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Wind Scale, wind effect on a Ship


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  • 1 month later...

Wind and waves make for some interesting game play, for instance a two or three decker should have an speed advantage over smaller ships with shorter masts because of momentum and she is less likely be becalmed in through of a wave.  

It you happen to be a Constitution class frigate you may have lost your speed advantage but you might want to attack the big ships when their lower gun ports are closed.

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I'm going to draw quite a bit of flak for this but I agree with the Admins. Realistic winds and oceans just won't work in an MMO, as I think he stated quite well. Would it be brilliant to have in-game? Absolutely, I would love a simulator where you have to work to windward and the wind could drop at any time, it forces all kinds of interesting scenarios and tactical decisions. Unfortunately it's just not practicable for an MMO with a wildly diverse player base. Not to mention I'd imagine it would be devilishly hard to code, and implement ingame. 

 

As someone mentioned, POTBS had static wind, and even then it took ages to do eco if the wind was against you, and I imagine that time sink impacted alot of potential eco players. 

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Why on earth would it be difficult to implement? Given the slight simplification of global wind, it should literally just be a number change.

I don't think that this mmo will have a wildly diverse playerbase any more than Potbs did.

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I'm going to draw quite a bit of flak for this but I agree with the Admins. Realistic winds and oceans just won't work in an MMO, as I think he stated quite well. Would it be brilliant to have in-game? Absolutely, I would love a simulator where you have to work to windward and the wind could drop at any time, it forces all kinds of interesting scenarios and tactical decisions. Unfortunately it's just not practicable for an MMO with a wildly diverse player base. Not to mention I'd imagine it would be devilishly hard to code, and implement ingame. 

 

As someone mentioned, POTBS had static wind, and even then it took ages to do eco if the wind was against you, and I imagine that time sink impacted alot of potential eco players.

 

 

Well it was boring.  Point your ship straight into the wind, go slow, reach destination, repeat.   If you actually had to do some planning, sailing and navigating and had react to changing conditions, a longer trip would not necessarily be inherently more boring than a shorter trip.

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  • 3 months later...

Is it possible that the below could be implemented in some way to make changing sail more interesting.

A player would have to learn what sail works in what weather and how to maximise speed within the particular wind strength or type.

 

Tightening and loosening sail would be added to allow players to make sail looser when wind is strong or tighten it when wind is light....

 

A ships indicator would show wind speed as well as other wind sound and sail sounds when the wind changed or the rigging was strained.

 

This would also make a chase really interesting as the tables could turn with some luck and you could observe what sail and speed others far off were using and judge what wind was there. In addition by seeing how disturbed the sea was in that area with your glass.

 

This horrible little picture is meant to represent a map in the game and show some different ideas for wind types. Obviously not all would be in every map and the idea would be to make the changes much more gradual so that a captain should in most cases see the signs of the wind changing. You know when you hear in the movies the 1st leftenant say to his captain - wind seems to be freshening sir.

 

15351770076_307b466947_o.jpg

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True but the only game I have played that had actual weather was cliffs of dover and they had to remove it because of the CPU cycles it took.

I see no need to have an actual weather system on the tactical map when it is only for 50 minutes or so. 

 

Once again maturin forgive my terminology. I think you understand the concept I am trying to get across though.

 

I would prefer some different weather on the map than nothing at all. 

 

P.S. I need to learn what close hauling is ;)

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It really shouldn't take any CPU cycles, at least not for the client.

 

The server can just decide to make wind vary based on probability, and propagate mobile squalls and storms over a simplified hex grid overlaying the map. It won't be a simulation of weather, but the player won't notice the difference because he doesn't know what the weather is like on the other side of the ocean.

 

Loads of online games have weather. I don't know what's wrong with Dover's dev team. DCS has very detailed weather.

 

Wind is just a number, and numbers can change. I'm sure that changing sea states seamlessly will be a technical challenge.

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The problem with CLOD's weather system was it was almost as complex as real computer weather prediction systems. The entire map seemed to have arrows all over it at different heights.

I think they over did it.

 

I would be very happy if they did what you say. However from what I have been reading we will not even have wind changing direction?

That is why I suggested a simplified version. Once again I am NOT talking about the open world but the tactical map where we are actually sailing the ship in 3D.

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Thankfully, we only need to worry about the weather at sea level. That removes a huge amount of complexity. Ships are also so slow that you don't need to simulate a dynamic weather system. So long as the local weather doesn't instantly change from light tropical breeze to hurricane with snow, everything will seem perfectly natural.

 

But just about any kind of weather should be possible anywhere, at any time.

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it sounds great but if you are in battle you dont have time for your sails..

 

Actions like Boarding, or maneuvering more complicated than sailing side by side at pace with the enemy all require the sails be constantly adjusted.  Crew must be available to get into the rigging to make adjustments in order to fight a ship effectively.

 

Well you have to. The sails are more important than the guns really.

 

This, exactly.  You can't hit what you can't bring to bear, and you can't bring a ship to bear without adjusting your sails.  +1

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I do like the simple idea that was raised about the force of wind effecting your sail configuration. It doesn't seem like that should be to difficult to implement. Just simply add wind speed into the game. I'm sure thats not gonna be their focus right now but hopefully we can pressure them in that direction in the future. Can it be that hard to do this? Right now in any wind, each sail has a positive or negative effect to speed. Generally if the sail is set and drawing then it increases the ships speed. Each sail contributes. In a storm, when running with full sails there should be a negative effect. They could change the mechanic so that only the upper sails contribute positively to speed and the lower sails contribute to a negative effect. Even without them implementing actual wind speeds you could still get away with assuming that in crappier seas you will find stronger winds and therefore the set of your sails should vary for max speed.

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Lower sails contribute to negative effect?

In a storm you always want to take in t'gallants and your larger jibs/staysails. So in game terms, a somewhat realistic storm configuration would be topsails only (plus the omnipresent fore course, but we need individual sail-setting for that.

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Lower sails contribute to negative effect?

In a storm you always want to take in t'gallants and your larger jibs/staysails. So in game terms, a somewhat realistic storm configuration would be topsails only (plus the omnipresent fore course, but we need individual sail-setting for that.

Well maybe it won't work. But by negative effect I was referring to the idea of carrying full sails in a storm is not only dangerous but would hamper your speed. Am I wrong?

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Carrying *slightly* too much sail will hamper your speed and make the ship difficult to control. That's only the first little consequence.

Carrying all plain sail in a real storm (assuming the sails/masts don't carry away or cause you to capsize altogether) will make the gale bend you over its knee and tan your hide good. You won't be sailing much of anywhere, just be pinned down in the water at a crazy angle of heel.

So speed penalty, sure. But at some point your topgallant masts should just snap in half. Ideally there would be a special storm sail configuration sail anyhow, where 100% is just fore course and topsails with most of the staysails and jibs doused.

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I found this stunning photo earlier, and it reminded me just how rare it was for a ship to carry her full sail in a breeze. In the pic you can see it's not a stormy day, looks to be about Force 5, and Hermione is sailing nicely almost dead downwind under reduced canvas.

 

It would be outstanding if the wind mechanics of the game made it a comparatively rare sight in NA too. Carrying too much canvas has all the downsides, from decreased performance (too much heel adversely affecting steerage, too much leeway, too much initial speed becoming too little speed as the vessel starts to slam into waves, slowing her down and risking structural damage) to loss of the vessel with all hands, via blown sails and sprung and broken masts and deck fittings.

 

In a 20-knot moderate breeze, a vessel might run downwind at, say, 10 knots, comfortably having all plain sail set (as the apparent wind over the deck would be only 10 knots). This is what square rig is designed for. However, the same vessel on the same day going in the other direction would be experiencing 30 knots of wind over the deck, a very different situation and one that would require shortened sails and/or reefing (down to a deep reefed-reefed fore-tops'l and maybe deep-reefed spanker if it was getting really draughty) to avoid potentially serious damage.

 

NA is looking better and better, and it looked pretty good to start with, but this is one of those things that constantly jars with me, and detracts from the immersion. The Youtube video of the Lynx sailing in rough conditions (found

) demonstrates the best wave and vessel motion I've ever seen on a screen...but is compromised by the wrong sail set. Pity, as otherwise it'd be perfect :)

 

Baggy

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I don't really understand why this seems such a difficult issue to resolve. Yes we undoubtedly need dynamically changing wind for all the reasons so eloquently expressed heretofore. So, it seems to me that, in the Open World Sandbox each area (simple hex based?) has a "standard" condition of wind direction and strength which can randomly alter by, for example, 30 degrees of direction and plus or minus 5 knots. The propensity then to alter more radically is based on some basic historical data and is a percentage of probability to go up or down and back or veer and the likelihood is based on a combination of probability and an RNG. The difference then between standard and the limit in either direction, flat calm doldrums or howling Force 12 will be a finite amount the percentage of which is produced according to another RNG. If you wish to add further complexity the time in which it changes from standard to "new" state can also be set by a combination of probability and RNG. Duration of new conditions could again be subject to an RNG Roll. It is not as if a ship will be actually moving quickly enough general speaking to pop out of one hex into another during the course of this non-standard weather phenomenon. If, on the rare occasion that were to occur then a graceful and gradual change from the conditions of one hex to the next could occur. Should it be that a ship or ships enter into battle mode then the prevailing conditions at the time would prevail for the duration of the battle.

 

Seems pretty simple to me.....not exactly rocket science. And I am assuming this wouldn't be awfully difficult to code.

 

Feedback welcome...seems so simple that I feel sure I may be missing something really obvious here..... :)

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