3000 yd compass

Can I add a 3000yd compass in a Mission game in process.

[Aktungbby]

gg5356!

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by gg5356

Can I add a 3000yd compass in a Mission game in process.

Yes, you can. There's nothing in the files that would interfere with a mission or campaign already in progress. If you're using one of my mods, make sure you pick the mod specific to the screen resolution you're using, and to the same unit of measurements (yards or meters) you have.

To know if the map bearing is accurate....in-game, just pull out the map ruler to check the range marks.

[KlassenT]

Edit: After finally stumbling onto Capn's original [REL] thread (instead of poking through the Download section), I've confirmed it's sadly an untinkerable issue. I'll keep the post for posterity's sake, and anyone else finding the same.

It's been a long time, fellow submariners! (The forum alerted me my last login was back in 2010-- whoops!) But having my interest in the endeavors of the Silent Service in the Pacific rekindled has brought me back, as it tends to do. I'm actually using the 3k Yd Bearing Plotter on top of TMO for this install, and I've noticed a rather quirky behavior. I don't think this is necessarily the fault of the Plotter, but it's rather probable the following occurs in stock 1.5 as well.

I decided to test the accuracy of the plotter since other similar projects have been known to be off by a degree or more, and I figured the easiest way to do this, of course, was by setting a nav waypoint and seeing if the zero bearing tracks correctly. Something tells me that there's been a change in DirectDraw protocols since release, or the devs took the lazy route of rotating the .dds itself. When correcting towards a course, the sub's actual heading is accurate, however the 'own ship' icon (and thus the plotter) never quite finishes turning to the correct heading, usually stopping about a half-degree short.

In practice, I know it can't be the fault of the Plotter itself, because the attack map still shows fore tubes on a perfectly straight track aligned with the Plotter's 0-bearing. Seems to occur only on the nav map, when the sub is correcting heading for a waypoint course; example, if you have to make a starboard turn, the sub/plotter will stop rotating with the 0-bearing juuust shy of the nav line (Sadly, I'm not an ace when it comes to naval terminology-- logic suggests I could say the icon's heading is 'port' to the true line of travel, but this may be a technical faux pas. Correct me at will.) Conversely, if you have to correct to port to hit the next navpoint, it will still stop short of the true course. If it was a matter of a misaligned Plotter, then it should stay on the same relative side of true course, methinks...

At any rate, since this happened to be one of the most recent posts, and the man himself has already weighed in, I figured it might be a handy place to begin my search. Sadly it seems like such a vague and difficult-to-describe issue that forum and web searches both failed to turn up anything useful in my case. Advanced apologies if it's a recognized issue that I've somehow overlooked, but fingers crossed someone has either run across it before and has a solution, or at least can confirm I'm not crazy even if there isn't a fix. You guys always come to the rescue!

[TorpX]

When correcting towards a course, the sub's actual heading is accurate, however the 'own ship' icon (and thus the plotter) never quite finishes turning to the correct heading, usually stopping about a half-degree short.

I believe what you are describing amounts to, for lack of a better description 'sloppy helming'. The rudder movements, and the resulting turning effects, are not instantaneous. The helmsman must gradually ease the rudder as he approaches the desired course, then at the right moment bring it amidships. Were he to wait until he was at heading X deg., the ship would continue to turn some, and would come to X + 1, or X + 2 deg., which is not what we would want. To put it another way, the turning ship has a certain rotational momentum, and this makes perfect precise helming difficult.

[KlassenT]

Originally Posted by TorpX

I believe what you are describing amounts to, for lack of a better description 'sloppy helming'. The rudder movements, and the resulting turning effects, are not instantaneous. The helmsman must gradually ease the rudder as he approaches the desired course, then at the right moment bring it amidships. Were he to wait until he was at heading X deg., the ship would continue to turn some, and would come to X + 1, or X + 2 deg., which is not what we would want. To put it another way, the turning ship has a certain rotational momentum, and this makes perfect precise helming difficult.

Yep, that's how I tend to adjust rudder when manually setting course as well. The ultimate problem (as it relates to the bearing plotter) is that the graphical icon of your ship on the map doesn't seem to account for the same momentum-- Once your helmsman sets rudder amidships, the navmap sub/bearing graphic stops short (even though the physical sub continues settling onto desired course). It could also be a simple lazy programmer, that decided to only rotate the graphic until the "remainder < 1" instead of "remainder = 0" Since a bearing plotter was never devised in the official releases, you'd never be able to eyeball that +/- 1 degree difference based off the icon of a tiny sub, so it was probably just an oversight.

As an aside, you CAN correct for this by manually adjusting rudder to the point where your 0-bearing is perfectly aligned with your nav waypoint, then use the return-to-course function. Since the sub doesn't need to turn more than one degree to resume travel, the Plotter doesn't even have to rotate. At least it's a viable workaround since I don't expect to see anyone touching SH4's source code again.

[CapnScurvy]

I spent an hour looking through my past posts....going back to 2007, and couldn't find a specific post regarding the issue of the one degree difference in heading when turning port or starboard.....but, I know it's a "known" issue. Could be a post regarding this one degree error in one of the pages of RFB. I know there were map images of the one degree inaccuracy included in the posts....I just couldn't find it.

However, I do remember this is a problem with the stock game while using the map bearing compass. As memory serves me, you will start out with the sub traveling at zero degrees when first applying power, but as you turn left or right, the bearing compass will show one degree off center.

The 3000 yard bearing compass is accurate. As I remember, the game's idea of what is exactly 360 degrees is at error. The game can't quite register that zero and 360 degrees are the same.....(silly computers) it just doesn't "compute" Spock, its illogical!! That's probably why the stock game didn't give us a map compass bearing.....the dev's knew the logic of the computer wouldn't allow for the bearing compass to accurately show on the map.

So, there's not much we can do about it. I remember off-setting the bearing compass by one degree to compensate for the turning error....it just made the other direction of the turn error by two degrees, instead of one.

[TorpX]

The 3000 yard bearing compass is accurate. As I remember, the game's idea of what is exactly 360 degrees is at error. The game can't quite register that zero and 360 degrees are the same....

I've found the bearing plotter I use (forget which size it is) to be accurate. Certainly good enough for most purposes. With the HUD compass, I do well to get a course within 2 degrees of what I intend. To get the exact course I want, on the first try, is pure luck.

I remember Duci saying that the game used a 361 degree circle, but I don't think that is the case. Imo, it is just a case of rounding; a value of 359.6 will display as 360, while a value of 000.4 will display as 0. An extra step is required in a program to round 360 to 0, and they apparently forgot this.

The ultimate problem (as it relates to the bearing plotter) is that the graphical icon of your ship on the map doesn't seem to account for the same momentum-- Once your helmsman sets rudder amidships, the navmap sub/bearing graphic stops short (even though the physical sub continues settling onto desired course).

This isn't necessarily the case. It might seem so with your game, but I was testing different rudder/prop factors in turning and found that they are definitely not all equal. Some combinations gave very sloppy helming; overturning in some cases as much as 7 or 8 deg. You might not be able to see any residual turning moment, but it is there.

[KlassenT]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

I spent an hour looking through my past posts....going back to 2007, and couldn't find a specific post regarding the issue of the one degree difference in heading when turning port or starboard.....but, I know it's a "known" issue. Could be a post regarding this one degree error in one of the pages of RFB. I know there were map images of the one degree inaccuracy included in the posts....I just couldn't find it.

No problem; it was in one of the original Release threads for the standalone plotter. I didn't have much luck with direct searches either, I just happened to stumble across the text during one of my scans. Just to confirm we're not all crazy:

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

(...)
Also something you will notice on the navigation screen is when the sub travels along its waypoint path the plotter will show 1 degree off center from the path of travel. This is not a problem with the plotter being incorrectly drawn. The plotter will come up 1 degree short to the right of center if you're heading turns right, or 1 degree short to the left of center if you're heading turns left. If anything this shows the plotter is dead on center. The problem is within the game code that for some reason comes up 1 degree short depending on which way you turn. We can't fix what the developers don't wish us to get our hands on!!
(...)