Powerboat VR News

This is a bit of a mixed bag of updates!

1. Added passenger collection/drop off points to all the main ports of Menorca

2. Added Oil Drop Off point to Cuitadella Harbour

3. Added Petroleum Drop Off point to Fornells Harbour

4. Added Car/Truck loading point to Cuitadella Harbour (although there are current no ships to use this cargo type....yet!)

5. Readjusted sea renderer so that it is a little less clear and more inline with real ocean water and added Refraction distortion to underwater objects.

6. Fixed some rendering issues with fish so that they are now visible when the camera is under water.

7. Moon is now textured

8. Adjusted day/night lighting to be more realistic. It should now get brighter faster in a morning and fade out quicker at night with more realistic colours.

9. Set up dynamic GPU instancing for terrain trees so that I can turn chunks of them on/off at run time.

10. Readjusted terrain tress to be denser at the coast and none existent further inland where you can't see them. End results is a lot more visible tress with less overhead.

11. Terrain colliders are now disabled when they are not visible.

12. Readjusted cargo loading zones so that they are more transparent and sit lower in the water.

13. Added in extra "non functioning" screens to MFD for RADAR, Treasure Finder, Job Board, Boat Systems and Boat Setup. These screens will get enabled as I build them.

14. All terrain tiles have had their ocean masks pre-rendered so the game now loads much faster. These masks control wave height etc so that shallower water is calmer than deep water.

15. Tweaked the rock colouring to be less dark and closer to "balearic" rock

Today's update adds a small part of the cargo network to the RealWorld beta branch.

1. Oil can now be collected from the Oil Rigs.
2. Oil can now be delivered to Mahon Harbour.
3. MFD Cargo Management page now has icons to show the current cargo loaded in a specific bay as well as icons showing what cargo each bay can carry.
4. All boats now have a Fuel Tank listed in the Cargo Management page. Fuel usage is not yet implemented but you can load/unload the fuel tank at Mahon Harbour.
5. Ballast tank can be loaded/unloaded anywhere as it is just sea water. However, other cargo types can only be loaded/unloaded at designated places.
6. To load/unload cargo you must get the boat into the defined loading area. It will turn green once you are suitable inside the catchment area.
7. It is possible to overload the ship so be careful :)
8. Loading cargo adjusts the boats centre of gravity so you may need to add ballast to stabilise the boat.
9. The T800 starts with 50% ballast added as it needs this to remain stable. You can pump it out as you load cargo.

Other updates...

1. New music tracks added.
2. T800 physics model adjusted so it doesn't turn as if on rails any more. It will drift slightly as it turns.
3. T800 foam trail increased in length and visible distance
4. Fixed rudder physics which would add speed when turning in reverse.
5. Ocean adjusted so it is not quite so choppy by default. This results in less foam everywhere.
6. Static ships in Mahon harbour now have colliders.

Next week will see the adding of other cargo pickup/drop off points for both the large and smaller vessels and hopefully a new large ferry to pilot.

I shall also be adding the 1st of many cave systems to explore.

Cave exploring will require the use of the smaller boats and should provide an interesting area to explore with add possibility of finding hidden Pirate treasure amongst other things!

They will also provide tight, technical point to point racing especially as they will be quite dark and will require the use of boat lights to navigate!

Once the cargo points and cave system are complete I shall be moving the beta test to the live deployment as it will have enough content to satisfy the store page.

Then it will be a case of adding a new island (suggestions welcome) to provide longer distance cargo routes. Speaking of which, I am aware of how slow the larger ships are so I will be implementing a time acceleration system so that longer journeys can be done a little quicker :)

Happy Boating!

Today's update adds the Cargo Management screen to the boats MFD so make sure you bound the MFD + and MFD - buttons as they are required to use the cargo screens.

From this screen you can load cargo into various bays. Loading cargo modifies the boats centre of gravity and mass which is reflected in the buoyancy of the boat.

You can also adjust the ballast of the boat as well as move the ballast fore and aft to balance as you see fit.

All boats have been upgraded with this new system so you can tweak the handling of everything from the Mako to the T800!

The next step is to provide areas where you can pick up specific cargo and points to drop them off. Currently you can load/unload anything anywhere!

Today's update adds two new buttons ("+" and "-") to the MFD on all boats.

This extends its capabilities so that various systems (such as loading and unloading cargo or adjusting boat trim) will be controlled via the MFD rather than having to drop out to a menu.

For now though, the "+" and "-" buttons will control the radio volume when you are on the radio page. The selected volume level will be saved when you exit and should automatically be loaded again when you restart the game.

"MFD Plus" and "MFD Minus" can also be defined on the controls section. By default they are mapped to "NUMPAD +" and "NUMPAD -" respectively but you can change that to any key or device button.

This will probably be the last update until next week as I'm away for a few days.

Next week should see the introduction of being able to load oil from the oil rigs and then being able to unload it at one of the harbours on Menorca.

Happy Boating! :D

This update adds another part of the cargo delivery network - Oil Rigs. They are currently located just off the coast as you exit Mahon harbour.

These are the starting point of the fuel production chain which will go something like this...

1. Oil Rigs produce Oil which needs to be taken to...
2. Oil Refinery which produces Fuel which needs to be taken to...
3. Specific island Ports.

The idea is each island requires a certain amount of 3 different items - Fuel, Food and Products. Satisfying all these demands will give a bonus of some sort (not sure what yet!)

Food will be produced by taking a wide variety of items (e.g. fish, meat, vegetables, fruit, grain etc) to a food production hub.

Products are more complicated items that will require a number of items to create (e.g. wood, metal, rubber, electronics etc) but they will also net the most money. For example - to make a car you would need to supply metal, rubber and electronics to a car factory. The factory would then produce cars which can be shipped to other islands/ports for BIG MONEY!

In addition, the larger the distance from the source to the delivery port the more money you will make per unit giving you an incentive to make the longer trips.

I haven't fully working out all the production chains but I think you can see where I'm going with it :)

Other Updates...
1. Adjusted the T800's engine power so it does a more realistic speed of about 19 knots with slower acceleration.
2. Adjusted the mass and buoyancy properties so it now floats and reacts to waves more realistically
3. Fixed a bug in the rudder calculations that would add a forward force to the object making it accelerate when turning. This effected all boats.
4. SatNav now displays rocks, harbour walls and oil rigs and is locked to 25fps