MoBo Update

[lurker_hlb3]

:hmm: Is there an ETA on this great tool" the one that out now is great, but this looks "way" better

[XLjedi]

Originally Posted by lurker_hlb3

:hmm: Is there an ETA on this great tool" the one that out now is great, but this looks "way" better

Well, I'm encouraged at least that there is still some interest in the MoBo project. ...and you're right V1.0 is way better!

My original ETA was "Sometime in May", I think I'm on track to meet that goal.

Play testing has revealed a few items that I'd really like to include for release 1.0 and so I've been play testing, taking notes, tinkering, more play testing, etc...

At this point, it's not quite ready for release (I gotta couple more goodies to code) but if some of you would like a sneak peek, I might be willing to allow a few play testers to try it if you're willing to report back. I also wanted to see if I could get Neal to give it a test run too, perhaps solicit his support by way of a sticky topic, or release announcement/review, etc.

On the one hand, yes, it's better... but 'better' also means more complex. I'm afraid a manual will need to accompany the 1.0 release.

[Jace11]

drooling...

wish it could work ingame.. I only have one monitor

[XLjedi]

Originally Posted by Jace11

drooling...

wish it could work ingame.. I only have one monitor

I've added a new feature for single monitor users that you might like.

I've tested it with SH3 in windowed mode and it works just fine. There's an opacity slider that allows you to overlay MoBo on top of other running programs; you can see thru it.

[Jace11]

Thanks for allowing me to have a play with this.

I love the clean interface, the options, nodes etc. I am a complete novice when it comes to any kind of maneuvering board, but it looked very cool so I wanted to try it. On my first use, after I had calculated everything, I worked out the target speed of 1 kt, which was blatently wrong, then I realised I was working in relative motion.

Here is a screenie of me trying to calculate a contacts speed and heading from radar plots at 10 min intervals using the PPI screen mod to estimate range.



Once I had a relative motion of 30kts, I had to transform the contact vector onto the point of my own ships vector so I could work out target true speed and course.

It worked.. 17 kts, and 258 True though the real speed was 18, only 1 knot error, but enough to cause me to miss with 2 torps!

Anyway, feedback.. and ideas..

The viewing area cannot be expanded, the window can't be dragged to be larger on my desktop (1280 x 960). I found that a bit of a hinderence at times when I needed a bit more room to work.

Maybe include a background with a nomograph on it for conversions? - though I use calculator anyway.

Lock nodes and contacts so they cant be moved accidentally?

Bug causes a crash when you change the OwnShip to a node and then do something else it happended several times but I can't remember what I did after I changed it to a node - I will try and reproduce it.

Perhaps allow keyboard input of data... with graphic can only do whole number vectors eg 17 but not 17.5

Heres an idea.. when you change units, say meters to yards, instead of just switching the unit value from 3000m to 3000y, why not do the real conversion? That could be used to solve things like nm, from m or y, so calculating speed is easier..

Anyway, its great. I really like it. Havent tried TMA yet. Will do..

[XLjedi]

Originally Posted by Jace11

Thanks for allowing me to have a play with this.

I love the clean interface, the options, nodes etc. I am a complete novice when it comes to any kind of maneuvering board, but it looked very cool so I wanted to try it. On my first use, after I had calculated everything, I worked out the target speed of 1 kt, which was blatently wrong, then I realised I was working in relative motion.

Here is a screenie of me trying to calculate a contacts speed and heading from radar plots at 10 min intervals using the PPI screen mod to estimate range.



Once I had a relative motion of 30kts, I had to transform the contact vector onto the point of my own ships vector so I could work out target true speed and course.

It worked.. 17 kts, and 258 True though the real speed was 18, only 1 knot error, but enough to cause me to miss with 2 torps!

Anyway, feedback.. and ideas..

The viewing area cannot be expanded, the window can't be dragged to be larger on my desktop (1280 x 960). I found that a bit of a hinderence at times when I needed a bit more room to work.

Maybe include a background with a nomograph on it for conversions? - though I use calculator anyway.

Lock nodes and contacts so they cant be moved accidentally?

Bug causes a crash when you change the OwnShip to a node and then do something else it happended several times but I can't remember what I did after I changed it to a node - I will try and reproduce it.

Perhaps allow keyboard input of data... with graphic can only do whole number vectors eg 17 but not 17.5

Heres an idea.. when you change units, say meters to yards, instead of just switching the unit value from 3000m to 3000y, why not do the real conversion? That could be used to solve things like nm, from m or y, so calculating speed is easier..

Anyway, its great. I really like it. Havent tried TMA yet. Will do..

Thanks for the feedback and glad you like it.

Lot of the stuff you're asking about is addressed in the MoBo Play Tester forum at: XL-Logic.com

1) It appears you're not using the latest build (released Friday night).
2) You haven't quite got the hang of it yet. BUT THAT'S OK! At a glance I know it doesn't look like much but I've got a lot hiding in there.

OwnShip to node bug... I'll look into that.

Speed to the half-knot? You really think that kinda resolution is necessary? :hmm:

1280x960 res... yeah I was thinking about coding it to allow for expansion. It's just one of those "I'll get to it later kinda things..." I'll add it to my thread for "Improvement & Suggestions".

Lock Nodes - OK

Don't need a nomograph, it's got nomographs built into every line it plots! The lines are like nomos and trig calculators built into one. But if you want to display one, you can load your own background image that includes one. Once you figure out how to use MoBo you'll never bother to use it though.

When you change units on the scale the app does more than just change y to m. I can assure you, it does do all the real conversions.

Calculating speed in MoBo couldn't be much easier. All you have to do is plot two nodes, connect em with a line, set a time for each node and turn on the line TSD display. In that case it would show you the ellapsed time and solve for speed. In fact if you had the TSD display on you'd notice the app is doing more than just changing y to m when you change the scale, you'd see a differential in the speed solution as you toggle between ft-y-mi-nm-m-km.

BTW, I'd love to have a place here for play testers to post and so forth, but I don't have moderator status here and I can't manage the forum the way I need to. I'd need my own seperate forum here or the stuff just gets buried... and I gotta be able to tag things sticky and so forth. So if you don't mind please use my Play Tester forum.

Thanks

[wstaub]

Been Playtesting the beta version of MoBo and all I can say is it is a great little program once you learn to use it. Have not tried "fool" testing it though, ie things a fool would try.