Wind Compass 180 deg wrong

[Magnum]

SgcScud - Respectfully I think you may be overthinking this - Real sailors on a tall ship were TOTALLY at the mercy of the wind. The UI for wind we have is WAAAAYYY more instrumentation  than what Nelson had (he would have just looked up at the pennants flying from the mast head), and (I think) is intended to show how the wind relates to YOUR boat or ship.

 

In "old timey" sailing the wind direction was always talked about in terms of where it was coming FROM, as in "I am coming up on you from the NNW and I am bringing the wind with me" means I am heading SSE and running in front of the wind - so the arrow would be pointing the same way I'm going.

 

It's just simply NOT a compass - sorry.

 

But it sure can help in Manual Sails Mode!

 

I find it very useful when in manual sailor mode and "trying" to not get stuck in stays.

[Magnum]

Actually if we had hot keys mapped to the various Gun sight views - we could STAY in gun sight view and use the wind thingy to stay out of stays and the mini map to stay out of wrecks.

 

Oops, then there's friendly fire to worry about - and getting blasted by a Santi!

[Balck]

Your ability to read the battle and position would not be as good.  Granted, spyglass helps in this regard however.  

[Magnum]

Just a fast interjection - everyone in this thread realizes that that is not a compass right?

 

Yes, it has radial degrees, but it has nothing to do with the cardinal directions.  It is purely a wind direction indicator, and, currently, the arrow always points to where the wind is going, not where it is coming from.

 

At the moment, we don't even have a compass, simply a gauge that reads degrees off of the wind (and badly - in my opinion it should start at zero and then go up to 180 in both directions, with 180 being true down wind).  I would very much like an actual compass added at some point.

 

I agree 180 should be true downwind on THAT thingy - a seperate compass rose outside of that ring might help or it might hurt.

 

I was thinking since we are in an electronic universe when we are at sea - we COULD have the points of the compass in the sky at the horizon - they would be rather transparent (less so when stormy) and off in the distance. If you looked NNW in regular view at the horizon - way of in the distance (way beyond any ship) you would see a fairly unobtrusive NNW faintly against the sky

 

?

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I wanted to step up and say that I stand corrected.

I paid very special attention to the wind indicator today, and realized that I hadn't noticed that the wind generally starts from the North, and then shifts around - it most certainly did not remain on the 0.

 

So that said, I shall amend my statement to say the following:

 

As a compass, it is backwards.  1 should start clockwise, not anti-clockwise.  I would like to see the shaded section, as suggested above, be on the origin, not the end of the arrow, to indicate the "no go" zone for a sailing vessel.  It doesn't have to be exact for the type of rig, but it stands to reason that the shaded section, being a small percentage of the total area, should represent a bad point of course.

[Ghroznak]

I find myself ignoring the wind 'compass' most of the time and just look at the direction of the flags and pennets flying from the top of the masts.

That gives me a much quicker and 'hands on' feel for how the wind is affecting my ship and which way I need to go.

Am I doing it wrong?

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

No, you're doing it realistically.  

[thomas aagaard]

It's not intuitive if it contradicts a universal convention that many people are familiar with.

It is an arrow that show the direction of the wind... just like on a Weather forecast or a windvane... I really don't see the problem... makes perfect sense to me.

[SgtScud]

It is an arrow that show the direction of the wind... just like on a Weather forecast or a windvane... I really don't see the problem... makes perfect sense to me.

 

Except you have it backwards, a wind vane always points out the direction the wind is coming from; as is the meteorological and nautical convention.

 

[SgtScud]

I find myself ignoring the wind 'compass' most of the time and just look at the direction of the flags and pennets flying from the top of the masts.

That gives me a much quicker and 'hands on' feel for how the wind is affecting my ship and which way I need to go.

Am I doing it wrong?

Yeah, this is how I do it mostly as well. Problem is I think it's a bit time consuming as you have to scroll out the view and rotate to get a top view for the best view of the pennants.