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Storms and Spinning Ships

Heya! Yeah, the nickname is one of those things you do in your teenage years (complete with numbers and letters) that doesnt seem as wise in hindsight.

I was reading that link on how ships should behave due to wind and i thought - this goes far beyond just storms. It gives a pretty good idea of how a ship should behave in a storm (hard to turn into the wind at all, pushed beam on or with the wind) but it also has many things that could be implemented for all sailing.

The other thing i think about storms is that they shouldnt just be some 'nuisance' or 'interruption' to regular gameplay. They should last longer and be a normal part of gameplay that you encounter, with different severities and different responses required. You should be able to save and load in them, lightning shouldnt strike you every 20 seconds in them (should be very rare) and hull and sail damage should be gained much more slowly unless you do something stupid like raise full sails in 45 knot winds. I dont like the idea of storms as a 'mini challenge' that lasts a couple of minutes then goes away
 
It's quite possible to change your forum display name. You might be able to do it yourself in your Control Panel.
Alternatively, tell me what you want it changed to and I'll get that done straight away.

What you describe for the storms is already partly modded into the game by Screwface because of the DirectSail mod.
In the stock game, storms could only be encountered on the worldmap and once you got in one, you'd be locked in for 60 seconds after which you could stay in it or return to the worldmap.
Now, when sailing from island to island in DirectSail mode, the weather can deteriorate until you end up in a storm as well.
Then if it's a large storm, it can last 2 times 60 seconds or even 3 times. After the 60 minutes, the storm also doesn't keep raging and allow you to build up more experience.
So there's definitely different severities and lengths of storms currently in the game and only the really bad ones get twisters.

I don't think the storms should last much longer than they do now though. With the Capsize mod,
you need to be "on your toes" throughout the storm so it should be challenging during that time but not take forever.
This would get even more important if the wind forces you out of the wind all the time and you'd keep having to counter it to prevent your ship from capsizing.

Armada has already done some work on decreasing the sail damage in storms.
I'm not entirely sure how to stop lightning from hitting the ship though.
 
Thanks, i do know about the storms of different lengths now - btw, i should commend this work, the new directsail and storms are a blast (Except the spinning) including your capsizing! (think i managed once).

Im thinking long view though - storms were a reality of life and lasted hours. Theyd do damage (sometimes sink you) but that depended on damage/ship and often youd get through fine. How to simulate that?

Well, cant really do that at the moment. But if damage were radically reduced, lightning hardly hit you, spinning were out and the effects of wind in a storm were made to have a realistic, but manageable effect on your ship (and that would depend on the seaworthiness of the ship) then youd have the potential to have a real addition to gameplay.

For example - do i risk leaving port in this storm in a smaller ship, knowing the AI wont be able to effectively engage me? Do i leave port in a very unseaworthy Xebec, but risk sinking in a storm, or a much more seaworthy frigate? Or my ship of the line might be one of the quickest ships in a storm, given its ability to hold more sail in a storm.

Course, theres also a lot missing - I cant see the storm clouds on the horizon and try and dodge them, its just random chance, and storms also seem very common considering its the Caribbean. Theres not much strategy in storms at the moment - I can sail a xebec or a SOL and it doesnt make a difference, and if it did, i couldnt 'avoid' a storm by seeing it coming and running to port anyway. Theres not much meaning in 'coastal' ship either, since i can go island to island in whatever i like regardless of storms.

Maybe sometime in the future. But for now, when i get a chance, id like to see if i can just get a basic storm impulse going that doesnt spin the ship, and then see if i can introduce leeway drift, wind effects, headway loss effects, etc. Not making any promises on those, its just a thought
 
i'd like to point out that the game has such a thing as a storm season. i'm not sure, but it's either autumn or winter (summer is the windless season, it seems). it's a kind of objective to try to obtain a suitable ship before it hits, normally a brig of some kind at the least.
 
while i like the idea of the really long, low-damaging storms, you musn't forget that a really long storm would make the ones you encounter on the worldmap very annoying unless you could leave a storm at any time. or at least after a set amount of time, despite the fact that the storm itself would continue.
 
Morgan Terror said:
i'd like to point out that the game has such a thing as a storm season. i'm not sure, but it's either autumn or winter (summer is the windless season, it seems). it's a kind of objective to try to obtain a suitable ship before it hits, normally a brig of some kind at the least.
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Pieter Boelen said:
Indeed Screwface did take seasonal weather into account.
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Wow, did not know that! Game is going to need quite a manual on release!

Didnt mean to say that the storms are poorly done or anything, merely that in directsail theres no real way to see them coming

Morgan Terror said:
while i like the idea of the really long, low-damaging storms, you musn't forget that a really long storm would make the ones you encounter on the worldmap very annoying unless you could leave a storm at any time. or at least after a set amount of time, despite the fact that the storm itself would continue.
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That was the plan, anything longer than the current storms really needs to have all the normal functionality like map/sailto etc enabled. Basically its no longer a special event, just an ordinary state of the weather with some extraordinary repercussions.
 
i was thinking about that seasonal weather earlier, and i'd imagine it would be a good idea to warn players of the storm season through NPC rumors. speaking of which, i think i'll be doing that. once i find the file. i do think i know which one i need though.

sounds good to me. you could also repair in such conditions, improving the life of your ship even further.

EDIT: working on dem rumors. seems like some of them were designed to be spoken on a specific island, but they can be uttered by NPC's anywhere.
 
What if the player could be warned about approaching storm through sailor messages the same way it is being done when approaching another island in direct sail? Like "Cap'n, seems a storm is approaching us!"
 
Morgan Terror said:
i was thinking about that seasonal weather earlier, and i'd imagine it would be a good idea to warn players of the storm season through NPC rumors. speaking of which, i think i'll be doing that. once i find the file. i do think i know which one i need though.

sounds good to me. you could also repair in such conditions, improving the life of your ship even further.

EDIT: working on dem rumors. seems like some of them were designed to be spoken on a specific island, but they can be uttered by NPC's anywhere.
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Great idea, would help people a lot.

Iron Roger Flint said:
What if the player could be warned about approaching storm through sailor messages the same way it is being done when approaching another island in direct sail? Like "Cap'n, seems a storm is approaching us!"
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Hmm if you worked it in with the navigator or something and their skill, and you could leave the area quickly enough to avoid the storm, this could work.

The thing is, I was thinking that what id like is to spot a storm approaching on the horizon and to plot a course to avoid it, if possible

Anything that gets close to that functionality would be good
 
the player already does, actually. wind speeds increase quite gradually, so you can estimate the risk of storms yourself. 30 knot winds always have a chance for storms to happen, and such winds occur in the storm season. i've also frequently seen the water go grey before a storm.
 
Morgan Terror said:
the player already does, actually. wind speeds increase quite gradually, so you can estimate the risk of storms yourself. 30 knot winds always have a chance for storms to happen, and such winds occur in the storm season. i've also frequently seen the water go grey before a storm.
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Useful to know again!

You might even AVOID one like this if you sail to a different map.
 
you know, i think i'll have to add that to the rumors as well. speaking of which, i've seen a lot of the trading rumors refer to the islands by their old names. do those names get adjusted to their time period or not? i've already changed them to the names used in the nathanial plotline, but realised that that might not have been such a good idea.
 
I doubt it's possible to make the actual storm clouds be seen approaching, but maybe it's possible to add a special sky texture with storm clouds on the horizon which would appear and indicate that a storm is REALLY coming?
 
I like the idea of more realistic storms and damage according to your ship.
Maybe we could do insted of clouds which you say is quite a hard tesk, a crewman or officer comes to tell you(the captain) about an approaching storm, ship, size, strengh, etc.
Like in the begging of NewHorizons when a sailor comes to inform Nathaniel about a storm. Then you have multiple options. We can do somthing similar to that, I think it would be really cool and realistic.
 
a simple onscreen text notification informing the player of a storm risk at certain wind speeds should be enough, i think.
 
At the moment you cannot avoid a storm. What would be needed for that is to give the centre of the storm lat/lon coordinates so that you can actually sail closer to/away from the storm.
I think I suggested that to Screwface when he was working on it at the time, but he didn't do it then because he was more interested in fixing things and not expanding it, which is fair enough.
It might be possible to fake storm clouds with particle systems in the sky far away. A lot is possible here, I think, but it wouldn't be easily coded.

I think I've occasionally put to sea and found myself receiving storm damage, but still be able to Sail To or go to the worldmap.
 
Morgan Terror said:
a simple onscreen text notification informing the player of a storm risk at certain wind speeds should be enough, i think.
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That's what I had in mind in the first place
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Didn't the spinning ships fix make it into the beta patch 6? I still get left spinning all the time it seems?(i'll double check to be sure!). And i love the talk from irR4tiOn4L about having storms appear on the horizon in Directsail mode :b:

There are always so many improvements that can be made to this game, it's quite amazing :yes

In terms of sail damage during storms, Armarda i take it you haven't seen those old black and white films of merchant tall-ships trying to go around cape horn during storms? Holes in sails is unrealistic, but storm winds will regularily shread sails - it's the chaffing from the guy ropes and support lines that causes it.
 
The "no spinning" fix is not in Patch 6, because I only found that code after the release.
You can add in the fix yourself though as per my post on the previous page.
 
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