Ship Heading + Protractor/Other navigation equipment?

[Uberman7788]

Sailing between islands in direct sail is pretty much guesswork until you can get a good compass.

And even then, when you have the chronometer and sextant, direct sailing for me is just sailing in the general direction of the island, seeing where I actually went on the map, and adjusting course. Its kind of inefficient.

Would it be possible to get ship heading in degrees as a part of the info we get when we get a really good compass? And possibly have a compass/protractor for the map so we can plot courses or at least determine what heading we should be going.

I think it would be a pretty good addition, at least.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I did a quick test. Open PROGRAM\console.c and find:

void ExecuteConsole()
{
   ref pchar = GetMainCharacter();
   ref ch;
   int i;
   int limit;

Below this, add:

LogIt("Course: " + GetCompassDirFromAY(stf(pchar.Ship.Ang.y)));

or:

LogIt("Course: " + makeint(Radian2Degree(stf(pchar.Ship.Ang.y)) + 180));

Press F12 to see your course logged on the screen.

That second one in degrees still needs some work because it doesn't stick to a 0-360 range. If you keep turning to starboard, then North will become 720 degrees and more.
Anyway, I don't think they would have used degrees back in those days.

Have you got any clue where this should be displayed on the screen? It is pretty full as it is.

I have no clue how to set up protractors for the worldmap, I'm afraid.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The minimap has enough information on it to make good decisions on headings. Study the map, then set your headings carefully and you should be ok.

When the map was changed I missed an island but have not missed one since.

 

[Levis]

Maybe we could add it as a dialog option on deck? You can ask one of the crew members which direction you are heading?

 

[DavyJack]

Maybe we could add it as a dialog option on deck? You can ask one of the crew members which direction you are heading?

- can be added to the next update if possibly(or even possible if someone'll work on it) done before Sire Pieter Boelen set sail.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Maybe we could add it as a dialog option on deck? You can ask one of the crew members which direction you are heading?

Heading is in 3D sailing mode; character dialog is in "walking around mode".
So you'd have to switch back and forth and I'm not even where the ship's heading is stored when you do that.

I'd say it should either:
- Be a button you press to display it, just like my console example does.
- Have it as continuous on-screen display. This is possible to add, since it is also used for the steamship power display, storm roll angle and date/time display.
Only problem: Where? It gets a bit full on the screen.
It does require a fair bit of coding as well, so is it worth it? The compass battle interface shows the heading too....