Mod for writing notes in SH3?
 

Hello all,

I just got into the water (or rather, under it) :D Took SH3, some essential mods for realism (GWX, Hardcore Fixes, Commander, and so on), set realism to 100% (I'm really obsessed with realism), and I'm now on my second patrol (September 7, 1939, so I expect to sink something) with my Type IIA.

As my first patrol was August 1-3, 1939, before the war started, I knew there won't be anything to shoot at. So I devoted that patrol (except going to the right grid) for stalking friendly ships, practicing interception with them, positioning submarine for torpedo shots, adjusting TDC - just kept the finger off the trigger (interception was quite difficult with submarine that can only make 6 knots submerged, and runs out of batteries in few hours).

And even first day on my patrol, I though I need to write down stuff. For example, if I spotted a ship, I could write down it's type, country, course. On later patrols - make a quick-access book for reminding myself of flags that represent enemies of Germany, note coordinates of nice deep spots in ocean for evading destroyers, describe observed shipping lanes, and so on. Also - to write down submarine performance notes (speed, battery time, and so on), and many many other things. I know I can make marks and plot lines on the map, but hey, it gets deleted the next patrol, and I can't add any notes to these marks.

So for now, I think I will just take a pencil and a paper notebook, but thinking of it - I can't be the only one who misses such feature in SH3 :) There is a ton of things that a real U-Boot captain would write down in his log or something.
Ain't there a mod or something for this kind of thing? I guess it would be very easy to code (compared to complexity of other mods). But I can't find it, and it is surprising.

Am I the only one who misses this feature?

Welcome to the forum aluc24 :salute: You'll fit right in, I think.

You're not the only one missing the possibility of making notes inside the game. There are no mods that can help, I'm afraid.

Here's how I keep notes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxGyRdiLD2g

This is an old clip. Nowadays I keep everything else except the game window hidden. Then I slide the windows a little bit more to make them come visible again. The game goes on while I write, but I do lose game sound while I'm writing so the solution is not perfect.

Finally, someone replied, I was beginning to lose hope!

Your solution is interesting, yet complicated... Well, thinking of it - how hard would be to make a mod for in-game note writing? There already is that patrol log editor, which allows such thing, but only outside the simulator. Are there any active mod makers who would consider such a thing?

You shouldn't lose hope, as most people are under water when you post your signals.. Sometimes it can take 48 hours for a reply.. that is, once it's safe for them to send radio signals when away from a convoy.. :arrgh!:

Well, I'll just have to wait until they have to recharge the batteries :D

Speaking of writing down notes and calculations, does anyone play at realism 100% AND without map assistance (when enemy ships are no longer painted and updated on the map). 'Cause I guess that map isn't too realistic... Tutorial provided the whole procedure of how to recognize the ship, measure distance by looking up mast height, calculating speed by 90 degree angle, and so on.
I tried that. Well, in perfect sea conditions I can measure distance with ~10% accuracy, but when it comes to speed... Well, who would wait until ship passed 90 degrees in front. Marking everything on map, timing, calculating, is the only proper way I can see here (by the way, I guess U-boats in WW2 didn't have calculators, they did all the math on paper, right?)

Now this is my usual scenario: I'm riding type IIA in storm at night, surfaced. Sea is rough, winds roar, waves are huge, with all the clouds it is almost pitch black. After quick dive for hydrophone listening, I discover that some ship is nearby. I set course to intercept, and about 10km out, the silhouette of the target ship can be made out in the horizon. Cargo, thankfully, without escort. With mighty auto-drawing map I plot his course, my course, intercept plan for 500m 90° impact torpedo attack, safely coast to the lurking point, submerge, open tubes, set up TDC, go for silent run, wait until it is 1000m out, then raise periscope.
Only now ship is close enough to recognize the flag at full zoom. Of course, 2/3 of the times the ship is neutral, and I have to abort the whole show.

So the idea is that many things (ship type recognition, flag recognition, range calculation using only periscope) can be done only in short range, usually too short to set up proper attack without catching up.

I mean, this is horribly difficult (yet fun) with this auto-drawing map. Now imagine doing all that without map assistance - only what you draw on it yourself. Determining range would be almost impossible with all the waves and poor visibility. Target ship course cannot be measured without exact distance, same goes for speed. But this is probably how it was done back WW2, right? They had no magic tools to help them...

So how it is done without this magic map? Does anyone here do it?


P.S. - question off topic: how to disable the the thingy which tells what kind of ship (cargo, destroyer, coastal) are you looking at when you look through periscope/UZO? I have all the major mods, but they didn't disable this obvious cheat

Manual targeting players use different kind of methods that are discussed here and there in the forum. Realistic methods work in SH3 and a good place to start is this manual from 1941:

https://archive.org/details/maneuveringboard00unit

Cases 8, 10 and 11 might help in speed assessment.

The manual demands some capability of understanding vectors and geometry. An easier option would be using the search function of the forum to find tutorials on manual targeting.

I think NYGM has edited the ships' names off from UZO and periscope. I'm not sure though. The names can be made blank pretty easily and there's been a discussion or two what file needs to be edited, maybe even a mod, but unfortunately I can't point you to them. Maybe someone else can help you out.

Thanks, I'll look into the manual.

I went through cfg files - can't find anything relating to ship type showing on periscope. Any idea what it's called?

I too filed my notes or my KTB by Alt-Tab'ing and filling my KTB in open-office.
It would have been cool if we could write in-game in our KTB.
But alas it was not meant to be.

To be honest I wish there was a mod for reading books or playing chess during patrol. In 1943-1945 I am stuck underwater and with the Type XXI there is not even a decent interior to look at.

By the way, are there any tutorials on sonar and no-map-updates target interception specifically for SH3? I found quite a lot on this forum, but all the links are dead. Every one. I don't get why they aren't updated. Maybe someone still has a copy?

Canovaro's Document Collection has got Raduz's Hydrophone Hunting Tutorial on it, IIRC. The tutorial is really old and it's written with a long gone version of GWX in mind, but the principles and practices are still valid.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=1487

Well, I missed this feature in April 2010 and found some snippets in menu_1024_768.ini (Section G35). I was in contact with Latemail at that time but we both could not find a solution to make it work.
In fact this feature was planned but just partly implemented in SH3.
Maybe h.sie or Stiebler could do something about that.

But you can edit your KaptainsLog:
http://www.lsh3.com/ftp/blueduck/K_Log_1.jpg

In the lower right corner you see the button for the edit-box highlighted. If clicked it looks like this:
http://www.lsh3.com/ftp/blueduck/K_Log_2.jpg

But this is the point-of-no-return! You can leave it just by killing the sh3.exe in taskmanager - Cancel, OK, ESC do not work!

So you can edit your KaptainsLog with some restrictions:
Start your patrol and save it. Now you find a file named "savename.clg" in your own career folder.
If you open it with an Texteditor like notepad you can find this:
I entered [Log Entry 1] by hand (NOTE: `C0xA10000FF` and `C0x0` are responsible for the red colour).


But you will see your new entries after you reload this saved game.
The question will be if it is worth all this work.

Regards
Blueduck

Could you please share the menu_1024_768.ini that allowed this log editing? That way we can get more minds on it to perhaps fix the issues. Thanks.:salute:

Hi areo16,

for sure I will!
But it is from/for Stock-SH3 with comments by Latemail (search)!

http://www.lsh3.com/ftp/blueduck/menu_1024_768.ini
(Maybe Rightclick and choose Save as)

Regards
Blueduck

It was known for a long time that this feature was planned in SH3 and even partly implemented.

That made us miss it even more. :)

We can only hope that someone figures out a way to make it possible.