[gap]

Originally Posted by Storm501

I would like to offer ideas to the NDBs (non-directional radio beacons). I have experience with them in aviation, not naval.
In real life you can hear their 2-3 letter ID, so that way you know which is Brest and which is Lorient. Also to crude extent you can estimate are you at short/long range by signal clarity/strenght.
If they emit only few hours a day, can this be invididual to each beacon? If Brest would emit 14-15z and Lorient 15-16z, that way we could ID them.
If the above is not possible, I would argue that range information, although unrealistic, is necessary to balance the lack of other possibilities as invididual ID cannot be simulated in the game.

Hi Storm, you are making some good points. My remarks:

- If I got Vecko's explainations on this feature, his simulated NDBs are in reality normal radio messages. I am noot susre ifm besides distance and direction of the emitter, also message content can be known by the player. Probably yes, in which case the text of the message could be a simple three-letter code denoting the antenna emitting the signal.

- Different daily emission patterns for each antenna should be easy to simulate, and they could help identifying better the antenna of the intercepted NDB signal.

- Even if we knew exactly the name (and thus the location) of the intercepted NDB. there would be no point in placing two or more antennas close to each other, because only one signal (the closest one) can be intercepted at any given time. This limits us to having only one antenna per port, and to plotting our position using the second method I described at post #13544.

- For the plotting to be accurate, NDB bearings should be taken pretty near to port. Navigator's dead marks can be used to sail to an appropriate position. Since only one NDB per port is implemented, even supposing that the antenna of that port was destroyed, and that we are actually intercepting the signal of the second nearest port, there would be a very little chance of us not noticing that, as the result of our plot would be totally unconsistent with our approximately known position.
Indeed, radio ID's and range to the beacon would provide a further evidence of that, but I am afraid that the latter would be more useful as a cheat than for anything else.

Originally Posted by Storm501

Adding more lighthouses to the game would be awesome. Especially if they could have own light morse code or specific times of the day when the light appears.

Switching lights on and off depending on time of the day would be tricky but, at night, real lighthouses can be identified by the color, flashing pattern and duration of the light pulses. These characteristics are reported on nautical charts and they can also be found on many websites. For some lighthouses, even historical data is provided when their light's characteristics have changed over the years. Simulating them in game via particle generators is relatively easy.

Originally Posted by Storm501

Even if this is not possible, lighthouses or landmarks would be beneficial.

This one should be their main usage, since for most of WWII the majority of the European lighthouses was switched off

Originally Posted by Storm501

Displaying them on the navmap - Not a problem. Just make PDF of locations and players can draw the relevant ones themselves.

...or, even better, a vectorial icon can be placed directly on nav map in each lighthouse's position.