Map location indicator needed. Realism

[Eldberg]

Let's cut the bullcrap here guys... We all know there are tools out there to give you your exact map position. Even without said tools, it is not a hard task. So why bother fighting an in-game position?

Will it give us something we don't already have? No. Will it save us a few seconds? Yes.

[Aetrion]

Well maybe some of us would like to have some solid ingame tools with an interesting simulation to find your position rather than just abuse the hell out of the coordinate tagging on screenshots which doesn't have anything to do with actual navigation.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Aetrion

[Macjimm]

I've never used the F11 co-ords to fix my location in NA. Direction, speed and time has been sufficient so far. It's not hard core. Sailing in the Caribbean is all relatively close. There are no winds or currents. It really can't get much easier without a magic location circle on the map.

If we were to use a sextant and timepiece in game how exactly would that interface with the game play? Would the game provide an angle and a short shadow time as text displayed at local noon? Or does a navigator call out the numbers? Then we would refer to in game tables? Sounds hardcore. The developers would have to reverse calculate to provide the tables for a flat world. And we would need to reference the lat/long to a map. (F11 and a map can do now) It would be kinda fun but perhaps there are better uses of dev time. After all the game area is not open ocean.

Or perhaps we buy a sextant and a timepiece and at noon everyday a magic circle is displayed on our map?

[Dutchpower]

Indeed you acces the cords with F11.

In the early days they also didnt had a map indicator not even cords..

[Archetype]

Absolutely not. But, I would like more tools to mark positions - something like a pen to mark locations. I find it a little annoying going into a mission, coming out 30 minutes later, and not having a damn clue where I am. That way I could manually make a little mark on the map when I enter a mission and use it as a reference when I come out. 

[ObiQuiet]

Absolutely not. But, I would like more tools to mark positions - something like a pen to mark locations. I find it a little annoying going into a mission, coming out 30 minutes later, and not having a damn clue where I am. That way I could manually make a little mark on the map when I enter a mission and use it as a reference when I come out.

There are many ways to do that in the meantime.

[Admiral 8Q]

Absolutely not. But, I would like more tools to mark positions - something like a pen to mark locations. I find it a little annoying going into a mission, coming out 30 minutes later, and not having a damn clue where I am. That way I could manually make a little mark on the map when I enter a mission and use it as a reference when I come out. 

Yes. I would like a map tool also. Not a map position indicator. Marks, lines, angles, that you have to put in yourself. Not where the game holds your hand and does it all for you.

There are many ways to do that in the meantime.

Indeed there is.

[walleye]

Yes, just some simple map tools would be fine. I would definitely be against any type of auto map marker(weather it's accurate or not)

[KrakkenSmacken]

New player here. 

 

I found no problem in finding my way around given the fast travel/short distance between things in open sea, even being a dirty rotten pirate on the outskirts of the world without a coast to hug and not knowing about the F11 trick.  That said others will not and no good game should expect you to have to learn everything all at once before it becomes fun.

 

Given that I would suggest that if they add a dot, it only be available for new players, perhaps until level 3. That way you can learn combat, missions, trading, etc first, then once you have enough of that knowledge to get by without being overwhelmed, they drop navigation on you. 

 

If they wanted to get really sophisticated, they could have a bunch of helper tools that you can turn on until you have earned X amount of experience with them on or turned them off yourself so you can't just avoid the limitation.

 

That's what I as a new player think.

[KrakkenSmacken]

As a new player I found running around by feel to work well enough, even being a pirate far enough out to not be able to coast hug.

 

That said some new players may find the current learning curve far to steep and just give up on the game because of a thing that quite quickly becomes second nature with familiarity.

 

I would suggest that a marker be available, but only until you hit a certain level and are assumed to be competent enough with the other aspects of the game that adding this as a learning feature will be past other learning curves and building on knowledge rather than being buried under an avalanche..

 

Being new I do not know where that number should be set, but it could coincide with the loss of access to the free cutter.

 

 

EDIT:

Sorry about the sort of double post. I thought my first post got lost in the "first three posts approval" aether when I started posting without restriction and the first one didn't show up..

Edited February 23, 2016 by KrakkenSmacken

[Hyperion74]

This is far fetched but would be cool. A sextant mode, where you can bring up a screen and take noon sights. It would look like you are actually looking through the lenses on a sextant. There would also be instructions. Then you would have to do the spherical trigonometry. The go to the chart and mark your spot.

 

Of course a marker might be easier.

[Thonys]

Sextants to calculate latitude would be very nice. :-)

 

well i looked all over the darn ship but could not find it 

perhaps a good feature for the game

[Admiral 8Q]

It's actually quite easy to navigate. I took a photo to show. So to set a course for Tolu, I point my ship East on the in-game Compass, and just a bit left of the first notch North.

[ObiQuiet]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!

Put a 2nd monitor face up on the desk and use it as your chart table! Can't get much more realistic than that!

Thankfully we live in an age where our monitors are as flat as our planet!

[Admiral 8Q]

Put a 2nd monitor face up on the desk and use it as your chart table! Can't get much more realistic than that!

You don't need a second monitor. On the in-game map just find the approximate angle from where you approximately are. Doesn't have to be in numbers, I actually do it more visually. 

From that, I actually went past the little island before Tolu and had the shallows squares show up on one side of my ship. I even had a battle along the way.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Admiral 8Q

[Tennessee88]

But I love consulting my physical map, a map marker would ruin that for me because I am a lazy American. You know how long it took for me, a person who basically came as close to failing arts and crafts in kindergarten as possible, to tape that bad boy together. Plus it fun when the GF walks in and I am sitting there with my log book and map mumbling about some random nonsense in Queen's English. 

[ObiQuiet]

But I love consulting my physical map, a map marker would ruin that for me because I am a lazy American. You know how long it took for me, a person who basically came as close to failing arts and crafts in kindergarten as possible, to tape that bad boy together. Plus it fun when the GF walks in and I am sitting there with my log book and map mumbling about some random nonsense in Queen's English.

Hat's off to you sir! You're doing it right!

[Sir Cloudsley-Shovell]

Al you need is to use a Compass Rose off Google images then the Charts from opensea.org,you can lay courses in and it will give you both distance and Heading!

 

http://map.openseamap.org/

[ObiQuiet]

Al you need is to use a Compass Rose off Google images then the Charts from opensea.org,you can lay courses in and it will give you both distance and Heading!

http://map.openseamap.org/

It's close, possibly close enough for most of our purposes. Mariners should exercise caution though.

When openseamaps made the surveys on which their maps are based, the world was round. It's flat now, and some of the landmasses have since moved.

:-)

[Cpt Shadow]

I dare say in reality some captains were better than others, some would turn back and some no doubt got lost.  I can see no reason why we should not have lost sea captains in this game.  

[Sylven1]

Al you need is to use a Compass Rose off Google images then the Charts from opensea.org,you can lay courses in and it will give you both distance and Heading!

http://map.openseamap.org/

That's great. But why should I have to out of game to navigate.

Give us a compass, ruler and protracter in game. Going out of gamento use other maps and navigation devices isn't "hardcore", it's time consuming.

[Catskinner]

I've been playing for 4 days now and really like things as they are - it's not that hard to work out which way to point your boat And if you need to tack, just make each 'leg' equal in duration and direction and you are essentially straight-lining.

[Admiral 8Q]

That's great. But why should I have to out of game to navigate.

Give us a compass, ruler and protracter in game. Going out of gamento use other maps and navigation devices isn't "hardcore", it's time consuming.

Yes. Holding a ruler or my finger up to the screen is terribly time consuming.

[ObiQuiet]

That's great. But why should I have to out of game to navigate.

Give us a compass, ruler and protracter in game. Going out of gamento use other maps and navigation devices isn't "hardcore", it's time consuming.

Agreed that these tools are obvious by their omission in the game itself. Just about everyone notices that right away, judging by the number of duplicate threads here alone.

One advantage of the external maps and tools is that you can have them open on a 2nd screen, so there no time consumed. Also, depending on your choice, they could have more annotation features than an in-game one is likely to have.

Though if the difference between pressing "M" versus Alt+Tab is important to you I must admire and envy your productivity! :-)

[Admiral 8Q]

This is funny! Deliberately getting lost using GPS!