In SH3 I could use the stars to find my latitude. The trouble with SH4 is that I do not know my southern stars that well. Hey a good opportunity to learn. It was back then that I discovered that SH3 stars were correct. Longitude is a different story, hence the need for zulu time.
My purpose now though is a different one. It is in keeping myself emotionally engaged in the sim. Applying little bits of seamanship to keep actively involved. Its too easy to use the computer cheats like TC from the comfort of my computer chair to rocket myself from base to action. In no time at all rack up a number a ships and come back to these forums to post tonnage.
No maybe what I am trying to do here is build a list of duties to routinely perform. Something more disciplined then the seat of the pants gaming mentality. Maybe there is already some real ones someone can point me to. What the Captain should be doing each day. For example maybe;
- Check sub position at 0800 each morning
- Plot the course for the days destinations
- Check with the officers on duty
- Take a depth reading
- Check the weather report
You get the idea.
Back to DR for a moment. The problem with DR is ocean currents and other variables that can take you off course. In a sim we don't deal with currents. I don't know if SH5 does either. So DR proves to be quite good in the sim.
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