[dfscott]

Originally Posted by KL-alfman

pls tell me then about your experiencies.
I'd like to try it out too, but was a bit scared to some issues I haven't seen before in a GUI.

I didn't have any issues, but I did take some notes on my experiences. A couple things to keep in mind is 1) I'm new to SH3 (note the forum join date!) and 2) I'm new to GWX3.

That said, here are my general impressions (about halfway through a patrol):

- It takes a while to figure out where to click the stopwatch. (It's apparently a known issue but he's having trouble fixing it.) It also took me some time to get used to the stopwatch appearance. My screen isn't very large and at first I had trouble telling the difference beween 2 and 3 minutes on the small hand, particularly the draggable one that has a simulated glare effect. I'm adjusting to this fairly quickly, however.

- Tab doesn't seem to work to zoom the optics. I think there's a comment in the manual about this, but just wanted to mention it. The wheel on the mouse works fine however.

- Getting used to the new locations of the TDC gauges on the periscope and UZO took a while. I don't read German, so I kept having to refer to the manual, particularly to find the torpedo bearing (not sure why I couldn't remember that one!). However, I imagine that more experienced SH3 players would already have internalized a lot of this, so I can't really call that a problem.

- Even after reading the Hitman GUI manual several times and doing several forum searches, I can't for the life of me figure out how to use the triangle plotting tool. I haven't needed it since I use the other tools, but I feel like I might be missing something that could make my life easier. If anyone can point me to a step-by-step example of how to use it, I would be eternally grateful.

Overall, here are what I feel are the overall pros and cons to this point:

Pros:
- The extra-large depth gauge is great. Not only is it easier to use, but there's also the aesthetic value of being able to request 40 meters instead of having to ask for 38 or 41 because you can't click accurately enough.

- I absolutely love the large heading gauge. The slide-out one for GWX was a huge improvement over stock, but IMO, this one improves GWX by the same amount. It's nice to be able to click, hold, and slide it to exactly the heading you want. Only when you release it, does the command take place (I think the others work the same way, but it's more useful with this version since you can actually see what you're doing!) And again, the aesthetic of the rotating inner plate is awesome looking!

- Optics are excellent. However, I didn't notice that much different between the observation scope and the attack scope at night. There was a crescent moon out and the visibility was "moderate", so maybe it needs to be darker? I don't worry about range at this point (90 AOB for all my shots), so I can't comment on using it to find range.

- Having the TDC right at your optics are nice. I'd gotten pretty good about flipping back and forth, but being able to switch from manual to automatic and make adjustments right there at scope is really handy.

Cons:
- There seems to be a lot more clicking required to get to the various TDC functions at the periscope/UZO stations. There doesn't appear to be any way to go directly from one display to the next -- you have to click click "Zeiss" to exit the current panel and then click the panel you want.

- Having torpedo depth on a separate panel bugs me. Maybe most people don't change it that much, but I like to give the board a quick review before I fire, and it's an extra step I have to take. I like it better at the TDC station where I can see everything at once. This is likely an issue with screen space, so I'm not sure what to do about it.

- Similar to the above, getting to the stop watch takes some clicking. On stock and GWX, I would typically mark the map, hit F3 to go to the scope, and then click the stopwatch to start timing. With this setup, I have to mark the map, hit F3 to go to the scope, click Zeiss to close whatever display I have up (it always seems to be something other than the stopwatch!), then click the stopwatch button to bring up the stopwatch, and then click the stopwatch to start timing.

- Both the above I think I can get used to, but the one that may be a deal-breaker for me is the whiz wheel. As nice as it is, it seems to come flying out at the drop of a hat and tends to cover a huge part of the screen when it does. I also seem to hit it at the most inopportune times, (such as when I'm trying to do some last minute tweaking to the TDC). I really wish it came out via a button like the enlarged gauges.

At this point, the pros outweigh the cons by a large margin, although if I could figure out a way to disable the whiz wheel, my opinion of this GUI would go up even more! Again, I'm only halfway through a patrol, so I may change my mind after a few more attack runs.