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Board » Technical Support » Ideas for SOL development

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Posted by
Karri


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2014-03-03 09:10:21 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
Thanks kroppyer! Works like a charm!
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I'm right.
Posted by
RainbowChaser


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2014-03-07 10:29:58 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
What an excellent threat :-) Loving all the ideas, especially for Global language chats that transcend individual races.... that would return individual race chats to everyone,which is how it was when I arrived on SOL and was brilliant fun :-)

Maybe one or two non-language chats for SailTalk and for TechChat too.

Google Search box

I just installed this and it looks great on the Homepage... click here to see how it looks on my laptop.

When I search, though, the results are not so pretty - click here to see the results of a search of the word Aaron

Is this a function of how our Wiki lays out the Forum? or is this a consequence of my having some settings not set correctly?
_______________________


--- Last Edited by RainbowChaser at 2014-03-07 10:35:42 ---
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Posted by
kroppyer


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2014-03-07 10:47:44 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
That's how I see the results too. It's probably because the style of the menu bar is inherited by parts of the results, giving them a blue background and a wrong padding.

I could try to make it look prettier, but I was hoping someone with a bit more knowledge about styling would come along after this proof of concept.
Posted by
kroppyer


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2014-03-18 15:03:06 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
(continuing the list of ideas for SOL development)

12. A new mark rounding system, in which the way to round a mark (leave to port/sb) can be set manually to allow for gates, and boundary-like marks.

13. On longer races old trackpoints get deleted (or at least, they're not displayed in the client anymore). The idea: keep always al least one track point for each boat, so that boats that don't change course for a long time don't loose their track.
Posted by
bonknhoot


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2014-03-25 16:30:54 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
Hi Guys,
It's always nice to brainstorm.
Blessed with no knowledge about the inner workings of our beautiful game (that's not football), methinks:
It maybe isn't too difficult to have a startline which you must cross from L2R or R2L after t0. It would be an amusement and all about timing runs, as well as of course reading the line. My limited experience of rounding marks (in particular) and headlands in SOL is that it is not easy to know exactly where you are when (thoughts of Eisenberg!), so you could find guys being over and having to go back. Good fun for the sprint races in particular, especially if you make it a long line (1.5x boatlength of no of entries is the rule of thumb for big IRL one-design events and would be 3nm to 5nm depending on class).
Clipping along
Posted by
bonknhoot


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2014-03-25 17:00:07 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
My other thought on this is T I D E S.
Again, lacking any knowledge of the inner workings etc..., it seems to me that if it's possible calculate the change in position of our boats by applying one vector (boatspeed and direction) at discrete regular intervals, it is equally possible to apply the sum of two vectors (which is one vector). One vector would be the boatspeed and direction (as determined by bat polar, wind strength and speed in the usual way), the other would be tidal drift. The assumption is of course that tidal drift and currents are available in grib format. They rather must be, as I have seen that MaxSea has tidal grib display fuctionality. If they are, they would be standard patterns that simply change as the moon moves around the planet and repeat themselves time and again. If they don't exist but you knew the inner architecture of a grib, you could make them (true Corinthians, we) and once made they would never (well very rarely) need to change, other than plugging in a time of high water before a race is opened. How would you show them? Well more arrows I guess; maybe fat, large, not frequent, 50% translucent, light grey at night, dark grey during daylight. And under Options you could maybe have a choice to show wind gribs, tide gribs, both or none. And, obviously, as you move your cursor over the chart, tidal speed and direction would also be quoted numerically for the time you have set using the time line, and your navigation bar would need a few extra pieces of data as well.
Clipping along
Posted by
bonknhoot


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2014-03-25 17:04:59 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
Which brings me to a final thought (and then I'll shut up; I won't start on speed loss and recovery). An option to blend out all the other yachts would be very useful when rounding in a crowd or trying to see your predictor line when the usual suspects (great film) are already at the mark or cape.
Clipping along
Posted by
kroppyer


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2014-03-25 17:40:41 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
14. Tides
15. Possibility for running starts

---
Running starts: You can't force people to be online at the start, they need to be able to start with DCs. This doesn't mean the idea is worthless. We could have it so that at towback all boats are placed at the line, those wanting to do a running start can do so by sailing away from the line. However, this way there is only a disadvantage for running starts. Possibly the performance system can be adapted so that boats starting without a running start have a performance loss. But the difference should be too big, because it wouldn't be fair to those who can't be online at the right time. My opinion in this case is that SOL is an ocean race game, and prestart is not important. For that kind of fun there are a practice races on many evenings. You could even organize your own little race in the practice race period.

Hide all other boats: This is possible, make a boatlist (described in the manual) with only your own boat, then check the checkbox "show only boats from this list".

Tides: this is something discussed before, it should be on this list. Problem is not so much getting the data. It's partially getting the client to display it all. Your idea of 50% transparent arrows seems like a good way to do this. But there's another problem. What should happen with twa=0? what should happen with the cc command? should that be constant HDG, or constant COG? There are cases in which it is impossible to have a constant COG. If you choose for constant HDG you loose the option of sailing a straight line. There's more to display then only the tide. With tide there are differences in COG and HDG, how should that be displayed? There are a lot of problems. (Note, I have never touched sailonline code. I might be wrong on some points.)
Posted by
bonknhoot


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2014-03-26 07:31:05 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
1. running starts
Take your point. DCs have to be possible to start, which makes running start an impossibility. Not a big deal as far as I'm concerned.
2. boat lists
of course, silly me. I use that tool already: Big Kahunas. Just make another list: Me Me.
3. tides
Yep, there's more to it, you're right. Further thoughts then.
TWA=0 would be head to wind; you'd drift on the stream though. Dead stop would have to be a special command (similar to setting a DC for the start). Say type in ANCHOR and everything stops.
CC are and would remain compass courses. Setting COGS would not be possible. We can't set auto-ortho courses either) and it's hard to set constant COGS IRL (i.e. impossible manually but a good autopilot probably is able to do that trick nowadays, I don't know). That would leave it more (being the operative word) uncertain where a set of CC DCs would take you, although the predictor line would continue to show you where your current course (CC or TWA is taking you) and when.
Finally, yes, our dashboards would have to show us COG and SOG, as well as CC and BS, and of course let's call them TTD and TTS, matching TWD and TWS. TTA would not be necessary. So the dashboard banner would be the whole width of the page.
And as I write, I think: a little button or keyboard command to go 'full screen' (like in Excel) and back again, would also be neat. :-)

ps Mooie fractal en prachtige analyse van het performance loss 'fenomeen'; belangrijk om te weten op zo'n supersnelle schuit als mijn VO70, die zometeen naar Cape Cod gaat oversteken in 'a big building breeze'.
Clipping along
Posted by
Jawz


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2009-07-21 09:51:19
2014-03-26 17:08:14 - Re: Ideas for SOL development
Hi Guys

I have a feeling that this suggestion is floating around on the 'To-Do' list somewhere. :)

I see in the Clipper Race that the teams have a number of "Stealth Mode" segments allocated to them during each leg.

Wouldn't this put the cat amongst the pigeons during our Ocean races???

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