Sail AI assistance, please

[An Ning]

I wanted to build some big wood sailing craft to watch pummel each other in slow broadside combat.

Only problem is.. the sail AI is apparently a fixed artillery emplacement gunner.
Half the time if just lowers the sails and sits there, the other half of the time it points the sails in the least effective direction (checked the basics: boat is pointing forward, spinblocks pointing forward).

Any help would be appreciated

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=954268805

[luxon001]

I think the sailing AI only works with sails like the ones on the vanguard, 1 extent pointing backwards...
Just try removing the saling card or setting the weather worse for designer (maybe a wind speed increase)

[Koekiegast]

Did you attach a naval ai?

[Carolus Magnus]

I find it to be pretty ineffective even it works... All the sailing ships in my custom campaign have backup propulsion, like the onyx watch sailing ships.

I always used a naval AI, combined with Sailing ai and a very small engine.

That's likely not what you want to hear, but I cannot think of what the issue could be honestly...

[Zourin]

Ignore spin blocks and the sailing AI entirely. Triangular sails always provide 'forward' thrust relative to the orientation of the sail, so a fixed triangular sail with the bottom tip pointing to the aft of the ship will always push the ship forward.

Sails are sort of the abandoned child of the game in favor of other propulsion methods, very little attention has been given them in favor of fancier things like APS/CRAM, steam, armor, and engine reworks.

[Carolus Magnus]

They are fun for looksies though :)

And for that age of sails vibe, even if they serve little purpose.

It's a very niche interest in the face of things, and I don't think it can reasonably compete against other more controlable propulsion. For custom builds and campaigns they can be fun though, even if just for the theme.

[Zourin]

I started with trying to play with sails as a primary propulsion method, but eventually just came to the conclusion that it's an old, outdated, and neglected mechanic like most of the 'original' content (basic cannons, old engines, etc).

It can be done, but in practice, they're large vulnerable objects that offer very little actual performance.

If you are going to use a sailing AI, use the square sails. Triangle sails should be fixed with the boom to the aft of the ship. Pointing a boom on a triangle sail to the front of the ship will actually slow you down. Triangle sails are not affected by wind direction like square sails.

[LuigiTheKuk]

Sorry for being so late but this might help someone. My advise is, when using standard triangle sails, get rid of any spin blocks, they seem imposible to use on triangle sails. Also make sure the main sail block is orientated correctly so that the winch on top of the mast pulls the sail down verticaly, not horizontaly.

Hope this helps someone out there and good luck!

[Goodstorms]

I found you can use sails just like they do in the real world boom limited swing with a bread board. Your ships will run around at the speed of sound some times. not actually but it's a fun thought you have to use a lot of logic and tied into the constant direction of the wind. took me a day but you can have a lot of fun if you set your sails to different drives(tertiary and secondary)

A quick rundown of the sail equation. is yaw orientation sum of 180 then two switch editors one set to {225 open value -1 and constant imput of 2} and the other threshold of {45 open value 1 constant of 0} connect the switch editors to the propulsion you want the spin blocks to react to. adjust the power scale of spin block till you have the sails tracking in the wind the way you want. and wallah a realistic reaction of sails to the wind direction.

adjust values for different sails. I'm sure you could set up other bread boards to take the yaw input of the computer and the yaw orientation of the ship to unfurl the sails in their most efficient setup as well. no need for the sail AI at that point. I hope this helps the secret is bread boards since they can control all the inputs of the sails based on various inputs of the computer AI and the orientation of the ship. At this point you end up programming your own sailing AI.

I suggest doing one test vehicle with all the combinations so triangle sail front back square sails left and right <----+----> kinda like that and keep playing wit it till you get it right then when you make a new ship it will be easy to just copy the settings from the test ship to your new bigger funner ships.

goodluck again on your deep dive. it is possible to make really nice and functional sailing ships it just takes alot of programming.