my 2nd day in a row playing the sim... i guess i'm a lil anxious, maybe too anxious, to get my hands on a TypeXXI...
i wake up, coffee ready, get out emails and other work (if any)...
open up the compiler, the editor, and/or the modeller...
and fire up SH3
Nov 17,1943... and UBoat command is sending me to the Carribean... how nice of them to realize i needed a lil sun and surf
but no complaints... i take the mission, even though i've heard that the American coast is a deadly place for Uboat crews to vacation this time of year...
a sense of forboding takes over... i now wonder if i'll ever see the control room of that prized new sub i've been hearing so much about lately...
ok... off the the pier...
i arrive there at early morning, about 03:30... the sub and crew are ready to go... after final checks, we wave our goodbyes to the pretty nurses, and i order all ballast tanks flooded down to scope depth and the snorkel mast raised...
we exit the docks submerged, only the big air pipe sticking up giving any indication of our progress... i keep the scope down, relying on some new operating procedures to enhance the sense of being there...
this time i move the keyboard out of reach, and rely on the mouse entirely for movement about the sub, and for selecting the stations and handling the controls... no more keyboard shortcuts... if i wanna turn left, i have to be at the engineers postion (left click and turn the view, then right click when facing him) and then, click on the rudder turn buttons as required... using the gyro compass to guide my turns...
when done i right click back to leave the station...
left click again (move mouse to a clear area first) to enable rotating the view and then center on the navigator station... right click and use that map instead of the big map that ruins the illusion of being cramped aboard the sub (there are gonna be times when you are gonna need to go to the big map, for instance, to reset the map, but using the smaller map at the station is kinda neat and makes it seem more real)...
there is no substitute for the attack map though... and i can't find a click control for the ballast tanks... so i guess i'll have to use the keys for those as well...
and the translucent gui overlays... hide em as much as you can...
i made a submerged departure from Lorient this way... at night (again) and this really adds a bit to the feeling of actually being aboard a uboat (admittedly, they probably wouldn't have rode submerged from the pier)...
i can't see outside... only popped the scope once to see how close i came to grounding the boat, but it was sooo dark outside, nothing was visible, so down the scope comes...
the red glow of the control room lights is my entire world... until we switch over to white light for the daylight hours... still, i may have to surface for a brief period to give the crew a lil break and some fresh air... maybe out in mid ocean, where the chances of running into a random air search flight is lessened...
well, we've cleared Lorient inlet... we're off on another adventure... i just hope i survive to get a XXI (and that the career saves keep working correctly)... then i can get one step closer to the totally submerged mission concept...
man... if they only had more of the interior spaces modelled...
--Mike