Powerboat VR News

This update is for testing Powerboat VR in Windows 7. You don't specifically need to have Windows 7 as it should still work for Windows 10 & 11 so if you want to try out some of the new improvements then please feel free to opt-in to the BETA.

Updates
1. Quick Jobs can now be cancelled and re-started or even swapped mid journey. Your ship will be moved back to the starting port ready to re-load. There's no penatly for doing this, only your time :)

2. Boats spawned for quick jobs are now aligned correctly with the port to prevent capsizing due to collisions with port structures.

3. Port loading points are now much more clearly marked with animated zones.

4. You now must be in a cargo loading area before you can swap to another boat that you own.

This week will mainly be spent updating the last few boats to the new physics system and ensuring boats always spawn in safely.

I will also be looking at overhauling the cargo loading system to be much more intuitive and allow greater flexibility. Unfortunately the ship MFD just isn't up to the task of loading and managing large amounts of cargo so loading/unloading will be moved to an area in the main menu.

This will allow me to track specific cargo to specific ports and display that information to you in a much easier manner.

Bays will also be split into a maximum of 4 compartments allowing up to 4 different cargo types to be in each bay. Currently if you loaded bananas into Bay 1 then, even if it was only half full, you would not be allowed to load a different cargo type into it. With the compartment system this will be mitigated to some extent and will allow a bit of an upgrade path for ships in the future.

This will also allow me to track cargo to specific locations. Currently if you were carrying bananas then you could unload them to any port that accepted bananas even if they were not specifically for that port. It was a bit of a work-around but I think it is time to change it to a better system :)

Quick update to upgrade the physics on the Sea Buzzard, Fury Extreme and Jupiter to the new rudder system. Plus some important fixes to the A.I. traffic system.

1. Sea Buzzard has now been upgraded to the new rudder physics
2. Fury jet boat has now been upgraded to the new rudder physics - except it's a jet boat and doesn't have a rudder!
3. Jupiter updated to new rudder physics
4. Fixed a bug where the A.I. traffic could sometimes appear upside down or sticking vertically out of the water.
5. Fixed a bug where the A.I. traffic would get stuck at a way point when very far away from the player.

This is a quick update that alters the physics for the Bluefin and Oil Tanker (which I've now renamed to the Orca).

All the boats in the game currently have a really high lateral drag values. This makes them "grip" the water a little too well especially at low speeds. I am now addressing this as it also effects the rudder forces.

The Bluefin & Orca now have much lower lateral drag values and, as such, they will tend to slip left/right in tight turns and at low speeds. This actually makes them much more entertaining to pilot as you'll need to pre-empt turns a little sooner due to the lateral drift, holding a true course now requires constant input and coming out of a turn may require a bit of counter steering especially in a fully laden Orca!

Let me know what you think of the changes.

I've also updated the following...

1. Correct some asymmetrical physics values on the Bluefin so it now drives correctly!
2. Reduced the Orca's bow thruster power
3. Increased drag when driving in reverse for both Orca and Bluefin
4. Fixed Orca's rudders not showing true steering angle
5. Reduced Bluefin's top speed to around 40kts which is more accurate for a "Wake Boat" that it is modelled on.

1. Fixed the light scaling system which wasn't returning ship lights back to the correct scale when they were turned off making ships look weird!

2. Updated light scaling and attenuation so that lights remain visible at close distance and attenuate better at longer distances.

3. Corrected the HDR values for A.I. ship lights so that they are now the same as player driven ships.

4. Added a "proper" physics rudder to the Oil Tanker. Rudders on that ship will apply a force correctly at the stern of the ship and the rear will swing out more on turns. This also reduces the maneuverability so more care has to be taken when piloting it.

5. Reduced the engine power of the Oil Tanker so that it has a more realistic speed when loaded.

6. Added the auxiliary foam trails to the Oil Tanker and adjusted the main trail to look less white.

A.I. Traffic

You can now add A.I. traffic to the game from the "Game Option" menu. You can have a maximum of 100 A.I. controlled vessels. The A.I. system is very efficient but it does place extra demands on your system so you'll need to see what your own system can handle.

A.I. captains are, at the moment, extremely stupid. They will not take any collision avoidance! They will also not dock at ports. However, I will expand their capabilities as we go and I shall be programming their collision avoidance in line with current shipping guidelines with correct "Stand On" and "Give Way" priorities.

Ship Nav Lights

All ships, including the new A.I. vessels, are now equipped with navigation lights. VR players will find a new button in the cockpit of all boats (except the Mako as it is too small to have lights!) to turn them on/off. Joystick/pad users can define a button in the controls menu and mouse users will find a new button on the mouse control overlay.

All vessels have a green light visible from the right, a red light visible from the left and 1 or more white lights depending on vessel size.

There is a slight bug in the light attenuation system which makes the lights difficult to see at around the 100 - 200m mark but I will be fixing that as soon as possible.

Lights are set up to "bloom" slightly and are optimised for 1920x1080 screens. Lower resolution screens may suffer from flickering when lights are far away which is due to the light size getting close to, or less than, 1 pixel in size.

Let me know if the bloom is too much especially on VR headsets where bloom often occurs naturally in the lenses.