Sail control

[Baggywrinkle]

All sounds very positive indeed. Might I also make a case for independent control of the spanker/mains'l for schooners/mizzen for ketches and heads'l sheets? Invaluable for close quarters work for fore-and-aft rigged craft. Also, is it currently possible for vessels to hove to? The traditional way of holding position for short periods

 

Baggy

[maturin]

Admin has said that you can be taken aback and drift sternward. I'm not sure if he means you can sail backwards (which was possible), heave-to with sails backing, or both.

 

The sailing model in the game doesn't have to have the completeness of the HMS Surprise simulator (I doubt this is even possible). I would be perfectly fine with a 'heave-to' button that trims the sails accordingly but engages a virtual 'brake' that makes the ship start slowly drifting. It doesn't have to rely on the same movement model as everything else, although it would be nice to be able to manually tune the yards to heave-to.

[masterofn0ne]

I haven't played this game too much, but I thought that their control system was both realistic and elegant/easy/fun: http://www.sailsimulator.com/

 

Also, to address the problem of non-sailors getting frustrated by realistic sailing physics, you could implement a "point and click" strategic view (a la Empire/Napoleon Total War) that automatically generated the correct tacking/gybing angles. Here is an exampling of navigation software that currently offers a similar feature: http://www.sailtimerapp.com/

[BrutishVulgarian]

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

I have "reached my quota of positive votes for the day" but those are excellent videos.    It is very interesting how the ships are really maneuvered.  Even though it would probably hurt me, I would hope Captains who can give those orders at the right time will have a slight advantage over captains using an "autopilot".   

 

And the Epic Sax Music was groovy, too.  

[maturin]

Yeah, I think the biggest difficulty with manual sail control is the deciding whether or not it gives an advantage over autopilot. Becauase if it doesn't, almost no one will use it in PvP. If it gives a large advantages, the community will regard it as mandatory.

 

Another very important point is weather and lee helm, relating to rig balance. We have been told that the basic control scheme is WASD, with A and D clearly controlling the rudder. But do these keys set a couse for a virtual helmsman, or do they directly control the rudder? Because in almost no cases does a vessel sail perfectly and uniformly in one direction. You always need to make minute or even large corrections at the helm. So in practices, will we press A and D to change course, or will we have to constantly maintain course by making corrections? If the latter is true, rig balance suddenly becomes very important (as anyone playing the Surprise Simulator can attest), as manual adjustments will make steering much steadier and reduce drag from the rudder. If the helm command merely sets a course, and moves automatically to maintain it, then manually balancing your rig could have big dividends for turn rate. Want to fall off? Sheet in the headsails and spin to leeward like a cork. To tack at any decent speed, haul the mizzen sail out to windward and fly up into the wind. These two examples would be difficult to implement in an autopilot feature because they require guessing the player's intentions. Thus, they could be advantages reserved for manual control. Constant small wind changes requiring trimming of the rig could also give speed advantages to manual captains, with forewarning of squalls as a passive skill.

[BrutishVulgarian]

With all the labor involved in manipulating the various sails, precise rudder control would seem the is the quickest and easiest way to keep the sails trimmed.  A simplified telltale system would be nice.

 

[maturin]

Telltales are going to be way too small and obscured to be useful on a computer screen, though. Not unless we zoom in on them from the quarterdeck view, blind to all else. Real seamen also don't use them; they know how to read the sails. You could integrate the tell tales into UI, but for sailing such large vessels, I think that the flying of telltales is way above the actual level of precision that we'll see in helm and sail control. The sail is simply going to be shivering, or not, which can be represented by animations or by UI hints.

 

And as I understand it, you've got your first statement reversed there. You trim the sails to match a course, not the other way around. And given that steering is labor intensive in itself, and creates considerable drag, you do send the crew to the braces to make minute adjustments (nobody cares if they have to work hard).

 

Also, when I think about sail trimming in game terms, I think about finding the best trim for a given course and wind. The constant corrections needed for little variations in course and windspeed/direction should not be included in a videogame, where we are limited to two out of (as someone else mentioned in this thread) six senses.

 

Anyways, the devs mentioned that we can spill the wind from our sails by aligning yards to the wind. It's equally important that we can loose our sheets to let the sails fly and dump speed that way, as it requires less effort to revert. And the basic slow-down key should clue up the sails, with furling being something you do last, for long-term tidying up (or storms).

[BrutishVulgarian]

I don't know if the relatively tiny rudder on a large square rigger could produce much drag, if you sail trim was that off, I would guess the rudder wouldn't even bite, but I don't know.  I'm talking minute rudder adjustments to squeeze just little more speed out of the barquee.

 

I sailed from Ventura CA to Hawaii, with following seas that made the autopilot useless.   Every time you go up and down big rollers, your position relative to the wind changes minutely, not to mention the wind shifting.   If you trying to sleep or eat, you definitely know who is a good helmsman and who is just staring at a compass.  Trying to get the highest number of knots was the main joy of being at the helm and we didn't mess with the sheets very much.

 

It's fine to adjust the sails on a small ship with just a main sheet, but i don't see how a square rigger could adjust all those sails quickly enough for the small variances in the wind.  Since there is no wind in a game, the simplified telltale or 3 would be a good indicator.

 

My experience with racing Hobie cats says telltales were very useful, but those sails had full battens, so it may not apply to a square canvas sail, although I've seen pictures of square sails with lots of telltales.

[maturin]

I don't know if the relatively tiny rudder on a large square rigger could produce much drag, if you sail trim was that off, I would guess the rudder wouldn't even bite, but I don't know.  I'm talking minute rudder adjustments to squeeze just little more speed out of the barquee.

Assuming the HMS Surprise simulator is accurate on this point (and I trust it far more in the quantitative minutiae than in the broad aggregated results), sailing on a broad reach, with a 15 degree lee helm, the rudder produces half again as much drag as the entire mainsail! That was from counteracting a rather nasty weather helm that I couldn't balance out without sacrificing all the thrust from my mizzen sails.

 

Every time you go up and down big rollers, your position relative to the wind changes minutely,

I think we can assume that this is way above the pay grade of this game's sailing gameplay. Just a thought, the swells be much smaller relative to the enormous sails on a square rigger. I can't seem to reason through that should have less of an effect on them or not. Could you really get enough precise responsiveness out of a square rigger to adjust to each stage of a passing swell?

[Brigand]

From what I've read in various sources on sailing square rigged ships, the rudder area had to be kept (very) small or the forces involved would become way to powerful to be handled. The invention of the steering wheel improved this a little, but it could still require the strength of 3 men to keep the rudder at angle in strong winds.

If the sails where not set correct, there was nothing the helmsman alone could do to keep the ships bow pointed in the desired direction.

~Brigand

[maturin]

Small relative to power vessels?

http://www.ctbasses.com/misc/BruceTrinque/WLively.jpg

Because you could a couple bunk beds out of that thing.

[Baggywrinkle]

If I might weigh in gents, I've a little practical experience on the sorts of vessels we're discussing which might be handy. Or not, often hard to tell! I'm just gonna try to cover all the real world things mentioned above, so we're all singing off the same hymnsheet despite our real-world experience or lack thereof, and then I'll offer any relevant thought for the game that emerge. I hope this will be helpful and interesting. Also apologies for not quoting the sections I refer to - on phone and it's a bit tricky to make behave! But I'll try to be clear and concise.

* To use a sailing vessel as a weapon, it's vital to get the most out of her in any given condition. Correct sail choice, set and trim is how you do this, and naval crews were large and well trained to be able to carry out changes and adjustments fast and well. So I think it's an important thing to include in the player experience of NA - it's where a good measure of skill should lie.

* Although not uncommon to set a course by the wind ('full and by' being the most well known, but a resigned 'best to windward' the most used in my experience!), most often a course would be laid for a position, and that's pretty much where the vessel points, regardless of wind angle. In the first scenario, trimming is minimal - you set your sail for the desired apparent wind angle, the the job of the helm is to maintain that apparent wind angle regrdless of compass heading. Actually quite a common practice in age of sail games, where sail trim isn't dealt with so it's down the player to sail the perfect course for the wind/point of sail¿. In the second, the course stays the same, but there's no guarentee of the wind doing the same, so sail choice set and trim must be attended to. Likewise, I'm hoping this will be relevant to the game.

* Perfect trim on the vessels with their heavy patched canvas, often slightly sub-optimal cuts, and attendant running rigging was and is a subjective art form, variable from vessel to vessel, captain to captain. So I'm gonna try to keep this short and general: the closer the wind is to coming over the front of the vessel, the closer to the fore-and-aft line of that vessel you want your sails to be parallel to. Poor syntax, but I hope that made sense. Wind coming over the back of the vessel, you want your sails square, at 90°, to that f-a-a line (hence square sails and square rigged, nothing to do with their shape). Although in real life the captain would verbally ask for sails to be set to a certain position or trimmed for a certain course, I agree with the general vibe that direct personal control would be cool so we can choose our own preferred sail position relative to this fore-and-aft line.

* Tell-tales aren't a feature of this period. You have to get the information they provide modern sailors from the sail itself. In very rough terms, if your sails are too square then the front edge of the sail, the luff, will stall and the canvas will start to flutter. If the sails are a lot too square the whole thing will shake, like a flag. If they're just a little bit off, only the luff will flutter. If, on the other hand, the sails are not square enough then you will not get so much information from the sails, but you get plenty from the vessel itself - excessive heel, excessive leeway (the downwind drift of a vessel), reduced speed are all hallmarks. Again, I should think all these real world pointers are modelable so hopefully we will be to see them and use the information they provide.

* Sails fore-and-aft if the wind is over the front, sails square if it's over the back, half way between the two if it's half way between the two! Job done on sail trim. Roughly

Another thing that's been mentioned is sail balance. It's the other crucial factor, surprisingly so, in getting the best performance from your vessel. Essentially it means balancing the latteral effect of the wind on your sails (wind hits the sails at the front of your vessel blows the front away from the wind, wind hits the sails at the back and blows the back of the boat away from the wind, bit like a seesaw on its side. The sails in the middle just make you go sideways faster, but don't have so much turning effect). The aim here is to balance your sails in such a way that that wind-induced turning effect is 0 on your desired course. No helm required to hold course, no rudder dragging through the water, faster boat. Huzzah.

* The real skill in all this is treading the ideal line between sail trim and sail balance - it is very rare that they're identical. I see no reason why we shouldn't have the information and control to learn and employ this skill ourselves in-game. Roll on the hardcore sail sim Naval Action!

I jest, all the above is ballpark and pretty basic - not much scarier than arcade mode - but hopefully has got those who aren't real sailors up to speed with the salient real-world issues and any in-game implications? To add to that, don't underestimate rudder drag, and even rolling effect on even the largest vessel - you'd be surprised! We've also had mention of the effect of swell. Sure your vessel heading will change as she rides a swell but not in such a way that you'd trim, or often even adjust the helm, for. Trimming is a constant watchfulness rather than a constant tinkering thing. You keep your eyes in the rig, and if there's a genuine shift in the wind you re-trim for it. If the sails look unhappy, have a check of the wind and trim. Going a bit slow? Trim? Uncomfy motion? Trim. But these are checks, not necessarily sail handling every time. In the mindset? Good You spot an issue and naval vessels have the numbers of trained crew to sort it fast and as frequently as required. There is no excuse for a naval vessel to be poorly balanced or trimmed at any given time. But please don't think that the sailors were stood round hanging onto the sheets and braces all day and all night to give or take an inch here or here.

Right, I'm sure that's plenty for now. Class dismiss!

For my money I'd like control of collective headsail sheets, main/mizzen/spanker sheets, and braces on a mast by mast basis. I'd also like a 'close haul' command to simulate tightening up the fore and main course tacks, hardening up halyards etc. Likewise a simple command that gives a bit of sail twist on a yard by yard basis would be nice - gives control without the stress of modelling each set of braces. Other nice touches would be: a difference modelled between clewin.g up a sail, so that's 'hanging in its gear' as the phrase has it, and furling/harbour stowing it; halyard control, particularly peak halyard for cutter/schooner/any gaffer

I'm also aware that in real life these guys were good, and trim was not something a captain would have to worry about. Honestly, the devs might well have hit on the best solution already by largely automating the process but allowing us to spill and back sails in a general sort of way to demonstrate pretty visually authentic tacks, wears/gybes and being hove to. Thoughts?

Now, is anyone free able and willing to let us mugs know how all this is really handled in game?!

Baggy

¿ 'point of sail' is a shorthand for referring to the angle of the wknd relative to the vessel. Google should turn up some easilly understood diagrams with little effort.

[Lazy Eye]

Since we have an Auto Skipper is it possible to have custom sail pre-sets with him so we can set up sails for a given amount of situations and just use a hot key to issue the command to the skipper when we need a certain sail configuration ?

[BrutishVulgarian]

Small relative to power vessels?

http://www.ctbasses.com/misc/BruceTrinque/WLively.jpg

Because you could a couple bunk beds out of that thing.

Relative to size of the ship, but I really have no idea how a big sailing ship handles.   I don't know how much pressure a wooden rudder attached to a wooden ship could actually take. 

 

 

Since we have an Auto Skipper is it possible to have custom sail pre-sets with him so we can set up sails for a given amount of situations and just use a hot key to issue the command to the skipper when we need a certain sail configuration ?

I like your thinking, that would simplify things without being arcadey.

[maturin]

If they're just a little bit off, only the luff will flutter. If, on the other hand, the sails are not square enough then you will not get so much information from the sails, but you get plenty from the vessel itself - excessive heel, excessive leeway (the downwind drift of a vessel), reduced speed are all hallmarks. Again, I should think all these real world pointers are modelable so hopefully we will be to see them and use the information they provide.

I think it would be really hard to diagnose a trim problem in a game, based only on the ill-effects of leeway/heel/speed. Obviously I would love to see sails do the complaining dynamically, but this will require really freaking good animators and is a complex system. And sometimes even AAA dev teams muddle through with very basic animations.

 

If that gif of the ship in heavy seas was created from scratch, then there's reason to hope that GameLabs has some serious talent in that regard. But it could have just been pre-baked tech from the engine.

 

I'd also like a 'close haul' command to simulate tightening up the fore and main course tacks, hardening up halyards etc.

Will this have significant visual impact on the trim of the sails? If not, it could be one of the hundreds of orders just assumed to be given.

 

Likewise a simple command that gives a bit of sail twist on a yard by yard basis would be nice - gives control without the stress of modelling each set of braces.

Could you elaborate on this? How would the sail 'twist' and what effects could you get out of it?

 

Other nice touches would be: a difference modelled between clewin.g up a sail, so that's 'hanging in its gear' as the phrase has it, and furling/harbour stowing it; halyard control, particularly peak halyard for cutter/schooner/any gaffer

Changing the peak of gaff sails would indeed be delicious.

 

And I've been meaning to ask, if clewing up and easing halyards are two methods of very quickly easing a sail, when and how often were both methods used? And what about simply letting go of the sheets? Was that more of an emergency procedure, or common enough to be worth modelling in-game?

[Chustler]

My oh my, I love what I'm hearing in this thread, I would like to add my voice in support of being able to have different rigging setups that can be pre set for different applications on the sea!  I love what I'm hearing!  Realistic sailing dynamics all the way.  I love the dynamic wind idea as well.

[mikkeo]

This sounds like it could be REALLY fun.  I just got rid of every addictive game I was playing, the ridiculous tap-tap games on the iPad, even World of Tanks.  The needle is out of my arm and I can smell the flowers, and see the beautiful sun, but... this could turn me again!  Screw flowers, I want to smell the gunpowder.

 

I love the idea of a simple model with tweaks for advanced sailing.  You might find a sweet spot for 80% the auto skipper would be fine, 15% would like the extra tweaking of the sails, and 5% would be nuts enough to want to control the canvas of the sails and the diet of the sailors so they get up the yards fast.

[Baggywrinkle]

Maturin - if the devs are really on it with the animations then you could see the difference in being truly 'close hauled'. Otherwise it would simply give a small improvement to upwind performance in the right conditions (a bit windy, basically).

The rig-twist thing seems to be a preference of some captains to have the lowest yards braced sharp up, but squaring off as they get higher. Some claim it actively improves performance, personally I can only say for sure that it's another useful technique when hard in the wind as your highest, and smallest, sail will start to luff before you de-power your main driving sails. So some see it as a good way to steer close to the wind without sacrificing speed. Mostly it's pretty!

Clewing or brailing up is generally short term, easing halyards slightly longer term. Letting sheets fly can aslo be a viable way to lose speed, but the flogging sail is a menance to itself and anyone in the vacinity.

Baggy

[BrutishVulgarian]

I was just playing another sailing game looking at my good ship rolling on the open sea and I was thinking....It would be nice to just hold a left mouse click on a sail, have a slider pop up and slide it up and down to furl or unfurl each individual sail.  Naturally, there would be a delay in carrying out the order, depending on my crew.   

[tater]

Sailing fidelity is critical to this game being worthwhile. Everything else should be secondary, really. Imagine a flight simulator that did little to model aerodynamics, or a FPS where everyone can run 100 mph, etc. Admin said that there is so much else to do in a battle that too much sailing is a problem… it is only a problem if "realism" is assumed to mean that the player has to micromanage sailing. That is entirely separate from accurately modeling sailing. The ships absolutely need to be constrained from moving where they would like. Almost 180 (150?) degrees windward is disallowed for square-rigged ships. Dealing with that is basically "tactics" in the age of sail. Ignoring that eliminates tactics, might as well do Dreadnoughts, instead.

 

This does NOT mean that the player needs to be able to run HMS Surprise Simulator, however. The Captain gives orders, sometimes very specific WRT sailing, but often just what he wants his ship to do, his Sailing Master and able-bodied seamen are more than capable of understanding and putting the ship where he wants it without being micromanaged. 

 

My suggestion for a UI would be to have the "log" (meaning speed through the water), wind direction, etc, but also have a momentum indicator. This would be a simple gauge. The critical "green" area would show if the ship has enough momentum to make it through stays without losing headway (note that many ships (merchants in particular with small crews), particularly in certain wind states) usually would make sternway tacking. This would not ensure making stays, but is it s necessary condition for doing so without losing headway. If you have not built up speed, you are not ready to tack, you might want to think about wearing ship. If you were to drag a line on the chart (or on the sea surface) as you might do in a game with terrible sailing fidelity like Empire: Total War, the line could automatically (or with a toggle) make a suggested course based on tacking vs wearing the ship. You are telling the game engine where you want your ship, and the way to get there might be complicated due to sailing. it might even be impossible. Many times ships could not leave port until the wind allowed it.

 

The points of sail of these square-rigged warships are not terribly close to the wind, even close-hauled. Anything like POTBS's fantasy sailing makes the game pretty much pointless, honestly. The wind/sailing model is in fact the "terrain" of a game like this to a great degree.

 

Make it playable by making the player a decision maker, not a micro-manager, but don't dumb down the sailing at all. Think in terms of the skipper wanting to put the ship alongside the chase on the larboard tack at pistolshot, not "hard to starboard… now!" "reef sails." The sailing master then deals with sailing the ship. If the player wants to add more detail, that's great, but make it realistic by modeling the effects of sailing realistically, not by making the player do the job of 100 people (and still not modeling sailing accurately).

[admin]

Do these ships have an engine?

At 4-00 a ship on the right turns against the wind. Is this possible without the engine?

[Mirones]

evry sailing ship has an engine today because of safty standards the swedish Götheborg hase one German Gorch Fock they are used to not become drifting in a flaute.

there was a post in the history section with the Building of the götheborg where you cuold see the engines

[Marion van Ghent]

Do these ships have an engine?

At 4-00 a ship on the right turns against the wind. Is this possible without the engine?

 

Yes, both the Lady Washington (brig) and [edit]Hawaiian Chieftain[/edit]** (schooner) have engines -- but I'm pretty sure they don't use them during these battle reënactments!

 

And yes, that turn is very possible. Remember that a ship -- even a small one such as these -- has a LOT of momentum behind it (inertia). It's going to want to keep going forward; drag from the water (and other factors) will stop it, but far from instantaneously. Put your rudder hard over, and now you have the water being deflected from straight on, and imparting sideways force upon the stern of the ship: that's going to make the bow turn.* So as long as you're going fast enough, and as long as your ship is decently well-designed, you can do this sort of thing.

 

* Assuming you haven't done anything with your sails to stop it 

** D'OH. It was late for me and I tired but enthusiastic, and I misidentified the Chieftain as the Californian. Apologies to both!

[Ryan21]

No engines on in this video.  She turns up into the wind with the inertia and speed she has, it is seriously looked down upon for either vessel to start an engine during a battle sail.  It tends to result in booing and name calling from the other ship involved.  You would be surprised at some of the things we can do with these ships.  There is no scripting or choreography either, its just the Captains trying to outdo eachother, which is alot of fun if you have an able crew and a skilled captain, which we did.  You hardly get finished a maneuver and He says AVAST!  Back to braces, change the maneuver!  its a hell of alot of fun.

[Ryan21]

Lady Washington is 210 tons of douglas fir, get that moving at 5 knots and good luck stopping it unless your flat aback.