[REL] AlterNavigation 1.5

[Castorp24]

Big name for a little mod which intends to go a step further than the No_sub_on_map mod by Thendash, and is aimed to be used in either of two ways:

1. With the celestial navigation mods (CelNav by 6SJ7GT or RealNavigation by Mav87th).
2. Without any of them.

It has been tested for SH4 v1.5 in a WindowsXP system
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INSTALLATION

The mod is JSGME ready, just unrar into MODS folder and activate with the mod enabler.

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WHAT THIS MOD DOES...

1. It completely removes squares, circles, triangles and "tails" of every air/sea unit in the navigation map (including your own ship/sub) regardless of the zoom level. It also gets rid of the more detailed icons of those units in the closer levels of the zoom.
2. It renders the "plot course" button in the navigation menu unusable, so that the beginning of the course line doesn't show your position in the map.
3. Adds a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+B) to toggle battle stations.

...AND WHY.

1. As don1reed very well explains here:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...135215&page=13
the F5 chart is not a mercator projection chart and that's why dead reckoning is very difficult and really frustrating in SH4.
2. As far as I know, the easiest way of navigating (apart from the vanilla in-game way, of course) is plotting your position now and again to check where you are, how far you went and in which direction you did it.
3. The in-game map is now a tool where you can do all this plotting without visual clues of the position of any sea/air unit, although you still can plot their position according to your radio and watchmen reports.

WHAT ABOUT CELESTIAL NAVIGATION?

CN PROS: you will get "inmersivewise bonuses" (please excuse my English), you will spend beautiful moments in the bridge "shooting" stars and you will learn enough astronomy to make any woman think how romantic you are when you try to get the most out of those RL summer nights... (never works for me, though)
CN CONS: it involves a learning curve that can get too steep sometimes and/or for some people (like myself), and it can really make you focus more in the sky and less in the game.


AND, ANYWAY, THAT'S WHY THEY PAY THE NAVIGATOR!...
...so the moment I knew that the in-game status reports reveal the ship coordinates, I started plotting my position in the map and relying on the sextant guy. He's never let me down.

Oh, and if you want to get that little extra accuracy to the seconds, I would use one of the above mentioned wonderful mods, both of which have been the real inspiration for this little tweak.

Thanks to all this amazing, great community, you've made me spend really happy hours.

Castorp24

DOWNLOAD LINK http://www.gamefront.com/files/24222...ation+v1.5.rar

PS: please let me know if the link doesn't work

[Jaeger]

nice idea. for long travels, you can use the status reports to get position, for action, you have to do dead reckoning for your target data. nice approach, will test it later (not at home).

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Castorp24

AND, ANYWAY, THAT'S WHY THEY PAY THE NAVIGATOR!...
...so the moment I knew that the in-game status reports reveal the ship coordinates, I started plotting my position in the map and relying on the sextant guy. He's never let me down.

I had never thought of that, pretty clever.

I'm tempted to try CelNav again (someday).

Would it be possible to mod the game such that one could use and make marks on the 'Attack plot'? The idea here is the Nav plot would be used for navigation as you describe, but the 'Attack plot' could be used with a 'dead-reckoning indicator', and provide a certain reference for your boat.

[Castorp24]

Originally Posted by TorpX

Would it be possible to mod the game such that one could use and make marks on the 'Attack plot'? The idea here is the Nav plot would be used for navigation as you describe, but the 'Attack plot' could be used with a 'dead-reckoning indicator', and provide a certain reference for your boat.

Maybe, but I can't tell you for sure. My knowledge of the game is quite limited and I'm not what one would call a modder. Actually, I'm not using subs any more in the game, but surface ships. After reading your question I checked the attack map and surprise! There was this little line (not sure what it was) revealing the position of the ship. This doesn't happen in the navigation map any more with this mod.

By the way, I haven't been able to get rid of the Ctrl+Left click command yet, the one that centers the nav map on the position of the sub. I didn't find anything under Data/Cfg/Commands.cfg...

Any ideas?

[TorpX]

I'm not a modder either. I just thought it would be neat if someone could have some type of Cel Nav and still retain a useful attack plot.

There was this little line (not sure what it was) revealing the position of the ship.

This would be the torpedo firing solution that the TDC is generating. IIRC, RFB eliminates most of it, so you only see your own boat and land mases, no contacts. I never really used it, as it basically tells you, in advance, wether or not your torpedos will hit....... rather too easy.

By the way, I haven't been able to get rid of the Ctrl+Left click command yet, the one that centers the nav map on the position of the sub. I didn't find anything under Data/Cfg/Commands.cfg...

Any ideas?

I don't know, but I would think if you knew the right file to look at, you could eliminate this. It's not like you need to add any new functionality.

[Castorp24]

Originally Posted by TorpX

This would be the torpedo firing solution that the TDC is generating.

I thought so. If this is the case, it could be easily removed modifying Data\Menu\Gui\DashLine.dds. I'll leave it for the moment since the attack map is not going to affect the navigation at all.

Thanks for answering

[vdr1981]

"File not found"...Any help guys?

[Castorp24]

I just updated the download link in the first post. I believe it takes some time (maybe a few hours, not sure) for it to be operative. If you have any problem downloading, let me know.

[vdr1981]

something isn't right again...Can you check link one more time pls?

[vdr1981]

Bump,Castor, bump!

[Castorp24]

Blistering barnacles!!
Well, why don´t you PM me your email address so I can send the file to you? It´s only 36kb.

PS: it´s not TMO tested...

...oh, and sorry for the delay, I visit the forum now and then...

[vdr1981]

PM sent! I gues this should work with Operation monsun supermod?

[Castorp24]

Ok, I just sent the file to your email address.
Not sure what OM is, sorry
Is it the same as U-Boat expansion, aka SH4 v1.5? Or is it a German side megamod?
This modification was made for plain SH4 v1.5. In TMO, if I remember correctly, it failed to utterly hide ships´ icons in the lowest/closest zoom levels of the navigation map.

Let me know if you have any issues. As you have realised now, I´m not the fastest to answer, but... I try LOL

[Encrusted_Garlic]

Originally Posted by Castorp24

Ok, I just sent the file to your email address.
Not sure what OM is, sorry
Is it the same as U-Boat expansion, aka SH4 v1.5? Or is it a German side megamod?
This modification was made for plain SH4 v1.5. In TMO, if I remember correctly, it failed to utterly hide ships´ icons in the lowest/closest zoom levels of the navigation map.

Let me know if you have any issues. As you have realised now, I´m not the fastest to answer, but... I try LOL

Om is Operation Monsun, Its an overhaul of the german campaign and many other things related... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...13&postcount=1 pretty awesome amount of stuff going on in it.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Yes, I know this is resurrecting a zombie thread, but does anyone have a working link or copy of this one



Thanks