Offer of on-demand consulting help (Shiphandling and sailing graphics)

[maturin]

Hello Oakhearts team,

I doubt I can offer you enough time or skills to be full-fledged team member, but I do want to contribute to your worthy project. So here is an offer:


Feel free to PM or email me on any subject related to sailing gameplay, the behavior and graphical appearance of sails/rigging, vessel performance in different weather conditions, etc. Just name the subject and I will provide you with a short writeup and sources, or test a given feature and provide realism-based critique.

I may also be able to help with general issues of naval architecture, naval procedure and gunnery, although here I will rely on some of my other internet acquaintances, who can boast specialist knowledge.


I won't claim any particular credentials, just link you to an example of my efforts in the development of another game. (By which I mean, shamelessly bugging the devs so they make the beautiful entertainment product I dream about.) If you follow some of the links there you will see some of the design documents I can put together for you if you need it. Maturin's Big Thread of Sails - Combat mechanics discussions

This is just an ongoing offer. Feel free to ignore it now and write back in six months when the development process has reached the proper stage to think about things.

 

[Captain Murphy]

Thanks for the offer! I have read some of your posts on the other site and would have responded with some questions had I not been banned..... twice....

 

[Thagarr]

Ahoy @maturin, welcome aboard mate!

Thanks indeed for your generous offer, we will certainly keep it in mind. I'll read through your posts when I get the chance, maybe I should even sign up to that forum too.

 

[JohnSilver]

I won't claim any particular credentials, just link you to an example of my efforts in the development of another game. (By which I mean, shamelessly bugging the devs so they make the beautiful entertainment product I dream about.) If you follow some of the links there you will see some of the design documents I can put together for you if you need it. Maturin's Big Thread of Sails - Combat mechanics discussions

As a former NA tester and avid player I came across your posts a couple times.

My initial intent in developing the ship sailing was to keep as realistic as possible, unfortunately/fortunately, game playability sneaks in and forces you to make some short cuts. As well, players have found it difficult to sail with realistic sailing without the appropriate controls and that is understandable. So, currently, we are using an arcade style of sailing model, which makes the game playable for our purposes.

In the future the intent is to gradually incorporate realistic sailing mode and I would certainly like to hear any of your comments or suggestions.

There is an open sourced sailing simulator using the Surprise, developed a few years ago that I plan to revisit and do my best to incorporate some of those physical models into HoO. Of course, playability and game performance are always the driver behind several decisions in development.

How about in a month or so I post you any questions or comments?

Cheers,

JS

 

[maturin]

My initial intent in developing the ship sailing was to keep as realistic as possible, unfortunately/fortunately, game playability sneaks in and forces you to make some short cuts. As well, players have found it difficult to sail with realistic sailing without the appropriate controls and that is understandable. So, currently, we are using an arcade style of sailing model, which makes the game playable for our purposes.

Naturally. I spend most of my energy trying to think of ways realistic shiphandling can be fun and understandable. Just enough realism to teach you something about how it works, without getting in the way.

And there is a lot to be said for making things look right, because realistic graphics don't affect playability. For example, once you get around to it, the order of setting sails on the St. Albans could be corrected.

There is an open sourced sailing simulator using the Surprise, developed a few years ago that I plan to revisit and do my best to incorporate some of those physical models into HoO.

Surprise Sim can certainly teach you about all the forces involved.

How about in a month or so I post you any questions or comments?

Cool. I will go and try to set up my account for email notifications of PMs, so I don't miss anything.