Zezo forum:

Post by DancingBrave | 2020-02-25 | 16:21:53

The VR Dashboard tool currently updates every 5 minutes with real data from the game servers. Is this also the precise time the Game updates the display too?

I'm trying to find a surefire way of knowing whether what I'm looking at in the game display is my actual position, or at worse where it was up to 2 mins previously, rather than the calculated position the game uses between server calls. Twice I grounded in the C600 despite the game initially showing I was clear of a specific point....indeed the 'aground' flag only appeared 6 minutes (3 x onscreen updates) after the event with the display showing me comfortably passed the obstacle :(

I thought by exiting to VR main screen then re-entering the race my display position would be real rather than calculated . Obviously not.

9 Comments

Post by zezo | 2020-02-25 | 19:36:58

You can often notice your boat moving backwards/sideways during the update reflected by the dashboard. The client still does not account for penalties, and fixed TWA plays games on you.

This particular race is played mostly with waypoints, but:

DO NOT TRUST THE COASTLINE IN LOW-FI GRAPHICS MODE.

Land is smaller than in high-quality setup, and obviously wrong. I tried my luck today and visited a place named Tent Bay Beach on Saba. Funny thing is that there is a shoal there, so you would give it a wide berth in real life.

Or it's just the E-W shift that's been noticed before. Anyway, it was a matter of single pixel and I'd pass the High Quality island.

Post by zezo | 2020-02-25 | 19:48:41

The "Aground warning" is a separate problem. It was visible in the dashboard few minutes before the client gave any notice about it.

Post by zezo | 2020-02-25 | 19:58:36

And don't get me started on the ranking which shows about 4 totally different numbers at the same time, depending where/when you look. Differing by an order of magnitude. Rotating between 1, 2 and 5 I could understand. Jumping between 13 and 230 I can't. And it's been like that since the last major "update", at leas half year ago.

Post by zezo | 2020-02-25 | 21:30:12

And now this:

Had 3 waypoints to get me around the corner, but obviously deleted them before 5-minute server cycle had the chance to handle them, so it projected the boat in the original NW direction.

Post by mak08 | 2020-02-25 | 22:01:43

I ran aground when trying to turn north on the exact piece of land your're showing, because the server chose to execute my command *earlier* than the displayed on the UI. When server fix arrived, my boat was repositioned southeast and ran aground.

That really surprised me. I always thought the UI reacts immediately, but the server executes commands with a delay. My boat should have drifted west but instead I found it stuck inside the peninsula.

I had to turn south first, then west instead of going straight north for two minutes and then east.

Despite all this, I didn't lose too many places. Seems like many players are struggling to get their boats around the course.

Post by mak08 | 2020-02-25 | 21:50:20

Those ranking jumps would result if the server processes the boats individually or in batches, and subsequently compares positions belonging to different cycles.

The 'batches' should be visible in the 'last updated' timestamps in the dashboard and I think I saw the effect in other races, but not in C600 (while I do see the ranking jumps in C600 as well).

Post by zezo | 2020-02-26 | 19:17:20

That would explain small fluctuations of a minute or so.

I sometimes get results tat are few miles off. Like now from 168 to 2 and back. Feels like unordered SQL select statement in a table with past results that sometimes returns the last insert() and sometimes something from 2 days ago.

Post by DancingBrave | 2020-02-25 | 22:11:19

Ha, I spent some time on Tent Bay Beach too! Alas I was halfway across Ladder Bay before VR deigned to tell me I'd somehow left my boat behind...

And I unwittingly cornered like you at St Maarten just now, and that was steering manually. All set to come hard on the wind only to see in one 2min game update that I'd overshot by 1/2 mile :( Of course, it's hard to reconcile my logfile as game display doesn't show latlong.

Post by BooBill | 2020-02-26 | 00:02:17

Same here. Ran aground on the windward side of St. Barts, when the path showed me clearing it. I noticed almost instantly, but then when clearing it, the speed registered immediately, but my position didn't move. I ended up turning 180 to make sure I was clear. Left the game console, came back in 3 times, until it finally showed me off the rocks.

This is literally Helen Keller sailing. Not doing any tight races again if what you see on the screen is not where you really are.

Now, if you guys could create an app to totally replace the VR client, that's something I'd pay for. Sounds like a lot of others would too.