Add a Bow heading indicator for ships

[TheFinalStarman]

What I’m suggesting: Add an indicator to the ship’s HUD that shows the angle of the Rudder and the angle of the Bow (the front of the ship), to better help indicate the ship’s steering and movement.

[Would you like to see this in-game?]

• Yes
• No

Navigating in big ships, especially through fjords and archipelagos, is a bit difficult. There’s nothing to indicate understeer or oversteer - Just because the rudder is set to an angle, doesn’t mean the bow is showing that angle.

Because of how fluid dynamics work - and the laws of physics generally - the angle of a vehicle’s lateral turn depends on its acceleration and weight. A large ship like Costa Concordia (which sank in 2012 after hitting a rock) was unable to make the sharp turn it needed because it weighed too much and was moving too fast. Players in War Thunder command much bigger ships than Costa Concordia, so what afflicted her would also afflict in-game ships from LS 3 to Soviet Union. As such, players should be given a tooltip in the ship’s HUD that shows both the rudder angle and the angle the bow is showing. This would help players figure out what speed they should be going to get the most out of the ship’s maneuverability and avoid understeer/oversteer.

Here’s a mockup I made that shows how it could work. The rudder and bow angle are shown - because of the speed, the ship can’t turn as tightly as it should. The angle of the rudder isn’t the same as the angle the bow is showing - so, the player should slow down.

This would also be nice to see in-game alongside changing steering mechanics to relative control, similar to how forward/back movement works (which has already been suggested here).

Thanks for reading.

[Thomas_Belgium]

Although this suggestion is very basic, it’s still a simple feature that could be added or optional, although it’s currently already present in some form on the map.

+1 for optional function.