Ship Steering

[crystal wolf]

Have ships turn very slightly to one side, then go strait for a while, and then turn slightly back to where it was, then go strait for a while. Have them always repeat that pattern automatically.
This will enable players to put their ship on a course that will follow the shift between two ...slide-tracks...? - I don't know what you call the paths that ships want to travel despite how you point them.
Anyway, having the ships automatically meander slightly back and forth will effectively add another track for the ships between each of the whatever you call the sliding paths that make ship go where they are not pointing.
Also, make the TRK reading tell you where you are really tracking instead of just repeating the HDG value.

[dim pagoda]

?floatingpoint

What was the

This is a floating point issue

But

Honestly if Hyperant can figure out how to do this, your suggestion might be a good workaround to the issue

[crisp oar]

pretty sure the problem is that the physics in general is whats affected by floating point

the only solution to floating point ive seen thus far is dividing the areas of the map into separate sub-games, or having the map move underneath the player instead of the player move across the map

both of which too hard to code

[dim pagoda]

Which is why this is a workaround, not a fix

It's intentionally correcting for the error, instead of preventing the error

[heavy juniper]

This is the approach the ROBLOX game Starscape uses. Every star system you visit in-game is actually in a different place. When you go to a place where you can warp to a star system and pick a star system to warp to, the game teleports you to a different place.

[crisp oar]

i dont think it would be possible

because the part thats being screwed up is the physics

you cant correct the physics engine

[exotic island]

Neither of those are really practical for multiplayer lobbies

This is gonna be a problem until we get 64bit Roblox

[waxen vortex]

whar

[dim pagoda]

whar never changes

[torpid otter]

?sliding

[stable trail]

If you are experiencing drifting or sliding around while taxiing, this is called floating point error. It is an issue that is hard-built into ROBLOX's engine so there is nothing we can do to help it.

Floating point error happens the further away you are from the center of the map. This is why you will see no drifting at Clarence but find a lot at Valois.

[ionic fern]

Seems like a lot of work when you can just set your route accounting for the sliding

[wintry osprey]

500 loading screens

[wintry osprey]

the problem is that, on cross-map jobs, the direction and intensity of the sliding depend on which point of the route you are on

so it becomes extremely hard to predict

basically the only workaround is always taking the same route, and after half a dozen jobs, you'll get the hang of which angle to sail at

[ionic fern]

What I mean is you can just aim a bit further away from islands to avoid running aground

No need to know exact numbers

[wintry osprey]

a degree or two can cost you an hour on cross-map boat jobs

then again, there isn't much we can do to fix it

[crystal wolf]

I'm not suggesting a change to the game's physics. I'm simply suggesting that the boats automatically turn the boat slightly from one side to the other over and over again. That will enable us to aim our ships to go back and forth across the border between two floating point 'slides'. So, instead of having to choose only one 'slide' or the other, we can choose to ride the fence between them.

[crystal wolf]

It can't be that hard to code a brief left turn, then a brief right turn five minutes later, and then a bief left turn five minutes later, then a...

[crisp oar]

The problem is that the degree of movement changes the farther out you go from the origin of the lap

so coding this accurately would be nearly impossible

[exotic island]

It would be easier to code an autopilot that just goes to nav points for ships than to code this. And autopilot is already a rejected suggestion

[crystal wolf]

No accuracy needed. The ship would just slowly wiggle along any direction you point it. If you are not on the border between two slides, then the wiggle has no effect. If you carefully take a heading that follows the border between two slides, which is where if you turn very slightly to the left the boat slides to the left, and if you then turn very slightly to the right then the boat slides to the right, then the wiggle will cause the boat to slide equally to the left and to the right over time. A little bit of time would be needed to get your ship on that heading, so it isn't a completely 'free' feature. The wiggle would only provide functional benefit along that narrow line.

[crystal wolf]

This isn't anything like autopilot. It's just like pointing your boat in a direction that maintains its slide. Except you would have an extra direction for doing that between each slide zone.

[crisp oar]

You don’t quite understand what I’m getting at but it’s too hard to explain

It’s not possible afaik

[exotic island]

Maintaining a slide would essentially require an autopilot with similar inputs for 2d movement. The slide is variable depending on speed, heading, and distance from 0,0

It's quite a lot to compute, especially since it's gonna be guessing exactly which heading a player wants

[crystal wolf]

But we can already maintain a slide without autopilot. We simply aim along the length of one. If your preferred course doesn't follow a slide's direction, then you won't bother doing that. Neither would this suggestion help in that case. *spelling

[exotic island]

To do that you'd still have to have a target, even if that target is a beam from start point.

You'd also need the physics system to forcibly move the ship off it's current course, which will cause issues near land

[exotic island]

Yeah, the way to implement this would be to treat the ship as a beamrider, and have a target beam to stay within.
Then the ship only needs to know:
Where it last changed heading
Where it currently is
How far it is from where it should be (distance to centre of beam)

[heavy juniper]

(real)

[ionic fern]

This would make a lot more sense. Ships would be doing a "homing" to the nav point

[shell ocean]

one issue i could see with that is that it could lead you into a landmass if you dont quite pay attention

would be a better solution though

[sacred flax]

i want this

but i know its impossible

[sacred flax]

thats ruins the total existent fun out of boating

I love waking up to see that my boat has been off track

[shell ocean]

ykw you have a point

[ionic fern]

"Fun" and "boating" don't fit in the same sentence

[shell ocean]

also true