Fantastic game! Some suggestions:

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[npwanstall]

Well done to the developers! I bought SS 2008 the other day and I'm glad I did (I'd been thinking about buying SS for quite a while). Since the purchase it's been the only game I've played...

I have a few problems and some suggestions as follows:

First the problems:

(1) There is a flicker on distant scenery, which isn't really noticeable unless using binoculars. The objects that flicker are distant buildings and also trees. The objects themselves don't change but it appears that the lighting or shading flickers. I can just about live with this, but wonder if anyone else has experienced this?

(2) There is an occasional flicker of white in the wake of my ship, and sometimes it occurs in other directions and around other ships. This is especially noticeable in open seas for some reason.

(3) When in bridge or 'walk about' view, the rain vanishes when it meets the horizon (I see other people have reported this). This must be fixed as it spoils the rain!

(4) Land reflections vanish when looking at an angle close to or above the horizon. The reflections of buildings and other objects do not vanish, which makes it look a bit odd. Maybe this is due to my not-completely-up-to-date graphics card (GeForce 6800 - full spec. at end of post). Interestingly the land reflections at Phi Phi are fine (do not vanish when looking level or up).

(5) Occasionally the game spontaneously minimises to desktop. Seems to happen when right mouse button is pressed, but I can't figure out what causes it. Probably happens to me on average every 15 minutes or so. Perhaps I'm unwittingly activating a feature to quickly minimise? Mostly happens when in 'walk about' view, but it has happened in bridge view also.

(6) Minor glitches that don't worry me: audio jumpy in loadup video; screen goes corrupt momentarily before game loads; almost always crashes on exit with the 'do you want to sent error report to Microsoft etc...' dialog (as it happens on exit this does not worry me, but is information for developers).

Suggestions:

(7) I (and many others I expect) like to play in an 'open ended' style. Two crucial important things seem to be missing for this:

(7a) Regularly placed mooring points for 'free roaming' mode!!! I have found two in the Solent and none in Phi Phi. Perhaps I can easily add them in the mission editor and I should look at this but I haven't had the time as of yet. Having mooring points that are reasonably abundant and occur on pontoons (important!) as well as higher walls for the larger ships would really add a dimension of playability for 'open ended' players.

(7b) Autopilot!!! Obviously we don't want to just watch a video of a voyage, but the ability to jump in and manually control the ship for a while, and then set the autopilot again will really add something special to this already wonderful simulation. Also for practical reasons; one might need to go to the shops for something; no problem, just set the autopilot and be safe in the knowledge that 'George' is driving!

I built my system 3 or so years ago, so some of the issues I've raised above could be due to my old-ish hardware? My system spec. is:

AMD Athlon 64, 2400Mhz
Motherboard: nVidia nForce4, AMD Hammer
Win XP Home SP2
Direct X 9.0c
2 GB Corsair RAM
GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E (256MB)
Creative Audigy LS Audio Processor

Final questions:
In 'free roaming' mode, in which areas are the mooring points? And where are they? And for what vessels?
I must have these! Do you recommend that I add them using the mission editor?

Again, thank you to the developers for creating this brilliant simulation!
Nick

[Shipaddict]

Hi,

Great to see you like the game.

I think I can answer your first question, it depends on what setting your put the game on I think. try putting it on high. Or, go to custom settings and boost up the environment view distance.

Kind Regards,
Shipaddict

[mvsmith]

Welcome Nick,
Most of the points you have raised have been discussed before. You will find answers and reasons for certain decisions if you read the posts and use the search feature.
As for the white flickers in wakes: I think they are from the cooks dumping garbage.
Regards,
Marty

[Bottman]

Final questions:
In 'free roaming' mode, in which areas are the mooring points? And where are they? And for what vessels?
I must have these! Do you recommend that I add them using the mission editor?

Again, thank you to the developers for creating this brilliant simulation!
Nick

Nick, there are no mooring points at all, you have to create them until now by your own within the editor. But there are thoughts from the development crew to implement a few in a later version of the game. That would be great for the multiplayer mode too!

Cheers

[npwanstall]

Thank you very much for the replies.

I think I'll do a mission tonight as I've only done 'free roaming' so far. During my roaming (in the patrol boat in the Solent) I have come across two sets of mooring bollards: one set is in the estuary on the Isle of Wight and the other is, I think, near Southampton. I was able to moor up on the Isle of Wight, so I assumed that there are active mooring points scattered across all the harbours. These mooring bollards appear to be for medium to large ships. Perhaps the absence of 'mooring points' in 'free roaming' refers to mooring for smaller vessels at pontoons and little docks?

I'll have a go at creating some mooring points with the mission editor.

Regards,
Nick

[mvsmith]

Hi Nick.
There is a tutorial on the Mission Editor in the Tutorials board under FAQ and Announcements.
If you have any questions, you can ask them in this topic or ask me via PM or directly at the address in the tutorial.
Have fun,
Marty

[npwanstall]

Hello,

I had a go at the mission editor yesterday - it's very user friendly and fun to use.
I have a few questions, and I'll explain what I did to put them in context.

I used Phi Phi for the new mission. All I did for the first one is add mooring posts to the wooden dock, add the water taxi for the player ship and moor the taxi to the dock. No problem - although I then realised that there were no AI ships as in free-roaming mode! I reckon I can add them myself, but don't currently have the time which leads me to my first question.

(1) Is there a way of using the free-roaming areas as the starting point? (So all AI ships come with it).

For the next mission I placed a user Patrol Ship further out in the bay in deeper water. I set it to be anchored, but when I played the mission there was a problem with the anchor line; a stretched anchor line seemed to start at the top of the ship and go into the water a couple of boat lengths away. I could disconnect the anchor and re-deploy it and it would then show properly. I tried several more times with the same result.

(2) Is this a known bug with anchors? Or have I forgotten something?

I didn't want to start the Patrol Ship adrift so I built a place to moor the ship in the bay; a flag object surrounded by wooden mooring posts - looks quite good! To prevent collisions with the mooring area at night I placed four big buoys to the N, E, S and W respectively. I could moor the Patrol Ship to it no problem.

One more question:

(3) Can a ship be initialised with its engine off?

Sorry if this is in the wrong topic. Perhaps I should have started a new one?
Thank you,
Nick

[JHB]

Welcome to the club!

[npwanstall]

Thank you! 

[mvsmith]

Hi Nick,
I’m glad to hear you’ve started mission building.
1.   No.
2.   Yes
3.   No
Golly, this trouble desk stuff is real easy!

Seriously, the Mission Editor uses the same basic environments as free roaming, but without any objects. You will see the places where vessels enter in free roam.
Adding AI is not much of a chore: you draw an AI path and then place AI vessels on it. The tutorial should tell you all you need to know, but feel free to ask me about anything I’ve failed to make clear.

Starting with vessels anchored is a crapshoot; sometimes it works ok, often you will get what you observed.  As an alternative you can use a boulder type 5 near the boat and moor to it. Even then the line might look weird.  Hopefully this will be fixed in the next version of the editor.

Starting with the engine off is not possible at present.
Vessels enter a new environment with screws at Stop, but engines running, and with some residual way depending upon their speed at the time they hit the trigger, and how long the loading & initialization takes.
My own opinion is that the Engine on/off feature is not useful. If it were applied to Titanic (it’s not), would you want to wait many hours for steam? For a diesel small boat it might make sense, for a gasoline power boat you could blow yourself to glory with no bilge blower.
Good luck,
Marty

Oh yeah,
Questions like this are usually asked in the Missions board, or more generally, in the Technical support board.  DJM will probably amplify on this.

[npwanstall]

Thank you for your reply. I'll have a go at creating some AI traffic later today.
I'm going to aim to create areas populated by AI traffic, lots of mooring points of different types, and boats/ships moored in various places. Busy docks and pontoons may have multiple boats moored in rows (as sometimes happens after a yacht race when crew descend on the club for a beer, pasty and chips!) Interesting manoeuvres may then be required if the boat on the inside wants to leave first!
Cheers,
Nick

P.S. On Sunday I towed a Water Taxi behind a Patrol Boat using their mooring points. It is possible, but you need to trim the rudder to avoid heading drift!

[mvsmith]

There are some tips on towing on p.11 of the editor tutorial. At present, we have only one ship, Sherpa, that is really up to the towing job. We need some better tugs more than we need a plethora of cruise ships.