Rules of the Road

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[Harlen]

Do Ship Sim vessels obey the maritime “rules of the road” in that any AI vessels would appropriately avoid a collision? If not, are there plans to incorporate this in a future release?

Thanks.

[MokMok]

What are the general navigation and the Right of way rules when sailing? Are they the same on the road while driving in your car?

[Traddles]

Hi MokMok,
If you study this series of posts you will see the basic navigation rules.

http://80.95.161.114/shipsim/forum/index.php/topic,13434.msg164462.html#msg164462

Ballast has made a very good outline of the rules here which should be a great help to you.

To Harlen,
The AI ships do give way to avoid collisions usually. They do not comply with the actual navigation rules which would be far too difficult to reproduce but in MOST circumstances AI will give way,usually at the very last second before impact.   I say MOST because there are times when approach is at differing angles where a collision will occur if your ship does not avoid it.

[Bottman]

Additional to Traddles answer..
No, the AI's won't behave correct in different situations. They won't give way, they won't do any loop way to avoid collisions. They have to follow their own path's, but in many occasions they stopp, if a player ship is crossing their path. But don't bank on that behaviour!

[jbranscum]

Additional to Traddles answer..
No, the AI's won't behave correct in different situations. They won't give way, they won't do any loop way to avoid collisions. They have to follow their own path's, but in many occasions they stopp, if a player ship is crossing their path. But don't bank on that behaviour!

I came here to state just this; I've had several vessels act like the 'stand on' vessel when I have the right of way.  My favorite though is when they make a course change to port to avoid a collision, rather than starboard.

EDIT: So in a way, it is just like the real world.. except with less shrimp boats.. and that is a whole other story.

[Bottman]

Yeah, would be great if the upcoming vessel would react on a short, double horn blow. That's how it works in the port of Hamburg for instance. No need for additional words via voice radio. But this will be ignored by AI's as well as by a few multiplayers  ...

[jbranscum]

Yeah, would be great if the upcoming vessel would react on a short, double horn blow. That's how it works in the port of Hamburg for instance. No need for additional words via voice radio. But this will be ignored by AI's as well as by a few multiplayers  ...

Thats an interesting difference between my part of the world and yours;  Passing arrangements can be made solely by sounding the horn to your intentions with the other vessel sounding the same signal in agreement (or five short blasts for danger) but you never see it, ever.  Almost exclusively you'll see people making their passing agreements on VHF Ch 13.  I think you'd see some captains here freak out if someone sounded two whistles to overtake on the starboard.

[jibemorel]

Enjoy COLREG 72 : http://www.afcan.org/dossiers_reglementation/colreg_gb/contents.html

[Bottman]

I don't know if they are in use at other countries, but here in Hamburg there is a little yellow light connected to the horn. It is located slightly above the wheelhouse and you can see which ship makes horn signals. Very practical when several ships are close by to select the one blowing the horn. Well, nowadays many masters using the voice radio. Guess a few youngsters don't want to use the old way of communication by horn anymore..

[Harlen]

Thanks for all of the replies and I had forgotten that an international community uses this program and boating rules are different in different countries.

I asked the question because I am a boater (in the U.S.) and believe that the makers of the game would pick up more users amongst boaters if the game consistently followed navigational rules; after all, it is a sim. Just basic right of way collision avoidance rules would be fine but they would have to be consistent. It would make my use of the game more enjoyable.

I am surprised that the professional version doesn’t have these programmed in so that they could be ported to the leisure edition. I would pay extra for that.

[mvsmith]

Hi Harlen,

The way AI is implemented in SS makes it difficult, perhaps infeasible with the present architecture, to have AI ships obey COLREGS. About all that could be done at present is to have AI give way (stop) in most crossing situations (even if it is the stand-on vessel under the rules).

AI ships are constrained to follow definite paths. Although they may swing wide of the path while turning, as required by their specific dynamics (ROT capability), if they are otherwise deflected from their paths they run in headless chicken mode. This precludes avoidance maneuvers that require a course change.

The computations involved in AI, which must be done for all AI ships in the environment before every frame is rendered, are already a very large consumer of processing resources and the principal cause of such problems as very low frame rates and QuestViewer aborts with newton.dll errors.

Perhaps the situation will be improved in Extremes, but that is far from a trivial problem.
Meanwhile, I suggest that you always operate in Rule 2 Mode when encountering AI.
The Mission Editor tutorial explains how AI works:
http://80.95.161.114/shipsim/forum/index.php/topic,2886.0.html (http://80.95.161.114/shipsim/forum/index.php/topic,2886.0.html)

Regards,
Marty

[Kevinmcg_ships]

Thank you, this is a very interesting topic, especially the link to Ballast's COLREG thread.

[Traddles]

This is the part of rule 2 which Marty refers to:-
"In construing and complying with these Rules due regard shall be had to all dangers of navigation and collision and to any special circumstances, including the limitations of the vessels involved, which may make a departure from these Rules necessary to avoid immediate danger."

Puts the onus on you always. It might by advisable to include "limitations of the bridge keeping watch" as well.  

[jbranscum]

I'd get a kick out of trying to make a passing arrangement with the AI, sounding a horn blast and it answering back with the danger signal lol

[orcades]

jbranscum, I've been to your part of the world - well Fourchon in the Gulf Of Mexico, but I have to say that I was amazed at the amount of vessel movements that took place without any form of Vessel Traffic Service in charge. However without local knowledge I'd say it would be very dangerous to attempt to enter port. And I don't think a VTS service could handle the amount of vessel movements.

This was very different to most European ports where a vessel has to request permission to move - and VHF traffic between vessels is frowned upon. I'm not saying one system is better or worse - just pointing out the differences.

Regards,