Wind makes zero sense

[ᚬᛏᛁᚾ]

Wind is horribly inconsistent even under consistent variables; Can anyone explain why my fastest ship, current speed 21.5 and ~1.5k in deadweight to spare, is moving between 1-2nmi. sometimes my xebek can hit ~10nmi pointed optimally, other times it goes 1-2. Please explain...

[StormRangerX]

Because the speed of wind changes, your speed will never be consistent.

[ᚬᛏᛁᚾ]

thank you for quick response. While that makes sense and is rather obvious, is it intended for all ships to randomly turn into ocean bricks with practiacally no mobility? (I can't even move to fight the enemy)

I wouldn't have put so much effort into building a fast and maneuverable fleet if none of them can move anywhere at the drop of a hat. Is the only solution to this to sit at 6x speed for 10+minutes until i can escape? I'll be caught by the interceptors again immediately but maybe the wind will be more favorable?

[ᚬᛏᛁᚾ]

Also my Xebek's forward facing cannons are definitely damaging it's own sails.

[StormRangerX]

Originally posted by ᚬᛏᛁᚾ:

thank you for quick response. While that makes sense and is rather obvious, is it intended for all ships to randomly turn into ocean bricks with practiacally no mobility? (I can't even move to fight the enemy)

I wouldn't have put so much effort into building a fast and maneuverable fleet if none of them can move anywhere at the drop of a hat. Is the only solution to this to sit at 6x speed for 10+minutes until i can escape? I'll be caught by the interceptors again immediately but maybe the wind will be more favorable?

It could be the fastest ship in the world, but if the wind is only blowing at 5 knots then there's not much you can do about it.

[Ace490]

From what I've seen I'd also say that the speed you can achieve drops exponentially with sail damage. At 60% sail health remaining I have the feeling your speed is barely a third of your max speed at full sail health. Haven't been crunching numbers on it, but my ship always moves at snail's pace once I lose about 40% sail health no matter how much wind there is and irrespective of my ship position to the wind.

[Ace490]

Yeah, that ♥♥♥♥ seems to only apply to your own ship. With the enemy ships you have to hit their sails really hard just to slow them down a tiny bit. Might have something to do with the game difficulty (AI getting some bonus on speed on higher difficulties perhaps). Also might be that the realistic sailing option makes it far harder simply because the AI always and automatically aligns itself with the best wind position.

[ᚬᛏᛁᚾ]

thank you again for the perspective. I get that this is an old game retextured & revamped but i'm going to stand by the nonsensicality of the overall wind mechanics. I've tested and noted varying ship speeds and wind strengths (the value on the left of the nav compass i believe) and the results are never consistent; primarily, pointing my ship at the best angle with wind speeds of 10-15 produce the best result 30-40% of the time.

also, my off-bow angle is 9/170; so my ship "performs" best when sailing completely against the wind (virtually) however this is not reflected on the world map. I basically have to escape battles by sailing against the wind and then when i go to the world map i have to pull a 360 and start sailing with the wind. There is no consistency. in the water my xebek can't sail with the wind for sh*t (max 2.1nmi sailing with the wind) so i have to sail against it just to have to turn around on the world map and restart the same battle i just fled. Wind makes zero sense.

While I understand that all ships are different (as they should be) it shouldn't be this difficult to get almost any ship to travel decently while facing the direction of the wind and with full wind in it's sails. I highly doubt that any sailor has ever had to lament the fact that the wind is pointing directly towards his goal like we do in this game; if the wind is pointing directly to a city or enemy: good luck getting there the same day.

[ᚬᛏᛁᚾ]

i feel that part about sail damage too; once my sails drop below 60-70% my ship is a total piece of driftwood. I carry 70-200 units of sailcloth on all ships<rank4 for this reason. I don't mind having to repair my sails nonstop but the speed debuff could definitely use a tweak.

[Iskar]

Originally posted by ᚬᛏᛁᚾ:

thank you again for the perspective. I get that this is an old game retextured & revamped but i'm going to stand by the nonsensicality of the overall wind mechanics. I've tested and noted varying ship speeds and wind strengths (the value on the left of the nav compass i believe) and the results are never consistent; primarily, pointing my ship at the best angle with wind speeds of 10-15 produce the best result 30-40% of the time.

also, my off-bow angle is 9/170; so my ship "performs" best when sailing completely against the wind (virtually) however this is not reflected on the world map. I basically have to escape battles by sailing against the wind and then when i go to the world map i have to pull a 360 and start sailing with the wind. There is no consistency. in the water my xebek can't sail with the wind for sh*t (max 2.1nmi sailing with the wind) so i have to sail against it just to have to turn around on the world map and restart the same battle i just fled. Wind makes zero sense.

While I understand that all ships are different (as they should be) it shouldn't be this difficult to get almost any ship to travel decently while facing the direction of the wind and with full wind in it's sails. I highly doubt that any sailor has ever had to lament the fact that the wind is pointing directly towards his goal like we do in this game; if the wind is pointing directly to a city or enemy: good luck getting there the same day.

The problem is that you cannot change the hauling of the ships. In reality, e.g., on a lateen rigged boat you would simply rotate the boom outward if the wind is blowing exactly where you want to go so it blows straight onto your sail, and you'd only haul it closer if you wanted to go at an angle relative to the wind. Changing the hauling is simply something the storm engine does not include, though (I think).

[ᚬᛏᛁᚾ]

Originally posted by Iskar:

The problem is that you cannot change the hauling of the ships. In reality, e.g., on a lateen rigged boat you would simply rotate the boom outward if the wind is blowing exactly where you want to go so it blows straight onto your sail, and you'd only haul it closer if you wanted to go at an angle relative to the wind. Changing the hauling is simply something the storm engine does not include, though (I think).

That is exactly what i had in mind and am frustrated by. Thank you for understanding and using the correct term that I didn't know. If it's a limitation of the engine then perhaps nothing can be done about it from a feature-perspective, this is just a reskin and revamp so that makes sense, Maybe I'll just build a fleet comprised with ships that can actually sail in different directions and swap around whenever i get trapped. the battles would be a lot more engaging for me if the wind wasn't a stronger opponent than the gentlemen of fortune lol. I'm just a bit baffled that any ships would perform this way in a game. it's like a fighter plane that stalls whenever you fly straight, and forces you to constantly barrel roll, nosedive, and fight 4 other planes, just for the sake of the plane being "different" from the others. I would happily settle for the differences in speed, weight etc over a bunch of boats that cant sail straight.

[Iskar]

A relatively simple fix might be reducing the degree at which speed drops when turning from your ideal angle into the main wind direction. For example, at a wind speed of 10 where you sail 7 at your ideal angle make it still 5 (instead of 2-3) when going with the wind for all fore-and-aft rigged ships. That would make it more of a window of viable directions rather than two isolated directions where you are fast amidst a sea of sluggishness. It should simply not be possible to outsail a sleek fore-and-aft rigged ship with a cumbersome square rigged one.

[Darlandra]

Originally posted by ᚬᛏᛁᚾ:

thank you for quick response. While that makes sense and is rather obvious, is it intended for all ships to randomly turn into ocean bricks with practiacally no mobility? (I can't even move to fight the enemy)

I wouldn't have put so much effort into building a fast and maneuverable fleet if none of them can move anywhere at the drop of a hat. Is the only solution to this to sit at 6x speed for 10+minutes until i can escape? I'll be caught by the interceptors again immediately but maybe the wind will be more favorable?

all sailing ships will have a wind angle they simply can't move in, direct upwind being one of them.
Different ships have different ideal sailing directions. The ships that have angled sails (schooner rigging IRL) will do best going upwind, but like IRL they do poorly downwind.

Ships with square rigging like carracks and galleons are the opposite and they will do better downwind and wont perform going upwind.

[Darlandra]

Originally posted by (KRA)Gray Wolf 3rdX0:

Ya its defently a pain when you canr go north east or south east or west to try to get near enemys. Atm though I seem to get spawned in right on top of the enemy ant times maybe I messed up a setting for tatical combat or somting

the reason you spawn so close is you wait until they're right on you in the world map to fight.
If you don't have a ship that can hammer ships up close, always activate a naval fight as soon as you get the chance so you spawn far away from them. Distance on the world map = distance in the sailing map.

[Darlandra]

Originally posted by Ace490:

From what I've seen I'd also say that the speed you can achieve drops exponentially with sail damage. At 60% sail health remaining I have the feeling your speed is barely a third of your max speed at full sail health. Haven't been crunching numbers on it, but my ship always moves at snail's pace once I lose about 40% sail health no matter how much wind there is and irrespective of my ship position to the wind.

this is also realistic. Most of the sails in the games are schooner sails which need max curve to work. As soon as they start losing the ability to hold their shape, they stop acting like an airfoil and stop working as well.
It's not a linear path of effeciency though i understand why you would want that in a game.

[Iskar]

Originally posted by Darlandra:

Originally posted by ᚬᛏᛁᚾ:

thank you for quick response. While that makes sense and is rather obvious, is it intended for all ships to randomly turn into ocean bricks with practiacally no mobility? (I can't even move to fight the enemy)

I wouldn't have put so much effort into building a fast and maneuverable fleet if none of them can move anywhere at the drop of a hat. Is the only solution to this to sit at 6x speed for 10+minutes until i can escape? I'll be caught by the interceptors again immediately but maybe the wind will be more favorable?

all sailing ships will have a wind angle they simply can't move in, direct upwind being one of them.
Different ships have different ideal sailing directions. The ships that have angled sails (schooner rigging IRL) will do best going upwind, but like IRL they do poorly downwind.

Ships with square rigging like carracks and galleons are the opposite and they will do better downwind and wont perform going upwind.

Yeah, but on real ships with fore-and-aft rigging you can change the hauling of the sails to catch the wind directly as a square rigged ship would do. If schooners and the like could only ever sail close hauled no one would have used them historically.