Cylindrical Earth

[Bilge_Rat]

I dont see why UBI should change anything, it is infinitely more simple programming a game using a flat world.

Most players never even realized the SH 3/4 game was flat and it has no practical impact on the game, other than a arbitrary visibility limit.

In SH 4, where the distortions are huge compared to SH 3, I had done some checking on fuel usage and travelling time between various points on the SH 4 map and what it should be in the real world, but the difference is not really noticeable....especially after the novelty wears off and you start warping from point to point...

[martes86]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Most players never even realized the SH 3/4 game was flat and it has no practical impact on the game, other than a arbitrary visibility limit.

You're very wrong about that. It does affect navigation (if done emulating real procedures and all that). Since it doesn't project on a spherical model, distances are distorted, and the realism goes away the moment that sailing to some place in the sim doesn't take as long as it would in the real world. Also, as pointed by Nisgeis, flat has issues with horizon-line sight.

Cheers

[Frederf]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

Could the SH map center on the North Atlantic, say by using 45 degrees N as its "equator", so that the main area of operations would suffer from the least amount of distortion?

Theoretically yes, the "line of no distortion" is where the cylinder intersects the globe which can be any pairs of latitude. The cylinder can cut through the globe such that the equator region is projected inward and has a contraction distortion while the pole regions have an expansion distortion.

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

It mimicked ships being obscured by the horizon by making them sink lower into the water, the further away they were. The only problem with this was that you could see the waterline and then the horizon behind it, rather than seing the hull obscured by the horizon.

I thought SH3 was like that but SH4 had a better solution? That's terrible and explains why it's so easy to spot ships in SH3 and SH4, they are so drastically highlighted by being off the horizon.

It should still be reminded that a spherical worldspace and a spherical actionspace are two entirely independent concepts. Either could be addressed in any order or combination without interdependence. Silent Hunter could get a curved actionspace (or localspace if you like) and retain the old, flat worldspace or vice versa.