WHY God - is there no decent Sailing Ship war game?!?!

[raymond6751]

I've run the new version a few times with these noticed results:

No apparent lines or forming of them.
Ships pass right through the first island, just in front of camera when game starts.
After about 10 minutes in...full screen shrinks to mini-screen. (No I didn't do anything.) Happened twice.
Several times, watching left side, screen suddenly shifted off grid map to left and beyond units. Could not get back to grid.

As to the weighted decision making, your call of course. I thought it would be a decision based on ability to follow orders. Can I? No. Break out of form.

Damage would have to be included in decision. If not damaged, stay as ordered.

You can't have them follow each other, either. They have to follow the leader, since if ship 2 breaks formation the others will follow number 2 instead of leader.

Perhaps a routine, timely check on leader condition could include the creation of the new waypoint for the formation? Avoiding collision, each makes its way to the waypoint and then matches leader course at that moment.

Waypoints could have an order attached to them and a circle of vicinity. Any ship of the formation entering the circle will execute the order, which might be course or other instructions.

In this way a leader only creates waypoints and orders, without physical/logical links to other ships. The line of ships know their original number and REACT to orders in sequence, if able.

Leader signals order, waypoint created, ship 2 reacts, ship 3 reacts, and so on.

Oh, and another evolution to consider: turns in line and turns abreast. This means all turn at once, right away.

Also...

I have been reviewing my AOS board games (Flying Colors, 1805, Napoleons Wars) for ideas. A suggestion is that any ship beyond a given 'command range' of the leader is detached to either act independently or latch on to another leader that is in command range. The range reduces as battle progresses due to clutter and smoke. Various commanders (in my games) have various ranges reflecting their abilities.
For a line formation, obviously, signals are passed along so the 'command range' is to the nearest ship ahead in the same formation. Ships get separated in battle and might "latch" onto another formation or any friendly ship in range to follow.
Just thoughts and ideas.

M

[troopie]

@ bix, link seems to be busted.

[troopie]

I'm finding the wind compass rose a little confusing as the arrow heads point in the opposite direction to the wind movement; what do think of something like this:

[troopie]

I haven't been able to try your latest offering but have been trying your fith release, thx again for your great work. I've gotten a little behind but have been reading the thread with interest.

Please, please, please try 'Steam and Iron', It will really help you with dealing with lines, squadrons and orders.



In the screenie above the shape of the pennant shows manual/automated control; square for manual, triangular for auto. You can open squadron orders by clicking on their pennant or give individual orders by clicking on a particular vessel. When a squadron member is unable to keep up the game asks you if you want to detach said vessel. If you do it gets it's own pennant. If you don't the sqaudron slows down to stay with the damaged vessel. If a detactched damaged vessel affects repairs it will request to rejoin the squadron if it comes within visual range.



This is the squadrons' status screen showing the orders it is following; it is following the squadron chosen in the 'lead formation' list, its' behavior is chosen from the 'role' list and its' formation by that list. Here you can also choose whether they target ships using AI or manually.



Obviously the UI is completely irrelevant to your game but the behavioral control is brilliant.




Re Signal: I've noticed that if I drag the mouse out side the window the camera goes awol, although I can get back to the action buy panning around till I find the flags.


I'm running two monitors, is there a way to return to fullscreen if I click off-screen? I'm often doing other things while running the scenario (such as reading this thread). when I click off-screen the game returns to (a small) windowed mode and the 'maximise' button is not selectable.

What's the appropriate hack to increase the window size?

Also the grey numbering for the brown side is hard to see over the cloud reflections; any chance of a colour change?

Thx ray for all your research/input!

[raymond6751]

bix Units sail through the Southern islands.

troopie

Naval/sailing tradition has been that wind is described as from where it comes from. A Northerly wind comes from the North. No need to change the compass. You just need to know that the wind blows in the direction pointed to.

[troopie]

I'm not sure about the 'waypoint' idea; I think a bunch of square rigged ships trying to maintain position arond a specific waypoint would be very impractical and cumbersome? I'd more imagine navigation to be dynamic.

In S&I if you click on a destination the squadron takes the bearing required to reach it but will continue on that course indefinately. If you really want them to stop there you must order speed down to zero knots, but really you'd never want to do this, you want to keep that fleet moving!

The feel from S&I's navigation is very realistic, albeit without the AOS considerations of course.

[troopie]

Originally Posted by raymond6751

A Northerly wind comes from the North. No need to change the compass. You just need to know that the wind blows in the direction pointed to.

Not a dig, but you're contradicting your self here. As you said, the wind comes from said point. As it is, if I want the wind to come from the north I must click on north and the ensueing indicator then points north, the opposite direction to the wind movement. So the wind is blowing the opposite to the "direction pointed to".



In this screenie the wind is moving left to right, yet the arrow is pointing from right to left. You gettin' me?

[raymond6751]

Originally Posted by troopie

Not a dig, but you're contradicting your self here. As you said, the wind comes from said point. As it is, if I want the wind to come from the north I must click on north and the ensueing indicator then points north, the opposite direction to the wind movement. So the wind is blowing the opposite to the "direction pointed to".



In this screenie the wind is moving left to right, yet the arrow is pointing from right to left. You gettin' me?

True. But as I said, the wind illustrated is a Westerly wind. I don't think the compass should be altered as it would then look like no compass ever did. We just use it to signal wind direction, but the compass actually should look like a compass. Mentally know that the arrow points to the origin of wind.

[bix]

great comments all. i'll look into the busted link, perhaps we are not all looking at the same app

i'm totally reworking lines and commands, as well as "island" navigation. the reason why some of the ships are passing through the islands is because they simply don't have the force of wind to come about prior to avoiding. i was hoping to use a "just in time" navigation rather than pre-planning a complex course, but the JIT is also messing with the line formations, so i'm gutting it and pre-planning a series of evolutions to keep in formation while avoid collisions. it's actually a fair bit more like reality.

hope to have something up by the end of the day.

bix

[bix]

here's a screen of the ships forming perfect lines, in this case i have specified a diagonal descending from the leader (right most ship) to the south west, with a specific spacing.

regarding wind. the wind is blowing from east to west, the arrow on the rose indicates not the source of the wind, rather the destination. thus if a ship is sailing in an easterly direction, it will go very slow.

i'm just about to rework tacking so this will be more evident.

[bix]

here is the trickier line to form, where the last member (leftmost) is the van and the leader is the rear. in this case the ships are now setting and reefing sails such that they all arrive on station at roughly the same time.

needless to say, the line "diagonality" will soon be settable in another compass rose, or other such interface. perhaps a "grid" type thing where you can click a pattern in it, like a wedge, box, line etc... hmmm, thats prolly about right... a super-quick way to set your squad formation.



bix

[troopie]

Originally Posted by bix

regarding wind. the wind is blowing from east to west, the arrow on the rose indicates not the source of the wind, rather the destination.

Oops, quick test and it's obvious.

Arrghh.. I hate it when I make such a blatant mistake and then present a convincing argument to support it! I think I exceeded my rum ration last night!

[bix]

just like any sailor, every day i try to find a little extra.

[bix]

captains,

it has been a very interesting 24 hours. boy you can slice the problem so many ways. so, lets just say for simplicity, i maintain 4 squadrons of 4 ships (i may expand that to 4 squads of 5 ships, 20 total, just so i have an odd number).

these are the most probable lines, represented in ascii:

<---- this is the wind vector

^^^^ abreast


^^
^^ square


^
_^
__^
___^ diag van lee


___^
__^
_^
^ diag van weather


^
^
^
^ column


^
^^
__^ wedge

( odd ship has weather gauge prolly a good assumption )


^__^
_^^ net

( no odd ship in this case though it could also be inverse of wedge )



so seven basic lines. the challenge then is to transition efficiently from any one line to any other line. this is not so simple as you might first imagine. many questions arise.

Q1: is the formation relative to the heading of "the leader," meaning it manifests perpendicular to a "primary goal vector" or is the formation relative to world compass points? a "primary goal vector" would be the line between the leader and an arbitrary goal point.

Q2: is the formation relative to the wind vector, meaning the ships align on this pattern based on the direction of the wind. hmmm....

Q3: (well, i think this is the answer, but you might need to think about q1 and q2 first) the formation is relative to the CENTER OF MASS of the squadron, and its target point. center of mass is basically the point equidistant from all ships in the squadron. it is the center of the squadron.

and so, then there is this other thing i'm gonna call a "ghost" ship.

we were talking about leader/follower and waypoints and a whole raft of things, but having messed around with it for bit, i think there is no"leader" per-se. there is an additional "virtual ship," the ghost ship, that exists exactly at the center of mass of the squad. it has no propulsion, it is always at the point equidistant from all ships in the squad.

the squad has a destination. the "goal vector" is the line between the center of mass of the whole squadron, and this destination point. the ships align and set or reef sails based on this vector, and their assigned formation offset from it, AND the current wind vector.

which brings me to my final thoughts, and why i am currently fond of this "center of mass" idea. when transitioning from one formation to another (assuming that the commodore is not going to force the leeward ships to beat into the wind to reach station) the center of mass is the fulcrum. the windward ships from COM have the greater mobility to reach station, therefore they assume the station goal of greatest distance from COM, regardless of their rank.

simple example going from abreast to diagonal van lee:

the "dot" is (COM)

<---- wind

from:

^^.^^ abreast

to:

^
_^
__.
___^
____^ diag van lee

the van ship is the most leeward ship, it simply reefs sails while the others position.

the second lee ship reefs and maybe navigates a bit leeward. the subsequent ships, based on the fulcrum, do the same to a greater degree.

other transitions are more complicated evolutions, but efficiency seems to be always based on this COM fulcrum, and i have a logic in mind for each transition that is not based on any meta-information about the current position, meaning i don't have a 7+6+5+4+3+2+1 finite state problem, i have one transition problem for any position, efficiently solvable by math.

which means there is no "leader" per se, no way points, and no de-facto"choreography" of maneuvers. that is not to preclude that someday you can not execute your brilliant choreography, but it is out of scope at this point. that said, i don't think there is a "perfect" mathematical solution, and i'll prolly sprinkle in a bit of choreography as well, so i'm laying the foundation for the next nelson.

at any rate, the premiss is the "leader" of the squadron is a ghost ship always at the center of mass of the squad, driving straight at the destination point, having no propulsion what-so-ever. the squad navigates to its formation based on a pattern offset from this COM, the most windward ship from COM choosing the most remote formation point. well, in most circumstances at any rate, ie a bit of dancing may be required.

i'd love to hear your thoughts about that !!!

best,
bix
ps. i'm having a shipload of fun doing this, have no fear re my "sensitivity" tell me how you see it! tell me where the wind blows!

[bix]

should have previewed, the forum parser trimmed my spaces in the lee and weather diagonal examples. see how difficult this problem is!!

i hope you can literally fill in the blanks, but for some assurance in the transition example, a "diag van lee" is this, now gonna try to edit...

<--- wind

^
_^
__.
___^
____^