Follow your winds

Ahoy there!

I hope to find you all well. Here I am with a new feature presentation for our upcoming title Nantucket. Today I’m going to write about something we are currently working: winds.

Nantucket is set in the XIX century, so during the Golden Age of the Age of Sail, where the efficiency of sailing vessels was at its peak and immediately before steamboats started to take their place at sea, forever changing the way of sailing. In fact, steam powered ships were the first ones to make the obvious possible: if I have to go from point A to B, I just have to take a straight course to my destination. This was not the case during the Age of Sail, where you had to take into account winds and their patterns, since most of them blow predominantly from a single general direction.

So, the first things we did was to implement a map of the global winds that you can access by using the winds filter of the Captain’s log. By taking a look at it, you will be able to notice 3 types of areas:

• Areas with wind patterns: in which you will find some wind for sure, probably blowing in the direction shown or really close to it.
• Areas with strong wind patterns: similar to the area above, but with strong winds. It’s characteristics of the oceans area under a latitudes of 40 degree.
• Areas with no patterns: areas of sea in which the wind could blow in any direction and strength.

How can you understand what’s the wind situation in your current position? Just take a look at your compass rose, it will tell you three things:

• Wind direction: the direction in which the wind is currently blowing
• Wind strength: we are currently using 3 different strengths (none, normal, strong).
• Your sailing direction: so, if you are sailing windward or leeward (against the wind).

The most important element is for sure the wind direction in comparison with the one of your ship. Sailing leeward it’s a really difficult and inefficient way of sailing since it requires a lot of maneuvers to keep moving. It translates in the game in going slower (according to wind strength also really REALLY slow). Going slow means burning resources and money and, if that it’s not enough, I’m sure you will reconsider it the first time a pirate ship will be biting your ship’s stern.

If inside the areas with wind patterns is pretty easy to schedule your course, outside of them you have to keep an eye to your compass rose to avoid unpleasant surprises. The wind there is much more unstable and you could end up struggling for days.

In the next episode of our DevsPlay series coming next week (if you have missed the first four episodes, you can watch them here), we are going to show some gameplay related to the navigation so, if you want to take a look to everything we discussed here on “paper”, keep an eye to our Youtube channel.

That’s it for today. See you soon guys!

Mex