Hello! - General wonderings...

[CybrSlydr]

Hey folks!

Brand new to this... genre... of simulator. I'm almost exclusively a flight simulator (www.sim-outhouse.com , www.netwings.org) but Virtual Skipper 3 has me very intrigued!

I bought it off E-bay a few days back, but don't have it yet as I'm home from college on break and I had it delivered to my apartment. D'oh.

I guess I'm just trying to find a good community to get involved in and one that is helpful as I'm a total n00b with sailing. If you gave me a quiz, I'd be happy if I got the, "Is this a boat?" question right!

So, this place looks relatively active and as such, figure it'd be a great place to start. What other forums would you reccommend? I'm registered on the DJ forums and a few others - they don't look very active. Unfortunate.

So - yeah, I'm totally new to this stuff so go easy on me.

[Oobie]

Welcome to the community Cybr.

Things are actually pretty quiet around here due to the northern hemisphere summer but there are always some VSK junkies around

I'm not aware of any sites that explain the fundamentals of the game as such (I am working on this very thing at the moment but I'm not quite finished....) so the next best thing is to get online and just start racing. Ask questions, there are usually one or two skippers in a race that will be happy to explain things to you.

VSK3 is a very impressive simulator, especially if you have a good graphics card and can run the game on its best settings. Water dynamics and visuals would be among the most complicated things to get right and VSK3 does it very well.

Hope to see you online.

oobie

[CybrSlydr]

:) Thanks Oobie.

I get back to my apartment on the 10th, so I'll have my DSL. Interestingly that's Monday - the day you have your public event. I assume getting to the game is available in another post? (I'm still wandering around)

I've seen the requirements to be a 450MHz chip???

Screens tell me that you need more than that - thankfully I have an AMD 64 3500+, 1024MB DDR PC3200 RAM and an ATi X800 Pro 256. On WinXP Pro SP2.

Interesting that the community would be so affected by the seasons. What about those of you in the lower-half of the globe?

So - I've seen the DJ forums, VirtualSkipper.co.uk or somethin (very little action there) - where else would you reccommend to find some peepz?

Thanks again!

[CybrSlydr]

Just read the Monday thread. Good info - really need to read up on those rules... Yikes. lol

I assume that this is still on for 10 July? GMT +2 is 7hrs ahead of me, so it'd be 2pm. I think I could make that.

[murphs]

look on the virtual skipper website (www.virtualskipper3.com) for a list of forums and clubs

your pc should runvsk perfectly on high settings

[Oobie]

Without wanting to swamp you with info straight up, I'll give you some resources.

Check out the links on our Tools page. Specifically the ITBYC skins (we use them for our team racing), ISAF Racing Rules (yes, they'll come in handy) and Instant messaging clients (Trillian is especially good as it combines MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, IRC in the one interface.

If you're new to sailing, which it sounds like you are, it would be best for you to do some public fleet racing first so that you can get used to the boat handling, courses, interface, rules etc.....

You're certainly welcome to our Monday public racing but we do team racing here and it would probably be the most confusing experience of you life if this was your first VSK outing :O

Also, it's possible that you might be able to persuade someone in your time zone (US I take it), to take you for a bit of 1 on 1 coaching if you leave a message in the forums here. That would be the ideal way to get started. But as I said, people are on summer holidays, enjoying real sailing etc. so it might be a bit quiet.

I'm from the bottom part of the earth, we never take a break here

[CybrSlydr]

I checked out the tools page and went to the rules - must say there are a LOT of them. I was thinking there'd be just a straight list that was printable - boy, was I surprised. :laugh: Is there any one "master list" that would be applicable for online racing there? (I'm guessing by looking at it, what rules to print depend on what type of race)

Now I have a few questions about the game. Is the game moddable aside from scenario editing? Are there boats to download and install? Is this a virtual world or is it just separate zones (could I sail around the world?)?

Yes, I am in the US (Eastern TZ). Break, eh? Mine was 3 weeks - school is practically a year-round thing.

Thanks for the info folks! :blues:

[CAN Knot]

Hi Cybr,

It's good to have another virtual sailor in the eastern time zone. I'm hoping to get out for a few regattas before I go travelling again. If you're every online with VSK3 and see games with ITBYC Public in the name just drop by our chat room to join in. The game name will say public, but it's still a password protected race so you need to come to chat to get the password and be assigned to a team.

Also, check out the VSK3 forum at www.digitaljesters.com as they have a couple of great tutorials for beginning sailors.

Cheers

[CybrSlydr]

lol I doubt you could call me a virtual sailor yet - haven't even got the game installed yet! That comes tomorrow though. w00t!

So...

Is the game moddable? Could I sail around the world? Can you just leisure sail? Etc?

[Andy(NZ)]

look on the virtual skipper website (www.virtualskipper3.com) for a list of forums and clubs

Not so sure that list exists anymore ! At least not like it used too - does it ? ???

[Oobie]

Is the game moddable? Could I sail around the world? Can you just leisure sail? Etc?

The game is structured this way:

There are 6 real locations on which you can design your own courses - France, Italy, UK, Australia, New Zealand and USA. These maps are fairly accurate and large. The other option is the Tropical course, where you can create your own land masses on the open sea and then your course/s on that. These courses you create can be used for online racing. The other skippers don't need the course on their system to join in.

Modifications (legal) include: boat skins, avatars, user interface, atmospherics. There are 4 classes of boat and their parameters are not moddable (for obvious reasons).

So no, you can't sail round the world, but yes, you can certainly leisure sail. You can sail against the AI boats (a bit dumb in this release) in Solo mode or sail against others on a LAN or on the internet using Multiplayer mode.

[CybrSlydr]

Excellent explanation, Oobie. Guess I shouldn't be looking for a schooner then.

So I assume most of you are atleast hobby sailors? I've never set foot on a boat. lol

[euphoria]

Hi Cybr,

It appears you have exact the same hardware as I have, which works great with VSK3.

For the rules, here is a short version:
1. The boat with right of way must not prevent the other boat from keeping clear
2. If on oposite tacks, the boat on starboard tack has right of way over the boat on port tack.
3. If on same tack, the boat ahead or to leeward of the other boat has right of way.
4. The inner boat has right of way when she is rounding the mark.

Have fun.

Harald

[CybrSlydr]

Alright! Got it installed and I'm very impressed with the whole job!

Looks great, sounds are good, etc. Of course, this n00b is having trouble not stalling the boat. hahaha

I'll post a bit more after I'm done playing around with it. :blues:

[Aquabat]

Cybr,

This site might help you with the ideas behind team racing, as you know ITBYC is really a Team Racing site

Team Racing

Rob