My friend asked if this was a sim or a game, while lining up the Pride of Rotterdam RoRo ferry on linkspan 9 Dover UK., The one P&O get to use most of the time..( Only for some reason there was no linkspan 9 as such but there were two marked number 8 ). Cast off and out to sea, he got as far as the outer breakwater before I replied ‘If it’s a game get down on your hands and knees and rejoice, that Dover and Calais are on the same map. If it’s a sim then stay there and start preying …….’ I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubbles but the average 12 year old Naval Cadet knows more about maritime practice then what is going on here, for our beautiful ship is nowhere near SOLAS compliant. It’s the reason why there are no crew, mostly because no crew would sign up to work on a ship run like this…. Even ‘Sim’s ‘ are not that stupid.
Rewind ……… Lets look for the sea door indicator panel, before we cast off, so we can close the water tight doors / bulkhead doors ……… I couldn’t find any to close mostly because there were no water tight sea doors / bulkhead doors to close, no stern ramps to lift, no warning alarms, no bow visor to shut. That there were no door indicator lights, no ballast function to trim the ferry, no fuel gauge, no fuel supply, just no fuel, a ferry this size would have multiple fuel tanks and probably a mixture of oil and diesel as well as bunker fuel. There would be an engine control room full of gauges and switches and a main switch that allows the ship to be controlled from the bridge or from that control room and the ships engineers would monitor important things like fuel pumps, oil leaks, exhaust gas temperatures and be able to start and stop engines, deploy stabilizers and check for engine faults etc, etc .
And then there is the routine stuff of life on most ships like getting the crew to practice fire or lifeboat drills and emergency helicopter landings, checking the hull / bilge for cracks, help load and unload the vehicles and maintain a safe load spread, sign off the cargo / passenger manifest, secure clearance from customs / immigration / port heath authority and anyone else who might require some kind of permission. Remove waste and grey water, dirty laundry and replace with clean goods. Also restock the galleys with food and the duty free shop with goods and clean the ship. Most of that list is done for real but I guess it would be a very abstract in a simulator especially the day to day crew tasks but what can be simulated and what is so obvious is that I was on a ship that was effectively going to sea with no ship to shore or ship-to-ship communication, that I wouldn’t be able to inform Calais of my ETA and Calais wouldn’t be able to tell me if they had closed their port. ( For strikes, weather or security reasons ) I was now entering into the busies shipping lanes in the world and I couldn’t contact Dover Coast Guard to tell them, I couldn’t contact Dover Port to say that I was actually leaving and I couldn’t contact the company to inform them that yes today we did have an on time departure. I’m sure someone would want to know where their ships are at any given time, company agent, Government official or anyone …………. And I couldn’t contact my deck officer on the two way radio to check if the stern lines had been cast-off before I ordered the ship to sea ……. Oh, I forgot he never signed on ..Yeak ! Even I from the comfort of my own computer can check where ships are for real by going to http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ . Go check the number of ships parked outside Rotterdam and just how many transit the Dover Straits / Pas de Calais its amazing……….. Now imagine .. No communication …
Equally the sim passengers on board the vessel the same ones that I was supposedly in charge of as the Captain of the ship had somehow all blindly followed each other on board and quite happily parked their vehicles,( How many are on board is just a mystery ) then I presume that they all make their way top sides totally unaided with out any messages, greetings or announcements either in French or English and all were equally happy to go off to sea with out even a rudimentary safety message. I’m sure the Health and Safety Department at the EU headquarters in Brussels would be overjoyed.
Am I expecting to much …?? I didn’t check to see about navigation, charts, buoys, tides, wind speeds etc, etc I’m guessing that they aren’t there…. I’m guessing when the average truck sim has more working gauges and switches then this; I didn’t think there was any need to.
Having said all of the above I would actually be overjoyed to buy this package as a ‘ Game ‘ I would be very disappointed if I was buying it as a simulation.
Now where’s that helmsman wander off to ….
My friend still thinks he’s operating a sim as in ‘ As Real As It Gets ‘. That is why I am posting these words, as I know he reads this forum. As for me I have just installed ship sim 2008 mostly because there is no way that my computer could power ‘Extremes’ and yes I am happy with what I have got. I will say that the ships are graphically modelled to a good standard and that the scenery is way, way better then comparable games and the whole thing is very passable to the average RoRo passenger or person in the computer store, in their guess of how things work on these ships. In that sense V-Step have done a good job and should be congratulated, after all my friend is convinced. Unfortunately to anyone who knows anything about ships, unless one is prepared to overlook all of the above and more then this game isn’t going to fore fill many expectations………
The makers should probably drop the word simulator from the title and add extremely powerful computer required in bigger then big letters starting with Warning …………….. and then a list on their website as to what not to expect.
SOLACE Compliant … Sorry it is not. ………..Calling this a Ship Simulator is being a bit disingenuous .. It is loosely sort of simulating a basic ship / ferry package where by ones imagination has to fill in the gaps and it will work fine as long as ones expectations do not run riot ( having to stream it from a Cd is another issue as there is no mention of this when the CD is purchased .. tut. ). Calling it a credible game .. Yes it’s probably fair to say that it is. Could it be used as a commercial or naval training tool… Well look at it like this, you would put a big smile on the recruiting officers face and his staff would be falling over themselves laughing in the back office if you told them that you actually trained up using this programme and they would probably point to the park rowing pool as an alternative occupation. On the other hand it’s the closes that I will ever get to being a captain of a RoRo ferry. Its kind of Catch 22. Its probably the best product on the market only it falls way to short of being a simulation.
For anyone who is interested in what SOLAS is follow link below.
( http://www.imo.org/conventions/contents.asp?topic_id=257&doc_id=647 )
Advice : Get an extremely powerful computer and rain in the expectations.
Footnote: The POR probably wouldn’t fit the Dover linkspans and the cars would be stuck on the mid vehicle deck as Dover has no side loading car ramps and the foot passengers would have to leave via the tail ramp in Greek island style as Dover doesn’t have any side gangways either ………..
Conclusion: I hope that V-Step push on with the project and I do wish them well in that regard. Adding mission, scenery and ship programme editors would help enormously to create a longer lasting community and extended the product. At least a repaint programme to repaint some generic AI ships, as there’s nothing worse then entering a harbour only to find the same vessel that you are piloting also arriving and departing. What’s the chance of that happening for real and besides isn’t there a maritime law that no two ships can be registered with the same name at the same time, something to do with insurance. Perhaps there should be layers of realism so that the customer can choose which best suits their requirements. Lets face it some people have more free time then others, ramping up a sim to as real as it gets can also eat up a lot of time on a single mission, but the customer should at least have that choice and that way perhaps the sim / game would then for fill more peoples requirements. As for me I will just have to wait until I obtain a computer that can actually move this power hungry monster. ………Who knows what will evolve in the meantime. So I return to a newly installed Ship Sim 2008 and wait 5 years ……… Laters then ..
Oh hello everyone
PS: and to my mate, if your reading this. Just remember that you are going to need more then this to become a real RoRo ferry captain ..
