Faster boats

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[groennegaard]

All my work with the dynamics would have been a total waste of time if the rank had anything to do with the speed of the vessel. Of the many factors that affect the ship, rank isn't one of them.

If VSTEP just took all this advice without telling me that rank was taken into consideration, my hours of testing would be worth nothing. Even in my wildest imagination I can't believe that VSTEP would be that stupid! 

Regards
groennegaard

[LucAtC]

Hello Terry,
Well, I do agree with all that. What I don't understand (please be patient with my petty understanding in English, for that matter in French too, sometimes I need the dot on the i), is

Actually, if you leave a vessel at rest, unachored, the wind does cause it to drift off station. Now, that may be the wave effect rather than the wind, but it does happen. It can take a while to see it, though.

Do you mean in the real world? In that case, I have indeed somewhat more than a small idea about it.
If you mean in the game, there is no drift from the wind. There is a small drift, movement not due to any simulation of dynamics, but probably  to heuristic roundings in the program.
To test if there is drift, I set a ship in a mission, in the immediate vicinity of buoys, and change the wind setting  of the weather.
The wind drift at speeds above stall speed of the hull has a lesser importance, although obviously having to be checked, but surely as yet not in the simulation.
Regards,
Luc
Edit, sorry 'groennegaard', I was writing while you posted, I am slow to write!

[TerryRussell]

Hi Luc.

Talking about the game.

Sorry, been off line while I tested a few possibilities. Vessels do drift slowly in the game when you leave them unachored. The wind speed does have an affect.

I agree that this is likely to be due to arithmetical rounding by the simulation engine. The drift does tend to be in the direction of the wind, though. So however it is caused, the wind does have an effect, whether intended or not. It doesn't really matter whether it was calculated or intended to affect ships. This is a very complex set of interactions and wind does affect waves. Waves do affect ships, so wind affects ships.

But the effect is too small to greatly affect the speed (or by anything like the amount originally claimed). So I don't think that is the variable that was causing the speed difference.

But as I said earlier, we are all guilty of considering that there is no possibility that Rank affects anything. But none of us have proven that. Therefore it remains a possibility. It may be unlikely but please recall the wise words of Sherlock Holmes (earlier posting)...

As I asked previously, can anyone think of a test to prove that rank has no effect? Please?

By the way, like you, I also have a lot of experience in real-world sea-going, being Ocean-Going Yacht Master and Costal Skipper qualified, and having been on the seas for around fifty years (was out yesterday in the Solent).

[Mad_Fred]

I remember some topics about people complaining that their ships were nowhere near fast enough to achieve some of the highscores that were listed on the forum.

I don't know the whole technical background but it was said that differences in pc performance could make the speed of one person's vessel on his/her pc, different from that of another persons' vessel.

I suspect that these speed variations could well have something to do with that, rather than a difference in rank, which I think is highly unlikely to have an effect on the performance of a vessel.

But I'm just thinking out loud. This could explain why some people seem faster in multiplayer than others. And if you do a single player mission and notice a difference, maybe there was/were some application(s) running in the background that slowed your pc down?

[JHB]

Well there is probably no other way to find it out than make a race in multiplayer with some players where they all use the same boat or ship and they all sail with the same course (with some distance between them...). Just  need to line them up and go for a START

Speedboat races would just be great when we already got that kind of boat in the game:)

[TerryRussell]

Hi Mad Fred.

If you read the original poster's question, he was adamant that the only difference was his rank. He said he was using same PC, same environment, blah blah blah. If that's correct, then the PC speed won't affect anything (not sure it affects it, anyway).

He was convinced that the only thing that was different was his rank. Everyone is claiming that it's impossible, but no-one has shown any evidence that is the case. Lots of opinions, no proof (yet).

I suppose it is just possible that some sub-routine in the programming goes a different route depending on player rank. Stranger programming glitches have ocurred (made many of them myself!). Who knows.

Until someone can prove it is not so, it remains a possibility.

[TerryRussell]

Speedboat races would just be great when we already got that kind of boat in the game:)

Fun aside, I don't know if that would prove it. Someone who had a higher rank would be expected to do better, no?

Also, could be with a slow ship over a longer distance.

[Shipwreck]

Hi Mad Fred.

If you read the original poster's question, he was adamant that the only difference was his rank. He said he was using same PC, same environment, blah blah blah. If that's correct, then the PC speed won't affect anything (not sure it affects it, anyway).

He was convinced that the only thing that was different was his rank. Everyone is claiming that it's impossible, but no-one has shown any evidence that is the case. Lots of opinions, no proof (yet).

I suppose it is just possible that some sub-routine in the programming goes a different route depending on player rank. Stranger programming glitches have ocurred (made many of them myself!). Who knows.

Until someone can prove it is not so, it remains a possibility.

wheres Mark and Wout when you need um
?

[LucAtC]

Hello,
For all we know about it, the rank has until now nothing to do with the maximum speed of the vessel, and Groenegaard explained clearly why it had to be so.
It does not necessarily follow that it is indeed impossible, because it would be rather easy to implement such a tweak, although undesirable it would have been. Surely, the developers will confirm that (or the contrary).
Checking it would be very difficult, because in fact the ships are not necessarily all playing with the same motorisation.
Certainly, in multiplayer, the position is transmitted from a player pc to the other pc's through a server that aggregates the parameters of all ships into these of the environment and redistributes them into some kind of packets. Needless to say that all players dont have the same version of the game, and remember that some dynamics change with the version number, particularly the speed of the ships.
Also, the difference in performance of the pcs doesn't probably make any difference, because it is a DirectX (heavy) application, I suppose multiplayers can confirm that the speed of running/shooting in a game does not depend on the performance of the pc. The previous topics about that point didn't apply to multiplayer games, there was none then, and to display 35kts instead of 32kts because your system is slow or not, is guessing that the clock of DirectX (linked to the sytem clock) slows down with the processor burden.

Happy New Year, best wishes for 2008
Luc

[TerryRussell]

Hi Luc.

I think you've missed the point. Shipwreck (the original poster) clearly said that he was using

same mission = same boat , RPM , no damage , same moving , same wind ~(0kn)
like i said same everything

except his rank had changed. Now, I don't know if that is correct, but he was very insistent about it. All of the things you listed make no difference if what he said is correct.

Also you said "Groenegaard explained clearly why it had to be so". He didn't. He didn't specifically test for this possibility when he was checking boat dynamics. As you'll probably be aware, different ranking was not part of test criteria. So again, no proof.

So far no-one has proven that rank does not affect the speed. We've gone into detail about lots of other things and they don't seem to affect the speed of the vessels. It has been exhaustively and fairly convincingly detailed that wind doesn't affect top speed although waves do. I verified that through experiments today. But Shipwreck said wind=0 in his tests, so all that was irrelevant anyway.

So far we a few possible hypotheses:
(1)
Shipwreck was wrong and some other factor was different apart from Rank, even if he didn't realise it.
(2)
Rank does affect the speed, whether it was intended that way or not.
(3)
Errr....

Even if it is some other aspect that it affecting it, it shouldn't happen, should it? So rank is just as likely as any other unknown variable until we can conclusively prove otherwise.

Let's give Shipwreck some respect and assume that he was giving us the correct information. Then if someone can devise a proper test where rank can be changed and the same course run over by the same ship under the same conditions, we can see if rank does affect speed.

So far there has only been opinions and beliefs. No proof has been offered.

Personally, I expect that there will be something else at work which Shipwreck didn't realise. But, I am experienced enough to know that software glitches occur all the time in totally unexpected ways.

[Shipwreck]

well before i had high rank i was in multiplayer and was in same boat (arie vissor) as someone else and we had race , he one his rank was high and mine was low , and once i got high rank we did again and re tied?

[groennegaard]

Hi Terry

I know my statement is not scientific evidence, but I am afraid that you will not get any closer to a clear answer, unless we see the actual program code. When the dynamics are set up, there is no rank factor to be set.

Setting up an in-game test will not give a clear answer as you cannot be sure that you have isolated all the unknown factors. It would be like entering a dark room concluding that the room is empty because you cannot see anything.

Such a test will only indicate the probability of a link between rank and speed and with all the unknown factors taken into consideration, I would say that my statement will show a more true and fair indication the probability... 

Regards
groennegaard

[Mad_Fred]

well before i had high rank i was in multiplayer and was in same boat (arie vissor) as someone else and we had race , he one his rank was high and mine was low , and once i got high rank we did again and re tied?

A race between two players in multiplayer can't really be much evidence for the speed being affected by rank, as far as I am concerned. If you hit one wave or even small ripple a little bit different then the other guy then it will affect your speed and the other might win, same goes for the second one (with higher rank) when the outcome was different. Two races are not really a broad test, specially not when it's in multiplayer.

For myself, I can say I have never experienced it. I made one mission some time ago, a powerboat race. And I have been trying to break my own record frequently since I created it. And I have gained rank in the mean while, but so far have not beaten it.

And I agree with groennegaard, you cannot prove anything unless you know each and every factor that is affecting the ships dynamics. So unless a dev steps in and tells us yes or no, it will remain a "myth" I think. 

[TerryRussell]

Hi Mad Fred.

Yes, I agree. There are too many variables to be certain at the moment. Looking at Shipwrecks original post, he obviously didn't increase his ranking in a matter of moments. Possibly one was done under V10.1 or 1.02 and the second run was done under 1.03.

At the moment, we can be fairly sure it isn't down to wind effects or speed of PC etc. But case is unproven for rank. Probably there it rests.

Been a fun discussion! I enjoyed myself, playing Devil's Advocate.

[Wout]

Ok, I shall end this.

- Ranks have nothing to do with ships speeds
- Wind does not have any affect on the players ships in shipsim 2008

This I know because it has not been programmed otherwise. Thank you for this entertaining discussion/debate, next time I'll try to reply sooner

[Shipwreck]

Thanks Wout , that clears things up alot more now , but im still lil comfused , maby i had turbo :O ............

.... To be comtinued

[Wout]

It could very well have been a difference in hardware or internet connection. Or it could have been an unknown bug.

[Shipwreck]

happened in Multiplayer aswell

[donc13]

Hi Luc.

I think you've missed the point. Shipwreck (the original poster) clearly said that he was using except his rank had changed. Now, I don't know if that is correct, but he was very insistent about it. All of the things you listed make no difference if what he said is correct.

Also you said "Groenegaard explained clearly why it had to be so". He didn't. He didn't specifically test for this possibility when he was checking boat dynamics. As you'll probably be aware, different ranking was not part of test criteria. So again, no proof.

So far no-one has proven that rank does not affect the speed. We've gone into detail about lots of other things and they don't seem to affect the speed of the vessels. It has been exhaustively and fairly convincingly detailed that wind doesn't affect top speed although waves do. I verified that through experiments today. But Shipwreck said wind=0 in his tests, so all that was irrelevant anyway.

So far we a few possible hypotheses:
(1)
Shipwreck was wrong and some other factor was different apart from Rank, even if he didn't realise it.
(2)
Rank does affect the speed, whether it was intended that way or not.
(3)
Errr....

Even if it is some other aspect that it affecting it, it shouldn't happen, should it? So rank is just as likely as any other unknown variable until we can conclusively prove otherwise.

Let's give Shipwreck some respect and assume that he was giving us the correct information. Then if someone can devise a proper test where rank can be changed and the same course run over by the same ship under the same conditions, we can see if rank does affect speed.

So far there has only been opinions and beliefs. No proof has been offered.

Personally, I expect that there will be something else at work which Shipwreck didn't realise. But, I am experienced enough to know that software glitches occur all the time in totally unexpected ways.

How do you prove something is NOT there?     

Without the code in your hand, and following it top to bottom, you can't "prove" the code isn't there.    All you have is the word of the people who worked very closely with VSTEP in testing the code.    When you test code, you typically follow a discrete set of steps (called use cases) or a list of features (called a code check) or some other list that says when you do X, something is supposed to happen.     If no one put on that list..."test if increase in rank increases speed of the ship"....then that code is not built into the program.   Does that mean that a bug or quirk can't be causing it...no, it could be a bug....but the original question asked was is it a feature...the correct answer seems to be "NO"

[TerryRussell]

Exactly my point.

There were a number of possibilities that people listed. These included Rank, weather, wind, waves, PC hardware, internet connection speed and version of SS08 installed, etc.

As people showed that some of these definitely didn't affect it, the list got whittled down to rank (because it it probably isn't possible to disprove it) or some change in Shipwrecks configuration that he wasn't aware of (also difficult to prove since we can't emulate it).

My personal belief is that it the second possibility ("some change in Shipwreck's configuration"), but as I have said repeatedly, no-one has proven that rank doesn't affect the speed. "It can't be that" isn't proof. "Trust me, I'm the delevoper" isn't proof. Much though I wish it was. I could rule the world if that was the case!

Now, this has been a light-hearted discussion, prompted by what seemed to be an honest question. I will happily continue to play Devil's Advocate until someone can prove that Rank is not the variable which affects this, but don't loose any sleep over it, please. It's an exercise in clarity of thought, nothing else. No-one will die either way. No business empires will crash to the ground. Even if it turned out to be due to rank, so what?

Happy New Year to you, by the way! 

[groennegaard]

Hi Terry

In real life we're not quite certain how the world was created, and even though Newton brought us some fine ideas of how the laws of physics might look like, we still can't be sure that this is actually the way it works. Therefore we need to know the probability of these theories - 'proof'.

Regarding software however, we know how created the world and we know the rules of behaviour (even though bugs may surprise the developers from time to time...  ). What you suggest in this case is to determine the probability (as we would do in enviroments we don't know) while asking a developer would be real proof... if you trust the developer that is... 

Regards
groennegaard

EDIT: Spelling mistake corrected, thrust -> trust  groennegaard

[TerryRussell]

Hi Groennagarrd!

I wish I had that certainty about the programs I write.  They continnually seem to develop ideas of their own and rewrite themselves.

"Thrust a developer". Now that's an interesting concept. Almost as interesting as someone trusting a developer. Personally, I am going to thrust a few developers when I get into work tomorrow. 

For information, I create entire environments, models and "missions" within Microsoft Train Simulator, so I do understand where you are coming from.  The AI in MSTS is very unreliable, though. Trains will often decide to go the wrong way or to sit at green signals for no obvious reason. Even though we set up timetables, they may or may not obey them. No-one has yet got the "wait" instruction to work.

As the software was developed for Microsoft by Kuju who then walked away from it, a group of us routinely reverse engineer the code and make alterations.

It's a very close and freindly community and full of lots of us wearing bobble hats. It's good to see that emerging here (the community, not the reverse engineering)

[groennegaard]

Hi Terry

New ideas are often the result of mistakes. 'Thrust a developer' might be something we'll see more of in the future...  We can take this discussion in Danish if you think that would be easier... 

Regards
groennegaard 

[TerryRussell]

Hi Groennegaard.

Danish is fine by me. I won't understand a single word of it though, so you can call me names if you wish. But, my wife speaks most Scandinavian languages including some fairly ancient ones, as well as 6 types of Gaelic, so she can tell me what you said! Then I can swear back in Cornish (if she translates for me). 

I love the idea of thrusting developers though. I have a whole department full of them to do that to when I get in tomorrow.

[groennegaard]

Why should I call you names? Your wife seems to be pretty skilled. However, if it's all going to go through her, we might as well keep it in English if you can live with the mistakes... 

Let me know how the 'thrusting developers' feels and if it improves their performance. Perhaps I should have applied for a patent on this procedure? Well, I guess it's too late now... 

Regards
grønnegaard