Stadimeter Solution by Reaper7

[Nausicaa]

Excellent work guys ! Way to go.

[John Channing]

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

That SH4 style AOB/Speed/Distance dial has a height slider that you move to set the mast height when the Range button is pressed. I don't see where this slider is getting updated automatically with the mast height data from the ship. If you set it to the correct mast height for the ship then the stadimeter works fine - you get the correct distance. But where is the automated input of the mast height? The user doesn't want to have to input the mast height. If I set the mast height slide to the correct mast height then I can even get the correct range using the XO TDC's stadimeter.
Using my automated mast height entry I see it set's the SH4 style AOB/Speed/Distance dial's height slider to the value I'm setting mast height to. So what am I missing here?
I target a ship and lock onto it - the slider for height does not change. I select another target - slider for height does not change. It just stays stuck at 20m

In SH4 the mast height come from when you select the correct ship in the Ship ID manual. Once you determine which ship you are looking at you check the box on the Ship ID manual and that loads the mast height. Then you set the AOB and speed on the pull out "TDC".

I have never adjusted the dial manually for mast height, but using this method I hit 10 out of 10 times.

JCC

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by John Channing

In SH4 the mast height come from when you select the correct ship in the Ship ID manual. Once you determine which ship you are looking at you check the box on the Ship ID manual and that loads the mast height. Then you set the AOB and speed on the pull out "TDC".

I have never adjusted the dial manually for mast height, but using this method I hit 10 out of 10 times.

JCC

that's the whole point. I select the correct ship and check it but the mast height doesn't get set. This is the stock bug still present (stuck at 20m). There's nothing automatically setting the mast height like it should be. My solution does it but I'm hoping that there's an easier and better way still. So this SH4 speed/aob/range dial is just another XO TDC thing in the way it works

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

That SH4 style AOB/Speed/Distance dial has a height slider that you move to set the mast height when the Range button is pressed. I don't see where this slider is getting updated automatically with the mast height data from the ship. If you set it to the correct mast height for the ship then the stadimeter works fine - you get the correct distance. But where is the automated input of the mast height? The user doesn't want to have to input the mast height. If I set the mast height slide to the correct mast height then I can even get the correct range using the XO TDC's stadimeter.
Using my automated mast height entry I see it set's the SH4 style AOB/Speed/Distance dial's height slider to the value I'm setting mast height to. So what am I missing here?
I target a ship and lock onto it - the slider for height does not change. I select another target - slider for height does not change. It just stays stuck at 20m

Had noticed that too. But still ranges appear to be correct when mast height slider is left untouched.
If you send range with stadimeter, range dial jumps to pretty much correct range, now if you move the mast height slider between min and max position - range adjusts slightly.
Its like the stadimeter is doing a approx to range and the mast height is a fine tune .

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by reaper7

Had noticed that too. But still ranges appear to be correct when mast height slider is left untouched.
If you send range with stadimeter, range dial jumps to pretty much correct range, now if you move the mast height slider between min and max position - range adjusts slightly.
Its like the stadimeter is doing a approx to range and the mast height is a fine tune .

I tried taking range readings on different ships at all different ranges with that dial and unless you set the mast height dial on it the ranges were off. The stock bug still prevails If you notice too the 'default' value for the mast height on that dial is 20m....the magic 20m bug.
The whole stadimeter problem easily boils down to the C++ code is not setting the mast height dial of the game to the ship's mast height. If Ubi would give us access to this portion of the C++ code it could be fixed.
Do a little experiment: read the target mast height dial everytime you lock onto (and identify) a new ship. You'll see that it's always set at 20. The slider on that SH4 style dial gives you visible proof that it never changes.

[Gorshkov]

So this bug is hard-coded. Yet we have to see for the next patch...

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by Gorshkov

So this bug is hard-coded. Yet we have to see for the next patch...

the 20m bug is hard coded but there is a work around for it. Reaper7 is trying to devise another way of doing it from the way I did. I hope he or someone else finds an easier/better way of doing it as mine is rather complicated (from a code standpoint but it does work).

[reaper7]

I was sure I was on to something there as It worked for the test mission ships I had - guess the height/distance was just a fluke .
Will keep at it trying a few things - you never know.

Have one other idea that I have to try.
Can someone that has Silent Hunter 4 installed check the Pages.ini for the Id number of the Confirm ship ID in the Recognition Manual.
As SH5 is built of Sh4 the Hardcoded ID for that should still be the same and is likely to be working. If so maybe we could replace the one in te XO Dialog box with our own chkbox with that Id assigned to it, that way it would send the mast value.


Found the SH4 one in Sh5 has an ID of 0x2506000B is this the same as the SH4 one I wonder?
Will try this in the game to see if it works.


EDIT: Also can someone make me a mission of say 5 or so stationery different ships at 1000m, 2000, 5000m & 1000m for testing purposes. Cheers

[reaper7]

Just did some more testing - and it is definitly working MAST HEIGHT is getting sent in the background.

Compare the values from the Stock SH5 Stadimeter and the reduntant SH4 Stadimeter in the following Pics all targets are at a 1000m distance from the Sub (All Stationery).

Merchant @ 1000M (Stadimeter placed at mast


Look at the values for both are at 1713m before confirming the stadimeter Mast height.



On setting the stadimeter XO dialog stays at 1713M but SH4 Jumps to aprox 1150M with mast height of aprox 42M.


Next a Tanker at 1000M



Look at the values for both are at 1513m before confirming the stadimeter Mast height.



On setting the stadimeter XO dialog stays at 1513M but SH4 Jumps to aprox 1190M with mast height of aprox 42M.


There is definetly something getting sent to the SH4 stadimeter that isn't getting sent to the Sh5 one regardless of it being sent to the Mast height Dial.
Which thinking about it - it won't get sent to the Mast Height Dial anyway as the currentval= 'ID' would be needed from the temp solution dial. to update to show selected mast height from Send to TDC chkbox.


Going on this I decided to try my SH4 Send Mast Height to TDC ID that I found earlier.

And look at the results:




Everything updated correctly.
Range and Mast Height .

Now to test and resolve the reset speed and Aob to 0.


This proves my Theory from an earlier post. If you click on the Send mast height to TDC without setting the mast height it sends the value plus a small bit of error to give a close to mast height value thus giving you a close to but not exact range. (But still good enough to hit ships ).
However if you set the Mast height manually on the SH4 Dial or correctly ID with the SH4 Recon Manual (Which sets the mast height dial) the range is sent the correct value and so you get a result with no error .

This was to allow you to target ships by eyeballing height without the need of going thru the recon manual. If you guessed the mast height correctly you got a perfect range solution.
Bit if you used the auto mast height you weren't severly punished getting range solution close to the real value.

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by reaper7

yes, clicking that check box sends the mast height data to the SH4 style dial thingy. But this is a 3 step process: you have to identify ship, then you have to open a rec manual, then you have to click on the check box. Now there is a way to make this a one step process.........this could get interesting
This solution will work since it's setting the tgt mast height dial. Before I was wondering how you were getting the tgt mast height dial (and thus the SH4 style dial thingy's mast height slider) set.
But I see one other problem: how are you going to get merchants into the rec manual you have displayed? This will work fine and dandy for the warships displayed in that rec manual but outside of those ships in it I don't see how it's going to work.
Have you tried opening the XO TDC dialog box's rec manual (or your version of it) and selecting the correct ship and pressing that button in the rec manual displayed above? It sets the mast height to the picture displayed in that rec manual, not the XO TDC one. I don't see how this can work?

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

yes, clicking that check box sends the mast height data to the SH4 style dial thingy. But this is a 3 step process: you have to identify ship, then you have to open a rec manual, then you have to click on the check box. Now there is a way to make this a one step process.........this could get interesting
This solution will work since it's setting the tgt mast height dial. Before I was wondering how you were getting the tgt mast height dial (and thus the SH4 style dial thingy's mast height slider) set.
But I see one other problem: how are you going to get merchants into the rec manual you have displayed? This will work fine and dandy for the warships displayed in that rec manual but outside of those ships in it I don't see how it's going to work.

Your not thinking outside the Box. My Mod has already done similar things regards the stock UI. Like I said before I create frankenstine type results.

Already did this with the Torpedo Panel to fix the Salvo and speed switch bug where every time you used it it repeated it twice - mine doesn't .

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by reaper7

Your not thinking outside the Box. My Mod has already done similar things regards the stock UI. Like I said before I create frankenstine type results.

Already did this with the Torpedo Panel to fix the Salvo and speed switch bug where every time you used it it repeated it twice - mine doesn't .

I think outside the box all the time It's just that I did some testing with that 'button' in the stock rec manual some time ago and it only uses the data from the 'page' you have selected in that stock rec manual. So how are you going to get ships other than those listed in that stock rec manual to work? Selecting the correct ship in the XO TDC dialog box and then clicking that 'button' doesn't work...it sets the mast height to the ship on that page in the stock rec manual....
What merchants have you tried this 'solution' on? And at what ranges?

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

I think outside the box all the time It's just that I did some testing with that 'button' in the stock rec manual some time ago and it only uses the data from the 'page' you have selected in that stock rec manual. So how are you going to get ships other than those listed in that stock rec manual to work? Selecting the correct ship in the XO TDC dialog box and then clicking that 'button' doesn't work...it sets the mast height to the ship on that page in the stock rec manual....
What merchants have you tried this 'solution' on? And at what ranges?

The Tanker and the Merchant ships above were not used with the Recognition Manual from SH4 the were got using the just the stadimeter button from the SH4 dial - as in the first 6 pics above.

The last one was just a test to see if the mast height changed, which it did but was not used in the other ones. They got the range just fine with a slight error due to the Mast height being in auto mode.
Still gives pretty close results .
Will test this furter till I have it working 100%. If not I can still use whats there to get it working 100% - I don't need a 1 click solution a 3 click one is just fine.
After all it was that way in SH3 and Sh4 .

I'm sure there's away to get merchants into the rec manual -just got the select by country flag working.

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by reaper7

The Tanker and the Merchant ships above were not used with the Recognition Manual from SH4 the were got using the just the stadimeter button from the SH4 dial - as in the first 6 pics above.

The last one was just a test to see if the mast height changed, which it did but was not used in the other ones. They got the range just fine with a slight error due to the Mast height being in auto mode.
Still gives pretty close results .
Will test this furter till I have it working 100%. If not I can still use whats there to get it working 100% - I don't need a 1 click solution a 3 click one is just fine.
After all it was that way in SH3 and Sh4 .

I'm sure there's away to get merchants into the rec manual -just got the select by country flag working.

at close ranges mast height being off by 1-2m isn't going to do much but at longer ranges it's going to significantly effect range reading. I still don't see how this is going to work 100% on every ship and give correct mast height data 100% of the time for each ship. Hopefully you figure out a way to do it but I really don't see how

[reaper7]

Originally Posted by John Channing

In SH4 the mast height come from when you select the correct ship in the Ship ID manual. Once you determine which ship you are looking at you check the box on the Ship ID manual and that loads the mast height. Then you set the AOB and speed on the pull out "TDC".

I have never adjusted the dial manually for mast height, but using this method I hit 10 out of 10 times.

JCC

Exactally JCC, that was the way I used it in SH4 to and that is the way I got it working too. Giving exact mast height gives a better sollution, but not imputing an exact mast height does not give much of an error.
If you imput the Mast height by clicking on the send to TDC it sets the correct height. Now move the mast height dial from max to min and at only effects it by a few feet. Perfectly good enough as most shoots will be under 3000m anyway.
800 to 1200 being the range most use I would imagine.

Anyways you cant get a proper reading on long distance anyway due to mast not being visible enough .

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

at close ranges mast height being off by 1-2m isn't going to do much but at longer ranges it's going to significantly effect range reading. I still don't see how this is going to work 100% on every ship and give correct mast height data 100% of the time for each ship. Hopefully you figure out a way to do it but I really don't see how

I belive I have that issue fixed .
Stay tune for aun update during the Week - This should be Big. (Just need to test fully that I can remove a few small bugs)