• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

Mod Release Open Sea Mod and Realism Settings

As promised, I tested this change:

Set Sail at Havana port May 22 23:50 ... sailed to Alice Town at Eleuthera and dropped Anchor there at May 23 19:00 ... makes about 19 hours, ships speed was about 5-8 knots.
That's surely a fast voyage ... unrealistically short. But this did not cut into my immmersion, because it took 40 minutes in real time (use 10* compression). The 40 minutes is it what makes me "feel" the distance.

Also, I can say that it was a lot more fun sailing without those nasty frequent wind changes ... so 1 game second = 5 real seconds feels a lot better than 15.
I could adjust course accoring to the wind and then sail a decent time before the next wind change. That definitely felt better.
 
Whatever floats your boat. I agree with you that a more realistic wind pattern would be hugely preferable over the evil headwinds 90% of the time Akella system we are stuck with now.
 
So ... do I understand right it is your observation, too that wind tends to change to the direction you want to sail to?

So, for example, you sail north ... while wind is from east ... next hour, wind seems to be more likely to change towards north than othwereise. Tis way you get it into your face ... and then it starts ... you tack left ... wind changes to left, you tack right, wind changes to right, just to force you to adjust course with any single wind change.
It feels that this is the most usual situation ... but until now, I just thaught I'd be mad ^^
 
I thought the Open Sea Mod deliberately reduced the frequency of weather changes so it wouldn't be that much worse as on the normal settings?
Apparently not. Anyway, I'm glad if you got something that seems better. :cheers
 
Skyworm said:
So ... do I understand right it is your observation, too that wind tends to change to the direction you want to sail to?

So, for example, you sail north ... while wind is from east ... next hour, wind seems to be more likely to change towards north than othwereise. Tis way you get it into your face ... and then it starts ... you tack left ... wind changes to left, you tack right, wind changes to right, just to force you to adjust course with any single wind change.
It feels that this is the most usual situation ... but until now, I just thaught I'd be mad ^^
Click to expand...


Indeed that is exactly how the Akella wind works, and why I call it evil. I turn towards an island and the wind hits you dead on. Tack left and the wind swings left. Tack right and the wind turns right.

That is why I furl the sails and just wait a few days until the wind finally turns to notdeadonheadwind.
 
Cheers Pieter,

just now read your post.

I am not opposed to weather changes at all. In fact, I'd like them, because they'd make the game more interesting. At the moment, in direct sailing from one island to another, there's almost no weather change. So, when you set sail at bright sky, you'll most likely drop anchor at bright sky, too 2 days later. Same for clouds and fog. That this does not change is sort of ... boring. This is especially sad concerning storms.
You see, at direct saling, the only way to get into a storm is to set sail when there is one already at hand. And who would - realistically - do that? It seems almost impossible for any normal sailing weather to change by chance into storm while you are at sea. So, to encounter a storm in iron man mode, I must sail out of port while a storm is actually raging, or swith to realistic mode and use world map until I hit one. There is almost no "being hit by storm" in this mode. And that's sad.

What I am opposed to are these very frequent wind changes. Especially about the direction of wind,
Hylie already stated that wind seems to tend to blow you right into the face in this game. This means, you're very frequently tacking someway. Tacking means being close hauled at the wind, most likely as close as possible. Now in that situation even the slightest change of wind direction will force you to adjust course.
Look at the time scale:
1 game second equals 15 real seconds in iron man mode now.
This means a real hour shrinks to 240 game seconds - and now throw in the usual time compression of 10 * that I'd use while direct sailing.
That means a wind change and adjusting of ships course any damned 24 seconds of playing time.
And that's just too much, far too much.

If I were to put something on a wish list for direct sailing in iron man mode, it would be something like this:
- A longer game hour (the 1 second = 5 game seconds is very wonderful at this)
- A decent weather change once or twice a day, including a small chance to get a storm
- a reduced chance of winds with speeds below 5-10 knots (They are just no fun at all - I would not skip them, for a small chance to be stuck in a dull is ok, but it happens too often. In fact, I'd prefer being hit by a storm rather than stuck with wind below 5 knots)

But for the moment, my change to 1 second = 5 seconds works well.
 
The weather changes should be quite random. They're not coded to be deliberately evil.
Storms are able to develop during a DirectSail journey. That was one of the things that Maturin's weather mod was made for! :shock

Of course it never was 100% finished, but it has been appearing to work quite reasonably for quite a while now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top