Missing rigging: braces and sheets

[Vicker3000]

I love the modeling of the rigging in this game.  I have never seen anything else come as close to NA in terms of realistic rigging.

 

That said, there are two major types of lines that are missing from the ships: braces and sheets.  Braces run from the tip of a yard (the "yardarm") to a different mast.  They are used to control the rotation of the yards.  Sheets run to the tip of the boom of a fore-and-aft sail, and are used to control how far out the boom can swing.

 

These lines seem especially relevant given that these are what the player is controlling when the player presses Q, E, Z, and C.  For me, the absence of these lines is immersion breaking.  Without these lines, there is nothing to control the sails' rotation and nothing keeping them in a given position.

 

When I've mentioned this, several people have pointed out that these lines would have to move with the sails, and so they would be harder to add.  It seems like this shouldn't be an issue, given that sheets are already there in game for headsails and staysails.

 

 

[maturin]

Braces would be nice, but that ship has probably sailed.

Braces also raise some technical challenges that standing rigging does not. They need to move along with the yards, and alternate between slack and taught. That need for animation inevitably means a performance hit. I also wonder whether lines of smaller diameter can be rendered acceptably. If the braces come out looking like big old shrouds, they could ruin the illusion altogether.

I'm more concerned about the inaccurate sheets that we have already: on jibs, staysails, courses and topsails. All but the latter are too complex to do right (since they are made fast to different positions, tack on tack), and should just be deleted to prevent clipping.

On the other hand, I feel rather strongly that gaff sails should receive sheets. Only Pickle has one at the moment, and it is excellent work.