In-game stopwatch

[siber]

Once again, apologies if this has been covered before, but my search for previous threads came up negative...

I noticed the other day that on the plotting screen there's a stopwatch and speed/distance charts for making plotting intercepts easier on the maths. That's great - makes the distances much easier to calculate - but I can't seem to make the watch work. Does it work, or is it just fold-away eye-candy? If so, how?

Thanks in anticipation of responses!

[Mush Martin]

you can actually work that stopwatch but in order to start/stop it
you have to do it in F3 screen (periview)

[ichso]

Hi.
The stopwatch is started and stopped at the periscope and UZO stations. The draggable one is just for looking at.

There are possibilities to assign hotkeys to gamefunctions. Maybe it can be done for starting/stopping the stop watch too ?
Would be a nice idea, never thought about this before :hmm:

Originally Posted by Mush Martin

you can actually work that stopwatch but in order to start/stop it
you have to do it in F3 screen (periview)

Addition: [F3]-screen, [u]-screen and [o]-screen

[Mush Martin]

Originally Posted by ichso

Hi.
The stopwatch is started and stopped at the periscope and UZO stations. The draggable one is just for looking at.

There are possibilities to assign hotkeys to gamefunctions. Maybe it can be done for starting/stopping the stop watch too ?
Would be a nice idea, never thought about this before :hmm:

Addition: [F3]-screen, [u]-screen and [o]-screen

Interesting possibility next time im into the commands cfg ill see what I
can see.

[siber]

So, if I understand you correctly, the wood-clad watch on the map screen etc is a repeater of the stopwatch started from the periscope or UZO? I only ask because I try to plot target course at the map table once the hydrophone man calls 20km long range or 3.5km medium range. Find the rev count with hydrophones - guestimate speed with Raduz's chart - wait for time after the call, ask again for the bearing and using a circle for distance, the speed and the bearing, you've got the course.

It'd just be a little inconvenient to stop by at the periscope to start and stop the watch...

Ah well, I'll try it anyway. Thanks for your swift responses!

[Mush Martin]

Well I just use the ruler for that

if hes making 8kts and my intercept is two hours then 16km
(strange this works are knots expressed in wrong lengths ingame)
if hes zigzagging take back approx 25%

or do you mean to determine speed?

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by Mush Martin

if hes making 8kts and my intercept is two hours then 16km
(strange this works are knots expressed in wrong lengths ingame)

I use a table from which I can determine how far a ship has travelled over time using it's speed in knots which converts distance travelled to kms, if that makes sense. I have had good success at intercepts using this table so would say that knots and kilometres are expressed correctly in game.

Nemo

[ichso]

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo

I use a table from which I can determine how far a ship has travelled over time using it's speed in knots which converts distance travelled to kms, if that makes sense. I have had good success at intercepts using this table so would say that knots and kilometres are expressed correctly in game.

Nemo

They are correct. I just do the little calculation of multiplying by 1.88, so I'm turning my known speed from knots to km/h. So it's all level again.

[siber]

Originally Posted by Mush Martin

...or do you mean to determine speed?

No, I (attempt to) determne course and speed. If I hear a ship on hydrophone (these are pre-sonar rangefinder days) I know only its bearing, although an estimate of speed can be made by listening to propeller revolutions using raduz's sound charts and hydrophone mod. However, I have no idea about direction of travel.

Therefore, I mark circles of various circumferences to match distance travelled in 10/20/30/60min (depending upon distance - guessed/judged by clarity of hydrophone sound) and then wait that long and recheck the bearing. By intersecting the bearing with the circles I've drawn, I've an estimate of the target's course and minimum speed and can plot an intercept accordingly.

I ask specifically for counting propeller revolutions, as I usually overestimate the rpm. I'm thinking ths may be because 1 minute in the game isn't necessarily the same as 1 minute on my watch. Hence the question about the on-screen stopwatch.

@Nemo: I presume you acquire your target's speed from listening to prop rpms too - if you use another method, I'd be grateful if you'd tell me about it! In fact, if anyone else uses another method for determining speeds of other ships accurately, please help me out.