How do you convert standard clock position for space combat...

Do what Attack Vector Tactical does.

>Let the ship computer handle it.
This seems like the smartest answer.

OP, is there a crucial reason for your players to want to be able to accurately call out their positions in space, and will handwaving this cause actual problems or diminish the players' fun?

Maybe just add a designation like "top"? So "12 o'clock high" is like one step up (1 o'clock upwards from the 12 o'clock position). 12 "o'clock top" is two steps upwards (2 o'clock upwards from the 12 o'clock position). If something is directly over you, you just say "overtop". Meanwhile if something is underneath you, first it's "low", then it's "under", and directly below you is "underneath".

Alternately, you could just use "up high" for one step higher than high, and "down low" for one step lower than "low"

X plus/minus Y.
X is the normal clock position.
Plus/minus refers to whether they are above or below.
Y is the degrees above/below.

Saying someone is at "9 plus 45" refers to the target being to your left and above you at a 45 degree angle.

Just do plus or minus 2 to correspond with clock positions (with a separate designation for directly above and directly above, as any clock position +3 would indicate the same exact position).

Before battle, create a reference point in the warspace that easy to point out and keep track of, thats "ground"

You could just say "plus 3" for directly above and "minus 3" for directly below. In both cases the normal clock position doesn't matter. So "enemy at plus 3" means that there's an enemy directly above you.

That works.

>Has this ever been done before?

Has it ever been done before? You can't be that retarded. At the very least it's been done since the pulp sci-fi days of the 1930s, you fucking moron.

You either use two "clocks" at right angles to one another, use two 360 degree bearing systems again at right angles to each others, or use polar coordinates.

Two clocks. One horizontal, one vertical.

For example, 12 by 6 is below you. 12 by 3 is ahead and in front. 3 by 3 is directly right, etc.

However submarines do it

You don't. You use relative bearing and azimuth, or objective datum positions, as modern ships and planes do.

t. part time naval communicator

Submarines also basically say "on bearing [whatever] from me and at a depth of [whatever]." Submarines don't roll much but it'd be trivial to just use objective positions relative to landmarks instead.

The only issue with bearing/azimuth/range is that you run into gimbal lock, but it's not like it's a moving part, so it doesn't really matter that much, it's just a little harder to visualize at extremes of above or below you.

I played in a space combat game where 3rd dimension angles were designated by colors of the rainbow. So directions were like "6 o'clock blue" for behind and above, etc.

50% of the second clock is wasted as it overlaps. 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock share the same second clock. That's why something like with the modification in is better (or something like ).

>So directions were like "6 o'clock blue" for behind and above, etc.
That has a nice ring to it, though it doesn't mean anything until you familiarize yourself with the color scheme.

>3rd dimension angles
uhhh I think you just mean elevation

"3rd dimension angles" is literal complex math and what youre talking sounds more like relative elevation ("he is above/below me by however many meters/miles" vs "he is above/below me by however many degrees")

Are you stupid or something?

It's literally just 0 to 12 on the horizontal axis to specify bearing, and 0 to 12 to specify azimuth. How do the rings overlap?

It's literally the same as normal pitch/yaw

>though it doesn't mean anything until you familiarize yourself with the color scheme.
yeah people already fuck up Red and Green enough as it is for relative bearings, I wouldn't expect people to reasonably remember what order the rainbow goes compared to what we've decided are the various levels of relative elevation

(im not even being sarcastic, "red" and "green" usually give way to "right" and "left" under stress or just with anyone new and not super accustomed to it)

>It's literally just 0 to 12 on the horizontal axis to specify bearing, and 0 to 12 to specify azimuth. How do the rings overlap?
The normal o'clock positions are 30 degrees for each each position, forming a complete 180 degree circle, right? So let's say your first clock (the horizontal one) is at 12 o'clock and your second clock (the vertical one) is at... 9 o'clock? I'm not quite sure how you're orienting the second clock, but I think that's what gets you to be going in the direct opposite direction of 12 o'clock from the 1st clock. Anyway, assuming I'm right 12 by 9 would be the exact same direction as 6 by 3.

>The normal o'clock positions are 30 degrees for each each position, forming a complete 180 degree circle, right?

>180 degree circle

this is what /k/ actually believes

...slow clap...

Yeah, okay. Brain fart. 360 degrees, obviously. But my point holds up otherwise.

Not really since the rings of reference are perpindicular and do not overlap. They can't. They're perpindicular. It's kinda part of the definition of this system of pitch and yaw.

The axes along which something pitches, yaws, or rolls are unchanging relative to those other axes.

If you bank left, one of your "clocks" doesn't get closer to the other. The second "clock" just also banks to the side.

>I'm not quite sure how you're orienting the second clock,
Have you seriously never heard of pitch/yaw/roll? It's literally just that except from 0 to 12 instead of 0 to 360 like normal because the OP is obsessed with an outdated system of reference meant for peasants who never took geometry in grade school but can somehow still tell time

>But my point holds up otherwise
Not him, but it doesn't.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_coordinate_system

>Not really since the rings of reference are perpindicular and do not overlap. They can't. They're perpindicular.
See pic. When the second clock is perpendicular to 12 o'clock on the first clock, it's also perpendicular to 6 o'clock on the first clock. Travel halfway around the second clock and you're headed in the exact opposite direction on the first clock.

Wow you've discovered gimbal lock!

Too bad that just saying "It bears 12 o'clock" thinking you're all smart since the rings coincided at that one of two point will convey no useful information to whoever you said that to

To have a complete piece of information, even at that "overlap" point, you still need the azimuth to let others know that it's at that overlap point and not literally anywhere else along the pitch axis

just because the azimuth is 0 doesn't mean you can leave it out, you still need to say that it's explicitly 0 (or 180)

To further illustrate. This is a two-clock system where 12 by 12 equals dead ahead with no elevation. (The vertical circle is numbered according to 12 o'clock on the horizontal clock.) In it, 12 by 6 indicates exactly the same direction as 6 by 12. Also, 12 by 1 equals 6 by 5, 12 by 2 equals 6 by 4, 12 by 3 equals 6 by 3 and so forth.

Why would people involved in space combat even have the concept of an analog clock?

>Too bad that just saying "It bears 12 o'clock" thinking you're all smart since the rings coincided at that one of two point
Literally every point is an overlap point. 100% of them.

You literally have the exact same issue.

>12 by 6 is the same as 6 by 12
I see what you're getting at but with your illustration those are actually the complete opposite directions. Good job. In fact, all of your examples of "THIS IS THE SAME WTF" are actually just the opposites of eachother

Some things use a signed 360 degree system (i.e. you can be at -60 to say 60 to the left as opposed to +60 which is to the right) and it hasn't stopped anyone that -180 and +180 are the same, or that -60 and +300 are the same.

In a practical situation, you'd just use the more "ergonomic" one so you're understood that much sooner, but if you're using computers or whatever it's all mathematically the same and will process just fine.

are you seriously arguing with the VERY WELL ESTABLISHED concepts of bearing and azimuth interfacing with eachother

they don't overlap. they do not move relative to eachother, either, if you're thinking that. they are flat rings perpindicular to eachother. when one part is 0, it may seem not useful to specify an azimuth, but you still have to, because 0 is still a valid azimuth

seriously I don't understand your problem with something like pic related, is it that you can specify them in the reverse order and get to the same point? because while that's wonky, people would probably specify to be consistent about whether they wanna hear bearing or azimuth first

Because they aren't going to disappear, if only because of tradition and style.

m8 12,6 would mean "start at 12, go to 6" and 6,12 means "start at 6, go to 12"

i mspainted some arrows for you to show you why you are dumb

m8 no one uses the clock system anymore except for MUHREENZ, ships and planes use true 0-360 bearings or relative left/right bearings (or port/stbd) and elevation by actual altitude, and land forces tend to prefer cardinal directions or specific descriptions since with clock shit you very quickly run into
>Enemy, four o'clock!
>Whose four? Your four or my four!?

>they don't overlap.
The second, vertical clock for position 12 on the first clock completely overlaps the second, vertical clock for position 6 on the first clock. For every 12 by X coordinate, there is a 6 by Y coordinate that indicates the exact same direction. What I am saying is 50% of the second clock is unnecessary because it's what overlaps.

You just need one circle and a semi-circle. Pic will get you just as many directions as a full circle. It's numbered stupidly, and 3 and 9 on the vertical clock are always the same direction regardless of the horizontal clock, so it could still stand some improvements, but at least we've eliminated some excess baggage.

Again, if you look at with , or , they all address the situation.

>i mspainted some arrows for you to show you why you are dumb
I was thinking that 12 on the second clock indicates no elevation. 12 by 12 means straight ahead at no elevation. 6 by 12 means directly behind you at no elevation. In other words, the vertical (red) circle would rotate according to the direction the target was in.

Maybe that's confusing though and the second circle should only orient according to your facing. In that case 12 by 6 would be the same thing as 6 by 6 (instead of 12 by 6 being the same thing as 6 by 12). Either way, there's as much overlap.

Sorry. Forgot pic.

>The second, vertical clock for position 12 on the first clock completely overlaps the second, vertical clock for position 6 on the first clock.
one, "no", even your illustration they line up at 12,12 and 6,6, and they line up at no other points. the circles are fixed to eachother.

i think you're confusing an azimuth of 0 for being in some way invalid, and having congruent pairs of points existing somehow making it invalid. yeah, 5,12 is the same as just 5, but it is different from any other pair starting with 5, so you still need to say it's specifically 5,12. it's also the same as 11,6, but who really gives a shit since all the math will still work out anyway

i see your issue with it now and it's an utter non-issue. because of how the coordinate systems work, you can still use 0 to 360 on azimuth, but it's unergonomic to do so since it's just more natural for humans to turn to face something, then look up or down.

in a practical situation with human beings (and in real life with stargazing or shooting down planes or w/e), you would probably not use any of the azimuth numbers beyond 3 or 9, since it's simply more natural to look at something, get that bearing first, then check its elevation. in fact, in real life where this kind of thing is in fact a thing, degrees are more often used, and things below you are just given a negative number in settings where that's even possible.

it may be useful if something passes overhead to maintain continuity of numbers (e..g go from 2, 3, 4, 5, etc) just to make it more human-readable and immediately obvious that it's passing overhead, but the math for tracking or pointing stuff at it or whatever would still work just fine either way, and many 3d programs even allow for totally arbitrary signed values without any real limit beyond normal computer concerns (e.g. you can say that something is at a pitch of 56723, and it won't complain, because the sin functions involved still work to infinity)

Was gonna post this, but no incline/decline. 90 degrees is right above, 270 is below. But your idea makes more sense I think, maybe streamlined so "incline" isn't spoken and "decline" is replaced by minus or negative.

8 o'clock 45 degrees
2 o'clock minus 80

tl;dr your "solution" changes fucking nothing and you're a weirdo for requiring it but it's more natural to a human that would use it for reporting in plain voice

>Maybe that's confusing though and the second circle should only orient according to your facing
Never mind. This would actually be more confusing because the second (vertical, red) clock would effectively be smaller and smaller as you moved away from 12 and 6. You'd no longer be slicing an orange in half, but just cutting off a side of the thing (see pic). That would mean that clock positions on the second (vertical, red) clock would be closer together for an enemy at 2 o'clock (on the 1st, horizontal, blue clock) than an enemy at 12 o'clock (on the 1st, horizontal, blue clock). And that's just silly.

So the vertical clock has to rotate around according to the enemy's facing on the horizontal clock.

Have you considered that maybe you are stupid and should do some reading up on coordinate systems? Or at least try to understand how circles work?

i think you're looking for something like this. but if it's an RPG or some short story or a place where you don't expect your audience to be familiar with spherical coordinate system, the easiest is if you go with a horizontal clock face and add elevation (going from 0 degrees at the equator to +/-90 at the poles). so you could just say "check your 6, elevation plus 45" if something is incoming from behind and above. it's really rather intuitive and less confusing than trying to use two orthogonal clock faces. and even people who don't do geometry regularly, still have an intuition what 30, 45, 60 degrees are (you don't really need finer resolution than that).

>one, "no", even your illustration they line up at 12,12 and 6,6, and they line up at no other points. the circles are fixed to eachother.
No. Look. 12 by 3 lines up with 1 by 3, lines up with 2 by 3, lines up with 3 by 3 and so on. In fact all the "by 3"s line up as do all the "by 6"s. And for every 12 by X coordinate, there's a 6 by Y coordinate. The same thing is true of 1 by X and 7 by Y, 2 by X and 8 by Y, 3 by X and 9 by Y, 4 by X and 10 by Y, and 5 by X and 11 by Y.

>i think you're confusing an azimuth of 0 for being in some way invalid
Well, it's more altitude than azimuth that we're talking about, but either way, I'm just saying that there is more to the system than we need. The o'clock system is supposed to be quick and easy. But in any case, we're probably going to have to agree to disagree.

No, it's actually literally azimuth, and you are stupid and don't understand coordinate systems, trig, or even how to draw a circle.

The way I was originally doing it corresponds to the way that azimuth works. I was just talking about the way in because was saying that 12 by 6 and 6 by 12 would be in opposite directions from each other, which meant he wasn't rotating the vertical (red) circle according to horizontal target facing.

Azimuth is horizontal. The issue we're talking about is with our vertical coordinates, and thus altitude rather than azimuth. Also, fuck you, asshole. I'm getting sick of your shit. Until you learn to read what somebody else is saying, you should quit picking fights or you'll look like a fucking moron.

>Azimuth is horizontal.
Whenever you're working with bearings, azimuth is understood to be up and down as opposed to bearing's left and right. Don't be a fucking pedant.

>50% of the second clock is wasted as it overlaps
No it isn't.
One circle operates normally, the other is at a right angle to it, connected at 6 and 12.
There is no overlap at all aside from at the 12 and 6 points.
Maybe I explained it wonky in the first place; 3D mechanics tends not to work right with my brain.

The circles either stay attached to the ship, so 'YOUR 12 by 6', or are determined by the battlegroup somehow. Either arbitrary, locked to the plane they entered on, or just locked to the ecliptic.

See as to why that wouldn't work very well. Or actually, just look at the pic here. If 12 is in front of you, and always have the vertical clock run front to back from your perspective, you end up with it being off to your side -- parallel to you, but not running through your actual position, and creating smaller and smaller slices of the imaginary sphere of space which surrounds you.

>creating smaller and smaller slices of the imaginary sphere of space which surrounds you.
Like with this tomato, where the slices are smaller at the edges.

So you really need to do it more like azimuth, where the vertical plane is adjusted according to where the target is horizontally, so that both planes run through your position. See pic.

>Has this ever been done before?
Yes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_coordinate_system

It's approximate for shouting over comms, though. Doesn't need to be exact; that's what the computer is for with it's fancy 3D holographic display that you can't take the time to look at.

You mean like how rotary dials are still in use?

I mean, folks still measure shit in feet, and we still use time telling units inherited from the Sumerians.

Simple. Hour plus elevation plus range if you're communicating among a crew who all have a shared frame of reference. Among a battlegroup locations would be projected on each individual component's HUD, probably coordinated with the flagship's navigational systems.

"High" and "Low" aren't any more relative to the ship's orientation than any left/right directions are. If the clock callouts are valid, then so are high/low.