Steer course 000 - and KEEP IT!
 

One thing I hope we'll see coming with SH5 is helmsman who can actually keep the given course. I know it can be a tricky thing to keep the exact course in RL, especially in bad weather or when the helmsman is not used to the ship or familiar with his work. However I don't like the SH3/4 "feature" where the boat is usually taking a slight curve either to stb or port in case you are not using waypoints. That's not real! Especially when you are cheasing a target the captain has a lot of other things to do than babysitting the steersman.


Greetings,
-RC-

The captain doesn't babysit the helmsman, the navigator or the chief engineer/1st officer do that.

That has always been one of my complaints about SH3 as well. The boat might not end up where it should due to tidal drift and currents, but the helmsman will hold the course he's given, or they'll find a new helmsman. Giving a heading of 160, going to high TC and watching it change to 180 and then to 210 is just not right.

You know I have never noticed this.

Then again I hardley ever travel long distances without a course plotted on the nav map. :hmmm:

well guys it could be thats the only way they could find to simulate tidal drift and currents.

remember, being a video game these things tend to be absolute in many cases so building in the error factor isnt always easy and i assumed this was the reason that the error was there.

if you cant make the road drift off coarse then make the car drift off coarse :hmmm:

It was (and still is) impossible to stay on a straight course... normally they would give a general direction and de helmsman would keep that course. But the actual course could be way off depending on drift and location on the world. That is why the compass rose has 8 points, no more are needed for navigation.

My compass has 360 points :03:

Sure its impossible to sail a straight line in the ocean, and the ship will drift off its heading if left to its own devices, but your helmsman can and should keep the boat on a specified heading unless he is drunk or something.

remember in SH3 there is no man who take care of course:haha:

for SH5 the devs found him:D
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/al...6634386230.jpg

And the guy standing behind him is, touching him inappropriately. :o

No wonder he can't stay on course. :haha:

well i spent most of my life on fishing boats and yes they are much smaller and harder to control but depending a lot on weather conditions i would have to work my tail off trying to hold a true course but over time you learn from experience to give up trying and just occassionally correct a few degrees as needed to correct your intended heading.

i see this so called heading "bug" as more realistic then a set course being held exactly. that said it could be a little more accurate than it is but i wouldnt want it to be too accurate.

:up: :up: :up: WEBSTER

This is what I meant to say :) thanks Webster

And I served on a destroyer for some time. Any helmsman who didn't hold a precise course would find himself doing a different job so fast his head would spin.

As I said, you should experience drift, even to the point of becoming lost, but when he is ordered to 000 you shouldn't find yourself on a heading of 280. I've had that happen.

Holding a perfect course as it does when you set waypoints isn't realistic, but neither is the wandering you get when you don't use the waypoints.

In reply to SteamWake and looney's post: a compass has 32 points.
I used to know em all by heart. If you wanna learn em all, check out this link:

http://www.thecompasscompany.com/32poofco.html

Note, this site rounds the number, but to be accurate: one point is 11,25 degrees (360 degrees / 32 points = 11,25 degrees)

I thought a circle had 6400 mils?

:D

The only way I can think of to fix it, would be to plot ones Intended Course.
Any deviation therefrom, is up to us, to find, and correct.
It fits right in with all the Nav Posts and Threads.

The proper thing to do when faced with a Bad Helmsman:
QMOW makes a request to BMOW to replace him.
If this happens in a timely manner the sailer may only have to deal with a hurt ego, or at worse, some "Negative Renown" from the BM.
If it doesn't happen in a timely manner, and The OOD has to intervene, everybody's got a problem, starting with The QMOW for not catching it.

The real question behind this thread is one that keeps coming up time and time again.
It is:
"Are you playing from the commanders POV or are you more like playing the U-boat as a whole ?"
And this little annoyance with the course becoming false correspondes to the latter case.

But personally, I don't like this 'feature' as well. It can be coped by plotting waypoints but if you try some more realistic approach of navigation in these games getting adrift gets really annoying sometimes.

It's actually a very simple fix. The code is allready there, and infact works... just not long enough. It should attempt to keep course until fatigue sets in or it is counter-ordered. When you give a steering command via periscope/UZO view, or through clicking on the compass dial, it gives full rudder until it almost turned to the commanded direction. There it reduces ruddersettings to not overshoot. (tries not to anyway, but usually fails by several degrees) A fine example of a (negative) feedback control loop, just as it should be. But when it comes within some threshold to the commanded direction it just simply stops adjusting the rudder and sets rudder amidship. There is no justification for this. The control-loop should not be broken.

Using a waypoint is not an appropriate solution. That is a steering-to-point mode, in which it actually constantly keeps adjusting until it has reached the point. The side effect is you introduce GPS-accuracy steering ability. The crewman allways knows where the waypoint is located and automatically adjusts for sideways/lateral drift to reach the point. All we need is continuous directional control. If it pleased/es the developers to implement real sea-currents and wind effects in SH5 navigation, we (hardcore navigators) would then have all the abilities to reliably reach where we want to be. (oh wait, don't forget the sextant ;) )

:yep::yep: Well put.

And if there are no currents or tides, having the boat stay on course coupled with the mod that removes the uboat icon from the screen would give a close approximation of setting your course and having to hope you did it right.