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

[bix]

yup, i used it as the basis.

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bix

[tater]

Well, in a sense it reminds me of my original sim "love," ww2 flight sims. Obviously the ground is pretty hard terrain, but after a while you needn't see "terrain" to have a pure feel for what actually matters---energy. You know that as much as you'd like to pull hard lead on that Zero in front of you, if you do, your F4F will become a fat pinata for him to pop, so you gently zoom away for another try.

In a sailing game, you'll know where the wind is, see the chase, and you'll be thinking about when you want to put her about to be on the same tack and engage.

The Surprise simulator I posted is cool, but not at all what I personally want to play, at least to start. In terms of "realism," SH has great analogies on how NOT to do things. The Surprise sim is what many think "hard mode" is on sims. In fact, it's only realistic to the point the skipper acts like the skipper. If he has to reef the sails himself, it's not realistic (ordering "shorten sail" is obviously fine, I mean clicking on each sail, that sort of thing). So my SH analogy? The firing party on a USN submarine. We have "auto" mode where SH4 is a crappy arcade, point and shoot, and on top of that no fog of war, we have the enemy located with GPS on our magical map. In highest difficulty, we have a blank map, and the skipper has to take bearings, plot them, etc, ad nauseum. Also entirely unrealistic, now just in a different way. In reality he says "bearing... mark," and one of his officers reads the bearing. Another plots it, yet another inputs the data to the TDC. The skipper can then look at the map, and see his officers building the plot, he doesn't get out the scale himself and start drawing on the map, his job is to fight the ship, they have their jobs, which are to distill that information for him so he can make better decisions. Ditto sailing. Design it so that with a simple UI, the player can act as skipper. The ship should---even in "easy" mode behave in a realistic way, it should just present the skipper with less complex tools. The only real reason to give individual sail control, etc, would be for 1 v 1 fights where some novel shiphandling might make a difference (the kind of stuff you read in O'Brian).

[mwsheeler]

bix...looks great. Put me on the list for wanting to participate in any beta. Will also be willing to donate towards your project. I would offer to help but am not sure I can give any guarantee on time. I am 64 and working my rear off making ends meet. I laud your sustained efforts. If I might ask, what programs are you using to create and assemble the parts? If you don't have time, or if I missed the post that gave this info...I understand and apologize. I would rather see your time finishing this game than replying to comments. My hat's off to you.

[raymond6751]

Originally Posted by bix

now, lets just say that the swell and drift on the ocean surface was directly equivalent to wind direction and speed (even thought in reality it is not equal), would this help? you could indeed see it.
b

No, keep the swell and drift as separate. These are the essence of a sail adventure as much as wind.

At some point you have to let the crew and officers do their jobs about either sailing or fighting. I am not saying auto everything. If the captain or master orders a maneuver or change of sail - some aspect of "auto" has to be involved. He doesn't climb the rigging himself!

For gunnery, there are gunnery officers and gun captains who supervise the details on command from the quarter-deck. The captain (player) should be able to micro-manage either aspect when he wants to, or give orders and observe his crew taking necessary steps to see it done.

The captain would observe the speed and correctness of his crew carrying out his orders. He would make adjustment orders to bring things more in line with his intent.

You could include (after June) crew drills to increase skills and experience in both sail handling and gunnery. The player who neglects training suffers when real battle happens. (not by enough to lose the battle outright)

[bix]

@mwsheeler - welcome aboard!

considering the latest comments - i will have a pre-beta release tomorrow.

i think ray was begging for videos, jetison that - i can stow an .exe in a much smaller package than any dumb-ass video, under 20 megs, more likely, under 10.

so, you won't be able to do anything, it is, in a sense, a video. it's my AI in action. you can consider it the enemy :P all params are preset and the random has the same seed (therefore it should play out the same on all machines). almost all interface is disabled. it is a pure demonstration of the current sail physics, with obstacle avoidance. ie. don't collide with other ships, don't run aground. i'll give you some camera control, but that is not what is to be evaluated.

we evaluate the quality of the AI sail - agreed?

i will post a good old school ftp link soon, with instructions. look for it mid-day tomorrow lisbon time, which also happens to be GMT.

in this, you will note that a few ships do collide, and one ship does run aground. eventually, you will be there, umm, playing the game, to prevent that!

best,
jbkds

[tater]

Of course ships DID collide, and ships DID run aground, so it sounds like it's behaving nicely

[bix]

of course they did, and the admiral's (or captain's) "just in time" commands save the day. a game, no?

[tater]

Originally Posted by bix

of course they did, and the admiral's (or captain's) "just in time" commands save the day. a game, no?

The player fills any roles the AI doesn't handle well, I get it. I was just saying that due to the wind, shoals, whatever, unpredictable (and undesirable to the ship(s) in question) stuff should actually happen anyway. A ship is making too much leeway, and shoals, or the wind veers and one ship can't help but hit another...

All fine to me

[raymond6751]

It wasn't me wanting a vid, but my name is Raymond anyway.

Looking forward to seeing your work, bix.

Attention on deck!

[bix]

@raymond6751 - must have been con20or who was hot for vids, and i do so much damn typing all day long, i look for any opportunity to abbreviate. i'll stick to raymond if you please.

given real world conditions (as best as i can sim them) 12 out of 16 enemy ships will solve the initial navigation problem, therefore if you can arrive at the "point of interest" with 14 of your 16, you are playing well. if you arrive with 10 of your 16, yet those brave 10 are optimally positioned, you are also playing well.

next comes gunnery...

bix

[bix]

stay tuned

[bix]

unexpected problem. should be solved tomorrow. sorry - but you waited this long....

[tater]

Originally Posted by bix

unexpected problem. should be solved tomorrow. sorry - but you waited this long....

I've been waiting over a decade, what's a few days?

[bix]

that's the spirit!

quick update on the problem - when i set an initial situation where all things are NOT equal, it all plays out acceptably.

when i set an initial situation where (in theory) all things ARE equal, i get unexpected results (one side never makes their stays) .

b

[mwsheeler]

Agree with tater...waited a long time. excited to see this. good luck.