It's only a game...

[don1reed]

Here's a copy of an email I sent to a friend:

Hi Ken,

You laughed when I sent you a copy of Google Earth of the location of U-33.

Let me try to persuade you why you shouldn't laugh.
First off, I play SH3/4 in TC 1x...(remember, I explained to you that I retired from the Merchant Marine)
I keep a hand written paper log of my hour by hour watch changes and navigation. I take 5 sextant sights daily during a cruise, morning twilight (round of stars) weather permitting,
morning sun,
noon,
afternoon sun,
evening twilight.
I sent you a copy of my position on Google Earth because it, by far, demonstrated where the "Game" really has me.
I also do a paper plot using the celestial bodies I've chosen in my sights. Both the morning and evening twilight sights of (usually three stars/planets) is the most accurate. The three sun sights during the day only results in a running fix (rfix).

Yes, I take navigation very seriously. It is my main hobby now since retirement, but I use my real sextant(s) to collect and verify celestial ephemeris routinely...like brushing my teeth.

Everyone's computer dir is different, for me, the game places the saved games here:
C:\\Users\\Gamer\\My Documents\\SH3\\data\\cfg\\Careers\\Achilles\\3\\A chilles.map

I use two stand-alone freeware programs, Python and Stellarium, running in the background; and, one costly program, "The Navigator"
http://www.tecepe.com.br/nav/

for my almanac for the war years 1939-1945.

My SH3 game save looks like this:

[Mark]
PointsNb=1
Pt0=-686886.13,5761850.50,0.00,Mark 1
[Ruler]
PointsNb=4
Pt0=-569007.63,5711646.50,0.00
Pt1=-1581642.50,6138904.01,0.00
Pt2=-406507.63,5712146.50,0.00
Pt3=-569507.60,5712146.21,0.00
[Range]
PointsNb=0
[Angle]
PointsNb=0
[Waypoint] <------------------------NOTE. I don't use Waypoints
PointsNb=1
Pt0=-788292.85,5808923.05,-11.32

The following script written for Python, goes into the "SH3" file in my documents HIGHLIGHTED below, does it's magic and puts the data of where the game KNOWS where I am and places it in STELLARIUM.
#Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Feb 21 2008, 13:11:45) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
#Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information.
#IDLE 1.2.2
#>>> #By Michael Jones, 01/01/2008.
#This program reads the latitude and longitude data for a
#sub in Silent Hunter III and creates a startup script for
#Stellarium. This sets the Date, Time and Location of the
#sub in Stellarium, allowing players to use celestial navigation in the game.
import string
#read 100. Change the directory on the next line to point to 100.map in your saved game directory.
f=open("C:\\Users\\Gamer\\My Documents\\SH3\\data\\cfg\\Careers\\Achilles\\3\\A chilles.map",'r')
content= f.read()
f.close()
#find lat & Lon in the file
start = content.find("Waypoint")
longst = content.find("Pt0=",start)
longnd = content.find(",",longst)
latnd = content.find(",",longnd+1)
print start
print longst
print longnd
print latnd
#convert to dec deg
longitude = float(content[longst+4:longnd])/120000
latitude = float(content[longnd+1:latnd])/120000
#get date&time (input)
date = raw_input('yyyy/mm/dd :')
time = raw_input('hh:mm :')
#Write startup script. Change the next line to suit for your Stellarium startup script.
stella=open("C:\\Stellarium\\scripts\\startup.sts" ,'w')
stella.write("date utc "+date+"T"+time+":00\n")
stella.write("moveto lon "+str(longitude)+"\n")
stella.write("moveto lat "+str(latitude)+"\n")
stella.write("script action end\n")
stella.close()
#now open stellarium and take your star sights

I then open stellarium and take my celestial sights, then reduce them to LOP's (lines of position) and where they cross, that's where I am.

The short answer to your question is: Yes. That's where I am.

Cheers,

Don