Kiel Kanal Ingress route solution for manual mavigation provided.

[dertien]

Originally Posted by Kumando

Its nice tough you can always use the Ctrl click near land that simulates the coastal navigation, no need to hang around there blind.

Yes, I am aware of that method, the 'virtual' sextant readings method at precise times (dawn, dusk, noon and midnight) if the weather permits.

@Kumando

But once near coastal beacons and buoys, no sane navigator will grab the sextant, as you are almost home, all you need to do is read the charts and follow the numbers on the buoys (like it is done in real life) I think the green ones in the IALA system have an uneven number, and the red ones have an even number. for ex the lowest number on the buoy is the one closest to the harbour (A1) and then on the same side a few miles further from the harbour you have A3 and so on until you are at sea.

It's a bit more complicated than that, because the Americans use a different IALA system than europe does, so if you really want to be realistic on this... uuuh, good luck. I wouldn't go that far to implement a complete global Navsystem into SH3, but a system that warns for minefields (cardinal buoys - marked yellow and black) and ingress and egress routes green and red, would be something worthwile to do in the Axis and occupied French bases throughout the war.

[dertien]

Originally Posted by DivingDuck

Moin,
I´ve no experiences with the tex folder yet. But it would be possible to create nodes referring to external textures that could be edited easily.

The *.eqp may be edited by notepad. I´ve used the *.eqp to control lighting with my speedboat. But it´s a little tricky if you don´t get along with the mission editor. The entries needed are explained in the speedboat´s installation instructions.

Regards,
DD

Ok thanks for getting back so quick at me. I get along with the mission editor, but I still copy the stuff manually in the campaign.src file, to avoid trouble. Will have a look at your speedboat install instructions, have downloaded it so won't be a problem.

[dertien]

Originally Posted by pontius

Hi,

as Divind Duck said, there is still some work to do and im not having much time right now. So i didn't work much on it the last days. Im new to all this and everything takes a bit longer

I think the eqp-file-solution is fine and won't be a big problem.
As for the skin, I don't know how it works for the subs, but its included in the dat-file.
Its not that difficult to change those skins. Maybe i relese with it a easy-little-template, we will see.

Right now I have 3 different versions.

Ok, good work Pontius I think 3 versions will be sufficient for now. Cardinal Buoys come in 4 variants (E-W-N-S) but don' t worry about that. It's great to see that they are ingame allready. Would love to beta test them, but I heard that DD has still some work to do with collisions, as these are HE mines right now.

A small thing I would like to ask (on a later release) is if you could make green and red buoys using only the barrel shaped underside of your current buoys, in order to have a "smaller" buoy without the light and the bell on top.

[Myxale]

Wow is not enought here!

A ultra-cool things! And Kudos to everyone involved! You Guys make this game amazing!

[dertien]

For all those interested in navigation techniques (old an new) using u-boats, here's a nice little article about coastal and dead reckoning navigation at this webpage:

http://uboat.net/articles/index.html?article=61



now if Vanjast comes up with his sextant mod, we could combine the whole stuff in one big SH3 NavReal mod.

[pontius]

Originally Posted by dertien

Cardinal Buoys come in 4 variants (E-W-N-S) but don' t worry about that.

Yes you are right, but I think these 3 variants are enough for the first time, because every buoy is a own unit and one simplified Cardinal buoy should be doing it.

Making subvariants won't be a big problem, but the qusttion is, if they are really needed, because, as I said above, every buoy is a own unit and will be loading time etc.


greetings,
pontius

[Kumando]

Originally Posted by dertien

Ok, good work Pontius I think 3 versions will be sufficient for now. Cardinal Buoys come in 4 variants (E-W-N-S) but don' t worry about that. It's great to see that they are ingame allready. Would love to beta test them, but I heard that DD has still some work to do with collisions, as these are HE mines right now.

A small thing I would like to ask (on a later release) is if you could make green and red buoys using only the barrel shaped underside of your current buoys, in order to have a "smaller" buoy without the light and the bell on top.

In terrestrial navigation a submarine position is fixed by direct visual observing of characteristic natural or artificial coastal objects and/or by measuring of sea depths. Position determined on that way is called "fix" or "observed fix". The characteristic objects are lighthouses, trigonometric points, church-towers, towers, chimneys, buildings, mountain peaks etc.

Thas what im saying you automaticaly fix your position with visual observation, since there are no landmarks in Sh3 i simulate this with the Ctrl click when near land

[dertien]

As I understood from both modders,

The model is the same, but the TGA files (green / red and cardinal) can be altered using a file. AFAIK, that will not drastically increase loading times. Lets give them time and I am sure they know what they are doing. DD allready stated that a solution was allready at hand in order to avoid the environmental folder to be a collection of far too many buoys.

As for loading times I'll tell you this:

My rig:

Athlon 3200
Ram: 500 megs
Geforce 6600 SLI 256 MB

I sometimes need to be patient when I load a Campaign, but that is a good thing, my dishes get washed that way . Once my pc has loaded everything, it runs as smooth as a high-end mother. I would't worry about buoys too much if you have a few Highpoly DD's out there.

As for coastal navigation, you could have an almost perfect pinpoint accuracy when having a buoy system in SH3. The fact that the CTRL-Click method IMO is a little bit going around the roundabout twice when you can pass a buoy, go to you navigator and say 'plot the course for Kiel throughout the canal NOW !'

If you really need to pinpoint exactly where you are, then all you need is a decent map with 1 lighthouse position. 2 is nice but I imagine if you do the manual plotting of targets in SH3 you can use the same triangulation method for navigation. Look at the article on uboat.net that I posted earlier if you're interested in this. This may be a little hardcore to some, but it's good training for me as I want to start sailing next year.