Kerri's Guide to Alt-Tabbed Navigation

[Kerrilyn]

I'm hoping everybody knows the basics of simple AFK navigation: you point your ship at your destination, avoiding red circles or potential red circles, and go AFK.

What I'd like to introduce is a way to navigate AFK style a little more intelligently.

The necessary tools for this navigation is the chart below, and a timer of some sort that can make alarms. (BigClock for Palm devices, the Clock that comes with iPhones, a stopwatch with a countdown function, etc)

This is the simple version of the system, and is slightly less accurate because of that. One day, I might make a javascripty kinda version that would allow everybody to use the super accurate one, but I've used a mental version of the below for almost a year now and it's served well enuff for AFKness.

The chart is divided into squares of 100 miles. A ship running at 70 knots will cross a square in about 1 minute. See the chart below for other speeds (80kts=50s, 100kts=40s)

Here's how it works:

• Figure out your course you want to take
• Calculate the distance (count the square on the map)
• Calculate how long you'll need to be on that course
• Set the timer for that amount of time
• Set your ship on the course, set full sails, and engage the timer
• When the timer beeps, you're at the destination

Example

Let's say you wanted to go from Bridgetown to Port Royale, and the wind is out of the north.

You wouldn't want to cut directly towards Port Royale as you would hit the red around SD, and possibly the one around ST, so instead you decide to cut across until you're southeast of PR, and then head up on a close haul.

If you go 8 squares east of the ship's current location (that's 800 mi), that will take you to where you want to be approximately. 8 squares is 8 minutes at 70 knots. So you set your heading to directly west, set the timer with the alarm for 8 minutes, and then alt-tab away. When the alarm goes off, assuming there was no wind change, you'll find yourself in that grid southeast of PR. You can then head northwest for about two minutes to arrive at PR.

If the wind did change and is now suddenly against you, you'll find yourself short after 8 minutes. In this case, it's best to plot a new course unless you're very close. If you're close, you can recalculate for your speed into the wind and reset the timer again (risky).

Some tips:

• Be careful when plotting a course into the wind. You'll overshoot by a lot if the wind changes to be favorable during travel. It's best to limit "into the wind" legs of a journey to 300 mi or less.
• Make sure your course is clear of red circles (look beyond your destination too, just in case).
• Turn music on - chasing and battle music can alert you that you have NPCs harassing you
• Use a reliable timing device. One that dies or fails to alarm means you're back to old fashioned alt-tabbing navigation.

Here's an exact table of speeds:

Knots - How long it takes to go 100mi
5 - 816.33s
10 - 408.16s
15 - 272.11s
20 - 204.08s
25 - 163.27s
30 - 136.05s
35 - 116.62s
40 - 102.04s
45 - 90.70s
50 - 81.63s
55 - 74.21s
60 - 68.03s
65 - 62.79s
70 - 58.31s
75 - 54.42s
80 - 51.02s
85 - 48.02s
90 - 45.35s
95 - 42.96s
100 - 40.82s
105 - 38.87s
110 - 37.11s
115 - 35.49s
120 - 34.01s
125 - 32.65s
130 - 31.40s
135 - 30.23s
140 - 29.15s

If you're going 125 knots, it will take about 33 seconds to cross a square.

If anybody wants to make any javascriptie thingies or such, or are really good with math and trig and would like to use the more accurate version of this, here's a hint: 1 knot is ~0.0245 miles/second in PotBS, and a pixel on that map is ~2.72 mi ruffly.

[Kerrilyn]

Additional tips!

• If you press 0 on the numpad (numlock on), it will center the view behind your ship for better pointing accuracy.

[stokes234]

Lol, nice!

Requesting sticky~~~~

[bertje]

nice one

your fogetting one thing though: when hauling, after one minute on the OS the wind will always shifts directly into your face.

[cea12]

I've sailed into the red and been caught afk in a SMT full of zinc 4 times that i can remember over the years, maybe more

[Kerrilyn]

Originally Posted by stokes234 Lol, nice! Requesting sticky~~~~

Thankies ^^

Maybe soon I'll be done the javascriptie one .. or perhaps someone else could (Anna? Armeagle?) .. will be even better and easier to use ^^

Originally Posted by bertje nice one your fogetting one thing though: when hauling, after one minute on the OS the wind will always shifts directly into your face.

Yah that's troo. And it stays like that for a full hour too, just jumping in little tiny increments.. usually when it's from the west specially @.@

Originally Posted by cea12 I've sailed into the red and been caught afk in a SMT full of zinc 4 times that i can remember over the years, maybe more

Ouchie~ haven't done that yet, thankfully ^^;;

I like to bring my SMT to a nearby port and then shuttle valuable stuffs in by BTS ^^;; Was one time though when I had about half a hold of brass ship fittings and brass ingots when the BTS was far away on the moon and had to run the red like that.. was very scary...

[Kerrilyn]

BTW if anybody wants charts for sizes other than 100 mi, I can make those too, it's fairly simple with the 'grid' plugin for GIMP.

I used 100 mi because it's ruffly a minute for the average of typical ships, and convenient for estimating distances in mi directly.

Another rule of thumb is that 80 knots is 2 mi/sec.

[will ed]

i just pay a chinese kid to sail for me while i get stuff done, doesnt everybody?

[archer7seven]

This would be much simpler with an autopilot and waypoint tool. Draw waypoints from where your ship to where you want to go, sailing around any red and indicating tacking manuevers on the map.

Example:

Add a navigation option to OS toolbar.
hold down left mouse button, drag a course and release, press and hold again until the set course is satisfactory.
Right click to activate, or alternatively have a 'follow course' option on the OS toolbar as well.

[mrthetooth]

Very impressive! It's stuck.