Powerboat VR News

This update adds the French Polynesian island of Maupiti which is situated inside a coral atoll. Access to the island is mainly through a southern passage way between two small sand bank islands although brave captains may be able to find a route through via the northern passage ways as well.

Because of the hidden sand backs and reefs, the MFD map for Maupiti is the 1st map to visually show water depths. Marked depth ranges are
Maupiti is located roughly 6km due East of Ko Lan, I've positioned the initial start position to its main port. The port is tied into the logistics system so missions to and from Maupiti will now be generated.

Next week will see a third island added (almost certainly not a tropical island this time!) as well as the main map (I ran out of time this week!).

I will then make a decision on whether to keep Long Island & Menorca at their current dimensions or resize them down.

Once this is done I think the beta test version can be pushed out into the main branch - finally (unless I decide to add some other stuff first!) :)

Other Updates

1. Corrected the LOD levels for the T800 Oil Tanker which I think was causing dashboard objects to disappear in VR mode.

Happy Boating!

This is a quick pass to add more detail to the island of Ko Lan. This is also the 1st island to have bushes, ferns and other plants to make up a more forrest/jungle ground cover. I think the effect is quite good.

1. Added palm trees
2. Added jungle ground cover
3. Added sea grass to beach areas
4. Added more detail to underwater terrain to make it less smooth and a little more interesting

The ground cover is currently drawn out to 1km in distance - this may but a lot of strain on VR systems. Please let me know if it has severely impacted your frame rate.

For VR players I will also be re-instating the ability to walk on the terrain so you will be able to explore off the boats again soon...

This update adds a new island, Ko Lan. It's a small island located off the west coast of Thailand, but in the game it is to not too far to the North West of Menorca. I have set the initial starting point to the new island so you can visit it straight away.

The island has a single pontoon dock serving a small village while the rest of the island is mainly beaches and jungle. The map tile also includes the smaller uninhabited islands of Koh Khrok to the East and Ko Sak to the North.

The dock itself has a single loading area which is tied into the cargo network so the Quick Job generator will create haulage contracts to and from the new island.

I think this size of island is fairly optimal for the game - it's a good size without it taking too long to travel round it. It is still a work in progress but it is already much closer to what I was aiming for in terms of scenery. I shall continue to add more detail to it over the coming week.

Other updates...

1. Modified the sea renderer slightly so the bottom is a little more visible in shallow water. There should now be a nice smooth transition with bottom visibility starting around the 8m depth point.

2. Added height based fog to the Non-VR camera which should smooth some of the reflection transitions a little. I haven't had time to test it in VR yet hence it is not applied to the VR camera.

3. MFD map for Ko Lan added

4. Map icons/text reduced in size slightly.

Next week will see the addition of another island (possibly another vessel) as well as the global map.

Hopefully I'll then be happy enough to fire this Beta out to the live build!

Happy Boating!

I had a bit of spare time today so implemented some changes that I've been meaning to do for a little while...

1. Clamped and re-weighted water drag effects on all boats. This means they shouldn't "bounce" off the water surface if they manage to get significant air time when going over large waves. This also effects the overall motion of the boat when it is being thrown around by waves and also if you manage to flip/crash the boat in the water. The overall motion and effect should look a lot more realistic.

2. Adjusted the ocean reflections, colour and foam distribution so that the ocean is darker with deeper blues. I've upped the resolution of the water reflections and I think it looks a lot more realistic with the water being less blown out with white colouring.

3. Fixed the quit button (again!).

This update adds a new boat to the roster - the Flounder! I've also now added place names and icons to the GPS map so you can see where the ports are and any land marks such as light houses etc.

The Flounder isn't quite finished yet, but is driveable in both VR and non-VR modes. The main area that needs work is the wheel house which is a bit ugly at the moment.

The Flounder itself designed to be a starter cargo vessel and is based upon an old fishing vessel that has been converted to carry a wide variety of cargo. It's not fast but it can carry a good amount of cargo in 2 internal and 1 external bays.

Speaking of cargo and external bays - these are not visually modelled (although weight and centre of gravity calculations are) but they will be soon. This goes for any other vessel that has visible/external cargo bays - soon you'll be able to see the cargo attached to the ship!

OTHER UPDATES

1. Rescaled all cargo sizes to a standard cubic meter (m3) and weights are based on realistic values e.g. 1 m3 of oil is 862kg while 1 m3 of petroleum is 737kg .

2. Ship cargo hold capacities are now calculated in cubic meters and I physically measure hold sizes to make sure they fit inside the 3D model correctly.

3. GPS map now shows ports with names, light houses and other points of interest/landmarks.

4. All textures resized to power of 2 - this not only helps conserve GPU RAM but also graphics drivers don't like them and can cause a GPU crash. You know when this happens as the game will sound like it is still running but the screen will be black or frozen. Let me know if you encounter this happening & if you can remember what you were doing at the time it will help track down any that I've missed!

UPCOMING UPDATES

Next week will be mainly focused on expanding the number of islands to flesh out the cargo network.

Future islands will be around 1/4 - 1/2 the size of the current Menorca island (20km2) - so 5km2 to 10km2. I think this is plenty big enough when some of the vessels only do around 20kts! Islands will still be based on real world terrain - just scaled to fit.

Having smaller islands allows me to not only increase the terrain detail but also the density of objects such as rocks, buildings, trees etc and they also don't take so long to build. I may rescale Menorca and Long Island at some point as well as the actual length of coast line is huge!

I shall also be creating a world map so that you can see the entire area in one go. This will be important when plotting your route between islands as your GPS should NOT be you primary navigation tool especially once GPS/Electrical failures are modelled and the navigation Buoy network is setup! This is fairly true to real life as Captains are taught not to rely on GPS equipment.

Until then - Happy Boating!