Dry Land?

[Malcolm Reynolds]

3 weeks ago, I got the game and spawned SW of the African coast. I charted a course, and followed the progress almost dayly, making adjustments as needed. My goal was to get to Boston MA, USA. Got to the harbor area, and while looking for the coast - ran aground. Is there a 3D model of the coast, or is this Kevin Costners Water World?

[James]

There is dry land generated from a global elevation model. Devs are also in the process of including some landmarks from other open data (i.e. buildings along the coastline).

[Malcolm Reynolds]

The reason I ask, is if making a trip from Cape Cod to Bermuda, and Bermuda isn't there- whats the point? Isn't getting in and out of a harbor, part of sailing?

I do hope some forrm of visual cue is made available, as humans sailed coatlines for a long time before we went over the edge of the earth.

[Graubart]

Do you even have an idea what it means to provide a coastline with every detail, not to speak of ports? The coastline provided in Sailaway is derived automatically from existing global geographical datasets and it is of very good quality. I work professionally as geophysicist in marine survey, and I am OpenStreetMap contributor since 2007. I could not do it any better. Can you?

To all of those, talking about the coastline being too sparse: Go download yourself a GIS system (QGIS is available for free) and search the internet for free global (!!!) coastline and bathymetry (water depth) data. Then play around with it and if you manage to create something better than Sailaway, present it here. Then we start talking again. Be warned though; we talk terabytes of data here :-).

Anyway, an editor is developed atm, to allow everybody to bring visual detail and accuracy to individual areas of coast. This will allow to create and share improved coastal inventory, pretty much like for flight simulators.

Just one more question: Why do you (not adressing Malcolm in person here) so desperately want ports? To drink a virtual coffee on a virtual sun deck on a real sunday afternoon? I'd rather choose my balcony then :-). This is a sailing simulator, not a port simulator. In a flight simulator, start and landing at airports is pretty much the only difficult part of the flight, so airports are important. This is a bit different with sailing, isn't it?

For me, ports range at the *very* far end of important improvements to Sailaway.

[Malcolm Reynolds]

If flying is the easy part of a flight sim (been a Sim pilot since '85, on a mono green screen) and take off and landing the exciting bits - why wouldn't getting in and out of a port from a dock be any less excting in a boat with no motor? (As a flight simmer I was gate to gate, with all the proper taxi routes). As for sailing in the open sea - I made it from Africa to Boston in about 2 1/2 weeks, playing every other day for 5 minutes. Doesn't seem very exciting to sail in a straight line.

As for the use of a highly acurate coastline, if it's invisible, whats the point and how do I know it's acurate? The map is certaianly pretty low res when zoomed in; compared to FS9 or even the WWII Sub games I have. If it is a work in progress, just assign a generic grass texture to everything above the water line - so I can TURN before hitting land.

I did pass a green channel marker a few minutes before becoming a pedestrian, but proper navigation markers are not present on the map. (I'll admit the only markers I've had to follow IRL were on a large lake in NH, but the map was very acurate, had the markers.}

I have used a number of downloadable FS landmarks, Logan and Bermuda being two of my favorites. (that's why I used the Bermuda trip as an example)

Anyway, I hope its not finished as is. Otherwise a day trip from Fall River to Marthas Vineyard is more like making a random left turn in the Bermuda Triangle.

[Graubart]

See, we have something in common: I am flightsimmer since 1985 as well. But I am also real life private pilot since 2005 and thus I do know the difference between simulation and the real thing quite well. Believe me, flying is easy, take-off and landing are the exciting bits. Taxiing in real life is damn boring after you did it twice.
Sailing is different, as getting in and out of a port is not really a challenge. Winning a race is the challenge, sailing in difficult and narrow waters is a challenge. All this is possible with Sailaway. I have been sailing from Skagen in Denmark to Oslo (which is where I live) and parked my boat in front of the town hall. Nice and partly narrow waters in inner oslofjord. But I know that it is not possible to nail a game world to a specific point in real life and then lament that this single specific point in real world is not reflected 1:1 in the simulated world. So no, I do *not* miss the accurate buildings on shore, and I do *not* miss a port or pier to tow my boat to. If I want this, I go downtown and see the real thing. When it comes to other places, I do not know them so I do care even less about the details.

On the other hand: Go visit Skagen port in Denmark and you will see that (like in many places in Sailaway, there is the port approach with all navigational aids, until you are in the basin. Just the port buildings and the city themselves are missing.

Again: What resolution do you expect. Whenever you want to double the resolution of the game world (eg from a 20m raster to a 10 m raster), you increase the necessary data points by 8 (2*2*2). From a 20 m raster to a 1 m raster, the data goes up a factor of 8,000. So 10 Gigabyte suddenly become 80 terabyte! You better start saving your money for harddisks, not to speak of GPU power here.

If you want to experience the real thing by the meter, go for the real thing and don't waste your time simulating. A simulator is always a compromise.

[Malcolm Reynolds]

I'll have to try that reagion soon, but all I want to see is dirt. Not interested in very acurate cities.

My point is that when I ran aground - I did not see any ground. visually - I was in the open ocean, even though the map scale showed me less than 1000 ft from shore. No dirt, no sand. just rolling waves 360* from my view point.

If you are apilot, then you know 90% of flying is VFR. if there is no land to see, then Sailaway is IFR all the way. If I have to sail IFR - may as well run the sim in a spreadsheet macro.

But I want to SEE dry land.... thats all.

[Graubart]

Ok, I think I get you now. Don't take my comments personal where they do not apply! They are more a generic reaction to many such discussions, here and in other sim communities.

You may have run across a shallow area (reef, or so), which is just covered by water. Bad luck, I'd say.

As a pilot I exclusively fly VFR, btw. It's much more fun than following procedures.

[Graubart]

Just for further reading, to all those that believe the world is too sparse...

Sailaway Blog - World editing[www.sailawaysimulator.com]

[Twelvefield]

As for the flight part not being as exciting as take-offs and landings: try an in-flight emergency. Flying does get more exciting when over the Rocky Mountains on a frigid Christmas Eve a head gasket blows on the port engine and the nacelle is sheathed in flickering flame. When you get out afterwards on the tarmac and see the engine covered with oil and scorch marks, you start thinking about trains a lot more.

[Malcolm Reynolds]

I wonder if Sailaway could ever add anything similar:

A while back, I watched an interesting Robert Redford movie, where he was alone on a sailboat. It starts out with him asleep at sea in calm water. He awakes to the sound of a gentle colision with a floating shipping container that holes his hull. He patches the hole with a resin kit, but later the patch fails in rougher seas, and he starts to take on water. It just gets worse and worse from there. There was no dialoge the whole movie but it was riviting none the less.

[Nomad]

While many Sailors point out the flaws in "All is lost", I kinda enjoyed the movie as a whole. There are no plans at present to have survival elements but the Dev is still around and swinging his bat.

[Graubart]

Folks, we are off-topic now :-).

@Twelvefield: As said before, I hold a real-life pilot license, so you may believe me I know what I am talking about ;-). Not saying you are wrong though, there can occur tough conditions in-flight. Then again, try a landing at such conditions and you see the difference.

Anyway, this has noting to do with the OP, who claimed we need more details and more accurate coast and ports.

So here again the link to the sailaway blog post which covers exactly this.

Sailaway Blog - World editing[www.sailawaysimulator.com]

[Bernie]

There are other sailing sims that have ports and marina's to dock in . I really enjoy that part of sailing also.

[SailorMade]

Originally posted by Graubart:

For me, ports range at the *very* far end of important improvements to Sailaway.

+1

[Green Death]

Originally posted by Graubart:

Anyway, this has noting to do with the OP, who claimed we need more details and more accurate coast and ports.

Not really what he claimed at all, he was just asking if coasts are even visible. Infact he clearly says that all he wants to see is 'dirt' and that he isn't interested in detailed cities etc.

I do think that those who complain about the way land is represented, and who seem to want photo-realistic landscapes, have absolutely no idea of how difficult that would be to create.

Personally it's way down the list for me also, and Id far rather see better sailing physics and a stress/damage model of some sort to encourage realistic sailing and route planning. Sadly, at this stage I don't think we will get either.