itch.io

I finally got around to trying a 'real time' sail where I leave the game running for multiple days. Unfortunately it seems to get unstable after being alt-tabbed too many times. At least the graphics do, with a lot of flashing of the seascape and jittering UI. Maybe a very simple position-date-heading Save/Load function would mitigate this?

https://imgur.com/a/wGeYETp

I suppose that works.

Also, have you ever considered making the calendar 'wrap around?' I wanted to set out for a real time voyage with the IRL date, but that would have resulted in me sailing off the edge of the weather timeline in a few days.

'Going Large' (in the sail presets menu) is not a synonym for running before the wind. It more properly refers to a broad reach where all sail can be set without shadowing. So this sailplan option should be renamed to 'Wind Astern' or the like.

Yes, this is from Boudriot's 74 Gun Ship, Volume 4. Probably very expensive unless you can borrow it from a library.

I challenge everyone to a non-synchronous Painted Ocean race! The route is from Newport, Rhode Island to Bermuda (any island) starting at 7:15am on January 2nd (this is the default start time).

Instructions: Start a new World game and teleport yourself to the entrance of Narragansett Bay. Then get your ship to Bermuda as quick as you can. Remember to bring a warm hat.

Rules and limitations:

It looks like the fore and aft sails are far too resistant to rough weather. Upper staysails and flying jib doing just fine, as the ship is laid on its beam end in 48 kts.

I'd say the flying jib has no business being set above 20 kts, and the staysails should go away when the topsails are reefed. For some reason the foretopmast staysail proved weaker than the other headsails.

In 17 kts of wind and good headway, I find the ship to maintain course with a neutral helm and all sail set except for the spanker and mizzen staysails. This strikes me as a very reasonable result. 

It may well be that at lower speeds the ship is unbalanced with this sailplan.

So when I teleport-turn the ship into the position below, the bow falls off the wind. I believe this is the scenario Lieste is describing as counterintuitive. However, if I repeat the experiment with all fore-and-after canvas doused, the ship turns bow to wind and even tacks itself. So the aerodynamic behavior of the square sails seems to be correct. This raises the interesting question of whether it is possible to tack the frigate while stationary...

https://imgur.com/a/lqFpt5d

Just stopped by to say that I finally managed to circumnavigate (with manual sail selection as well)! 294 days starting September 18th in Plymouth and ending in the same spot on July 9th.

By the way I think it makes sense to make 18 kts the threshold for the double arrow, since that is why you might start thinking about reducing sail.

In the new build I have tested tacking at 25 kts, 17 kts, 10 kts. Resulting times are around 2 min, 2.5 min and 5+ min. This feels pretty plausible and good for gameplay. Tacking in 7 kts of wind is barely possible, and takes a long time but I didn't time it. Tacking in 5 kts does not seem doable.

Overall, seems very well-balanced at the moment.

OK, for some reason my graphics were set to Fastest, but your trick worked. Probably has something to do with my GPU being dead and using an integrated chip?

BTW the main menu says January, not February

Make sense,  I assumed it was a bug. Still easy to read.

For some reason in the new version there does not seem to be any AA. I took pictures in both builds side by side and the difference is quite pronounced:

I have a double wind arrow on the compass in the new build

Testing light winds performance (10 kts):

On a broad reach the ship is really fast, around 6.5 kts. I would note that the weather-related UI predicts only 3-4 kts, which isn't for this ship or anything. But it is still a big difference.

When tacking, I started the evolution at 4 kts. It took me 5 minutes to get into the eye of the wind, then I got bored of waiting and pressed the time acceleration button. The ship eventually tacked but made plenty of sternway. Maaaaybe realistic but also pretty brutal for gameplay.

I think we have a funny situation where speed and windward performance are still way better than the release build, but tacking is still difficult. 

Maybe it would also be worth increasing the rotational pressures of sails that are flat aback? Falling off (after mainsail haul) is a bit slow I think.

I agree. It's not the time that's sub optimal so much as the reluctance of the ship to turn. I feel like I am on the verge of missing stays even in optimal conditions.

Napoleonic frigates were generally regarded as quick to tack but often slow to wear, which I imagine would translate to very little sternway or none at all.

I can also report much better behavior with regards to heeling under bare poles. Furthermore the ship seems to oscillate between close-hauled and a broach reach when wallowing with no canvas set. This seems more or less realistic.

However, tacking is probably a bit too hard right now. It took me about 4 minutes in 17 kts of breeze (10 kts is an important testing benchmark which I haven't tried yet). The ship loses all headway by the time it is in the eye of the wind, and loses a bit of ground overall throughout the evolution.

Is there some way to make this easier without sacrificing the progress made with the other scenarios? I would also say that ships take a long long time to coast to a halt (no canvas set) in this game (such as when you are roleplaying anchoring). So there probably isn't much scope for increasing inertia.

Your new build is already an excellent result! In the screenshot below you can see how the leeway punishes you now when you try to pinch too close. This is the behavior I was reaching for in my earlier tests.

Better yet, when you try to sail with just F&A sails, the ship falls off. Ideal behavior there. I haven't tested tacking yet, so that will have to come in a later post.

OK, here is a better benchmark. By decreasing the Wind Lift Coeff and Water Lift Coeff, the ship can no longer sail too close to the wind with all canvas set. The screenshot shows how leeway will punish you if you try. 

However, tacking is still a bit too torturous, at over 4 minutes. This time isn't necessarily excessive, but you barely have enough inertia to get head to wind, and would probably fail in light airs. What settings should I adjust to make the ship keep forward momentum for longer?

I will try the new test build later.

So I just logged in to see the test version! But haven't tried it yet. I did come here to report my experiences with tweaked settings in the September 2019 version (release) version that I still have installed on  my old PC.

As you can see I am sailing close-hauled in 15 kts, all sail set. The Global Physics values for everything but skin drag have been adjusted upwards, but less aggressively than in the current release build. As a result the ship can make decent progress on a bowline, tacks in 3.5-.4.5 minutes. But most importantly if you try to sail too close to the wind, the leeway angle increases rapidly and eats up the gains. 

The problem with being able to sail like a schooner with square sails furled DOES appear when the settings are tweaked like this. 'Schooner sailing' was impossible in the September 2019 version, due primarily to the lack of leeway with that sailplan.

I of course realize that I should be doing these experiments on the new build. I'll try that next.

Hauling the spanker to windward seems to have been the more aggressive option for a ship that was otherwise reluctant to tack.

That's right, in reality a ship can't make useful headway with just the fore and aft canvas, at least not upwind in ordinary conditions. The ratio of sail area to windage (rig and hull) becomes so small that the leeway angle will eat up all the gains.

Actually in the older version, the behavior was just about perfect. If you tried to sail upwind into the 'no go zone' the ship would naturally fall off again.

Did you make a wide variety of changes to lift settings in this version? Or just change some of the existing variables in the in-game Physics menu as a default? I've half a mind to do some experimenting on my own and try to find a happy medium (because the old version truly was punishing with regards to upwind performance).

The new version is a huge improvement! I am loving the less-punishing windward performance in light airs, as well as the visual fix to t'gallants set over reefed topsails. The ship drifting without any canvas set and the ability to scud under bare poles is also a huge deal. Here are some suggestions for tweaks in case you ever get back to tinkering with the game:

* The 'foul wind' disabling Travel Acceleration is often more trouble than its worth, since it prevents players from waiting out a contrary wind easily. You can also get your nose 'stuck' in the wind too easily this way. What if Travel Acceleration only turned out due to foul wind when the auto-adjusting sails feature was turned on? That would give players the option of using acceleration regardless of wind direction.

* The ship should heel more in bad weather under bare poles, in my opinion. Perhaps a hacky solution to add virtual canvas to induce heel when no other sails are set?

* When the ship is wallowing under bare poles, it should eventually orient itself beam-on to the wind. In the game the bow falls off. Is there any way to adjust this?

* Another potential hacky improvement would be bumping up the ship's leeway when no topsails are set. Right now we can sail to windward at 2 kts like a schooner by furling the square sails and using fore-and-aft canvas alone, which isn't realistic.

* The auto sail adjustments are a little aggressive in higher winds for my taste. What if the adjustments were more conservative than strictly necessary, giving the manual control an edge on performance?

* Your fore course blows away in conditions where the game says you should have it set.

* IMHO the main t'gallant staysail and flying jib should be doused before 20 kts of wind. The headsails should also need to be reefed much earlier. The auto adjustments have you flying a full size jib in a near-gale, which is excessive. Adding some randomness to topgallant damage would be nice as well, since I feel a bit too bulletproof flying them at 28 kts.

* Just a question, does apparent wind matter for sail damage?

I just reinstalled after a while and discovered an apparent bug:

When you skip time several months and teleport somewhere in the world, time stops passing. e.g., I changed the date from January in the afternoon to December at 7:20am, and sailed for a few hours but time never progressed from 7:20am. Only travel acceleration could make the time change (not physics speed) and nothing I could would make it 'un-stuck'. This makes longer passages fairly pointless. When just pressing 'World' to start a new game, all works as intended.

I do like the new behavior in high winds, but noticed two things that might need tweaking:

Are the courses weaker than the topsails? With no reefs in either and 50 kts of wind, I lost both courses but not the topsails.

What is the angle of vanishing stability for the ship? I think I was heeled over around 70 degrees but came up again. It happened fast though, so maybe I just couldn't judge it well.

Awesome!

What kind of changes were made in the first bullet point?

Yeah, maybe crank up the drag caused by the rudder to encourage good rig balance.

Notably, in HMS Surprise simulator I could never get any benefit from the historical sailplans that were designed to minimize blanketing.

Something else to consider is the lifting effect of sails. The fore course was prized because it was the only square sail thought to lift the bow rather than drive it down in the water.

Just checking in: Is there any possibility of letting the game run in the background when minimized? Being able to do that at work would let me get a lot more testing done. Been too busy, otherwise.

First of all, here is my information trove. The Lively-class frigate is about halfway down.

You will probably be most interested by Gustav Adolph Wasa.jpg

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B-pwrC9JR7ahfkpKOGVYYUlCMU13OTFjNlRs...

To take a crack at your questions:

When sources write 'close hauled' I interpret it at as 'full and by' with the sails drawing well, rather than pinching as close as possible, with sails shivering. In other words, closer to 80 degrees than 70. This is because Royal Navy sailing qualities reports contain some surprising speeds for frigates sailing close hauled. For instance, 11 knots forthe Lively-class.

I have never in all these sources heard of a ship being fastest with the wind abeam, however the sailing reports I have seen also lack that granular detail. They only ask about performance close-hauled and with the wind aft. Typically the captains want to brag about their best performance, and supply the best speed, invariably with the ship sailing large (although I suspect that this is usually closer to 100 degrees than 145).

Southampton stability: The ship won't fall over until the line falls beneath the Y axis, which is pretty close to 80 degrees for the fully loaded condition (IIRC). Substantially less for the lighter displacement. However, if the wind can heel the ship to the top of the curve, the ship will then capsize unless there is some intervention or the wind slackens.

Leeway: Your simulation already feels spot on. Negligible leeway in moderate conditions is what Harland describes, increasing drastically in heavy weather or when not enough lift is being produced. Also look at the Gustav Adolph sailing report for this. And bear in mind that the Lively, as the apex of British Napoleonic frigate design, was very weatherly.

Other random thoughts: It is possible that your simulation is a little too harsh with the sail blanketing, but I only base that on the visual appearance of the sails (mizzen making the maintopsail go slack, etc). I also really doubt that we could get the frigate to 11 knots close hauled. Heck, even 13 kts requires a gale. But that is a big mystery for me in general, because clearly these speeds were exceptional. In a simulation they would be routine. 

I am reminded of the L'Hermione version of the virtual regatta online game, where the ship maxed out at 7 kts when in reality she has made 13 no problem.

Yes but the mast is still spindly, and it's a gale. 35 kts of wind is TWICE as much pressure as 25! I can only imagine they were saying 'look what I can do!' for the sake of the experiment.

Yikes. I wouldn't recommend flying topgallants in 36 kts of wind in the simulator.

What page says they set the topgallants in Beaufort 7? (I speak Russian)

Sounds like the travel acceleration was probably to blame then.

Would running the game in the background be as simple as this?

https://answers.unity.com/questions/9899/how-do-you-keep-your-game-running-even-...

One other thought and then I will cool it with the feature requests:

I did get Windowed mode to work, but the game still pauses itself when I click on to some other program (web browser, etc). In my mind, the holy grail here is the ability to sail across the ocean in real time (like a prettier 19th Century version of the browser-based virtual regatta games). I love the idea of just letting the ship sail for 8 hours a day while I'm at work, listening to the wind in the background, and checking the weather every hour or so. But if the game pauses itself, this isn't possible. Yes, I can use travel mode to cross the Atlantic in 20 minutes or so, but that doesn't have the same romance to it.

Nope, I sailed there in real time, then sailed out again. The map was showing me a bit father west than in reality, but definitely in deep water. Again, the extent terrain being drawn was dependent on camera angle (or perhaps altitude). At low angles I could see the 2-D tree objects on the horizon, while moving the camera up revealed the outlines of the blocky island object itself.

I just teleported there on my work PC and everything looks normal, though. Actually the coast is more detailed this time around. Could there be LoD issues for rendering terrain when using travel mode?

Having made it across the ocean, I no longer feel the need for a save feature right away. You can just write down your position and time, then start a new game, teleport to that position and move the clock forward. I suppose any broken masts would reappear, though.

Regarding the terrain, my camera definitely wasn't inside anything. I was zoomed in one my ship right in the middle of Basse-Terre harbor, looking east. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to take a screenshot.

The usual procedure was to bring the ship into the wind, then drop the anchor while making sternway. Unless there was a very tricky confined harbor, they wouldn't drop the anchor while still moving forward. I haven't actually tried backing sail that much yet. Even if that method works well, I would still say that the issue is the large disparity in deceleration time of luffing up under full sail vs drifting under bare poles.

Those are fantastic articles and definitely read them. I think your simulation already jives nicely with the information they contain.

Iinstead of reefing the topgallants (which was not always done), I recommend making that button simply lower the sail to the level of the reefed topsail instead. Then we can actually create the sailplan described by the UI: 'topgallants over reefed topsails'. They would never allow a big gap underneath the foot of the sail like that. It would also be cool if the topsail could be reefed several times, with each command of 'reef' and 'set' moving up or down one level.

A simple texture adjustment to the sails to depict the reef bands would help cue the player in.

Edit: I have been restraining myself from proposing UI changes because I know it's a pain in the ass and probably not your priority just now. But there are two things that could be really helpful:

1. A 'miles travelled since noon' counter;

2. A small arrow showing whether the wind is rising or falling.

If you are worried about screen real estate, I personally do not find myself using any compass other than the popup one in the lower left corner. Maybe others would feel differently though.

Anyways, just had a great Atlantic crossing, the 'Battle' location to Guadeloupe by March 12th!

When I got there I almost ran aground because you can look 'underneath' the island, which floats in the air. Is this a common issue? You move the camera and suddenly more land appears.

Yes it's a classic sailing model dilemma where one improvement causes problems in another area. Getting underway is already reaaalllllly slow from a gameplay perspective (I really have no idea what's realistic here). More importantly it would make tacking a lot harder if you increased low speed drag.

How long should a ship take to slow down? Well in a small boat, you coast to a stop very rapidly, whether power or sail. The ship stops rapidly when tacking, due to wind pressure on the sails. My gut tells me that stopping due to water drag along should not be more than 2-3 times slower.
All in all, it's the kind of situation that would make me want to create some sort of artificial braking effect when the sail area is under a certain threshold.