Power of the machine gun?

[gap]

Originally Posted by troopie

So is this to say that if I'm the target, the AI could accidently aim up to 4.5 deg off to the right of my actual position and if so, the shell would land 118m away from me (if I was 1.5 k's away)? I'm too lazy to do the trigonometry.

Theoretically, yes!
It is a simple trigonometry calculation:

max traverse error [m] = sine (max traverse error [deg]) * range

in our example, the maximum deviation should be equal to:

sine (4.5) * 1,500 ≈ 0.078 * 1,500 ≈ 118 m

Originally Posted by troopie

Does this same factor apply to both elevation and traverse?

Elevation is a bit more complicated, because bullet's motion is not linear, being affected by gravity. Gravity force (i.e. the change of vertical speed) is constant indeed, but what matters is the relation between it and the decreasing horizontal speed, wich in RL is affected on turn by muzzle velocity (the starting speed) and by bullet's weight and drag coefficient, both varying from gun to gun and from shell to shell.

In SH5 this model is strongly simplified, that's sure (I couldn't find any parameter relative to shell's weight and drag). But I ignore its details.

Note also that wind speeds should affect as well both traverse and elevation errors, but again, I ignore if this aspect is modelled in game.

Originally Posted by troopie

Is a modifyer applied over this factor to reflect crew skill level?

I am not sure about it, but I think so. This is something that would be worth experimenting on it

Originally Posted by troopie

Okay well, this is rather embarrssing but, as far as file structure goes, I found the 'mission editor' tut thoroughly confusing, and consistently contradictory! Nothing against the author, probly more of a reflection of my I.Q. Anyway after much experimenting I've got my test mission underway but now I'm suffering a bad case of the X-boats!

As said by sober this was a common occurrence when the first modders started creating custom missions. At some point they discovered what was causing it. IIRC I experienced myself the same issue once or twice, but I can't remember what I was doing wrong. Nevertheless, I will prepare a simplified ME step by step tutorial that should iron out the problem for you

Originally Posted by troopie

Anyway, X-boats aside, I was able to test many changes to the above lines with none seeming to have much effect. Tried many values from 0 and 0.1 anywhere up to 50.

Now, on to guns_radars_01.sim

Originally Posted by troopie

Have made said mod. Just want to ceck I have the right understanding of how this works: Once I have enabled it via jsgme and start using goblin editor, I point the editor to what would normally be the stock location of the file yes? And as jsgme is redirecting to my mod the changes will actually be made to the mod and not to the stock file itself, yes?

Follow the below steps, in the same order:

• Copy the wanted files wherever you want, and put them in the correct folder structure (to mimic the one of SH5). For example:
  MyMod/data/Library/ShipParts
  
  
• Edit the copied files
  
  
• Drop your mod (MyMod in our example) in the MODS folder, and enable it with JSGME, as you would do for any other mod

If you edit the files of your mod after having anabled it, your changes won't take any effect until you disable the mod and reenable it

Originally Posted by troopie

Sorry for all the stupid questions.

The only stupid questions I know of, are the ones that one refrained himself from