How accurate is the game?

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[Reimad]

Exacly like it says in the title. Next year I'm (most likely) going to learn about being a Maritime Officer and I was wondering how accurate this game was in comparison to the real deal.


Thank you for the kind responses in advance! 

[mvsmith]

HI Reimad,

That’s a difficult question to answer, and somewhat meaningless as posed because you don’t say what you mean by “accurate”.
The ships in SSE mimic the behavior of real vessels in a fairly realistic manner, but not quite to the degree expected of a certified maritime training simulator.

You can get an understanding of the basics of ship handling, but you could not learn the specifics of, say, docking a particular vessel because neither the ship dynamics nor the control responses are sufficiently accurate.
If you want to judge for yourself, you can download a free demo from ShipSim.com.

Regards,
Marty

[Reimad]

Ah, I'm not expecting professional simulator accuracy, but I was wondering if the water, wind etc. were good.. and how the navigation and course plotting was done.

But I'll try the demo and see for myself. Thanks!

[mvsmith]

The sea is modeled quite well, but wind does not act directly on ships. There are neither currents nor tides. Those are some deal breakers when it comes to serious ship handling.

There is no chart table as such—no real tools for course plotting, taking relative bearings, etc.

[Snakebyte92]

Hi,

I'm self a 1st year Maritime officer in Amsterdam.
And the game gives you a good impression how sailling is. You not can really compared it with sailling in reallife(speaking from own experience ) . And a Maritime officer isn't just a person who sails a ship. There are so more things which you have to keep in mind. And the most things even start before you can set sail. And in SSE it's only sailling. Not that there's something wrong with that.

So answering your question: The game is accurate for giving you an impression of how sailling is. But for giving you an impression of Maritime officer you should visit a school in The Netherlands, and get there an impression of what a Maritime Officer means. (I don't know or you going to do MBO or HBO but if you need help with choosing Maritime officer I'm please to help you)

Snaky

[Reimad]

Yeah, I know. I visited the opendag (no idea how to say it in English) of the HBO in Amsterdam and I'm gonna go the one at the Waddeneilanden and Zeeland too. I know there's a lot more to it than the sailing itself, but I just thought it would be cool to try the game out to get a little bit of understanding  on the bridge of a freighter (although digitally)



But I would love to hear some more information about it! I already talked to lots of people, but I would love it if you could give me some examples of the studying load.

I'm fairly sure I will be ok with the technical things, but maths were never my strongest point so if you could give me some examples of the theory you have to learn that would be very helpfull!

[Snakebyte92]

Haha, I was last saturday at Amsterdam to give people a tour. Probally you have seen me.

It's very difficult to explain you examples here. The only thing I can say abouti, I had math A myself and graduated with a 7. And now it's not very difficult the Math at the study.

Maybe it's not a bad idea to have join us 1 day(meeloopdag) and that you can see it by yourself what the study means. I'm probally going to do that(with others). So maybe I can guide you a day and explain you (with the books) what kind of math there is.
But I shouldn't really worried about the math.

Snaky

[Reimad]

Heh, I probably saw you then. Were you the asian one or the blonde one?

Well, my main problem is that I have the E&M profile so I'm lacking both math B and Physics which I was told I would need. I'm gonna do a course for those now and I hope I'm able to work something out.. But since I've never done it before I have no idea how hard it's gonna be.

But I did sign up for the meeloopdag. Would be very cool if you could show me some of the study material then 

[Snakebyte92]

I was one of the Asian ones...

I had the same problem. I did a Math B at the HvA. Wasn't very difficult, I passed it very easily exactly.. I was worried about it in front. But if you just pay attention, you do your homework it's not a really big deal. I was worried about it aswell, but everything came right and now i'm doing the study As long as you really want it, you well reach it.

Snaky(Thomas)

[Tinchu]

I think it`s not really important if the simulator be very accurate or not with the official nautical charts of every scenery. But would be necessary documentation and information about what VStep has made at every scenery. There`s no data in the nautical chart. The echo sounder shows the depth at bow and stern; with positive trim, but VStep doesn`t give to us any graphical information about what we shall find along our navigation. Is one of the many incomprehensible things of this simulator; the lack of information. Couldn`t VStep make scenery depictions with the depths and other marks. We could print in our printers the maps and plan our navigation.

Every day more and more merchant seamen, nautical students, are writing in this forum. Really amazing and important. This people knows about they are talking. They can spur forward VStep.

We will be tireless in this question. If you make a simulator, it`ll must be complete. There are many simulations in the market: cars, planes, cranes... At the very beginning you will concentrate your efforts in the dynamics. But a vehicle is immersed in one environment where interacts with that environment (winds, rain, fog, tides, streams) and interacts too with other vehicles. Unavoidably you are forced to implement rules, operative procedures, codes.     

[Galloper]

I agree with the last comment.

I recently bought SS08 as I was rather put off buying SSE due to it running through Steam.

I was very disappointed to find that the GPS is not accurate. I want to plan a passage using real charts - and SS08 is otherwise modelled well enough for me to do this - apart from the fact the most simple navigational aids of all - latitude and longitude -are wildly off the mark.
As a former Royal Navy warfare officer without this most basic level of modelling it is not a simulator at all but an arcade game.

I would like to know if SSE has accurate GPS information.
 
The other area where I would like to have some indication of SSE's accuracy is with regard to lights at night.
- does the buoyage have correct lighting (or any lighting) and are the ship lights visible from any distance. Also, does any of the land based scenery have lights?
 Again, a complaint I have had with SS08 is that the lights on vessels in particular are only visable from up close - and don't provide anything like an accurate range of visibility. I would love to know if SSE has addressed these issues- which in themselves should be quite simple to solve.

[CaptainM]

The game is quiet accurate in some places, while in othe places it is not.

CaptainM

[weeble]

The game is quiet accurate in some places, while in othe places it is not.

HAHAHA... you might say that.  I "accidently" ran over a smaller ship while I was puttering around the harbor... the ship started to sink, and then drifted off into the sky... I've never heard of a sinking ship launching itself into the sky... on a scale of 1 to 10 for accuracy, I'd give this game about... a minus five.  It is entertaining... but accurate it's not.

[Ballast]

HAHAHA... you might say that.  I "accidently" ran over a smaller ship while I was puttering around the harbor... the ship started to sink, and then drifted off into the sky... I've never heard of a sinking ship launching itself into the sky... on a scale of 1 to 10 for accuracy, I'd give this game about... a minus five.  It is entertaining... but accurate it's not.

Funny that you don't mention the realistic motion of the sea and the very, very nice weather simulator...

If you only mention the bad things, you can burn everything to the ground eh... 

[Semmy]

Of course there is the weather simulator.... That is capable of generating gale force winds that have no effect on the raised superstructure... Ooops..... Looks pretty but otherwise does little.......

If you only mention the good things you can easily build paper castles/chocolate fireguards (choose an appropriate sylogy)