Sail control

[Ryan21]

Also look very closely at the flags on Lady, she isn't that far up into the wind, look at the direction the Hawaiian Chieftains sails are filling from. 

[Ryan21]

at 4:28 you can see the Chief starts luffing and goes aback, theres your wind indicator.  Some times we will luff and fall off in these battle sails just to slow down for a second to get the shot we need.  I was on one day in Redwood city, it was blowing 30 knots, we were charging along under topsails neck and neck with Chiefy firing at eachother.  And then our Captain had us box haul Lady, we put her aback, the chieftain blew by, then we sailed her backwards behind Chiefies stern and gave her a couple shots.

[Ryan21]

In my opinion.  Even if there is not individual sail control in each action, which I can see would complicate things, and like I have stated before would be largely unnecesary due to yards on each mast being braced the same as the ones above and below them, you should be able to select an appropriate general sail set for the situation, In seamanship in the age of sail, it specifies in general the sail carried with each beaufort wind condition.  One small feature I would really like to see would be the ability to single and close reef your topsails for heavy weather, and a single reef point for the main and foresail. 

[maturin]

And then our Captain had us box haul Lady, we put her aback, the chieftain blew by, then we sailed her backwards behind Chiefies stern and gave her a couple shots.

And that's why detailed sailing mechanics are good for gameplay.

[Johny Reb]

I just got to say I'm loving these videos. I've seen a number of simulated fights before but the ships always used their engines. Although these ships are smaller, it shows the pace at which real life battles would have taken as well as how little room they appeared to need for it. That was a little bit of a surprise for me, not that I expected you needed miles of sea room for a schooner and a brig.

[Ryan21]

That's exactly why I took these videos, so everybody could see how these ships sail!

[Ryan21]

So.  I couldn't find the pic of Surprises Bowlines.  But I can show your where they attach.  The below link is a picture on my Flikr page showing Ladies main topsail and topgallant set.  Note the cringles (loops on the edge of a sail) on the topsail and topgallant leeches, below the reefing cringle there are three bowline cringles on the topsail and two on the topgallant.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/116121315@N07/12257755516/

[Ryan21]

They would lead forward to a block at the right height on the foremast and then down to their respective belaying pins or cleats.

[Ryan21]

Wow I totally didn't realize which vessel admin was talking about in the video, my head was elsewhere haha.  Ya Hawaiian Chieftain is going through a tack, no engines on.  The process is similar but different because she is a square topsail ketch and not a brig.

[tater]

Excellent video.

 

A good test is that if you can "sail" the ships in game anything like POTBS or E:TW, you might as well add magical items. POTBS had such promise in development, then they jumped the shark and made it a motorboat game where the motorboats happen to look like sailing ships.

 

Again, I'm not suggesting that the players be forced to learn age of sail seamanship at the level of calling the orders to take the ship about. A "tack" button would suffice for that, let the crew do what they are trained to do (and the way they perform the evolutions of the maneuvers can be related to "crew quality," such that there is a chance for sluggish crews or small mistakes).

 

Also, as I said above, nothing is more important to an age of sail game than the sailing fidelity. Nothing is even close. Gunfire? That could be done like an old miniatures game and be every bit as accurate as the best simulation you can do computationally. Meaning that how the ship behaves is critical, not how the player controls it. More control is great, but having the ship act like a sailing ship trumps more control if they are at odds from a UI perspective.

 

Getting out of a harbor will often be difficult or impossible using the wind, for example. That's why certain harbors were built, in fact, to make it hard for raids since they might get in, but would then be trapped within range of forts. How to get out? Warping, for example (sprung anchors is another thing you should have for ships at anchor). Towing is also a possibility. I saw a mention of Seamanship in the Age of Sail. I cannot recommend that book enough to the devs (they must have it… they can't not have it).

[Ryan21]

A million times yes!  seamanship in the age of sail is pretty much the best general book on the topic out there.

[tater]

Here's an observation about flight sims I made years ago. I read many books on ww2 aviation history, and while I had a great appreciation for air to air combat in ww2, I never really "got it" until I flew flight sims. I flew so many thousands of hours vs people (AW, then WB, the WW2OL and Il-2) that I have really internalized the basics of air combat in a way impossible before the simulation time.

 

I have played a bunch of age of sail games, and I honestly have to say the same has not happened because the sailing models all stink. There is no sense of really having to appreciate the wind, thinking ahead in terms of tacks (or wears) for where you will be, etc. You can always make headway, you never make sternway, there is no heel to the ships, smoke doesn't matter, etc, etc. Every age of sail game I have ever tried is to fighting sail what Mariokart is to F1 racing.

[maturin]

Yeah, POTBS sailing gets a bit of a bad rap, though.

 

While the game was pretty much devoid of realistic features for the enthusiasts to recognized and appreciate, at the end of the day, the wind really mattered.

 

Being able to make 2 knots dead upwind will piss off all the purists, but no one actually sailed that way because they would be killed. So in practice, the ships in that game did nothing that real vessels couldn't do. If anything, they weren't maneuverable enough, not being able to sail backwards and with some artificial turn rate limitations.

[tater]

I didn't bother even following the forums after they announced the windward sailing (particularly given how hung ho they initially were for actually simulating sailing).

 

If you give up on the sailing, the rest is bound to be nonsense. It's like a flight sim dev saying "gravity will just turn off players… it's HARD not to crash." I have yet to see any game prove me wrong on that. Vids I have seen of POTBS look no better than E:TW's sailing.

[maturin]

The difference between POTBS and TW is night and day, believe me. Not so much that POTBS is a lot more realistic, just that it's actually gameplay that requires some actual thought put into it. If you try to handle a POTBS ship like a motorboat you will be defeated instantly, and the differences in vessel handling between schooner and brig and SOL is drastic.

 

Anyways, Naval Action is going to go miles better than either of them, so I'll stop going off-topic.

[tater]

It sounds like it will certainly be better. The bar is pretty low, though, as I watched the POTBS forums I saw it go from realistic to every decision going the other direction when there was a choice, always in the name of "gameplay." There is a lack of understanding that you can have realism without it requiring micromanagement by the player. An example from SH4...

 

Low realism setting has "auto targeting." Skipper looks out of periscope, marks target, and shoots. The target is painted on chart, moving in real time. The fish is set, and will almost certainly hit. In "100% realism" mode, the skipper has to determine the range himself, plot the target on the chart himself, set the TDC himself. All perhaps in the middle of a convoy. I'd submit that neither is "realistic." The former is obviously silly, the skipper should not have GPS data on targets, etc. The latter seems realistic to many, but the skipper did not chart targets in RL, his fire control team  ("shooting party") did. He didn't explicitly calculate the range, he used the stadimeter, and said "range… MARK." The guy standing on the other side of the periscope took down the reading, then it was compared to the target ID and calculated. His shooting party would have a guy running the TDC. A more realistic way SH never used would have been for the player to still do a lot, deciding to mark range, deciding to mark bearing, deciding which ship the target is, AOB, etc. The devs failed to really "get" how things really happen, and how they could have "100% realism" and it would be less work than what they did (giving one guy the job of 5 men, but still within a 1:1 time constraint).

 

This maps well to sailing. The captain gives orders, the crew and his junior officers execute those orders. "put her close-hauled on the starboard tack at the soonest opportunity" (knowing that she just tacked, and needs to build a little way before she can do it again). Doesn't require him having to put the helm down, call sail evolutions, etc. A "heading" approach, where you tell the game to put the ship on heading X can work, but how do you decide wearing vs tacking vs box hauling? The "stretched line" approach (E:TW) can do this, stretch through windward, and you get a tack, leeward and you get a wear (dunno how you deal with box hauling ). What would be nice is to see such a TW style line incorporate real sailing simulation, though. If the ship is close-hauled, it might need to ease off a little, and build up speed first before tacking. After, it might be a few points off close-hauled for the same reason before coming closer to the wind (assuming that's the desired course set). The problem with dragging a line, though, is that it implies a "god" view, instead of captain on deck (or fudged with captain in the tops). Once you can fly around, you have vastly too much information, frankly, particularly once shooting starts (smoke was a real issue, and a trade off of having the weather was that your smoke went downrange, obscuring the target). A "realism" discussion WRT sail handling, sailing in general, role of the player is worth really thinking about, perhaps even in a novel way for games.

 

This reference (I bookmarked this and posted at subsim a long time ago, it is also posted on this forum by a few people): http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol13/tnm_13_4_29-39.pdf tells what the OUTCOME of sailing should be, regardless of sail handling. If you need to go North, and the wind is from the North… You don't get to go, sorry (unless the airs are light, and there is a strong current North, I suppose). Not at some reduced speed that will get you killed. You don't get to go that way at all. Really, under normal conditions, a right angle to the wind is about as good as it gets. Perhaps players can customize their ships to get a point closer, but there should be cons as well as the obvious pro. Sail damage, a high minimum skill level of helmsman required, etc. Trade offs.

[Wetterburg]

It would be nice, if you could put the "no sails" to "all sails raised and rigged perfect" slider on a joystick axis. Furthermore there would be a relative and absolute setting nice:

• Relative: For people with gamepads and things like that. This includes for example a logitech G13 gaming keyboard.
• Absolute: For the people with a throttle.

Once upon a time, i tried to program with a friend a kind of sail simulator. Inspired by Sid Meiers "Pirates!" we got something done in GFA-Basic on an Amiga. Long story short: It worked, but was no fun at all! We used a brigantine as first ship and even that relative small two mast ship was damn complicated.

 

Some additional controls would be nice, if you need them for special manouver. Like braking by turning the sails out of the wind and such. But not too many. After all you have to remember and use them.

 

Sailing the ship is only one of the tasks a virtual captain has to do. Your are navigator and master gunner too.

[PiR]

hello, I have two little ideas about sails management that I want to share, however I have just few knowledge in real sailing so this may be silly. Feel free to comment and once again my apologies for my english.

 

My first idea is quite simple, I wonder if it is possible to have two battle sails settings, one “slow” battle sails setting (the current one) and one “fast”. The “slow” setting with only the topsails as it is now and the “fast” setting with the topsails and the topgallant sails. I find the current battle sails setting a bit slow in some situations and the half or full sails settings annoying when aiming. Also with the upcoming fire this maybe an interesting feature . About the keys I have just thinking at this, one tape on B key does the “slow” battle sails setting, a second tape on B does the “fast” battle sails setting, a third one “slow” again etc etc.

 

My second idea is more about the sails management and trim of the tension of sails. I was thinking that the transitions between two sails settings might take longer with a delay between the order and his application. however to keep a certain control on our speed, we could increase or decrease the tension of our current sails setting. Maybe with the W and S keys, W increase the tension and so the speed whereas S decrease the tension and the speed. My sailing knowledge are limited but i tough it make sense. It also add some possibility when the wind damage will come. Of course we have to find news keys for sails settings and one problem stay with the fore and aft and jib sails.

 

I hope I am understandable and it make sense.

 

Cheers

 

[maturin]

The idea that I have long favored is a bit simpler. B shouldn't enable a specific 'Battle Sails' setting. It should merely toggle the courses, spritsail and a few staysails. That means that you Battles sails is just a modification of all the other sail settings, from Dead Slow to Full. Maximum flexibility with no UI complications.

 

Your second idea refers to slacking the sheets. We currently use manual yard controls to reduce speed in this manner. Slacking the sheets was certainly done, but only with certain sails and on certain headings. It was often an emergency measures, and tended to cause a lot of bedlam aloft, putting the sail at risk in blowing weather.

[PiR]

Ok thanks for reply and your idea about battle sails is realy interesting

[Anvilfolk]

Ultimately I've love it if the current system was built as an accessibility option on top of being able to set each individual sail. That would make me very, very happy. It would certainly spark a lot of discussion related to proper sailing techniques and make the game even more skill-based (while not compromising accessibility!).

[russian]

How about a small window opening up that would show a picture of the ship from the side where with the temporarily enabled mouse pointer we could click each sail as we want it for custom trim settings leaving stop and full sails alone obviously but adjusting everything in between? Although I do not have any back up to this right now, the full press of sail was not always good for some ships thus taking in that mizzen course or foretop gallant could be the trick.

[Hugh Latham]

I am curious as to the reality of the speed at which I can move the yards when trimming my sails. I seems to me a line of seaman running along the deck pulling on the braces would not be able to bring the yard around as fast as it happens in game.

[Prater]

I've asked that question as well and several of the experts here have said that the current speed seems about right

[maturin]

Well as always, it depends. The yards could swivel even faster than that if the wind was pushing them around. But to haul them against the wind would be much slower.

 

More than once I've suggested yard control speed that depends on context.