At long last, I have published the new version of Virtual Sailor NG, I call this version 8.0 because it is a successor
to the Virtual Sailor family, and updates this long neglected program to what it needs to be in 2021...
So, all the updates will start with version 8.0
The program appears to be similar to Vehicle Simulator, and it is similar in basic functionality, and should run all scenery
and boats without a program and behave the same way.
There are many improvements over VSF, a partial list is here
Changes for version 8.0
- Complete rewrite of terrain and scenery engine.
- Complete rewrite of ocean and sea engine.
- Object caching with fast and efficient scenery loading.
- Immediate day night switching, no reloading required.
- Newer and better instruments, including Radar, Map, Sonar and more.
- Flexible and adjustable key assignment.
- Better docking attaching to docks nearby
- Better element design with packable elements.
- External instruments open in separate windows.
- NMEA output to external devices.
- Accurate celestial calculations of sun, moon, stars.
- Dynamic tide with adjustable amplitude and mean water level.
- Waves height, sea surface, depending on wind speed.
- Very flexible additional camera view, independent of main camera.
own keys and you will see these on the Help->Keys screen.
Under the hood the game engine has been completely re written, it allows also huge performance boost,
for example if you show Options->Graphics and turn off all Performance options you can see frame rates of 250-400 !
but on low graphics mode, on the other hand when all is turned on it goes to 45-30 on heavy scene.
You can design a scenery from scratch inside the program, also "paint" elevations and textures, you can replace
all 2D trees by 3D trees, for this I have included the "California" scenery as a test area for your experiments.
Set time to now, and move on map, moves with Realtime change so when you move from say France to La the scene
will change from day to night, this is not a mistake.
Tide can be set to dynamic, and you can set amplitude and mean water level, then the phase will depend on moon and sun.
Celestial calculations are much more accurate and should follow the real positions, but time zone may need to be adjusted
by the Hours +/- adjuster on the weather screen.
Network is compatible with VSF, so you should be able to play with each other.
there may be issues with netplay as before, here are my recommendations and excuses why they happen:
1. Connectivity - the router you have usually changes the incoming ports to prevent hackers attacking your computer, this also
totally disrupts connectivity to your game, to overcome this use VPN between you and your friends when playing.
2. Disconnects - the program will disconnect a player when 30 seconds have passed without updates, and also detach from a boat without
5 seconds of update, but later can attach to that boat when updates arrive, when a player loads a heavy ship or heavy scenery it may take
more than 30 seconds to complete, and during that time he may be disconnected, it is not recommended to lengthen this time since the
disconnect is necessary to release a terminated program properly.
so my recommendation is - either load simple boats in netplay and not very detailed ones, or send every one of your friends the situation
to load, have them load this situation with all boats already loaded there, and then connect to netplay.
So, there are many more changes, and updated stuff, I will elaborate on them later on.
The registration period will be longer than 2 years, how long depending on sales, if the program becomes pirated like VSF
and sales dwindle then I will keep it at 2 years, if it sells moderately enough to keep this project funded, I will lengthen it a lot.
possibly to 5 years.
Hope you enjoy this program a lot of effort has been invested into it !
Thanks,
Ilan
I've been trying it out 
