Quote:Original post by PatchesV
You could make a game where you pick different birds to fly as and have a constantly updated google map type ground so you could fly over your own house if you wanted. Birds of prey would be really fun.
Alright I fear I was not specific enough, this sailing is part of an MMORPG (don't comment, I've heard it all and I promise you won't say anything new) And opefully going to be a very detailed system. The game is late medieval so cannons and guns are just being invented and EXTEREMELY rare. What I need to know is more maneuvers ,like the whole riding on the hull of your boat, that only more experienced sailors can do, but also can be done with an east-indiamen. I need some that can be done with any sized sailing ship, a and a few that can only be done with the smaller ones. Special feats for the big ones are going to be more canon-fire and defense based and I can handle those.
So tell me, you're all sailors, what can experienced sailors do with any-sized ship that could be constituted as a "Special" move.
Ok, when we talk about you using your body to control the ship we're mainly talking about small ship, the size of today's one or two men Olympic classes, typically 4-6 meters, and very light. So I guess distributing body weight in the right way is not that interesting for the boats of the size you'll have in the game.
Now, since I haven't sailed on medieval ships I'm guessing what it was like.
First of all, most big European ships couldn't sail upwind. Basically all of the ships that you see that had only square sails falling from horizontal boulders attached to masts could only sail downwind. Their sails worked in a similar way parachutes worked. Now, most pacific tribes had nice triangular sails capable of sailing upwind but their boats were generally smaller. There is, however, one very important exception to European down wind boats, and that is Vikings. Vikings were, apparently, great sailors, and they knew how to sail upwind very early, probably as early early medieval times. :) They had nice triangular sails that work very much like the airplane wings. I am not sure at what angle to the wind they were capable of sailing but I'm guessing they couldn't go and higher than 45 degrees towards the wind direction.
Now, to the sailor's RPG sailing ability. The more experienced the sailor is he will better position the sails. Generally, for each direction your boat is heading and the incoming wind direction there is an optimal position of sails that gives you the maximal forward force. If you deviate from that position you generally loose speed. I'm simplifying it here, cause there are exceptions but they won't be relevant to your level of simulation. Also wind always changes direction at least slightly shifting back and forth. An experienced sailor will predict the change coming and position the boat and sails to make the most out of the wind change. The process of adjusting the sails is called trimming. So, you could have a trimming skill that will increase the ability of the sailor to , given the boat heading and wind direction, position the sails in an optimal position. The better it's trimming skill more speed will it be able to get from the wind. Given a boat heading. That skill could be very important when you are trying to catch up with another boat.
When the sails are trimmed it is usually better to steer the boat slightly to follow the slight wind changes then to re-trimm the sails. This is were a boat steering skill could come into play. Also, when you change boats direction it is important to do the steering part well, especially when you change it by a lot, for example when your are tacking (turning) towards the wind, i.e. your sails are changing sides. You're making a near 90° turn and at on point your sails are flapping and you are moving solely on the momentum the ship has. An experienced skipper will finish the manoeuvre in a perfect position, making the manoeuvre in a smooth arc, and it will loose almost no speed, it will keep most of the boats momentum. The bigger the boat, more important it is to keep its momentum. A lot of novice skippers either under steer so they are facing the wind for too long, and loos too much speed, or, even worse, remain stuck facing the wind, and stop fully. Sometimes, they over steer and start moving away from the wind, and fall too much (loose the distance they all ready covered before the manoeuvre). There you could have your other sailing skill, steering, or skippering. The better the skill the better it's manoeuvres when you order him to change to the new boat headings. That skill could be very , very important when you are trying to manoeuvre the the side of the enemy boat, so you can fire from your side cannons.
The last one that comes to mind as an obvious , large part of sailing. It's navigation. Now, navigation involves plotting the route and tracking it on the map (that way much more important in medieval times, before GPS), and it also has to do with choosing which way to sail, because the wind doesn't blow the same everywhere. For example, if you have a channel and the wind is not blowing straight trough the channel but more to the other side, one side of the channel will have more wind blowing at a sharper angle along the coast, and the other side (maybe it is shielded by a hill) will have much less wind and its direction will be different. A navigator should decide which route trough the channel is best to take in order to pass trough it the fastest. The problem is that that is directly related with which way the player wants to move so that probably couldn't be modelled into a skill, but on the other hand you probably won't have any where near such a detailed wind model for it to matter. You could still have the navigation skill that is connected with how accurately you are plotting your position on the map, or direction. It depends on the rest of your game design.
Ok, this was much longer than i intended it to be, got carried away and I should be studying linear programming. :) Gotta go ...
