8 ms·
Show HN: Sail a historical full-rigged ship in real global weather
This is a simulator of a frigate from about 1800. It has realistic physics, tuned to match historical performance. The UI is based around commands given in period naval language. Rather than use the current weather, it has a full year's weather data (for 1980 - taken from https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis2.html https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis2.html). This allows the weather to change realistically under time acceleration.
To learn the basics of handling a square-rigged ship, start the "Harbour" scenario, click on the instructions button at the bottom left, and follow the instructions to try to get out of Portsmouth harbour.
To go for a long sail, start the "The World" scenario. Open the map, control+click anywhere on it to move there; control+click on the compass at the bottom left to turn the ship to that heading; then activate travel acceleration at the bottom right.
It's a simulator more than a game - think MS flight simulator. There's no sinking, but you can lose sails or spars in high winds. It's windows only.
This was released a couple of years ago, but this is an updated version from the end of January. See the devlog (https://thapen.itch.io/painted-ocean/devlog https://thapen.itch.io/painted-ocean/devlog) for the changes. You can also find some discussions there on historical sailing performance numbers.
- BerislavLopac 4y agoThis reminds me of Naval Action: https://store.steampowered.com/app/311310/Naval_Action/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/311310/Naval_Action/
- swsdsailor 4y agoLooks great! I had a very similar idea but with a sloop, I look forward to playing this.
- kunwon1 4y agoI've always been interested in sailing. I'm from Illinois. I once went to Jamaica and sailed a small catamaran for several hours on a protected bay and had great fun. For years afterwards I was reading sailing textbooks and dreaming about it, but given my location, I don't want to put money into it I've played some sailing games and had fun, but they weren't simulations. I've never tried a sailing simulator. This one looks great, and I'll try it out, if I can make it run on Linux. (I notice you say that it's Windows-only, I take that as a challenge)
- worldsayshi 4y agoYou might be interested in sailing on such a ship irl then: https://www.gotheborg.se/ https://www.gotheborg.se/
- kunwon1 4y agoMy main interest is in doing it solo, I don't think I'd enjoy it nearly as much with other people around. While this does look interesting, it doesn't appeal to me in the same way
- martyvis 4y agoDon't know much about Illinois, but there are lakes up there I've heard, surely there are sailing clubs, etc for the summer. I have a small (14 foot) two-hull dinghy thing I bought maybe 38 years ago that I need to get out again on one of the lakes or bays here south of Sydney , Australia.
- aidenn0 4y agoIllinois boarders a small inland sea named "Lake Michigan" (58000 km^2) that is great for sailing and often has regattas.
- throwaway6734 4y agocheck out laser sailing
- jfk13 4y agoI remember reading Robert Manry's Tinkerbelle[1] as a child, and ever since have had something of a fascination with the idea of sailing solo; although at my now-fairly-advanced age I accept that I'm going to keep my ambitions severely in check. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinkerbelle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinkerbelle
- yetanotherloser 4y ago
- focusedone 4y agoSweet! I finished the Hornblower series late last year and couldn't find anything like this. Can't wait to try it!
- webnrrd2k 4y agoThis is really cool! I'm a few books into the Aubry/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien (highly recommended! The movie Master & Commander is based on them). This should help to get a better feel for the ships and the battles!
- davidw 4y agoI'm wondering if the game requires you to know all the sail names. That could be a big impediment to doing things in it! It certainly adds some difficulty in even reading those books.
- ripley12 4y agoI'm reading the Aubrey-Maturin books and found this sail diagram quite helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/AubreyMaturinSeries/comments/j3vn05/as_a_total_lubber_i_found_this_a_very_useful_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AubreyMaturinSeries/comments/j3vn05...
- 9935c101ab17a66 4y agoI’m on book three and this is incredibly useful. The level of detail in the books is insane. I also reallllly liked the Russell Crowe movie, and wish they had made more. It wasn’t perfect, but it was fun as hell, and the napoleonic wars provide so much material for sequels.
- tmcinerney4 4y agothey are making another one!
- nosianu 4y agoFor reading this 21 book series it's worth investing into one more book with background information. I can recommend Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World (Hardcover) Lots of valuable information, lots of illustrations and schematics and photos. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/24519 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/24519
- cyanbane 4y agoVery cool idea. Can't wait to try.
- holtkam2 4y agoThis looks awesome. Will definitely try it out. Also, does anyone remember Empire Total War from back around 2011? One of my favorite games of all time despite its millions of issues. This brought back some fond memories of high school, getting back from class and running back home to battle some 18th century French warships…
- dt5702 4y agoI love this!
- fcatalan 4y agoNice! I dreamt about making exactly this for years, also after reading Patrick O'Brien. Learned some 3D modeling, tried a few game engines, thought a lot about water rendering and bought a very nice book: "Seamanship in the Age of Sail". But I always got distracted by other interests. Will try it for sure.
- Lefuz 4y agoThe seamanship book was a reference for a lot of this.
- inasio 4y agoThis is a perfect use case for VR, specifically crappy VR, motion sickness is now a feature
- jesperwe 4y agoWe apparently share the same humor :) As an ex charter sailing yacht skipper and VR developer, this comment made my morning!
- tpmx 4y agoI were a [Chinese|Russian] agent tasked with how to steal credentials from as many large western companies as possible, this is how I would do it. "It's probably safe to run that .exe"
- 8organicbits 4y agoSoftware distribution surely has risks, any reason this jumps out as especially risky to you?
- Y_Y 4y ago[flagged]
- thinkingkong 4y agoHaving been an actual professional tallship sailor in another life, I can somewhat guarantee the lack of buckling knees, seasickness, need to go aloft (climb the mast), and sleep in cramped quarters will make the virtual experience slightly more approachable. These effects only last for about 48 hours. Pure joy after that.
- em-bee 4y agothe download doesn't seem to work on firefox, even with all adblockers disabled
- em-bee 4y agoah, it wasn't firefox, but apparently itch.io doesn't like the country i am in. it worked with a proxy
- bmer 4y agoSomething I have been wishing for: a game where pre-GPS-based navigation is a (possibly, the) major mechanic.
- uhhyeahdude 4y agoYes! Absolutely! I’ve wanted a Polynesian voyaging game for ages, and I’ve always imagined the navigation would be integral, as it was sometimes more impressive than the actual journey IMO
- programd 4y agoNice big ship simulator. However if you're interested in a good realistic sailing sim for something smaller then a ship of the line, check out the eSail Sailing Simulator on Steam. It's quite good and rather fun with very nice tutorials. https://store.steampowered.com/app/794860/eSail_Sailing_Simulator/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/794860/eSail_Sailing_Simu...
- Already__Taken 4y agoLoved this, finally remembered how to tack the thing from a trip on Morgenster
- Lefuz 4y agoI'm glad you liked it. I'd be happy to know about anything from its behaviour that feels badly off from a real tall ship.
- Already__Taken 4y agoI lost some hours to it. No I wouldn't say anything's terribly off, I do remember tacking being more possibly without making sternway. The ship turns slowly but should pick up some momentum once you're hard over, backing the headsails should help it go through the wind.
- fijiaarone 4y agoI think there was a typo in the title. Shouldn’t that read “Watch animated TV and click buttons in the comfort of your home”
- herewulf 4y agoLooks very neat. If you aren't going to work on it again, then perhaps you would consider publishing the source code also?
- tmcinerney4 4y agoI've always been curious on most efficient points of sail, and the envelope for tall ships like this. Would love to contribute!
- mypalmike 4y agoFor anyone interested in a sailing adventure on a real tall ship in real "real global weather", I can heartily recommend booking a journey on the Oosterschelde (https://www.dutchtallship.com/oosterschelde/ https://www.dutchtallship.com/oosterschelde/). I did a 5 day trip last summer and it was a unique, fun, physical, and educational experience.
- rixed 4y agoOr alternatively, if you happen to be in western Europe, on the replica of a frigate from 1703 the Shtandart - also a bit cheaper than the Oosterschelde (https://www.shtandart.eu/ https://www.shtandart.eu/).
- em-bee 4y agoalso a bit cheaper is the Alexander von Humbolt 2: https://alex-2.de/ https://alex-2.de/ they have especially discounted prices for youth (14 to 25) and even offer stipends for youth from low income families.
- rerdavies 4y agoFun! Out of curiosity, is it possible to tack with a square rig, or do you always have to jibe? I've tried all kinds of strategies, including dropping all sails at 11 knots, and I just can't make it through irons.
- Lefuz 4y agoYou can tack, but usually you can't do it just with the rudder. As you are turning towards the wind, keep the topsail braced up (and loosen the headsails). You need to be able to turn far enough into the wind for the topsail to be aback. After that the wind blowing on the topsail should, hopefully, be enough to push you around the rest of the way; you might come to a stop, or be making sternway, but you should eventually go round through the wind. Edit: the tutorial level, getting out of harbour, is practice for this.
- rerdavies 4y agoOk. Had to read Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sailing to figure it out. She's a "dull" one -- unable to tack without making sternway, which definitely is not a compliment. But many ships apparently could not tack without making sternway, so this not an inaccurate part of the simulation. Applying all the tips and tricks in Seamanship, I can now at least get her head to wind before losing leeway. (Quite a few sail adjustments). Wearing is easy enough (a 270 degree jibing turn). So I'm off to see if I can "boxhaul" her to change tacks. :-)