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[dwz3591]

I thought this would be like flight simulator, but with ships.

There is a lot I like about this game and I've had fun with some of the missions but I really wanted it to simulate real-world shipping activity like picking out departure and arrival locations and navigating between them. I'd like to leave NY harbor with a cruise ship and dock somewhere the Caribbean, for example. Flight simulators have this kind of world wide environment. Is Ship Sim Extreme really limited to a few small areas? I can leave NY harbor but not go anywhere?

Is the ability to simulate normal shipping activity somewhere that I just haven't noticed?

[VirtualSkipper]

In flight simulator it's easy because the airplanes have the same form part from their appearance. But ships are a lot bigger and more detailed.
Also the games run a different engine.

[Third Mate]

In flight simulator it's easy because the airplanes have the same form part from their appearance. But ships are a lot bigger and more detailed.
Also the games run a different engine.

I was like that also, when I got FSX I was so pumped on simulators because I though all the sims will be as good, I two hit an iceberg like you. Plus I see ships and boats alot, this is rather unfortunate. Virtual Sailor 7 has twice as many features but it's old old old and under-detailed. I have an C130 and it is packed with buttons and effects and features, there is a ship simulator of what you and I are looking for It's called Nautilus or Ship Sim Pro but the stupid this is first it costs 4000 Euro and there is no way to get your hands on it unless you are rich. THis is what I don't understand why would you make a proper ship simulator like Flight Simulator and put such a price tag on it then start making the second ship sim that is just for "fun" of it.

Just take a look at this shot I took of my Mustang, comes with FSX Acceleration Pack, there was no photoshoping done either.

[vin_sun]

I thought this would be like flight simulator, but with ships.

There is a lot I like about this game and I've had fun with some of the missions but I really wanted it to simulate real-world shipping activity like picking out departure and arrival locations and navigating between them. I'd like to leave NY harbor with a cruise ship and dock somewhere the Caribbean, for example. Flight simulators have this kind of world wide environment. Is Ship Sim Extreme really limited to a few small areas? I can leave NY harbor but not go anywhere?

Is the ability to simulate normal shipping activity somewhere that I just haven't noticed?

Hi DWZ ......,

Welcome to the Forum.

Admittedly, SSE does not cover all the ports in the world as that is not entirely feasible. In all there are 12 environments. It has been observed on the Forum, that there is a general tendency to use "FSX" as a datum for simulators and then compare other simulators with it. Though both simulators have the "transportation" theme it is definitely different from each other and if you can accept this fact you will enjoy using SSE.

Yes, you can sail from one port to another but it would not make sense to simulate a trans Atlantic crossing as it will lead to boredom. Instead you are given the opportunity to navigate in the port waters (where your skills can be tested) and once out of that port, you are "teleported" (transferred) to another port entrance many miles away.

You have to understand that SSE is at its infancy and as time passes you will have access to a whole lot of missions which can be downloaded for free all created by enthusiasts of the game. You will certainly notice the abundance of "real world shipping activity" then. In fact the 30 odd missions which came with the software certainly covers a fair amount of this activity you mention. If you want to pick and choose your departure and arrival port you have the liberty to create your own missions using the Mission Editor, but it is limited to the environments available in SSE. So you see, you are not missing anything really !!

Ship Simulator 2008 was a great hit among Shipsim fans. There are close to 300 missions there and all free downloads. Enthusiasts have created missions for the sheer fun of it and made it available as free downloads. There is quite some work involved in creating a custom mission, testing it and finally getting it approved by Custom Mission Managers. You can see the "wealth" of actual real world ship related activities here and many of them will really test your skills.

Last but not least, please accept flight sims and ship sims as two different entities and do not compare them . That is the only way to enjoy it.

Have fun and happy sailing.

Regards
vin_sun

[Matthew Brown]

To sum it up.
Flight Simulator is really easy make, they just grab all the land photos from google earth.
And they just concentrate on making the airports (which are the same generic buildings for every airport  ) Unless of course you have add on scenery.

Whereas Ship Simulator models nearly entire cities around the port, beautiful waterways and nearly all the buildings are different!  So for making individual areas much more detailed they cant obviously do that for the whole world!

And if they were to make a game like flight simulator then everysingle port in the world would be a single hut!!
Imagine that for example a major port with one building!

One other big fact is the ocean system, obviously since ship sim is intended for the oceans the sea is incredibly detailed to produce storm like waves where as flight sim is just basically a texture with an animation.

So don't get me wrong there are good and bad things about each aspect of the two simulators and some things are really hard to fulfill.
Likewise you must know how ships behave on flightsim 

Kind Regards

Matthew

[danny]

Lets not forget the fact that in FSX theres alot less for the engine to render, so they can go OTT on plane detail and have the entire land in the engine at any one time, But in SSE theres one heck of alot going on behind the scenes, mainly with rendering the waves and water, which, in comparison to FSX water is stunning. this means that most of the graphics ram ETC is taken up dealing with the water, so Vstep can't have the entire worl being rendered at any one time, because that would turn even the NASA super computers into a pile of hot, smoldering, molten plastic...
dan

[Tinchu]

I know, of course, a flight simulator is different to a ship simulator. I don't know how those differences have influences in the development of everyone. Perhaps the problem is in the business marketing too. One simulator like this, addressed to public on general, need to be fed regularly with new items. In our case ships and scenerys mainly. Twelve scenerys after six or seven years I think are short of scenerys. I've expressed my opinion here previously about it. We are talking about Microsoft and FS many times. Perhaps the virtue of Microsoft was they were able to see the big potential of the simulator, and the big demand from the simmers, but to satisfy that demand they'd need to dedicate huge resources that they need for other projects. And then they decided to choose the franchise.

I don't know if the recently celebrated contest is a first attempt of VStep to open new development possibilities for the simulator.

At any case are good news to know very soon will have a new version 1.3.5 and a new pack for ferrys. The ferry is a ship very valued for the simmers. Is possible to do short and interesting trips. But we need more adequated scenerys for this type of ships. Is almost unforgivable the lack of some scandinavian port (the ferrys paradise). What about  Gibraltar?

[forest_]

Gibraltar would be good you could have the planes landing at the Airport flying over the ships. Plus you have the Atlantic and med joining their I would vote for this if you get a spare min.

[Tinchu]

I was thinking almost in the route between Algeciras (Spanish coast) and Tanger (African Coast). Another special route for ferrys.

VStep should think in different and strategics ports around the world. It could be an excellent advertising for Ship Simulator. People at different parts around the world would see in ship simulator scenerys very familiar for them.

Recently I`ve seen VStep with Nautis has entered in Argentina. The Buenos Aires port is made. Will be possible to have this port in Extremes? 

[dwz3591]

Hi DWZ ......,

Welcome to the Forum.

Thanks vin_sun for your nice reply. I didn't mean to compare FSX and Ship Sim Extreme except in terms of providing real-world activity simulation. With FSX I can takeoff, get there and land at another airport. In SSX I was only hoping to depart a port, get there and dock at the destination.

There are many kinds of gamers out here. Many shoot-em-up gamers would certainly be bored with a simulator. Not me! I often plot a flight from Boston to LA on FSX, take off and let the auto-pilot take over while I do my work. I'll check in a few times and then land in LA later in the day. The other night I flew my 777 from LA to Australia while I slept with the help of the auto-pilot. I woke up in the morning and landed in Sidney. I know some people think I'm weird (like my wife) but I really enjoy those real-world, real-time simulations.

I'd like to do the same kind of thing with SSX. I'd love to simulate a typical Caribbean cruise in real time. During the "boring" times I do other things.

I didn't mean to knock SSX at all. It is a magnificent game and I've had fun with it. Aside from the environment question my only complaint is the tendency to run aground without any notice or escape. At times I've been right in the middle of the channel between the green and red markers but still ran aground. This is one frustrating aspect of the game that I hope will be looked at.

I realize that creating a whole world environment may not be feasable but how about at least one complete environment that could be navigated from port to port? For me the area between Miami and the Virgin Islands with a few available ports would be great. Most of the area is open ocean so I wouldn't think that much detail would be necessary. FSX allows others to develop scenery and airport detail. Could something like that be applied to SSX?

Thanks again.

[Biggles1975]

They have got one Dover (England) to Calais (France)

[Traddles]

Also Rotterdam to Europoort. (via the New Maas)

[The Ferry Man]

And The Solent has a good few routes you can do 

[as355]

Well I just purchased extremes, I wasn't going to as I was happy with 08 and it's limitations but now I find I have bought a DOWNGRADE. 
I thought this time we could cross the channel after reading some posts here - not so.
All this talk about not having one environment, heck I can sail submarines around the globe in real time with an old game in silent hunter III. 
Nice water effects and that's all, try to berth the liner and she sinks because the water is too shallow. 
The ships look worse than in 08. 
The sound is horrendous... throttle the cruise ship up past 126rpm and the sound disappears. No engine sounds on the bridge.
Where is the environment, other traffic? In 08 there is traffic everywhere, in extremes it feels like I'm on my own
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
This program has sooo many bugs and has been released far too early.

I don't have any performance problems so stop tweaking that and fix the damn thing, please.


I will be returning to SS08 for now.

BTW, what's with all the moderators on this site? There are more moderators than posters.

[as355]

They have got one Dover (England) to Calais (France)

How do I access it?

I haven't seen it in the missions.

[vin_sun]

Hello As335,

Yes, there is a mission which starts at Dover and terminates at Calais. It's called "Channel Crossing". You will get it from Download Content. Once you download it, the mission can be found listed under "Single Missions". This is one of the many contributions by members as a Custom Mission.

I hope you now understand as to why there are "more" moderators than posters. When members cannot use a simple search function and instead post for an answer, we moderators step in, do the search and offer them "HELP" !!!! So naturally, you will see more of Moderators. In the same way to help you "see" the Dover - Calais mission, I have to make my presence felt to offer my guidance. And you are most welcome to ask for more. We moderators will be pleased to help.

Regards
vin_sun

[dodweb]

I wouldn't use FSX as a datum, rather X-plane by Austin Meyer/Laminar Research as they use realtime liquid dynamic calculation on the airfoils as compared to the scripted behavior seen in FSX.

While it makes sense limiting the environments in SSE to a few ports (like mentioned earlier), I find the ships far too basic compared to what has been seen in the flight simulation world since many years. In SSE you can control the throttle, thrusters, rudder, lights to some degree, and the horn. In a proper flight sim, you control hundreds of parameters. In a 3rd party aircraft I bought in 2009, I have to follow the original pilots operating handbook to the letter to get her started, which easily takes a good 30 minutes if I load the plane up in the cold/dark setting. Even the window wipers are separately adjustable with several different speed settings. In a more modern aircraft, the avionics are so well modeled that you wont be able to see a difference between the real-aircraft software and the in-sim software. In fact, there was an issue when Austin Meyer - by mistake - loaded the latest software update for his in-sim G1000 setup into his real-life G1000 setup and flew off with it. These kind of details make the rather rudimentary radar and map options in SSE feel extremely out of date.

Now, I really like SSE for what it is (water surface simulation in FSX is terrible, even though there are some really good ship models out there), but it holds little ground compared to even the 5 years old FSX when it comes to technical details and what the player can and can not control. Still, SSE is a young company and Ship Simulator a young product, and it can only get better. IMO SSE is a vast improvement on almost all fronts compared to SS08.

[mvsmith]

If you are a fanatic knob twiddler, then FSX is for you. There are not that many things to twiddle on the bridge of a ship.
I have tried in vain to convince the developers to put a switch on the bridge to light the “Fasten Seatbelts” signs in order to give flight simmers something to do.

[Agent|Austin]

Want to go boating anywhere in the world? Maybe this is more your thing.

http://ships1.planetinaction.com/

The fact is, is that SS is a DETAILED simulator in all aspects, the vessels, dynamics, and scenery. While FSX is basically just satellite imaging with some fancy planes that fly with basic dynamics. Shipsim will never be like FSX in the way that you can fly anywhere, because if it was, then we wouldn't have everything we do now. It would take them long enough just to define what areas are 'water' and what areas are 'land'.

[Third Mate]

Want to go boating anywhere in the world? Maybe this is more your thing.

http://ships1.planetinaction.com/

The fact is, is that SS is a DETAILED simulator in all aspects, the vessels, dynamics, and scenery. While FSX is basically just satellite imaging with some fancy planes that fly with basic dynamics. Shipsim will never be like FSX in the way that you can fly anywhere, because if it was, then we wouldn't have everything we do now. It would take them long enough just to define what areas are 'water' and what areas are 'land'.

wow youre right, all that's missing is detail! I think vstep should look at this to get some ideas . Plus they have fog horns to

[as355]

Want to go boating anywhere in the world? Maybe this is more your thing.

http://ships1.planetinaction.com/

The fact is, is that SS is a DETAILED simulator in all aspects, the vessels, dynamics, and scenery. While FSX is basically just satellite imaging with some fancy planes that fly with basic dynamics. Shipsim will never be like FSX in the way that you can fly anywhere, because if it was, then we wouldn't have everything we do now. It would take them long enough just to define what areas are 'water' and what areas are 'land'.

I disagree I can navigate anywhere in the world (as far as my travels have taken me anyway  ) in Silent Hunter III. I can set a course with multiple waypoints and let it run on a psuedo autopilot for days if I like.
Luckily it has a time compression feature.

I'm not sure comparing it to FSX is fair but there are other marine sims it can be compared to.
Silent Hunter doesn't have any kind of weather generation to be fair.

I found the Dover-Calais route 5 minutes after I posted but thanks for the reply.