable for a real eysight that has 57,265 deg's of angular angle (or Field of View in deg's)

The angular angle for the observationsscope has been set to 45 deg. - this should enable us to use the scope in two positions to cover the full 90 deg's. AKA the new overlay would need 45 markers on the lens in order to cover the needed field. I have no idea how much a factor image distortion is playing in - but that will have to be of later work. With 60 deg of Angular Angle it looks like (in 1280x980) that there is next to no distortion in the center of the screen.

If someone could at least post a pic of what you imagine the sextant to look like in the OBS Scope i am sure it would be easier to do the graphical overlay. Right now I am sort a :o As i never really got in to the "hard core" side of playing the game (manual navigation and what have you) Did not Vanjast try to do a sextant mod when SH4 came out...?

The observations scope image as it is - only 45 deviders verticaly

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and so on.....

Ahhh ok...Right now I am totally worked out from RL work :p
If no one beats me to it, I might give it a go towards the week end.
Best guy for this one would be l3th4l, but as I said, i have a look at it later in the week.

I agree. I've been watching this thread too. Sextant navigation would be the ultimate in realism as far as I'm concerned. l3th4l or CaptainCox might be able to get us a sextant on the obs scope and I know for sure that the obs scope can be adjusted to have the elevation we need (if it doesn't already go to 90 degrees).

After that we'd have to make some tables for players and explain how to navigate using a sextant. But the big problem would be that the charts in the game start centred on the sub and there are other navigational aids that are automatically entered on the map too. I guess we could avoid using the game's chart and have a set of hard copy charts, but that might be expensive. The best option would be to somehow stop the game from centering in on the player's sub and to remove all the stuff that automatically shows the sub's position.

I agree. In my opinion the obs scope is already useless precisely because it can't be used as a sextant. If a sextant was added to it I'm sure I'd start using it a lot more.

...another thing that would be beneficial towards advancing the realism aspect of celestial navigation within the sim is to add a second hand sweep to the onboard chronometer. I know there's one that functions like a stopwatch but I'm talking about one that works that shows the seconds between the minutes...always running.

What I've been doing, and others too, I'm sure, is having a real world stopwatch or digital watch nearby to time the seconds when the game changes on the minutes. Every 4 seconds = 1 m.o.a. or 1 n.m. so, just using the onboard watch can automatically put the navigator 15 n.m. off from the get-go. Some of us have already discovered this when using the SR/SS tables for predicting Longitude.

Im using the sim stopwatch in conjunction with the onboard watch. Starting it as the onboard BASE TIME changes minutes. This gives pretty good seconds that even last if you use up to (tested) x2048.

With regards to the file i have uploaded. I have measured that one screen height here gives 45 deg. Im not sure if its linier or if there is some distortion.

I have not been able to scale the "old trusty" graphic for Vanjast's nav mod of the Sextant to anything usefull. It's either "off" on the low degree's or the high degree's. And as this sextant is non-linier it leeds me to belive that the uploaded Cameras.dat file's Angular Angle settings are pretty linier in usage on 1280x980 resolution.

Right now im trying to make a draggable sextant, but running into the wall of "no draggable stuff" born for SH-4 yet - AND im not that smart. So im trying to mimic the noteboard or the stopwatch or the message field or what not.

DEV's ----- PLEASE LET US KNOW HOW TO MAKE A DRAGGABLE "THING"....

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Great Thread Gents!

Ah longitude and the celestial sky. :cool:

Ok. I'll try your method, but, what I was looking for was a time-piece with hr/min/sec all in one unit, like a real pocket watch. :)