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Tacking Sequence


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I'd like to hear how you all are tacking. I'm not successful at tacking without making sternway and I think it could be a faulty tacking sequence with this new build.

 

Here is what I do starting on a beam reach at 11 knots in a frigate

1. Full right rudder

2. Neutralize foresails

3. Sheet in the mains as far as they will go although at this point its not much.

4. As the bow turns into the wind I keep the foresails neutralized until i hit the stops and the nose is going through the wind.

5. Starting to make sternway now, reversing rudder

6. Flip mainsails around for new tack

7. Wait for bow to fall off with foresails backed for at least 30 degrees

8. Back into auto sail.

 

 

For videos that answer my question skip to post #18 and #20

 

NEW:

I have now added a video that I made that explains the manual tacking with voice overlay for the beginner. The actual tack comes in the last third of the video if you already understand the UI, powering and depowering of sails, and nomenclature.

This is my very first video ever so its far from ideal. I didn't record on the highest quality and I don't run the game in Ultra.

There are a few things I would tweak if I were to do it again. First, I'm very monotone. My explanation of "stuck in irons" could use some work as well as a few other things but I hope it helps the new testers.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gk0bhczim7ak4p4/Edit%20%231.mp4

 

NEW: Nov. 2014

The sailing mechanics have been reworked since the video was made so that it is easier now to tack. If done right you should not ever make sternway.

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Yeah, that's pretty much what I do.

 

De-powering the foremast sails should be optional, really.

 

And don't sweat the sternway right now. It's just that in the current build, closehauled sails give you the fastest sternway instead of the slowest, so we're really getting rammed backwards by that mixed up config.

Mainsails should go over when you're in the teeth of the wind. And you should turn on auto skipper as soon as you begin making headway again, because that's when the main and mizzen are drawing (even if it's far too early in-game).

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fixed some of the bugs in the current system.. will handle better. 

2 bugs left (we will fix them next week) that will make it exactly like in RL, simple and understantable

 

we also found (which is surprising) that ship handling became easier with new correct yard systems. 

 

ps new build will come out soon

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Thanks to both of you. At least I can sail this way with confidence knowing that I'm doing it the right way. I can just work on timing to make it the most efficient.  I look forward to the bug fixes.

 

I also enjoy that i can trully maneuver the ship now in an intuitive way without the use of rudder.

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Wait whats this about nuetralizing fore sails for tacking?  The fore isnt supposed to be nuetralized, it is powering the ship forward giving her speed until it starts backing which rotates the ships head around.  I wish I could test this new build but I'm on a job and my laptop I have here wont do it.  Maybe someone could making a tacking video for the new build and show me how things are shaping up.

 

In rl if you nuetralize the fore squares you lose half of your driving force, all you have to do excluding headsails and spanker is turn into the wind, when head to weather, mainsail haul, so the main yards get braced all the way around.  And when the main starts to fill on the new tack the order let go and haul is given and the fore is braced around fully onto the new tack.  If you neutralize the fore before turning upwind you will bleed off precious speed and momentum.

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Hi Ryan, Good to see you back.

 

I think we are required to neutralize the foresail because we have no control of headsails or spanker. Maybe this is forcing us to treat the foresail almost like a headsail until it starts backing. I don't have video capability so I can't show you.

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Yeah Johny, that's the situation. You can tack perfectly well without de-powering you fore yards for a quicker crash-turn (sort of like a backwards wear, ain't it). I'm not even sure that doing this is advantageous. Perhaps it gets you a quicker upwind turn, but costs you when coming through the wind. We should time it.

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Hmm wierd, I hope that can be ammended, the fore stack really is a very seperate entity from the headsails, and affects the ship in a much larger way, think about it like the ship having two diesel engines, if you depower the fore you are cutting an engine and losing half your speed, also if the fore isnt braced on the old tack and backing the head of the ship wont come around because that is the prime force that brings the head of the ship across the eye onto the new tack.  It sounds like the game has made steps in the right direction, I would really like to see a video of how it looks now.  its totally worth getting this right.

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At the moment, so far as I can tell, everything works. You can de-power the fore stack or not (note that the yards swivel so fast that you are only sacrificing a few short seconds of foreward thrust by doing this). A correct manual tack now works just as well (probably a bit better) as the autoskipper, which still has the incorrect 'throw everything over at once' routine.

 

I'm not sure what you would have to do to mess up a tack. Besides the huge mistake that I made a day or so ago, that is. I tried to brace the fore yards around too soon after passing through the eye of the wind. That halted my turn and locked me in place for a good three minutes. So my vulnerable target sailed away and beat the snot out of my ally.

 

Edit: Yeah, I just found something silly by testing a hunch. You can tack just fine without ever bracing your yards onto the new tack. The Surprise is fast and agile enough to ram the bow through the wind, sending all your sails aback. And the ships answer the helm very happily when making sternway, that you can simply put your stern into the wind and fall off onto a new course. And then you just press F, hauling all your yards just about instantaneously.

 

Probably the biggest problem with yard control realism right now is how fast it happens. Yards should swivel quickly when there is no wind force acting on them, and slowly when the sails are full and drawing, either ahead or astern.

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When I judge a tack in game I am primarily looking at how much speed I loose and if I make sternway. I try to reduce deceleration and eliminate sternway. In the old build with proper timing you could tack without dropping below a knot but most of the time down to about a half a knot or so.

 

 

Hmm wierd, I hope that can be ammended, the fore stack really is a very seperate entity from the headsails, and affects the ship in a much larger way, think about it like the ship having two diesel engines, if you depower the fore you are cutting an engine and losing half your speed, also if the fore isnt braced on the old tack and backing the head of the ship wont come around because that is the prime force that brings the head of the ship across the eye onto the new tack.  It sounds like the game has made steps in the right direction, I would really like to see a video of how it looks now.  its totally worth getting this right.

Atm when depowering the sail you turn the spars parallel to the wind and the closer you point the more you are changing the spars angle to the wind until you have basically brought it back to its original position at the beginning of the tack so as you pass through the wind the sail is in a proper position to back.

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Heres a vid of how i do it Ryan. Actually it didn't upload. How can I upload the video. It says its to big. I can't put it on youtube until it approved. Any ideas? I've never done this before. lol. Can you tell?

 

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Tacking manually is at least ten seconds faster than tacking on auto-skipper (Constitution, from 8.7 knots, battle sails). And that's without any fancy yard turning when coming up, and conservative timing for 'let go and haul.'

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Cool.  Glad to see the game is progressing well.  If you can try and keep on them about proper sail setting order, that really is important, no mariner wont laugh at topgallants set with nothing under them.  You set from tops up, and take in from royals down, courses usually after the higher sails.  If we get that visual ironed out and the sailing mechanics are coming along nicely this game is going to be amazing.

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I nag, I nag.

 

The topsails thing is a big drag for the game's overall prettiness and screenshot potential. And then there's those ugly stiff spritsails that mask all your bow chaser (newly added!) shots in an amusing fashion.

 

Really, I won't rest until we get the ability to set everything individually, whether or not it affects performance.

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Ryan, there are some tacking videos in the current build for you:

In these videos tacking started with full speed at the best angle. The difference is when you rotate the main and mizzen yards

First video -  while passing close hauled course

Second video - right from beam reach

Third video - tacking as described by Johny Reb

Also there is one more video - tacking from 2knts close hauled by fliping mainsails right from the start.

 

It looks like the best way to tack now is to rotate them asap right from beam reach

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It looks like the best way to tack now is to rotate them asap right from beam reach

And this is a problem, because in real life it would result in a royally-screwed up tack.

 

What's worse, I can't think of a way to tweak parameters and prevent this method, which is unrealistic and yet superior to all the others. In real life you would never throw all those sails aback. It would cause an enormous mess and bleed off all your speed just when you needed it to power through the upwind turn. Backing all your main and mizzen sails would throw you into the wind, for sure, but you probably wouldn't have enough turning momentum to cross onto the other tack once you got there. In the game, you should at least be stuck in irons and have to accelerate to around 2 knots of sternway before using the rudder to come about and pay off on the other tack.

 

Devs and experts, we need help brainstorming ways to limit this tactic without messing up all the interrelated parameters. What can we fiddle with?

The speed of rotating yards at various wind angles?

The deceleration caused by backing sails?

Perhaps the rudder should be down to minimum strength at speeds under 1.5 knots? And at low speeds there could be an artificial barrier against turning through the eye of the wind. It should take some real rotational momentum, not just a tiny little push of rudder. At this stage the ship is weathervaning in the water and there is considerable inertia to overcome.

 

Because if I have to do silly things in order to compete in the game, I will just keep auto-skipper enabled.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I would suggest eventually making either a sailing tutorial or at least a compilation of these video for new player to access in game. Being able to effectively master these sailing techniques is going to be a huge part of PvP, and for a majority of players, it's going to go right over their heads. 

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Well,

with INK's post #20 you have an exellent video showing the tack.

just open the spoiler and voila ;)

 

As for tutorials.

I think that has to be included when this game is going open beta or something like that.

But for now those videos totally serve the porpose of educating testers about sailing.

 

I keep posting this thread to everyone who has questions about the game's sailing mechanics ;)

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