Towing speed

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[Mad_Fred]

Hi,

I was playing around with the tugs a bit and noticed that towing is very very slow. Of course I realise it should be slow paced, as that is just how it goes IRL, but I get speeds that just look really unrealistic. I can hardly get a ship to move.

For instance, I was playing the "assist the yacht with the defect engines" mission jsut now and the Arie Visser was inching forward as if the yacht skipper had his engine in full reverse.

I don't know much about the technical specs, but the Arie Vissers looks like she has some horsepower, so should a small yacht with a hydrodynamic shape not move through the water with relative ease once you got her going? 

Also when I use Sherpa's to tow the Eirik Raude it hardly moves at all. I know you can't get such a giant moving fast, but you should be able to see it move with the naked eye, right?

Seems to me it should be just a tad bit faster. Does anyone else get really unrealistic looking towing speeds? Or am I just such a sailing noob that it really does go that slow? Maybe I am doing something wrong? I mean, it IS simply, get close - connect towing line - start towing!  right?

I know that, in the trailer video, in the Shipsim root dir, the Arie Visser tows the yacht much faster. That video shows that same mission and when I play it myself, it takes 4 to 5 times longer for me to reach the waypoint than it does in that trailer. Or can someone confirm that this video might be played at a faster speed to keep it as short as possbile?

Any thoughts?

Regards,

Fred

* Edit *  ...Played it again and it was much faster.    Weird stuff. Must try a few more times to see what gives.. 

[Agent|Austin]

Hmm I see your edit. When I did the defect engines thing it seemed to tow it at 15-18 knots :p

Edit: I think

[Sam]

I did the yacht mission going 3 knots.

But it is normal, I guess.
The yacht isn't small, it is rather big, bigger than the Arie Visser. A small yacht is 9m, not 40m

[Mad_Fred]

Hi,

Yeah about 3 knots seems to be right. But that is how fast it went when I said it was going "fast", that second time... Before that I played it and it was going like 0.2 knots. Hardly moving.

I was just now trying that "Massive tug job" mission with the two Sherpa's and the Rig, and again, both tugs seem to be unable to move it.

I line them up dead straight so that the are parallel with the sides of the rig, I got both lines about the same length and the tugs are pretty much towing evenly. But the rig does not move!

The tugs just pull their stern underwater and pop back up, then they kinda jump around a bit and drift a little bit backward.. then they start pulling again, take up the slack and the same happens again. Time and time again they pull themselves under, I have been doing that for the last hour, and the Rig has not moved an inch.

Is there a chance something changed in the patch? Because I played this one with the retail install, and I managed to get it moving on an earlier attempt. It looks like the rig is sitting on the bottom or something 

The Arie Visser now just tows ok, I did not have the same problem with that particular mission again. So I dunno what to think of that..

Fred

[Captain Spencer]

Hi,

Yeah about 3 knots seems to be right. But that is how fast it went when I said it was going "fast", that second time... Before that I played it and it was going like 0.2 knots. Hardly moving.

I was just now trying that "Massive tug job" mission with the two Sherpa's and the Rig, and again, both tugs seem to be unable to move it.

I line them up dead straight so that the are parallel with the sides of the rig, I got both lines about the same length and the tugs are pretty much towing evenly. But the rig does not move!

The tugs just pull their stern underwater and pop back up, then they kinda jump around a bit and drift a little bit backward.. then they start pulling again, take up the slack and the same happens again. Time and time again they pull themselves under, I have been doing that for the last hour, and the Rig has not moved an inch.

Is there a chance something changed in the patch? Because I played this one with the retail install, and I managed to get it moving on an earlier attempt. It looks like the rig is sitting on the bottom or something 

The Arie Visser now just tows ok, I did not have the same problem with that particular mission again. So I dunno what to think of that..

Fred

I know what you mean, towing does seema tad slow but I still enjoy the game.

Also, have you installed the latest patch? Most of the bugs in the game were fixed after the patch.

[Voics]

Fred you're right, towing does seem a little slow. The yacht is large but it's relatively light and hydrodynamic... on the other hand the Arie Visser is not a tug, so who knows.

But towing the oilrig behind the Sherpa is truly agonising, I think it only does a knot to a knot and a half. That's with two tugs, inside the harbour. In rough seas there didn't seem to be any progress at all and I gave up.  Some tricks I find useful for these missions:

• When there's two tugs lash them together side by side so they pull more efficiently.
• Try to have your multiple towlines the same length so both tugs pull evenly.
• Go slowly forward to take up the slack, than gradually apply power to minimise the back and forth bouncing you described

Trying to push or pull large ships seems equally pointless... AFAIK tugs use the same engines as diesel locomotives, surely it doesn't take them all day to pull a ship 10 yards?

[Mad_Fred]

I know what you mean, towing does seema tad slow but I still enjoy the game.

Also, have you installed the latest patch? Most of the bugs in the game were fixed after the patch.

Yep, I wasn't really clear on that I see..  I installed the patch and now I can't get the rig to move. But BEFORE I installed the patch it DID move. That's why I wondered if it could be something patch related.

And all the things you suggest, Voics, I have done.

Lashed the tugs together, multiple tow ropes, taking up the slack and then going slowly to full power. All kinds of angles, trying several sides of the rig...etc. That attempt I mentioned in my last post ended up lasting about two hours and the rig never moved an inch from it's starting position..  A fresh start had the same result only I gave up a lot sooner with that one...  so yeah..very weird. Will try again today I guess...

As you guys say, it shouldn't be fast, but with engines THAT powerfull, it should not take all day either.

Regards,

Fred

[saltydog]

I had the same problem towing the Erik Raude. Did everything right, lining both ships next to each other, slowly taking up the slack before throttling up. After about 40 minutes of pulling at full power and the rig not moving an inch, I went looking for a dozen more tugs..

[Mad_Fred]

Heh heh... so did you find those? Cause I sure didnt...

I tried this mission again just now, and I just cannot get that rig to move AT ALL.

I tried every angle, every and all lines, lashed together, towing seperatly, and even put their bows agains the rear of the rig and tried to push it, all that did was sink one of the sherpa's. And that was weird too as it would just get a bit of damage on the top bit of the bow, nothing under the waterline. But down she went!

Also I have noticed a few other things. After installing the patch, some of the "heavier" missions with the bigger ships, are completely unplayable for me. I get very low fps even with all the options on the lowest settings. Before the patch they ran acceptable.

There is a very great difference in resources needed for the different missions and sceneries. Which to an extend is of course logical. But the fact that I can play missions in Hamburg on 1280 Res, with everything cranked up high, but can hardly play in Rotterdam on 1024 Res, even with everything on the lowest setting, is a bit odd. Specially since this diffence was a lot less before I updated to v1.1

Some of the missions just won't run acceptable anymore after v1.1. A bit dissapointing. And I checked for that newton log file (or however it was called) that is mentioned in a few topics, but I do not have that file, so that's not it.

My system is not very good but I have above required specs and all drivers are up to date. So basically on lowest settings I should be able to play all the missions. Right..?

I guess this patch did not do what a patch should normally do. which is fix problems, not cause it. No offense though to vstep, just a bit dissapointed.

Fred

[Viper426]

I'm totally with you on that one, Fred. Post-1.1 I've noticed the physics of all large ships, even just the semi-large ones like the large ferry, are way off. I was cruising along in 11-knot winds (which shouldn't be enough to require any more than a couple degrees of rudder to compensate) and noticed myself drifting to port. Long story short I had my starboard engine OFF, my port engine at full, my rudder at +45, and my bow thruster at full, but STILL drifted clean into a dock. Yeah it's a big boat, but 11kts is just a breeze. Something's gotta be off.

By the way, has anyone noticed a decided lack of admin/developer communication in this thread?

[simplayer]

Hey guys,

i have an other thing to point out,
i used to have my share of towings in reallife and most of the time we towed the vessel (at sea) on only one point
(the most frontal and centered bollard on the vessel)

In the game you can click the the tow button, and you than select your own point of connection (the tow hook) after that the orange lights come on where you can place the tow on the other vessel and there is NEVER A POSIBILLITY TO TOW FULL FRONT AND CENTER

[saltydog]

I'm confused about this mission. It seems impossible to do..

[Mad_Fred]

Me too, I have given up on this one, I just can't get it to move. major dissapointment. Hopefully towing big ships will not be the same, or I will not get to enjoy that either.

Also I am giving up on those missions that don't run acceptable any more. It is a pity that it runs so bad even though I bought this sim, knowing that my machine was up to it (okay, I have to run with lower settings but the retail version did run better and I don't feel like running v1.0 as I want to create my own missions, unfortunatly all my mission ideas so far have proven to be "too heavy".)

Seems that after v1.1 is installed, the requirements as listed on the SS2008 site, or on the game case, are not realistic any more and it needs a better machine.  Anyone feels like buying me a new graphics card?     j/k

Fred

[saltydog]

Can you have tow-lines crossing each other in the "real world"..?

[Mad_Fred]

I personally have no RL expierence, but I don't think there are situations where towlines would cross each other. You do mean, two tugs, with their lines crossed over each other? 

I reckon having lines with that much pressure on them rub against each other would put extra stress on them which could lead to dangerous situations. But I'm just guessing. i'm sure someone with real knowledge will enlighten us.

Fred

[saltydog]

yeah, what do you say simplayer, you have experience..

[Viper426]

I don't have any experience with towing anything as large as a tanker, but I've worked with smaller operations and we'd NEVER cross lines. That leads to needless complexity in vectoring and the very real possibility of the lines fraying each-other with friction. Though I must agree that I've never seen a situation where having a front-centre connection wasn't a possibility... maybe things are different on the world's larger vessels? I wouldn't imagine so... the excess stress placed on the hulls of both the tug and the tanker performing off-centre towing would be considerable (and downright dangerous).

[simplayer]

Hey guys,

i'm not sure if i understand the question correctly,
For all i know you can cross your connectionlines, by that i mean when you are pushing a floating item (ship, barge, platform ect.) instead of towing with your tugboat.
Crossing your connectionlines when you push, prevents the sidewise shifting of the two vessels.
If you are towing then the lines are never crossed, with all that strength and friction the towline would quickly break, another possibillity is a split (2) towline that merges in to one.

[mvsmith]

Simplayer,
In the pushboat case you can cross the lines because they are short and the crossing point stays in one place so that anti-chafing gear can be used.
Marty

[Voics]

simplayer, in your diagram why is crossing required, couldn't you avoid side shifting just by securing port bollard to port bollard and starboard to starboard? That also works in ShipSim, where I prefer pulling with one and pushing with the other. Controlling two pullers is like herding cats. Maybe if they were connected in series rather than parallel... has anyone tried that?

[mvsmith]

couldn't you avoid side shifting just by securing port bollard to port bollard and starboard to starboard?

No.

[simplayer]

Voics,
it's not as simple as the picture, if you connect your lines port bollard to port bollard and starboard to starboard i can asure you that the vessels will shift, mayby not in the first 10 minutes, but if you start to manouvre for a while they will surely shift.
You have to keep in mind that the two vessels will not constantly move simultaniously, that's wat triggers the shifting.
That's with a conventional tug, the specialised pushboats have a flat nose, and that's a lot more easy to secure.
Nowadays, all tugs have winches on the foredeck with the push of a button you can pul the two vessels together with a huge amount of force, not so long ago it was a hell of a job to secure a pushingcombination with only your bear hands and a captain that "feels" his ship , and as a skipper, you don't want to reconnect halfway the job, time is money...
And last but not least, as much as the guys from vstep do there best to keep it a simulator, it's still a huge challenge to steer a 550 Brt tug on a "real" mission...

[Voics]

Ok, thanks... I appreciate the RL perspective although sadly it's a moot point as far as the game is concerned because the lines are elastic and no matter how many of them you tie, pushing a bunker is still like driving an articulated bus. Not only that but due to the elasticity, tying bollard to bollard risks damaging and sinking your tug.

I set up a tug test in the editor. Two ocean tugs vs an oilrig - did not budge. I tried a trio of harbor tugs vs a small container ship - did not budge, although every so often the tugs would be pulled back violently to collide with one another, as mentioned by Mad Fred. I hadn't seen this before.

In the mission editor I tried both 'AI' and 'static' tow objects, it made no difference. It's like they're stuck in concrete. Yet it seems we can tow smaller objects, so I wonder where the problem lies.

[saltydog]

I hope the multi-player version comes soon,then we can all team our tugs up together and pull that sucker!
One thing I have noticed about the Erik Raude, she appears to have anchor lines, and has wat looks like a net between the pillars. When you approach her she seems to be floating, but when you get closer, just outside of the circle, suddenly she sinks down several meters and is from then on unmovable..
Perhaps a little bug in the water? 

[Mad_Fred]

Hi guys,

Yeah I noticed that too, when you approach the rig in the "massive job" mission, it seems to sink a bit when you get close.

And indeed, all the heavy stuff is still totally stuck and will not move an inch. I am hoping there will be some feedback from the devs on this, as they WERE towable in the retail version, I played that mission a few times succesfully, before the patch.

It may not be for everyone, but obviously some of us cannot tow the big stuff anymore with v1.1

Pity..

Regards,

Fred