Sail control

[con20or]

How do you see this being handled? Most games up to now had very minimal sail control (stop, go, go faster) Any improvement on that would be a big step forward

[admin]

How do you see this being handled? Most games up to now had very minimal sail control (stop, go, go faster) Any improvement on that would be a big step forward

 

There is a game called HMS surprise simulator (freeware) http://home.wxs.nl/~pdavis/Screen.htm. Try it and tell us what you think. It has the most complex sailing model created.

 

Unfortunately based on our development and playing experience  extreme realism very often is very tedious and boring. Wind and inability to sail wherever you want during combat increases the complexity. We will be searching for balance because ship to ship combat (especially fleet vs fleet) has a lot of other things to take care for.

[con20or]

I'm familiar with that sim - it's about as advanced as things get. But there's a huge gap between what's currently out there - furled, battle, full sails and maybe a slider to what they implemented in the surprise simulator that you could fill.

 

One of your competitors - Hearts of Oak, has a great plan in store for sail control.

 

http://media.moddb.com/images/games/1/20/19616/Sail_Concept.jpg

[adambomb]

Of course sails are very important.  Waiting to see how its implemented.

[Digby]

Do please keep the wind and weather gauge as critical in combat. Gaining  or losing the wind position should dictate which ship or squadron could bring on a battle, or run from it. Really this is completely key to age of sail naval warefare and without it I think you would be missing the most basic of foundations.

 

P.S. Hey Con20or, how's it going, Saddletank here

[Marquiz]

 

http://media.moddb.com/images/games/1/20/19616/Sail_Concept.jpg

This looks quite nice, is not too much complitated and not to much simplistic. I think this could be sail plan for ships. Player could be design own sail configurations. Save it, and give oreder to use on propoer moment. Ofc this would depend on crew skills (topmen) and weather condisions.

[Claren]

Hi all. My first post on this forum. Good to see so many familiar names here.

 

I agree 100% with Digby, It is the wind that makes age-of-sails-games interesting and fun. 
Without the wind it would just be like driving around in any armoured truck. Who needs one more of those games?

[con20or]

Hi Saddletank!

 

I'd love to see some sort of improvement on the traditional sail control, furled, battle and full sails. Any sort of new feature to give you a bit more control and require a bit of skill for sailing would be a nice touch. Doesn't have to be too complicated.

[hole in the ground]

For interest

 

How to sail a full rigged ship. Intro and weigh anchor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6DZIvMZWzQ

 

Tacking and wearing beginning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlRbcTsm2rc

 

wearing end, heaving to, anchoring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3jU9Xz_GHE

[Duskguy]

played a game called voyage century online. It had weather, wind, wind speeds which all effected open seas as well as battle sailing. Some ships were better at sailing in low to no wind situations compared to others. And then the different wind gauges played a role as some could sail closer to the wind than others, etc. The sail control however was basically the same as what is used in Pirates of the Burning Sea, a slider to adjust sailed anywhere from furled to open with a bar set for 3/4 and a setting for "battle sails" depending on the ship.

 

Something a bit more complecated than the slider, or perhaps a delay in the time between selecting the sail setting and the crew actually rigging the sails to your desired setting would be interesting while keeping the simple slider control scheme. But definately keep the wind (preferably speed as well as direction) and weather for combat and sailing; will make the game infinitely better in my opinion.

[Adair]

I'm adding my voice to those who want the weather gage to be significant. In truth, just making it impossible to sail against the wind would probably give us everything we're looking for there.

[Johny Reb]

I like how this discussion is going. Here are my thoughts:

 

1. I would like to see the possibility of being "stuck in irons" in this game. That is realism, easily implemented, and helps in balance because a frigate cant just arbitrarily turn through the wind after every shot. Bigger ships with lower turning rates would be harder targets which it is how it should be. Stern camping would be possible but could be harder to pull off and a disadvantaged ship would have the possibility of getting away and maybe even winning the fight and it would bring an aspect of seamanship to the game.

 

2.If we are looking for more realism then I like the idea of sail changes being delayed as if sailors actually had to make it up the ratlines to accomplish it.

 

3.The use of the slider for sails is just about mandatory. If you fight a line battle with only say 4 sail positions you will constantly run up against or fall away from the guy in front. You need to be able to "spill the wind" a little in order to keep pace.

 

4. WARNING - OFF TOPIC - if fights are designed in "instances" then I hope the "spawn in" will be different than Potbs in one of two ways. More range at the beginning of the battle. Only when the sun rose or the fog cleared could a ship find themselves amongst an enemy squadron. Normally a ship would have time for tea, a little grog for the men and lunch before the battle began because they would spot them far out. In "burning sea" you practically spawned in range of the enemy yet you spawned in with no order whatsoever. Unrealistic!! The advantage often went to the group that had the easiest time shaking out a line. Again Unrealistic!! If you don't think range is the way to go, then spawn ships into the instance in a line already as any fleet would have been in real life when there was an expectation of battle.  Now if convoys are in game, that would be different, as well as say 1v2s as an example or bad weather.

[Barberouge]

3. Maybe a player could even setup a precise battle speed. I'd also like the option to actually setup the sail positions, not like in PotBS where we only had drop sails, battle sails and full sails with no other control.

[admin]

Current sail control works the following way. 

 

You control the ship with W A S D. In the current version yards and sail angles are handled automatically - always picking the ideal angle for maximum speed. 

Wind is extremely important and turning into the wind slows you down to a complete halt in most cases.

If your sails are fully open - staying into the wind will start reverse movement.

 

We are planning to add simplified yard control for those who wish to extract extra maneuverability from the ship. You will be able to switch off auto skipper and turn front or back yards (all at the same time) with Q E or Shift Q E - which will allow you to either turn better at certain situations, or ease/increase the heel for better firing angles.

[Johny Reb]

Love it admin. Not to complicated but just enough to add a little bit of seamanship into the sailing and the ability to get stuck in "irons" and the ship actually moving backwards is spot on. You add to my excitement

[Barberouge]

I wasn't sure you were ready to go with a more realistic sailing model. Seems this one is more complex than the PotBS one. Glad to hear that !

[admin]

I wasn't sure you were ready to go with a more realistic sailing model. Seems this one is more complex than the PotBS one. Glad to hear that !

 

For those who don't not want to think about extra performance or complex movements autoskipper will do just fine. 

[Adair]

I love this idea. There's so much you can do with a little more control. Lame duck ruses being one of the best. Pretend you're at maximum speed until you really need it. Then sharpen those yards, tug the canvas taut, and get that extra boost when needed. Fantastic.

[Johny Reb]

I hope this isn't misplaced within the forums... but it goes along with idea of sail control and wind...

 

Have you considered complex wind dynamics in battle instances?

For instance, If in the middle of the map you have a mountain island and the wind is coming from the North, there would be a calm wind zone on the south side of island, a speeding up of the wind a little on the east and west sides and areas of turbulent wind where the air flowing around the land mass comes back together or along the lines separating the wind and calm zones.

 

I think this would be a new idea and bring in a new dynamic into ship to ship combat. I can imagine a small sloop attempting to escape a deep draft frigate by running into the shoals but he runs into a "wind shadow" as well due to poor planning and seamanship and the frigate succeeds in catching the prize.

 

On the maps that have been proposed in the other threads, I believe, complex wind dynamics would create a more dynamic battle if wind direction on these maps were random. The options and winning strategies for a specific map would be greatly varied and less predictable.

[Adair]

In sailing parlance the 'wind shadow' would be the island's lee. And a big YES to complex wind dynamics.

[BrutishVulgarian]

When you get to that stage, on the big world map, trimming sails can make a long voyage interesting.  

 

"Gentlemen Captains" could hire a good sailing Master, to properly arrange the various sails and ropes.

"Bosun Captains" could do all that fun stuff themselves.

 

Getting stuck in irons when you don't have enough headway to tack, would be a must have, in my opinion.  Also, too much sail for the wind conditions should endanger the masts and sails, having a barometer could help in predicting wind changes.

[Bobbydylan]

I like what I hear.  I'm not too keen on massively complex simulations, but something more challenging than BlackFlag is a must

[maturin]

The game can be engaging and realistic without exhaustive sail control... as long it looks and handles realistically.

 

One thing I HATE from POTBS was that the only way to stop or slow down was to furl sail. In the real world, furling sails is very slow, difficult and dangerous. If you want to slow down, you don't furl or even necessarily lower sails. You just tune the yards to spill the wind from them. So in-game, I would love to see sails backing or luffing when making small to moderate adjustments in speed. Furling is a long-term thing, and would never happen in battle.

 

Of course, this calls for some very complex animations.

[admin]

The game can be engaging and realistic without exhaustive sail control... as long it looks and handles realistically.

 

One thing I HATE from POTBS was that the only way to stop or slow down was to furl sail. In the real world, furling sails is very slow, difficult and dangerous. If you want to slow down, you don't furl or even necessarily lower sails. You just tune the yards to spill the wind from them. So in-game, I would love to see sails backing or luffing when making small to moderate adjustments in speed. Furling is a long-term thing, and would never happen in battle.

 

Of course, this calls for some very complex animations.

 

In the current version of the game you can turn your yards parallel to the wind and your ship will stop without raising sails (furling).

[maturin]

In the current version of the game you can turn your yards parallel to the wind and your ship will stop without raising sails (furling).

Sweet!

 

Do you have plans to implement some basic sail backing? Just the topsails could be used as a sort of 'brake.'