maturin

That wouldn't happen except when suddenly caught aback at considerable speed in rough weather. Every time you tack the main yards are momentarily squared and flat aback. On the other hand, a sort of rigging shock for doing this might be in order. It would prevent abusive tacking tactics of flipping the main yards 30 degrees too early.

Here's an interesting nuance of the new Aggie sailing model. Aggie is now ardent when using manual sails. That is to say, she carries weather helm. Take a look at what I mean: We start with Aggie sailing on a broad reach. Now tap the 'E' key lightly. The yards don't turn but Manual Skipper is engaged. Now go make yourself a cup of tea. In a few minutes you come back to see this: The ship has luffed up into the wind, under the influence of the main and mizzen sails. But at 270 degrees she reached equilibrium, and the ship is now sailing itself. Note that the yards were parallel to each other throughout the process. The rotation can be countered by the rudder. So this is kind of neat. Very much like a real ship. If you've read Treasure Island, there's a cool scene where Jim is trying to swim on board a schooner that is sailing itself in this manner, because the two pirates on board are busy fighting each other. However, this weather helm does aggravate the two problems I outlined about (see screenshots). By the way, if you repeat this trick from a course of 90 (beam reach), the ship will do the same thing. Only then it will turn upwind until it reaches 45 or so.

Right. The sails don't blanket each other in the game. Exactly. IRL, few ships will have any speed at all in the stage of the tack that is depicted by your screenshot. And in fact the backed foremast sails are very effective in pushing the bow downwind, thereby completing the tack. That is true IRL and in-game both. Turbulent airflow (or wind shadow, or blanketing), yes. But more importantly the yards are pointed at the wind, so the main and mizzen sails are mostly ineffective at this stage. Earlier in the tack, when the bow is pointed at the wind, the foresails blanket the mainsail. This makes it possible to rotate the yards with ease. In-game, we can rotate the yards easily no matter what. That's one big difference between gameplay and reality. IRL a backed maintopsail yard can be very difficult to brace around, and the mainsail is even worse. To be clear, your screenshot depicts a stage of the tacking process that is modeled 100% accurately. The problems come before the bow gets into the wind. With the new yard forces, Aggie can't ever fail to tack. You don't need any speed or planning and you can do it with a busted rudder. It may be a lot simpler than that. When running before the wind, the staysails stop working. This slows you down. On a broad reach, the staysails help you. Aggie sailing 180, with Depower: 10.2 kts Aggie sailing 135, with Depower: 8.6 kts What does that tell you? The square sails area actually at maximum effectiveness at 180 degrees. Unrealistic? Yes. But combined with the unrealistic staysails, we get something like reality. The two real-life mechanics that are unsimulated are 1) sail blanketing and 2) apparent wind. By the way, nothing is 'scripted' or 'hard coded,' there's just a range of values on a curve, which is simple enough to tinker with. Have you tested this with a stopwatch, by any chance? Or maybe the ship just tacks faster when you get more negative speed, so the rudder can help.

Exhibit 2: It is now possible to tack with ZERO knots of speed, and without ever touching the rudder. This is because the rotation effects of backed yards are so powerful now. STEP ONE: Ship is stopped, with the wind abeam. Back the after yards. STEP TWO: Set full sail, with Depower. Point the fore yards at the wind. As you can see, before you even get to 75% sails, the ship has already rotated into the wind. You never make any headway. The turn rate is similar to a proper tack with 9 knots of momentum. No need to sail anywhere when the ship can spin like a top. Should be a great defense against stern campers. STEP THREE: The ship is head-to-wind with 2 knots of sternway. There is no need to ever touch the yards. Rotation continues. STEP FOUR: The ship has paid off normally, and is ready to start sailing. Because up to now it hasn't gone faster than half a knot. In conclusion, the yards are so powerful that's there's probably no point ever touching the rudder. Yards are king. You don't need speed to maneuver. How can this be fixed? By nerfing the rotation effect of backed main/mizzen yards. When these yards are backed, the game should treat them as sails providing negative thrust. But they should only provide minimal input on the rotation of the ship. This is something of a 'hack' to the sailing model, but it reflects realism as well. It was considered poor seamanship to back the main course, and captains did not try to spin their ships around by backing yards on the after masts. They would shiver these yards to neutralize their rotation effects, and that is all. Even when boxhauling, the after yards were supposed to provide sternway, but not rotation. What say you, devs? Does the above solution require additional scripting, or can the curves just be adjusted. It would need some testing either way. But if accomplished, it would make tacking a lot more realistic than it was before. It may also fix the problem in Exhibit 1, although only for one of the two methods of heaving to.

I've found a serious flaw with the new Agamemnon sailing model. The devs have succeeded in making her feel more like a sailing ship, but there are at least two drawbacks that make this more of a step backwards than a step forward. Short version: The rotation effect of yards is excessive, especially when sails are backed. Excessive rotation effect of main/mizzen sails makes it possible to tack with zero speed and zero use of rudder. Excessive rotation effect of sails in general now make it impossible to 'heave to' in a historical manner. (That is, with one mast back and one mast full.) Silver lining: It is very exciting and historical that the yards are more powerful than the rudder. The yards' rotation effects overpower the rudder in-game now. But this leads to serious side effects. Exhibit 1: Trying to sail backwards on a beam reach, just like the video in the OP (from the USS Constitution museum). With yards fully aback, the ship starts rotating to windward uncontrollably. I know the rudder is over the wrong way in this screenshot, but the yards' rotation effects overpower the rudder even when you do it right. So in practice, you will end up with your bow pointed at the wind. IRL, when the ship starts sailing backwards, water will pile up underneath the stern, and force the stern into the wind. So even if the sails want to make the ship's bow turn to windward, they would be counteracted by the blunt stern plowing through the water. The same problem now makes it impossible to 'heave to'. You get caught in a Catch-22. Imagine a ship heaving to by backing the fore yards. Because full sails on the main and mizzen are more powerful than the backed sail, the after yards cannot be trimmed to keep the sails full. Otherwise, you will continue sailing at 2-3 knots. Those yards need to be shivered, or pointed at the wind. But now the backed fore yards overpower you rudder, and the ship rotates downwind. Conversely, if you back the main and mizzen yards, the powerful rotation effect spins the ship into the wind, no matter what you do. Because 2 masts > 1 mast. This isn't a problem IRL because the jibs can be used to control rotation. But in the game we only have the rudder, and the rudder is helpless. Therefore, a major part of historical sailing is now impossible. It's a big loss to the game's realism.

It's just a script stating that ships in a certain position slow down. Like a hitscan gun in a shooter, not a fully-simulated projectile.

I know it's not necessary. But it's a large advantage. The tack goes much faster. Doing it the historical way, it takes nearly a minute just to get your nose in the wind, with -0.5 kts of speed.

Just a reminder that this isn't the historical method of tacking. It was generally detrimental to depower the fore yards, and in the video the rotation of the after yards occurs way too soon. And the gamey method offers a big advantage over the historical method. When I try to tack authentically, I always make a bit of sternway. I'm really not sure how this could be fixed without scripted solutions, though.

Lack of sufficient sail area must be the main reason. And low speed upwind = lots of leeway. So you might as well go faster and hold your wind with the squares set. Because they never sailed like that. Harland says that references to ships sailing under staysails alone referred to maneuvers just after weighing anchor. And yet, to be the devil's advocate, a full suit of staysails could be a lot of canvas. I guess they just weren't well-designed. Many captains regarded them as practically useless generators of leeway. You don't have much fine control over the shape of the sail, and I imagine that controlling the tack and sheet would be risky in heavy air, compared to the durable components of a square sail and its yard. Later in the 1800s all the staysails became triangular, which everyone agreed was a big improvement. Less superfluous canvas, better airfoil shapes and less leeway. It would be interesting to ask the crews of 20th century windjammers whether they could work upwind with staysails alone.

Why would the staysails push the ship backwards? They are creating lift, like a wing. Delete the square yards and imagine that the diagram shows a three-masted schooner. It's sailing close-hauled. BUT, quadrilateral staysails on a square rigger are not very good. They are creating lift, but not nearly enough to be useful. So that ship in the diagram might be making a few knots under staysails alone, while the square sails luff and uselessly flog all over the place. Meanwhile it's probably sailing sideways because of enormous amounts of leeway. Large quadrilateral staysails contain a lot of excess canvas that just increases leeway. When very close to the wind, less and less of the canvas is doing anything useful (creating lift), and the result is leeway. So that ship's actual course may be like 300 degrees.

I just tested the Aggie, and with braced-up yards you need to get very high into the wind before you can make more than a knot of sternway. So not likely to be a problem. Since there's no sail blanketing or leeway in the game, both vessels already get the full benefit of doing what you describe, without actually changing the sailplan. On a reasonably free point of sail, anyway. By the time the square are creating meaningful negative thrust, the fore/aft canvas wouldn't realistically be doing much anyhow.

Only the newest ships like Wasa have braces modeled, so Surprise isn't alone there. Some ships newer than Surprise have squaresail sheets and cargo rigging(?), but these details are implemented in inaccurate ways. Hopefully Surprise and everyone else will get retrofitted. In general I would recommend that the artists prioritize rigging like this: shrouds>back/fore stays>braces>gaff sheets If there's anything left in the detail budget, then do sheets for jibs and square sails. But the fact that these lines need to be rendered as huge eight-inch hawsers can seriously detract from the aesthetics of the model. Rather than overemphasize certain lines, it is better to omit them and let our brains fill in the blanks.

Like what?

Same with Trinc. "Upwind" being 70-ish degrees, not 45, of course.

XP/Gold for damage is fine so long as the recipient actually sinks.

The state and shipowners would pay for all of that in reality. So actually it's the pirates who would realistically have to deal with even more red tape if they wanted to access the market. So far as the naval officer is concerned, the service is communism. His biscuits come are delivered by the ton, for free. Pirates need to steal or buy it all. Privateersmen wages are miniscule or nonexistent, since the crew has a share in the prizes. And oh wait, pirate captains receive only around 1% of the value of each prize, if there are 200 pirates in the crew. Naval and privateer captains would receive double-digit percentages by comparison. And there wasn't income tax back then.

Aren't you going to tell us all about the robust rural Southern suffragette's movement in the 19th Century? We're waiting. Women gained the vote in one canton of Switzerland in 1991.

Not combat, but she cruised in the Pacific during the Crimean War.

You're reading things that refer to very different dynamics here. Boyd's table on page 44 refers to longitudinal stability, not transverse stability. Bows sinking and sterns rising. Not listing to port or starboard. The example on Page 47 refers to a scenario where the stability of the ship remains the same regardless of where the guns are situated. The 25% increase refers to the guns' helpful ability to reduce rolling in waves (and it's actually more of a 5% increase, 25% vs 20%).

Quoting from Boudriot. Arguably the effect of actually firing the guns would be greater, as these are measurements taken with all the guns at rest. But I doubt it would be by much. I never would have imagined that 74-gunner could be so stiff. https://ancre.fr/en/ouvrages-de-base-en/9-vaisseau-de-74-canons-1780-traite-pratique-d-art-naval-1780-en-quatre-volumes-base-de-la-collection.html Put the idea of capsizing out of your mind. These ships were practically impossible to capsize without a serious storm or equivalent squall.

Before the speedmod madness began only an utter incompetent could get ganked in a Surprise.

The reason you can't sail backwards well is because the power and upwind abilities of the jibs and staysails are very exaggerated. Pressing T douses those sails only, allowing the squares to behave more realistically. T does nothing at all to the square sails.

Press T and you get closer to how real sails work.

Durability was a completely nonsensical idea back when POTBS invented. Good riddance. I'd be 100% fine with going in the carebear direction with insurance and ship replacements from the admiralty for good service, but durability should stay dead.

You mean besides ArmA and every flight sim ever? NA isn't meant to be a sim, although some of the sim ethos is there.