Compass & Navigation

[roaring30s1972]

I am trying the boat now for a few days, hehe, and are very impressed about the potentials of this one.
On my first mission I am leaving the port from first person view manoeuvring the boat to sea and am missing a proper compass. There are only telegraph and rudder indicators.
Out of the port moving to the bigger maps there is no course indication. I had to guess between which islands is the exit to the ocean and the boat is only following the plotted course on the map without knowing what is the course.
Studying the game I find out that possition accuracy is influenced by gyro compass and manning of the navigation station and risking to get lost. I still didn't find out what this means yet.

What would be really helpful are a bit better navigation tools. And a compass is essential.
Not only inside the boat, but you need it also on the conning tower or instant readout. This is also helpful on planning attacks and during attacks.
In the SH series it was very useful to have a rudder indicator combined with compass function to plot the course with a quick click and give a course order to the crew. That is what I am missing here.
Out there on the ocean the U-boat navigators had to use star navigation shooting the stars or sun, radiobearing findings and most important dead reckoning navigation with the log and compass. I know this is hard to simulate, but steering a boat on the ocean with just rudder indication and a 'to follow' course is risking getting lost, but not in a realistic way like navigation in the good old days. So, this should be better simulated and the information should be available all the time to the Captain.
I am a professional ships navigator for years on merchant ships and navigating with it's navigation tools in the SH hunter series was serving their goal in the right way. It was also nice setup to manoeuvre the boats in and out of the ports to the open sea. But here it is like sailing in the 'dark' and a compass with a course function is the least what we need. And with easy readout without going down in the tower to readout the compass. Captains have their crew to provide them with information and U-boats had slave compasses on the conning tower.
Maybe I am missing something here or has this post been adressed before.
Please don't hesitate to share thoughts on the navigation aspect and the missing compass.

[roaring30s1972]

I have moved this topic to "General Feedback" - section.
Please read further on from there.

[Ruby]

Hi,

a compass was already requested.
There is already a compass in the game that cannot yet be used for navigation. In addition, a mod with compass is currently being created.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/8/2264689848035054337/#c2264689848050763179

Cheers Ruby

[schutt]

There are 2 dials in the boat that show the direction you are heading if you have the gyro-compass switched on. They are really hard to read, but they have a North marker and numbers every 10 degree, with a extra 1-digit dial in the middle. So you can count from the north marker. One is above the nav table, one is at the helm station that is in the corner behind the attack periscope.
The only thing needed would be that the numbers on the big dial are made readable by either ony showing the 100th and 10th (18 for 180) or big first 2 digits and small zero. So only minor Graphical fix needed. If a mod reskins the dial probably would be enough.

Edit: actually with high or verry high graphics detail the dial is readable. So there IS a compass on board, or say there are 2 dials that show the direction when the gyro-compass is switched on.

[Cruelfate]

Roaring, your not the first to bring this up.

Sometimes when I get lost I use the sun in the game to pin point the direction I'm going in. So if I'm headed north in the morning I make sure the sun is to my right, or if I'm headed east in the evening I make sure the sun is behind me. This makes up for time while my navigator figures out where we are. This method works for me all the time and the developers made sure that the sun rises east to west according to time.

If I get lost at night I get an officer to the navigation board and idle till morning. Once the sun is up I navigate using the sky till my navigators does his job.

[chksix]

Navigating by the sun is a bad idea in this game since it runs inverted. This’ll be fixed in a patch though.

[Cruelfate]

I’m not so sure chksix, I just attempted it two more times. I was successful in navigating and staying the course. With the map unavailable.