The OTC range dial was designed to be as accurate as possible given the limit of the type and size of the input device. The game limits the input device on the periscope screen to be a "dial" for range. It would have been great if they would have given us the ability to use something like a keyboard to input a figure (like the earlier Silent Hunter series games), but UbiSoft didn't go out of their way in making things hard for themselves (the game is basically a SHIII clone.....poorly done at that). The size of the dial had to be limited due to not covering too large an area when using the smaller resolution sizes. This pretty much kept me from making the dial list anything larger than the 6200 yard figure. Going to a 10,000 yard distance, or greater, would have made a "fine line" between setting a 7000 yard range and one that shown 7500. It would have been almost impossible to get the exact range that you wanted to input using a larger dial limit (it's tough enough as it is).
What sets the games Periscope station screen apart from the Radar station screen is how the game renders the two screens. The Periscope station screen is a 2D rendered image, the Radar station screen is a 3D modeled image. They use a completely differently process in rendering the two views, along with the commands that are available at the two stations for making dials, toggle switches, input readouts etc. It's much easier to make a 3D modeled image do what you want (when you have the skills to 3D model) than when your using the 2D image process that has a very limited degree of "workability".
The game "makes" it's 2D screens from the menu_1024_768.ini file. It's within this files restraints that the screen can be modified. A 3D screen can be changed by adding specific models to the scene and setting parameters that tell the game what to do with them. Pretty much limited only to the modelers ability and his inventive way of working with the model. That's why I say the 3D screen is easier to work with than the 2D screens. The 3D models will allow for more inventive applications to be added than the menu_1024_768.ini driven 2D file ever will.
I'd like to think there may be a better way of making things work as we would expect, but for right now, I've not got one.
