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Need Help The speed of ships

Skyworm

Skyworm

Privateer
Storm Modder
Cheers Gents,

I wonder why all my ships are so slow. :rumgone

I have played this game years before when it was New Horizons Build 14+something, and I remember that fast ships (Schooners, Frigates) could sail more then 10 knots with good wind from a favourable direction. I am not talking Arcade mode, I did this in Iron man.

Now acually I rarely get more then 2 or maybe 3 knots. Has this been reduced somehow, and can someone point me to where I could change this? For a direct sailing experience, 1-2 knots on average is really no fun at all. If I want to play sim snail, I would search for that :8q

Thanks for any help.
 
Hello again,

I tried something myself. Found Speedrate in ships.init and changed it from 1 (default) to mucch more. But even with speedrate 6 I don*t get more speed than 4, maybe 5 knots. And this is with max sailing skill, max wind speed of 30 knots and not a slow ship (Fragata Latina).
It seems there is something capping the speed.
Any Idea where to look? I really want to change this.

Thanks.
 
Everything works well in my game. If you can, try the PiratesAhoy Discord server. It seems to be more active than here in the forums.
 
Just to add to Skyworm's point, i also am finding things a little sluggish in Direct Sail mode. And Hi all, been a while but i stumbled upon BNH by accident and am starting a new standard default POTC type of game: Starting ship is the Heavy Lugger "Sea Horse", followed all the plot steps>recruit full crew>repair ship>hired Officers (my navigator has Sailing skill 4). Under clear conditions on leaving Barbados Island, with 20-22 knot following wind i get about 3.5 knots max (with wind slightly behind and across port beam, the "best" heading under the winds direction for this ship, and the fastest i can get her to go. Just because we have the new tech and i'm curious about this stuff I asked Grok AI the question here:


Some of the data it gave:

  • Hull Speed: The theoretical maximum speed of a displacement hull (like a lugger) is governed by the hull speed formula:
    Hull Speed (knots) ≈ 1.34 × √(Waterline Length in feet)
    A typical heavy lugger of the 1750s might have a waterline length of 30–50 feet. For a 40-foot waterline:
    1.34 × √40 ≈ 8.5 knots.
    This is the approximate maximum speed under ideal conditions, though a following wind could push it slightly higher.
  • Wind Efficiency: A lugger’s lug rig (fore-and-aft sails) is less efficient than a modern rig but performs well with a following wind. With 20 knots of wind, the vessel could approach or slightly exceed its hull speed if the sails are well-trimmed and the sea is relatively calm. However, luggers were not designed for high speed, and their heavy build prioritized cargo capacity over agility.
  • Sea State and Drag: A 20-knot wind often generates moderate waves, which could slow the ship due to pitching or drag. A heavy lugger’s broad, stable hull would handle waves well but lose some speed to resistance.
Estimated Speed

With a 20-knot following wind, a 1750s heavy lugger would likely achieve 6–9 knots, depending on its size and condition:
  • Smaller lugger (30–35 ft waterline): ~6–7.5 knots.
  • Larger lugger (40–50 ft waterline): ~7.5–9 knots.
  • In rare cases, with perfectly optimized conditions (flat seas, expert sail handling), it might briefly exceed hull speed by 0.5–1 knot due to surfing down waves.
Notes
  • Overloading: If the lugger is heavily laden with cargo, its speed could drop significantly, perhaps to 5–7 knots.
  • Sail Limits: A 20-knot wind is strong but manageable for a lugger. Beyond 25–30 knots, the crew might reef sails to prevent damage, reducing speed.
  • Historical Context: Luggers were workhorses, used for fishing, trade, or smuggling, and prioritized reliability over speed. Their performance was modest compared to sleeker vessels like sloops or schooners.

So on average we are seeing about 50-60% of what the AI suggests it should be? Thoughts, as it certainly feels too slow, and iirc this did creep into the Build Mod in the early build 14 stages, Build 12.1 the last one i was play testing a lot and helping mod, the speed was not as quick as game default (way too arcade speeds!) but I would more easily hit 7 knots and max out around 10-12 under the very best Direct Sail conditions, which may be a little too much, but felt better than the current rate perhaps?
 
@Grey Roger What is your experience with this?

Black Bart said:
A lugger’s lug rig (fore-and-aft sails) is less efficient than a modern rig but performs well with a following wind.
Click to expand...
That's weird stuff.
For following winds, a square rig works wonders.
Fore-and-aft is designed for beam winds and such.
 
As an aside, I had my sailing experience on my step fathers Oysterman 22 back in the day. Much smaller boat than the Lugger's in this game, less sail etc, but just looking at the Luggers rigging style it was not far off what that traditional Oyster fishing ship had, and while not a fast ship (very steep and deep keel, for stability probably) she would easily cruise along around 4 knots in light wind, and hit 7 knots with perfect conditions, and max out around 9 knots. This one time was during a rush to port ahead on a big storm that crept up in the English Channel, gale force winds and 20 foot sea's; so we were full sail ahead of the storm front, and she charged along surfing down the waves as we went! We made it safely but that 9 knots felt "dangerous" for such a boat and the conditions made it go that fast in pure "running before the storm" fashion, wind was following also, very tense couple of hours sailing i can tell you!

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But just going on initial impression here (limping around at 1.5 knots with 13 knots of wind), it feels like maybe the calculation for Hull Speed (or whatever the code uses for that) is on the slow side? If anyone has any idea where in the code this can be played with let us know so we can tweak and see if we can get a more historical speed comparison in game.

I assume most people just sail in Map mode and just drop down for docking and probably use time compression to deal with Direct Sails slowness?
 
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Pieter Boelen said:
@Grey Roger What is your experience with this?
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In BNH: none.
In NH: as you'd expect, a fore and aft rig such as a lugger can sail well across the wind but is less efficient with a following wind.

"Sailing" skill also has an effect. If you only have "Sailing" 1, you just about know that the pointy end is the bow and is supposed to be at the front, and you won't sail as fast as when you have "Sailing" 10 plus the "Speed Increase" ability. You'll also have more trouble tacking. Of course, all that applies to all ships, not just luggers - but of course, you probably started the game with a lugger, which is why your "Sailing" skill is low.
 
As Skyworm mentioned, he had lots of hands on with New Horizons Build 14 and they were faster compared to BNH today, he also mentioned having high sailing skills (and mine at game start leaving Barbados is 5 due to a decent Navigator i picked up). My experience is earlier in the BuildMod than his, but the background is the same in that I always played on "realistic" and did 80% of my sailing in Direct Sail mode, which is sadly impossible currently (you run out of food and rum and get all the negatives from that BEFORE reaching a destination due to moving so slow!).

I've been out of the code for a long-while now, and not sure if i have time to jump back in, but others here may know the places to look quickly to see what changed? Just going on my initial impressions over the last couple days, Direct Sail mode is currently broken in BNH (latest version), i've not tried Arcade mode yet, but will playtest that to see if Direct Sail is working in that mode.

EDIT: Hmm Chosing 'Arcade Mode' from the game options then starting a new default game just causes a CTD after a few seconds of loading. There is NO SHIP next to the character pic and storyline details, and you can not choose one either. I'll have to focus on editing files under realistic mode to fix the speed issue.
 
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Q: Which files in the mod New Horizons Build 14 control speed of ships under sail?


In the Pirates of the Caribbean: New Horizons mod Build 14, the speed of ships under sail is primarily controlled by configuration files that define ship statistics and behavior. Based on available information and the structure of the mod, the key files that influence ship speed are located in the mod's directory, specifically within the PROGRAM folder. Below are the most relevant files:


  1. Ships_init.c(PROGRAM\Ships\Ships_init.c):
    • This is the primary file that defines the characteristics of each ship in the game, including attributes that affect speed under sail, such as:
      • SpeedRate: The base speed of the ship under sail.
      • TurnRate: Affects how quickly the ship can maneuver, indirectly influencing effective speed in certain conditions.
      • InertiaAccelerationX/Y/Z: These parameters influence how quickly a ship accelerates or decelerates, impacting perceived speed.
      • SailHP: The hit points of the sails, which can affect speed if sails are damaged.
    • Each ship has an entry in this file with specific values for these attributes, which you can modify to adjust speed. For example, increasing the SpeedRate value will make a ship faster under sail.
  2. Ships.h(PROGRAM\Ships\Ships.h):
    • This file contains global constants and definitions related to ship behavior, including speed-related parameters. It may define modifiers or limits for speed calculations, such as maximum speed caps or wind influence factors.
    • Variables like SHIP_SPEED_MULTIPLIER or similar constants could globally affect all ships' speeds under sail.
  3. AIShip.c(PROGRAM\AI\AIShip.c):
    • This file governs the AI behavior of ships, including how they handle sailing and speed. It includes functions that calculate effective speed based on wind direction, crew skill, and ship condition.
    • Look for functions or variables related to GetSailSpeed or Ship_GetRunSpeed, which may compute the actual speed under sail based on the ship's stats and environmental factors.

This is just for pointers for new folk (or old ones that have forgotten which files do what!) to look at having a go at changing values to see if they can get Direct Sailing to be a viable option again in their game.
 
OK new advice, DO NOT edit any of the files as it seems to break the game!

In Ships_init.c you have various entries for:

shipstatsmult.n.SpeedRate = XX.XX - where most entries are like 2.00 depending on the nationality of the ship etc. I simply changed those by doubling the current numbers and when i went to run the game your ship was missing from the game starting screen and it would CTD on starting a new game. I did see another comment somewhere from a frustrated player that the files had been "booby trapped" to not let you edit them, so is this the case? I set my edited files back to default numbers and still have the issue of not having any ship appear in the game starting options (the menu is still there, just no ships appear!). So this might be the end of my short time with BNH. I was very happy to see you guys had access to an open source engine, that is a huge advantage as the old POTC cd's get more rare, but yeah NOT a fan of stopping people from editing game files by borking their installation. Hope i'm wrong on this, but that other posters comment and my experience just now sort of point to a problem.

Good luck guys and I'll most likely move over to the BuildMod 14 for PotC if modding is still allowed over there on that version?
 
I'd be very surprised if files are booby-trapped to prevent them from being edited. Far more likely is that editing a file without knowing what one is doing will break the game, either by unintended side-effects or by a simple typo preventing the file from working. There should be log files somewhere - "compile.log" and "system.log" should always be there, and "error.log" may be created if there are errors to log. So, next time you edit a file and the game crashes, look at those files.

That's not a comment on your ability. The reason I know about "error.log" is that I've made typos myself which crashed the game or did something else silly!
 
Well the Ships_init.c file is back exactly as default in terms of the small value changes i made, and still no starting ship appears? Very odd. As i did not create a full back up of the download the only option might be a full re-download to get a running game back? Anyway i'll move on and have a look at BuildMod 14, thanks for the short stay guys and all the best for your efforts.
 
What does "error.log" say?

You don't need to make a full backup of the download but it is a [i[really[/i] good idea to make a copy of any file you edit. You should see the number of "_orig" and "_copy" files I have littering my Build 14 installation for exactly this reason! Then, if I foul up badly or finally decide that an attempted mod isn't going anywhere, I can just delete the modded file and rename the "_orig" back to the basic file name.

For example, I'd found a nice model of a ship and wanted to put it into Build 14. First move, copy "Ships_init.c" to "Ships_init_pre_galeon5.c". When it turned out to be a dead end because the ship model wasn't that nice after all and did silly things on the screen, the edited "Ships_init.c" became "Ships_init_galeon5.c" just in case I decide to try again, then "Ships_init_pre_galeon5.c" went back to being "Ships_init.c".

Can you upload your "Ships_init.c"? It's probably very similar to the Build 14 version. I can then compare the two and see if there's a difference which would prevent your version from working.
 
Sorry, too late Grey Roger - I've moved on back to BuildMod14 (just need to track down my PotC cd's!). I had noticed a number of entries in "error.log" over the last couple days, and also lots of errors in Systems.log as well, missing textures, missing dialogue.txt files etc. BNH was working (once i got DX9 properly installed), but just my short impression was there was lots of stuff not working as maybe intended?

Anyway BNH is no more (limited space on my laptop HDD) and i'm having a go at BuildMod14, as that was where my main previous experience is at (from BuildMod 12.1 onwards).

For the life of me i can not find the post i saw a few days back, where an angry sounding poster was saying after he edited some files his game stopped working and he could not fix it by simply reverting the changes, it may even have been for one of the other "SeaDogs" series of games (like Sea Dogs: City of Abandoned Ships?) as i'd been looking at a number of this series. Anyway the post struck me as "strange", then i just had the experience i did after simply editing 6 or so values in Ships_init.c and even setting them back to default did not fix BNH for me, so that post jumped back into mind and I was just not interested in wasting my time IF this was the situation.

Honestly, no problem from my end, I had a look and a quick go at BNH it reminded me of the BuildMod, but with maybe a few more issues to sort (Speed in Direct Sail for one, but no crew on deck in third person mode was another). So good luck to all in those efforts, i'll be on my way to a slightly different sea :)
 
Black Bart said:
I did see another comment somewhere from a frustrated player that the files had been "booby trapped" to not let you edit them, so is this the case?
Click to expand...
Definitely not intentionally, no.
I don't believe @Hammie would do that.
It would just make no sense.

Black Bart said:
For the life of me i can not find the post i saw a few days back, where an angry sounding poster was saying after he edited some files his game stopped working and he could not fix it by simply reverting the changes, it may even have been for one of the other "SeaDogs" series of games (like Sea Dogs: City of Abandoned Ships?) as i'd been looking at a number of this series. Anyway the post struck me as "strange"
Click to expand...
That was by the CoastGuard guy.
We really don't understand what is plaguing him.
 
Nothing is "booby-trapped".

A CTD should also show some information in the `exceptions.log` file. There should crash reports generated in `stash\sentry-db\reports`, which you can debug using Visual Studio, with full access to the engine source code, if you are so inclined.

In full transparency, there are issues with script caching that cause weird stuff like scripts not updating correctly or randomly corrupting, but that is why caching is disabled by default in the engine config.
 
:shrug Well not sure what happened, i could have had a duff install (the DirectX9 file did not install correctly the first time, which did lead to my first in-game crashes) but overall in my short 12 hours or so playing BNH I could see in general some regressions to where the BuildMod 14 had been years back, the Direct Sail ship speed in particular seemed way off, as in impossible to play from game start (maybe later on as you get better ships it is less a problem?).

Thanks Pieter for the CoastGuard guy name, i thought maybe i'd been having a fever dream nightmare, not being able to find his post :napoleon
See you guys around the BuildMod14 forum, when i have downtime.

EDIT: Just for BNH folks info. I've been getting BuildMod14 set up again, and have played the same starting scenario as mentioned above, very different Direct Sail experience: same ship, same skills that Heavy Lugger gets a reasonable 5-6 knots under 18 knots wind in best sailing angle vs the 3-4 knots under 22 knots in BNH. When that 22 knots in BNH drops lower you fall off a cliff speed wise and around 18 knots i was crawling around 2 knots under best sailing angle for the ship etc.
 
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