#Maths don't add up fix

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random lion
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here's what I found through a simple test:
Starting point: Lazarus Complex (roughly 70,-2)
Finish: NDNS Node 70,-42

Travel Distance: 4km (40 raster units / 20 raster rectangles)
Travel Time: almost exactly 5 hours ingame (5 minutes real)
Travel Speed: 40 km/h (+/-1km/h) ingame (.8km/h calculated)

Calculations: 5 hours at 40km/h should have brought me over a distance of 200km, because 5x40km=200km
4km in 5hours means 4/5=0.8km/h or 800m per hour. The average speed of a pedestrian is 5km/h (just sayin')

Diesel consumption: I started with a displayed fuel reserve of 1575l. With 9 Diesel tanks in equalize chain that means I had 14,175l of Diesel fuel at start. I ended up with around 1385l displayed (12,465l in all tanks). So the boat engine consumed 1,710l for 4km or 5hours (at full throttle). I would have been faster on a raft if I threw a canister of Diesel fuel from the raft every 2 minutes and would probably have saved a lot of Diesel still.
A rule of thumb for tugboats (and I assume that's the kind of boat we're dealing with here) is a comsumption of 0.2l/h up to 1.5l/h and a Speed of 15km/h up to 30km/h.

Also, while battery power is quite fine the way it is, there needs to be a bigger option or a more powerful generator later on. The liquid tanks though don't fit the bill: The 2,000l tanks are of a size that would never hold 2,000l. Especially the freshwater tank looks more like a 200l one, the petrol and Diesel tanks could maybe fit 800l, the oil tanks maybe 1,000l. The gas tanks on the other hand would likely contain compressed gases at a volume ratio of 120/1 to 140/1, meaning a 6,000l methane tank would hold 720,000l methane. Since the rocket tanks would likely hold compressed liquid gases, that should be fine if quite impressively efficient.

How to fix this imbalance of calculations:
1.) decrease raster resolution to represent 1km per unit
2.) let an ingame day (24h) last for let's say 2.4hours real time (144minutes)
3.) decrease the boat's max speed to maybe 30km/h with full upgrades on both engines (or actually leave it like it is at 40km/h with electric engine support)
4.) decrease the maximum fill of the tanks to 1/10 and reduce the consumption to a realistic level (allowing for improvised and therefore quite inefficient technology)

result: The tested distance is now 40km, takes roughly 8 minutes real time or 1h20 ingame time while it consumes about 5l of Diesel fuel with reasonable engine handling.
Side effect: There'll be no need for a large number of additional fuel tanks on the boat, leaving room for future upgrades and making refuel stations a really useful thing. (Right now you consume 2 extra tanks full to transport fuel to a refuel station or you go electric and it takes about 4 hours real time.)

I really hope adjusting these variables will be considered since it's actually the numbers that irritate the player and even if the player doesn't do the math they feel that things don't add up.

odd valve
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I tested my game last night and found an in game hour to be 1:05 minutes, with a slight variable. Which makes me think in game time is attached to framerate. I'm starting to get longer dips under 30fps now and it seems to be slowing down the clock

That could be where some of the math doesn't math. I'll agree entirely though the diesel consumption is wild - a lot of guys saying 75% throttle gives much greater efficiency for little speed reduction.

I'm gonna do a little testing just now

grizzled creek
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Absolutely much more efficient. You gain very little speed at the top end of the throttle, but that doesn't save you any fuel.

turbid moth
turbid moth
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To give a rough idea about real world numbers: it takes 2x 2000 hp to push a 100 ton catamaran (!) at 26 knots (=48 km/h). At this speed ~600 L/h is consumed. Vessel carries ~25000 L diesel fuel.

odd valve
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So!

10km at 100% throttle used 3070L of fuel and took 19 minutes IRL (in game 17 hours 30 minutes) - thats 0.0032 km/L
10km at 54% throttle (best i could do) used 1600L fuel and took 27* minutes IRL (in game 25 hours 52 minutes) - 0.0060 km/L

Thats with 4 standard engine cylinders and one booster because i just haven't upgraded them, and all super booster electric.
100% i ranged between 34 to 40 kph,
At 54%, 22kph
Weirdly, before i did the 2 runs i did a 10km run and that used exactly 2000L at 72% throttle. at that time i didnt note the time or any other data. but that did lead me to do the 2 proper runs

As i did them i was thinking of how to make the numbers make a bit more sense. and i think if distances on the map (this bit is important) all got a 0 added on the end the fuel consumption might feel a little more believable. Just how they are listed though the map itself/distances wouldn't change 'physically'. As the crows fly Exodus and black vein would be 140km apart (currently 14km) which i think would be a believable distance. We are in an unending ocean after all. And using 4330L of fuel to travel 140km in a tug boat adds up a bit better in my head

I dont think speed would make any kind of sense then though, as speed is calculated from IRL time (35kph would be 310kph with nothing but the numbers changing). How to fix that is absolutely beyond me

grizzled creek
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Interesting that you saw a drop in efficiency. 75% throttle drops fuel use significantly, but sheds very few kph. Maybe that benefit is localized at the top of the throttle and there is a 'peak efficiency, but you lose on either side of it.

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Will take time and many runs to pin down though, with wind and waves taking their toll on conditions.

odd valve
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Yea i didnt take much note on speed its too variable with the waves alone. I need to do another run so ill make a note of the milage and fuel as i go.

aaannndddd just noted a typo with my math haha

odd valve
grizzled creek
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My understanding from others' spreadsheets is that at the same speed, they give you a little more efficiency, but at the same throttle setting, they give you more speed and consumption. It probably shifts where on the throttle your efficiency gains are most significant, too. More speed means you hit significant drag at lower throttle settings.

odd valve
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that makes sense, would explain my variances (and why i listed my configuration, just in case)

Another thing - the game gives a per hour usage rate based off the game time. And im pretty sure my game clock is variating slightly, i think its connected to framerate - im having semi frequent dips which could be an explanation, however ive not looked too deeply into it as yet

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assuming the per hour usage is how the game determines actual consumption*

random lion
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So I did some more research on the topic of ingame maths. Turns out all the maths actually do add up, except for the day/night cycle simulation. The clock on the boat's bridge and the sun/moon cycle make for a day length of 24 real life minutes (let's disregard deviations caused by CPU/GPU lag).
All the calculated ratios like liquid or power in-/output or boat speed are based on real life time. As an example the distillation tower has an output of 36,000l/h Diesel and 3,600l/h Petrol. Watching a tank of each fill with these outputs, you'll see 1l/s Petrol and 10l/s Diesel coming out in real life time.
A real life day has 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds, while an ingame day lasts only 1,440 real life seconds or 24 real life minutes.
You can probably see the problem here: Filling the Petrol tank with 2,000 liters can't be done with that output in one ingame day, although it tells you it should be done within slightly more than half an hour.
What we experience is the sensation you get when you watch a video at 60x playback speed. Try it with a video of a swimming pool being emptied.

Now shortening the ingame day's length is sensible and done in almost every game that features a day/night cycle. It also seems like a core mechanism used for day/night creatures as well as solar/wind power management. Getting rid of it is not an option as I see it.
The only thing that would make it feel more acceptable would be to increase day length and cut down the tank volumes/boat speed/fuel consumption, while distances between POI get multiplied by 10.

Day length 2.4h (144min)

Flow rate Petrol from distillation: 3,600l/h (1l/s)
Petrol tank size 1,000l
Filling time: 16.7min (~16min 40s)

Boat fuel consumption:
(calculating for fully upgraded boosters)
~40l/km (distance based because the engine doesn't run idle)
Diesel tank size

  • Boat tank 5,000l
  • Extra tanks 1,000l each
    Boat Speed 25km/h (+10km/h with electric engine support)

One base tank fill would get you 125km in 5hours (3.6h) time (2days+ or 1.5days ingame). With distances increased that would be roughly once across the map. There could be a fast travel option for those who don't feel like playing for 5hours just to get to their destination. It would still consume the fuel and the game time would still progress though.
Also I feel like the short day length currently messes with the spawn cycle of the night leeches and with the weather changes. Increased day length could help to balance that out.
The slow speed for the boat seems realistic to me because with its flat bottom it is definitely made for coastal traffic and not really sea worthy. I have once tried to paddle a flat bottom boat (a 6mx2m box shaped boat) across a 3km wide lake on a windy day with 8 people paddling. We didn't get very far before the winds had pushed us into the rushes and we were lucky to pull our boat to a nearby landing. That kind of boat is a bit harder to capsize and mostly ignores currents but it offers almost no resistance to wind and waves. It's not made for speed but for stability and it floats like a raft. That means you will have to go at an angle against or with the wind aka cruising. Cruising with a flat bottom boat is only possible with very calm winds or very strong engines or with the right configuration of sails. It takes it's sweet time to accelerate and decelerate, but once it moves and meets no wind resistance, it keeps moving.
The game is not a boat sim, so accounting for the detours necessary to reach you destination, lower speed seems a good compromise. (The boat sim part might be a nice idea for an optional gameplay.)
Wow, Kudos if you read the whole post. I didn't intent to make it that long 😅

turbid moth
# random lion So I did some more research on the topic of ingame maths. Turns out all the math...

👍 I like reading your posts because of the efford / research you put in.
Regarding the math problem here, I recommend to take a similar approach as in KSP:
If you need to, scale the world and time, but keep things in their frame of reference consistent. Give then the player the option to let the game-time run faster or slower.
Regarding the „boat sim“ I would really enjoy to have it as realistic as possible; but I also understand, that not everyone thinks that way. Therefore it would be good to let the player choose the level of realism they want. Run the boat like Mario Kart in „Arcade-Mode“ or feel overwhelmed by the stunning complexity of boat handling in „Hyper-Real“ mode. 🫡

strange kayak
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I think it's silly to have a 60ish meter cargo boat handling as anything other than a 60ish meter cargo boat, tbh

random lion
random lion
# turbid moth 👍 I like reading your posts because of the efford / research you put in. Regard...

Thanks for the kind words. I only want to make this game a little better and I think I found the one thing that causes a lot of trouble. Bugs and glitches are fixable or not, but the players will find workarounds or even exploits for them. Game logic that feels wrong, especially when it's based on maths, is easy to fix, by inserting a factor or moving a decimal point.
I just went and measured the terminal site of warehouse Alpha. It's exactly 80 meters from east to west. Then I measured the time it takes to walk it end to end: almost exactly 24 seconds or 24 ingame minutes.
I mean, it's bound to feel wrong if it takes you 24 minutes to walk 80 meters, ain't it? The same is true for everything that takes a certain amount of time. Even more so if it takes a lot of your game time.
At some point the player will see this as a filler, a surrogate for content, even if it was never intended to be that. Everyone's gaming time is limited and seeing a lot of it wasted by waiting for stuff to happen, while the perception of time passage is even sped up, doesn't make it feel any better.

strange kayak
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You gotta keep in mind, in GTA 5 you can set a target waypoint to drive to that's 5 miles away on teh other side of teh map, and it takes like 6 ingame hours to get to. MOST games do weird things like that

stray crown
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if there's one thing you can count on in a videogame, it's that they will never have a scale that makes sense when compared to the real world. because it's a videogame.

strange kayak
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exactly!

stray crown
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because if you want to really get into it, it makes sense that the boat we have goes the speed it does because the hull is a displacement design and not a planing hull

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a displacement hull uses its mass to displace water by moving it aside, not skipping across the surface

#

hence they'll go much slower

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also the in game "time" means nothing when the humans you launch are marked by the real life date and not a date in game

turbid moth
turbid moth
random lion
random lion
# stray crown a displacement hull uses its mass to displace water by moving it aside, not skip...

Displacement is actually more about density. Most boats, ships and rafts exploit that simple physics principle. They displace as much volume of water as the volume of the part of their body that's beneath the water surface weighs. That's the only reason why they don't sink.
Any floating object in water sinks only until it has displaced the same mass of water as its sunken volume weighs. Or rephrased: A cube of a volume of 1l needs to have more mass than 1l water to sink or less than that to float. Since our boat is mostly filled with air, it has much less mass than the same volume of water, hence it is not sinking in very deep.

grizzled creek
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A "displacement hull" is a hull design, not a statement about displacement.

random lion
grizzled creek
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That's something that would be very interesting to look up if you're interested in that kind of thing. Googling it with etymology should help.

random lion
grizzled creek
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Looks like I dropped the wrong image. There are displacement hulls, semi displacement hulls, and full displacement.

grizzled creek
stray crown
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just a quick check, how do you calculate density?

grizzled creek
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Mass over volume.

random lion
stray crown
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😉

random lion
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look, I don't care about hull design and I even pleaded for a slower boat. It's just that you can't define units and then use the same units for a different scale

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i.e. you can't say a minute is that long and then make a minute 1/60 of that

steel lily
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I think the biggest problem in the game is that the current, built in fuel tank for the ship is way off from the consumption. I got this like after leaving the Sanctuary and getting to Outpost 49. And in mid game the only way of getting more diesel is using the biomass generators, and biomass is not really plenty, decided to go full electric. So I installed like 6 medium batteries on the ship and upgraded the electric motor to Tier 3 and then went after the Lumimax. Now I have 6 Lumimax on my ship and 14 Medium batteries. I just got to the Black Vein station, and I do the quest highly out of order (stopped with it after fully finishing the Lazarus Complex, sincce if I woiuld follow the story line, and went to collect the seeds, without any knowledge, those seeds would have failed all.) THis setup helps to be able to reach great distances, and even helpful to scout out smaller POIs. since, I dont have to build any power there, just lay down some cables and splitters and pull a power line to the switching box. Most of the POIs are not having currently and long term benefits or purposes, (I hope, that will change later) so building them up with more then a couple of low level solar cells and one medium battery is pointless.

grizzled creek