First post-war patrol with GWX

[dfscott]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Integrated Orders: Pages 32-35 of the GWX Manual.

Doh! And I'm usually good about reading the manual!

I think the 644 pages intimidated me a bit and I couldn't wait to get playing -- skimming FTW!

BTW, as an update: I've gone back and removed the tails and the color coding. I found an interesting post that shows how to use the course bearing indicated to intercept. Now that I'm learning how to use the hydrophone a bit better, I'm having no trouble determining bearing.

And the flag illumination mod has made it so I can identify ships now. Also, I didn't realize you could thumb through the recognition manual in pause mode! I was trying to flip through it really fast in the 30-40 seconds I had before he crossed my bow!

Sadly, although I managed to sink 6 ships in my last patrol, I only netted about 10K tons. I also learned that it's a dumb idea (on so many levels!) to try and torpedo a trawler in stormy weather.

Next patrol, I think I'll give the Hitman GUI a spin...

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by dfscott

Doh! And I'm usually good about reading the manual!

I think the 644 pages intimidated me a bit and I couldn't wait to get playing -- skimming FTW!

BTW, as an update: I've gone back and removed the tails and the color coding. I found an interesting post that shows how to use the course bearing indicated to intercept. Now that I'm learning how to use the hydrophone a bit better, I'm having no trouble determining bearing.

And the flag illumination mod has made it so I can identify ships now. Also, I didn't realize you could thumb through the recognition manual in pause mode! I was trying to flip through it really fast in the 30-40 seconds I had before he crossed my bow!

Sadly, although I managed to sink 6 ships in my last patrol, I only netted about 10K tons. I also learned that it's a dumb idea (on so many levels!) to try and torpedo a trawler in stormy weather.

Next patrol, I think I'll give the Hitman GUI a spin...

BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!!

[KL-alfman]

Originally Posted by dfscott

Next patrol, I think I'll give the Hitman GUI a spin...

pls tell me then about your experiencies.
I'd like to try it out too, but was a bit scared to some issues I haven't seen before in a GUI.

[sharkbit]

Originally Posted by KL-alfman

pls tell me then about your experiencies.
I'd like to try it out too, but was a bit scared to some issues I haven't seen before in a GUI.

I just started using it a few weeks ago. It takes some getting used to because it is so different. I've used the ACM v1.x for a long time with OLC's wiz-wheel, so it was pretty different.
I'm getting better at judging things by eye using hitman's gui with the help of the aids he included. I'm not to the point of selecting map contacts off, though I doubt I will ever be ready. The assisted plotting mod will probably be the closest I come to that.

Like all GUI's, there are things I love and things I don't, but I give it two thumbs up....
Manos GUI 3.1 is pretty good as well. It has some nice things about it. In fact, I made a mini mod to use his map tools with hitman's gui.

[dfscott]

Originally Posted by KL-alfman

pls tell me then about your experiencies.
I'd like to try it out too, but was a bit scared to some issues I haven't seen before in a GUI.

I didn't have any issues, but I did take some notes on my experiences. A couple things to keep in mind is 1) I'm new to SH3 (note the forum join date!) and 2) I'm new to GWX3.

That said, here are my general impressions (about halfway through a patrol):

- It takes a while to figure out where to click the stopwatch. (It's apparently a known issue but he's having trouble fixing it.) It also took me some time to get used to the stopwatch appearance. My screen isn't very large and at first I had trouble telling the difference beween 2 and 3 minutes on the small hand, particularly the draggable one that has a simulated glare effect. I'm adjusting to this fairly quickly, however.

- Tab doesn't seem to work to zoom the optics. I think there's a comment in the manual about this, but just wanted to mention it. The wheel on the mouse works fine however.

- Getting used to the new locations of the TDC gauges on the periscope and UZO took a while. I don't read German, so I kept having to refer to the manual, particularly to find the torpedo bearing (not sure why I couldn't remember that one!). However, I imagine that more experienced SH3 players would already have internalized a lot of this, so I can't really call that a problem.

- Even after reading the Hitman GUI manual several times and doing several forum searches, I can't for the life of me figure out how to use the triangle plotting tool. I haven't needed it since I use the other tools, but I feel like I might be missing something that could make my life easier. If anyone can point me to a step-by-step example of how to use it, I would be eternally grateful.

Overall, here are what I feel are the overall pros and cons to this point:

Pros:
- The extra-large depth gauge is great. Not only is it easier to use, but there's also the aesthetic value of being able to request 40 meters instead of having to ask for 38 or 41 because you can't click accurately enough.

- I absolutely love the large heading gauge. The slide-out one for GWX was a huge improvement over stock, but IMO, this one improves GWX by the same amount. It's nice to be able to click, hold, and slide it to exactly the heading you want. Only when you release it, does the command take place (I think the others work the same way, but it's more useful with this version since you can actually see what you're doing!) And again, the aesthetic of the rotating inner plate is awesome looking!

- Optics are excellent. However, I didn't notice that much different between the observation scope and the attack scope at night. There was a crescent moon out and the visibility was "moderate", so maybe it needs to be darker? I don't worry about range at this point (90 AOB for all my shots), so I can't comment on using it to find range.

- Having the TDC right at your optics are nice. I'd gotten pretty good about flipping back and forth, but being able to switch from manual to automatic and make adjustments right there at scope is really handy.

Cons:
- There seems to be a lot more clicking required to get to the various TDC functions at the periscope/UZO stations. There doesn't appear to be any way to go directly from one display to the next -- you have to click click "Zeiss" to exit the current panel and then click the panel you want.

- Having torpedo depth on a separate panel bugs me. Maybe most people don't change it that much, but I like to give the board a quick review before I fire, and it's an extra step I have to take. I like it better at the TDC station where I can see everything at once. This is likely an issue with screen space, so I'm not sure what to do about it.

- Similar to the above, getting to the stop watch takes some clicking. On stock and GWX, I would typically mark the map, hit F3 to go to the scope, and then click the stopwatch to start timing. With this setup, I have to mark the map, hit F3 to go to the scope, click Zeiss to close whatever display I have up (it always seems to be something other than the stopwatch!), then click the stopwatch button to bring up the stopwatch, and then click the stopwatch to start timing.

- Both the above I think I can get used to, but the one that may be a deal-breaker for me is the whiz wheel. As nice as it is, it seems to come flying out at the drop of a hat and tends to cover a huge part of the screen when it does. I also seem to hit it at the most inopportune times, (such as when I'm trying to do some last minute tweaking to the TDC). I really wish it came out via a button like the enlarged gauges.

At this point, the pros outweigh the cons by a large margin, although if I could figure out a way to disable the whiz wheel, my opinion of this GUI would go up even more! Again, I'm only halfway through a patrol, so I may change my mind after a few more attack runs.

[sharkbit]

@dfscott:
You should post your above thread in hitman's gui thread in the mods section. I'd bet he would be interested in your detailed feedback.

[KL-alfman]

hmm, thx to both of you for the detailed anwers.
as sharkbit mentioned having so much to estimate by eye's estimation only was a bit intimidating to me.

I mostly (and successfully) use the "fast 90AOB"-method.
so range is not that important, but when attacking convoys you sooner or later have to aim at 70-80AOB too. and there's where exact range-data comes into play.
and I don't like the nav-map to use for that calculations .....

and yes, you're right.
Manos nav-map tools are really highly adequate.

[dfscott]

Originally Posted by sharkbit

@dfscott:
You should post your above thread in hitman's gui thread in the mods section. I'd bet he would be interested in your detailed feedback.

Good Idea! I'll do that.

[KL-alfman]

Originally Posted by dfscott

Good Idea! I'll do that.

that's fine!
thx dfscott
if any, modders like to get in-game experiencies with their mods. sometimes these even lead to improving former mods .....

[dfscott]

Wow -- I posted over there and immediately got feedback from hitman. I'll link to the thread rather than repost, but he did show me how to disable the wizwheel, which should fix my biggest issue for now.

http://174.123.69.202/~subsimc/radio...82#post1376382