Ships Recognition Manual

[badwolf]

Is anyone making a new Ship Recognition Manual.

I saw a pdf on ship plates and data. Is this going to be turned into a manual.

The reason for asking is that while tidying up my manual, I have had to make that many alterations and additions, I might as well do the lot. I'm doing the 3 languages for the [MUSEUM] txt (shipname_en + _fr + _ge) as well, because I have found some with different information for the same ship, just in case anyone wants a copy.

p.s.
Has anyone got a photo of an open German manual.
Have got a video with one in.
Why is it when I'm searching for WWII info I keep getting "starship enterprise - Klingons"

Cheers.

[Sailor Steve]

Several people have made different ones in the past. So far no one has made one that looks like the real ones.

Originally Posted by badwolf

p.s.
Has anyone got a photo of an open German manual.
Have got a video with one in.

I saw a photo somewhere, but I don't remember where. Sorry. Have you tried taking a screenshot from the video?

Why is it when I'm searching for WWII info I keep getting "starship enterprise - Klingons"

You should try researching ship names. Star Trek stuff everywhere.

[badwolf]

Looking at the original German Ship Recognition Manual (1 example), each page had about 6 ship silhouettes with information around it. There was 1 silhouette for each ship at 90 deg AOB.

Note:
I'm aways willing to share my work, but as this involves other mods it might not be possible. But I'll try if enough are interested.

As I'm a stickler for realism whenever possible, this is the proposed layout.

Due to game limitations, this is how I'll do the sils layout.
One ship per page. The background should be white paper with smudge marks, but might have to compromise due to glaring effect. A silhouette at 90 deg AOB (all Black), with original data at top plus armoury and any other info under the sil. This will make it look like a manual with similar pages.
Done in all 3 languages for compatability. Although I don't speak the other 2.
Its more or less a standard layout.

This might make recognition more difficult, but I think more realistic.

Ships Involved.
GWX 2.1 set
Community set
AOTD AA Ship set
Arrow Tanker v1.2

I've undertook this project as some people said they were getting CTD's. I can't go fault finding until I tidy up the Ship Files. Doing that became a bigger task than I thought, so I might as well do improvements.

Any comments are welcome.

[badwolf]

Hi Sailor Steve
Not only ship names, but periscope as well.

My manual looks more like a scrap book. I 'm trying to get uniform pages so it looks like a manual.

[Hitman]

This is the only image I have, I suppose you already knew it (Click on it to enlarge).





For warships the Weyer's Taschenbuch der Kriegesflotten was widely used, and still today is sold. I bought last year one example in Vienna, the 1943-44 edition. If you want more precise datas of it, I can provide samples.

I like your project, I would prefer to have a good, realistic looking printed manual rather than any other format. Cheers

[badwolf]

Hi hitman
In the intro mod film "The Battle of The Atlantie" about halfway, it shows the manual. Unfortunately can't see the writing but gives an idea. Looking for the best place to get silhouettes. First thought was Jane's.

Working on the Bismark to get layout, will put up the page when done to give you an idea. Would be nice to have the real layout manual with 6 ships per page in the map view, with so many ships now, it would probably be quicker to find a ship, than the one in-game.

[Hitman]

Would be nice to have the real layout manual with 6 ships per page in the map view, with so many ships now, it would probably be quicker to find a ship, than the one in-game.

Not just find but also compare Sometimes it's just minor details which differentiate them visually despite having a different size.

In the manual shown in the picture above silhouettes are not black but coloured and with details.

You say you have started with the Bismarck but in my opinion it's teh merchants what needs to be done preferently. NYGM users now also have many new ships from Iambecomelife merchant's fleet mod and that itself is already a huge amount of new units.

Unfortunately we lack in SH3 a way to input directly the mast heigth we want to use instead of clicking the recognition manual That forces you to find the proper match, while estimating would be much quicker -as in real life was done many times- and with some practice you can make very close guesses.

[badwolf]

I always thought they was black, thanks for putting me right, some war films I've seen show them as such, but colour would indeed give more detail. I have used the museum to make a quick sil, but I'll try a software package, then we would have the in-game ship sils in colour. No point in importing a real ship sil as it might be slightly different.

I started with the Bismark because it has extra details, guns, AA, etc, so I would have an idea of the layout of all that information, and see it in-game. But as soon as that's done I'll start with the merchants, but the destroyers are very similar as well, so they'll be next.

I'll look how the ship manual and targeting work, and see if there's any way of doing it differently.

This started as a simple job. My "things to do" get's bigger.

[badwolf]

Hi Mikhayl,
I usual get fed up of going through the list and get the officer to do it. But you miss the pleasure of doing it yourself.

Yes I noticed the lighter parts later on and put it down to being in grey scale. Stuck with my belief I suppose. Thought that it perhaps made night use easier.

I agree the all-black profile views would have felt realistic. You must have watched the same films as me.

I have to assume that if the merchants only have profile view, then so will the rest.

Keep me posted on how you get on.

edit:

Your beat me to the post again.

One problem is going to be turning pages. The Nav. map doesn't support dials, attack map has quirks, so it would probably have to go in the original views. Daft as it seen I even thought of the captains log. There was a navigation program as I remember and maps were chosen from the top of the screen in map view. Then there's OLC's macro, might flick pages giving the impression of leafing through a manual.

I'm going to concentrate on putting the new sils and data in the original game set-up first. Then we can use that while I investigate further.

I'll have a look in SH4.

[badwolf]

The big problem with putting it in F1 or the nav.map is if you have ships with just a minor difference, then you could be going back and forth.

Having had experience with the GUI I'm trying to do, I found making a big change can result in a chain reaction of changes. I've got to make up all the sils which in itself will take time, so to get something released, I'll keep it simple to start with.

I'll put the new manual on a slide out, in peri-uzo or page 3F, the latter maybe better as you'd have it in all views, I could tie it to an officer so that it wasn't a nuisance. the only problem would be OLC's shortcuts as I'd like it to slide up, would be like looking down at the manual. This will enable you to look at the ship and then look down at the new manual. With the new manual containing 6 ships or so distinguishing will be easy. Each Ship will have an ID number, all you've got to do then is bring up that ID in the original manual. You'd even know which direction is the quicker to find it and no going back an forth. I'll see if I can strip the old manual to bare essentials (top row of data) which you could keep present without blocking the AOB Finder, also may speed up the old manual.

[badwolf]

Thanks Mikhayl
That will be very useful when I improve the initial release.

[badwolf]

I thank Hitman and Mikhayl for their very useful help. I'm sure the mod will be better than I envisage.

[Hitman]

Oh I thought you were going to make a printable one

But anyway a better in-game manual is of course much needed, the current one suffers from different styles in the pictures and many inaccurancies.

Thanks and if I can help with anything else, just ask!

[badwolf]

Hitman, if you want a printable one thats no problem. I'll do it as I make the new manual. In what form would you like it pdf ?

[badwolf]

This is a test ship, is quality satisfactory.

Estimated print-out size. (6 ships + Data on A4 paper)



Estimated in-game size.



Now to look for the correct type lettering, for the data.