4Game

A couple of days ago, my buddies an I loaded our longboat to the brim with silver ore and set sail for the 30 real-world minutes travel back home.

The weather was great, the RNG gods were pleased with our offerings and we never had to sail against the wind.

So it happens, that one friend starts to goof around at the bow (front) of the boat when suddenly the server and the game clients of all players except the goofer lock up. 15 seconds of tension pass, will we lose everything? But then synchronisation resumes. The ship jumps forward and everything seem to be in order again… Until our formerly goofing friend starts screaming. He has gone over board and is now swimming 50m abaft (behind the boat).

Oh shit. We're still far away from home and any portal. Should he die we will need to spend an hour to rescue his gear.

But no worry. As I am at the helm and I am a real-world certified skipper, I know what do instinctively. "Man over board" I hear myself shout to the rest of the crew as I begin to bear off and start the Q tack. That's a common maneuver to turn the sailing boat and end up in a favorable position to pick the crew member up.

https://imgur.com/a/bxahjfq

To my remaining buddies I shout to keep an eye on our friend, as the waves make it difficult to spot him. Luckily the minimap makes live almost too easy in that regard.

Key of the Q tack is that after you've turned the ship around, the ship sails windwards (away with the wind) of the man over board. This is needed, as you you need to come to a full stop and as sailing boats do not have a "brake" you need the most helpful force out there to help: the wind. As you reach to position exactly windwards of the man over bord, you turn straight into the wind and aim your bow just slightly next to the man over board. If you have timed and distanced everything right, the ship will continue to float towards the man, loosing more and more speed because the headwind stops you. You position the boat between the man and the direction of wind so that the wind continues to push the now stoppen boat towards the man, ensuring that the boat (due to its larger wind footprint) is not again drifting from the man.

Well so much for theory. In-game this did not work. I turned my ship into the wind, took down the sails and completely overshoot my friend. The wind is not stopping us. The game does not now of the wind as a force impacting the ship at all times. It uses a simple method to calculate forward speed when the sails are set. We're now continuing to float forward until my hectic backpaddling finally stops the ship. But again, the friend is now 200m behind us.
So we tell him to not move and not consume stamina and wait until we've backpaddeled to him. This works and he was finally able to climb aboard and we can continue our journey home.

Thanks for reading.

I know this would make sailing a lot more complicated but I would like to see the devs to consider implementing "wind force" causing the ship to drift.