Community projects?

[keysersoze]

Fellow subsimmers,

(Please bear with this rambling thread...)

I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently, which is always dangerous, about what we as a community can do to continue improving SH5 and, indeed, all subsims. You see, I’m one of those wretched sim enthusiasts who has not an ounce of modding ability, but who nevertheless wants to contribute something to this awesome community, rather than just living off the virtual sweat of our more talented modding colleagues.

I first realized there might be an opportunity to participate in a small way when reading through TDW’s sh5.exe thread a few months ago. At one point in that thread, gap raised an excellent idea: what if TDW’s wolfpack hardfix used historical U-boat positions to determine which boats (if any) responded to your contact reports? “Awesome idea!” I thought. That would be a perfect way to tie TDW’s brilliant wolfpack function to the historical availability of U-boats. Plus, how cool would it be to report a contact to BdU, and then to receive a message from Günther Prien in U47 or Kretchsmer in U99 as they come racing to your aid?

Now, the data for U-boat positions is readily available, but the task of compiling all that information is simply insurmountable for a single person. The solution—the one proposed by gap in the aforementioned thread—is for the community to participate in gathering the data. Anyone can go to uboat.net, read about a particular U-boat’s patrol, and enter its coordinates in a community grid. As they say, many hands make light work. By opening a project like this up to the entire community, it provides an outlet for those who want to lend a hand but who, like me, can’t tell a .dat file from a .gr2.

I don’t mean to suggest that compiling U-boat positions is the only community project we can or should undertake, although I think it’s a great idea. The possibilities are really endless: any project that requires a bit of collaborative legwork could benefit from this approach. Things like scanning schematics and pictures for modelers, gathering historical BdU operational orders from actual radio messages issued to U-boats, researching Allied and U-boat OOBs for inclusion in historical scenarios are just a few of the possibilities that spring to mind.

Moreover, as I’ve found while researching special operations, reading patrol logs can be a lot of fun, not to mention tremendously immersive. It strikes me that others might be interested in the same kinds of projects. Of course, this sort of thing would be entirely voluntary. People could participate as little or as much as they wanted. Whether you want to commit to a long-term project or just want to spend an hour on a lazy Sunday afternoon reading about U-boats, your work could benefit the Subsim community.




Here are a few advantages of “community” projects:

• More resources for modders—they can reference reliable information quickly and draw inspiration from it
• Large tasks become much easier when many people are involved
• Information will be exposed to a larger audience
• Provides an opportunity for people without modding skills to participate
• Increases the already considerable community ethos at Subsim

This is a long-winded way of asking a few simple questions:

1. First of all, is this even a good idea? Do you think there would be any interest in community projects?
   
2. If so, what would be the best format/structure for such a project? I was thinking about posting the U-boat special operations spreadsheet as a public google doc as a kind of test run to gauge interest. That way, more people might see it and hopefully benefit from it. The google doc format also allows multiple users to simultaneously edit a single document, so that others could contribute if they wanted. Are there better formats than google docs?
   
3. Any other suggestions, either about the concept or about project ideas?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Step-by-Step Instructions for U-boat Positions Project:

1. Access our google drive folder and download gap's generator

a. Link

b. Everything you need is in the folder titled "U-boat Coordinates Project"

i. "Completed Patrols" folder is for uploading/storing copies of the spread sheet when you are finished entering data

ii. "uboat coordinates v1" is gap's generator. Download this. You will work with the generator OFFLINE

iii. "U-boat Positions" is the master spreadsheet where you will paste the data created by the generator

2. Copy and paste information into gap's generator (do this offline) [INDENT]a. Sources:

i. uboat.net: This is our primary source. Copy and paste daily U-boat coordinates by clicking on each day of the patrol, and then clicking on the blue icon on the map.

ii. u-historia.com: If you can read Spanish and/or want to use an online translator, this site is useful for cross-referencing with uboat.net. Neither is error-free.

b. Enter general information in the lower lefthand corner, including commander's name and rank, date patrol started, duration of patrol in days, and whether the U-boat carried any mines. Gap's program will automatically use this information to create a template for you to work with

i. To get daily lat/long, click on each day of the patrol underneath the map. This will take you to another screen. Then click on the blue icon. It will display lat/long.

ii. To check to see whether the U-boat carried mines, go to the main page for that patrol and scroll to the bottom. If it was a minelaying mission, it will tell you the number and type of mines carried. Example

iii. Also on the main page for the patrol, check the "General events during this patrol" section. It will often contain useful clues for how you should set the "current activity" tab. Example, showing U-34's engine trouble:

iv. To find your commander's rank, simply click on his name and check the date of your patrol with the dates of his promotions. Be sure to check to see if he was promoted between patrols.

c. Copy and paste U-boat's lat/long for each day of the patrol in the corresponding cell of the generator. Be sure to delete the comma between the latitude and longitude

d. Select one of the drop-down options from the "current activity" tab. Most are self explanatory, but refer to this link for an in-depth description:

e. After you have entered positions and current activity for every day, simply highlight the yellow (output) cells and copy them

3. Paste the output from gap's generator into the google docs spreadsheet

a. Find the appropriate month/year tab in the lower lefthand corner of the spreadsheet

b. Find the correct type for your U-boat (VIIA, B, etc.)

c. If your U-boat is not yet listed for that month, add three rows, each labeled with your U-boat's number (these correspond to the output data you have already copied)

d. Highlight the first day of your U-boat's patrol

e. Paste the output data into that cell by pressing ctrl + v

4. For now, please keep a copy of the filled-in generator for each patrol so we can check each other's work and easily add variables later

a. Please use the following file naming format (without quotes): e.g. "U-33,2". This is shorthand for "U-33, 2nd patrol."

b. If you have a gmail account, you should be able to upload a copy to the folder titled "Completed Patrols" in our google drive account

c. If you don't have a gmail account, just hang onto the copy for now. I'm looking for a workaround that won't require an account.

5. Final considerations

a. If your U-boat's patrol spans multiple months, you will need to copy and paste information separately for each month, since the master spreadsheet is divided by month.

b. If you know that your U-boat had an unsuccessful attack on a certain day, put a zero in the "number of ships sunk or damaged" cell for that day

c. If there are coordinates missing for one of your days, gap has created a method for interpolating the missing coordinates.

i. Go to the last day with a known lat/long. Select "from this point" in the "interpolate missing coordinates" tab for that day.

ii. Go to the next day with known coordinates. Select "to this point" in the "interpolate missing coordinates" tab for that day

iii. Special Note: By careful doing this, as it will draw a straight line between the points. If the U-boat is near land, it might have it sail straight into the coast. In this case, manually adjust the coordinate to ensure it does not intersect with land. If we are missing coordinates for several days, you can fabricate coordinates based on similar patrols. Each day MUST have coordinates listed.

At first glance, this probably seems very complicated. But it is incredibly intuitive. Play around with it for ten minutes, and I guarantee that most of your questions will be answered .