Ability to 'markup' navigation map

[Archive1]

Some time ago in one of the subsim fora I suggested that someone put together a small mod that would permit the user to "write" to the nav map, ie, drop a special icon, or color spot, to record where an air contact occurred: or 'mark' on the map where a taskforce was encountered, or a destroyer, or whatever. This could be in the form of having available different colored icons, or simple drawing ability, or...whatever...I'm not a graphics programmer. I would like to be able to mark contacts with an arrow indicating direction. I am sure actual navigators and captains did this routinely. Of course, it would be grand to also put text in re: time of contact, speed, etc, etc. But let's start slowly.
Any of you have any comments?

[catar M]

sounds like a great idea,would be good if it was possible to do

[Canovaro]

Archive1, what purpose would these marks serve?
There's a link in my signature to a website that does something similar, but this is a community thing. It also shows other player's marks. It might be the closest thing to what you would like to see. But it is not in the game.

[irish1958]

I believe that SH3Gen generates a map that you can write on and save. The instructions are not clear on how to do it, however

[i_b_spectre]

I would be satisfied if the default nav map tools included an "Are you sure?" when clicking on the "erase all", since it's right next to the eraser icon. When things get busy, it's too easy to accidentally clear everything when you don't mean to. A little idiot-proofing would help someone like me.

[Archive1]

Carnovo: I think it would be good to be able to indicate on the nav map where one encountered various contacts on the outbound leg, to alert one on the return leg of the patrol - where DDs are lurking, where aircraft are likely (even with SH3Gen one is surprised), where there seems to be some single ship traffic, where convoys seem to gather (even with the map and SH3 Gen) etc. Not so?

i_b_spectre: Oh my, yes. I've trashed the map by clicking on the wrong icon often.

irish1958: I use SH3Gen but did not know that. Where is it documented? Can you give me some guidance?

[irish1958]

Globalexplorer wrote this in the readme and instructions of using the tracking room. However, he stated that it was complicated and that he would issue instructions if he had time. This was last Spring, so I guess he is not going to do it. I don't have the slightest clue on how to do it. I don't know how to use the tatukGIS reader either, and I can't find any instructions of how to do it.

This is the instruction in the readme:
Quote:
Because Sh3Gen was completely relying on ingame visualization, and the dire restrictions of the SHIII
map station I decided I want to visualize the Sh3Gen data in an external application.
Sh3Gen Tracking Room Editions come with an option to export data that can be used with GIS
(geographical information) systems.
You will need to download a tool that can display the map data. I have optimized it for usage with the
(completely free) TatukGIS Viewer, a great program, but it’s possible to use it with other GIS tools
that can read GML files.
With Sh3Gen and the viewer you can now study the strategic situation like in a real tracking room.
Another great advantage is that you can now store and review your previous patrols, which was one
of the things I really wanted to have.
The GIS view contains all the data that you are used to from Sh3Gen, plus a lot more through the
data panels. There is now a detailed property table for every object in the map, while the SHIII Map is
restricted to hold all informations in a 19 character string.
This should be extremely interesting if you run it on a two monitor setup or a second computer. I
haven't tried that yet, but it should open up a whole lot of new possibilities!!
I don’t know of I will find the time to create documentation for the GIS part. Using the GIS initially
requires a little bit of learning, but is also extremely powerful.
I hope you catch up in the idea, and help others getting the most out of it. Unquote.

I wish I knew how to do it. In another of his readmes he states you can write on the maps and save itl, but he doesn't explain how to do it.:hmm::hmm:

[Pisces]

The only way I can think of placing navmap marks using custom descriptions is by hand placing them in-game and editing the "Mark X"-text in a .map savegame file out-of-game and reload. I think this is how SH3Gen does it.

Take a look at an excerpt of one of my .map files below (it's in your MyDocuments\SH3\data\cfg\Careers\*player_name*\*pa trol_number* folder) You'll see alot of marks that SH3Gen added based on the intelligence it has. So it does write to your savegame files, but maybe not critical files. Atleast, I don't know what happens when you screw up the syntax. Will they be ignored?, or cause CTD? Don't know) Ruler, range, angle and waypoint sections are further down the file. However it seems to miss important information like circle radius or endpoint of the ruler. So they must also be stored in some other savegame file.

[Mark]
PointsNb=428
Pt0=-8633782,4342699,0,-Convoy-
Pt1=-10432753,3458574,0,-Convoy-
Pt2=-8546785,1983000,0,-Convoy-
Pt3=-9723398,1771374,0,-Convoy-
Pt4=783002,7719000,0,-Convoy-
Pt5=4017525,8312201,0,-Destroyer-
Pt6=4021550,8422661,0,-Destroyer-
Pt7=4808148,7784480,0,-Destroyer-
Pt8=5025748,8337093,0,-Destroyer-
Pt9=2220391,8328901,0,+DD Leberecht Maas+
Pt10=2217651,8329111,0,+DD Paul Jacobi+
Pt11=2217621,8327671,0,+DD Bruno Heineman+
...

According to the Sh3Gen readme quoted above by Irish1958 the text must be within 19 characters, so it has it's limits. (didn't know that before) And it's cumbersome doing a save-edit-reload all the time. But alot better than making messy hieroglyphics with the line-tool, IMHO. As the little endpoint crosses and length numbers are plotted also (and sometimes the lines are not shown based on line-length and zoom-out level, making it even less clear)

I'm afraid there will not be an in-game solution (ever) since the game is too old. The irony in all this is that Dangerous Waters/Subcommand could not draw lines (except in the mission-editor!!!) but did place editable marks and circles (and also had a temporary range/bearing tool) during playing, while SH3(/4?) cannot edit those marks in-game yet has all those other neat kind of drawing tools. This is really weird.

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by Pisces

The only way I can think of placing navmap marks using custom descriptions is by hand placing them in-game and editing the "Mark X"-text in a .map savegame file out-of-game and reload. I think this is how SH3Gen does it.

Yes it is! Anyone can understand how it adds the data by looking at the files it creates. This method is unfortunately very limited, because you have to reload the game every time you have made a change to the files.

[Archive1]

My impression from the comments is that this is not an easy thing to implement. Since I am not a graphics guru, I suppose we need to drop the idea as impractical. Too bad. I'll have to go back to my crude use of the marker tool and line tool.
Thanks for the response.

[GoldenRivet]

another idea i always thought would be great is the sunken ship icons that appear whenever you sink a ship... those never go away, they save and are transposed onto the map at the start of the next patrol.

[Venatore]

I asked the same question about two and half years ago, but it was said that it coulden't be done, the same was said about opening the hatches......

[jimmie]

It's technnically possible, I think. But it'll be no longer just hex editing of value tweak.

You'll have to disassemble the portion of program which is responcible to delete the sunken ship icons. There must be a test for this, so find the test (which is the most difficult part and it's near impossible in a normal sense) and overrite the test with other machine instruction (op code) so the program won't execute deletion. not easy.

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by jimmie

It's technnically possible, I think. But it'll be no longer just hex editing of value tweak.

You'll have to disassemble the portion of program which is responcible to delete the sunken ship icons. There must be a test for this, so find the test (which is the most difficult part and it's near impossible in a normal sense) and overrite the test with other machine instruction (op code) so the program won't execute deletion. not easy.

Besides, reverse engineering or code-hacking is illegal.

[jimmie]

are you kidding?

Edit: on second thought, I'll retract the above sentence so not to step in the touchy zone. Retreat!