Zezo forum:

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-04-25 | 17:00:43

I love short coastal races like this, but they made it Category 3, so the full pack will cost 20 Euros, and the race will probably only take 3 days. Very frustrating. Also, there are so many complicated corners that I think it will require a lot of waypoints unless you're online to hand-steer a lot, which means doing the race on credits would get very expensive. I'm estimating the net cost of doing it competitively, after accounting for the finish bonus, etc, would be somewhere in the 5,000 - 8,000 credits range, mostly from having to buy something like 15-20 nav packs to get enough waypoint cards.

I think I'll wait until I see Zezo's routings the night before the start to decide whether or not to do this race, and if I do it, whether to do it on full pack or credits. It will be helpful to see which options are likely to be needed (current forecast suggests all, but that's a week away)... and it will also be helpful to see which maneuvers are likely to occur at times when I have to be offline and/or would like to be sleeping.

78 Comments

Post by ogin8 | 2018-04-25 | 17:54:30

Let's make all SO. Otherwise I will not join.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-04-25 | 18:34:20

or PDD ...

= Prime De Depart (only options that can be bought from the start credits, 1600 for this race)

Post by Popeye2 | 2018-04-25 | 23:50:47

Good idea 👍

Post by zezo | 2018-04-26 | 11:46:54

Looking at the buoys it looks like two laps around the distance.

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-04-26 | 12:35:41

Yes, I think so. That's what the real race does. I think it's roughly 1,000 nm per lap.

Post by zezo | 2018-04-26 | 13:14:05

So make it around 5 days. Could be nice race if it was the only one at the time. Won't be much fun with 3 more running simultaneously.

I may try it SO, spending the free credits on nav packs.

Post by ogin8 | 2018-04-29 | 14:06:01

Is it possible to by Nav cards from credit 1600 for this race? After registration the "My cards" menue is inactive? Believe it is the best option.

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-04-26 | 14:02:23

For the moment, the Closing time is 4 days, 13 hours after the start.

These Ultimes are quite fast, so it may be possible for the top finishers to complete the course under 4 days... but if that closing time doesn't change, there won't be a lot of finishers.

They already have 7,000 registered entries.

Post by zezo | 2018-04-26 | 20:38:15

2000 miles in 110 hours. 18 knots VMG in circles in the Med. Could happen with a lot of luck, but sounds like the record time, not the closing time.

Post by Stormbringer | 2018-04-27 | 14:12:22

I'm out if I tried to do 4 races at once my head would explode.

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-04-28 | 17:27:27

Cvetan, will you be able to support this race? A pre-race routing would really help with the decision of which options to get if not buying the full pack. It would also help with the decision of whether or not to do the race at all.

It'll be very interesting to see what happens if the closure deadline doesn't change. I think the winner will finish before the deadline, but I'm guessing most entries, including a lot of full pack paid entries, will be upset to suddenly see their race end.

Post by zezo | 2018-04-29 | 12:20:28

It's been there for a while but I forgot to add it to the drop-down list.

http://zezo.org/nice/chart.pl

It would require a lot of effort to simulate two laps, even with flexible starting time, so I did not bother to copy that functionality.

Post by taifale | 2018-04-28 | 21:32:00

Should be the arrival on Sunday for the real racers. French people like that.

As an almost NMS I'll do that race anyway, just for the credits for another race. I dislike that lootbox-crook mentality of the VR staff/management.

Another point, I paid my first 2,29 � for a sail in march. Ten days later I was charged another 2,29 � which I never authorized. Took me about an hour to get that money back from Apple. VR wanted to tell them email and boat name although I've sent them screen copies from my Apple account.

Also, I gave it a try what would happen when touching inadvertedly the"Pay" button for a pack. I had to sign in to my account but could not abort the pay action without crashing the app. Should that be a feature of VR app?

As a matter of fact, I exclude to pay a dime to that society. I prefer to send a Paypal donation to zezo whom I thank very much for his great work .

Post by zezo | 2018-04-29 | 14:12:13

@ogin8 the "my cards" menu becomes active after you "finish boat setup". Which you can do without purchasing equipment, just click "Done"

Post by ogin8 | 2018-04-29 | 15:48:54

Tkanks zezo. Indeed it works. I will go SO + credits for nav paks. IMO Having 4 races running nav paks should help much more in this race than buying 1 option.

Post by zezo | 2018-04-29 | 17:18:54

Same here. And I may have other priorities in real life during the race, so not sure how much time I can spend on it.

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-05-01 | 16:38:58

I'm still undecided about this race... I'll probably do it and be grumpy about the price. Just because I like this coastal stuff.

There's an interesting discussion in the VR forum... Someone raised a question... If you leave Corsica to starboard and buoy 2 to port, as prescribed... but then cut between the islands and leave Sardinia to port... and get yourself down to buoy 3 to leave it to starboard before proceeding with the prescribed course... Is that ok?

Which raises an additional question... can you just leave Corsica to port and sail straight to buoy 3? You would still be leaving buoys 1 and 2 to port as required.

Ceres' response was cryptic... He referred to a poem and implied that if you try it, you might have problems... but didn't say it won't work.

If I do the race, I'd prefer to sail the prescribed course. But then I'll be pretty pissed if someone is 30 miles ahead of me from sailing directly to buoy 3...

Does anyone have a way to see how the buoys will be validated, so we can figure out more accurately what course is actually required?

Post by zezo | 2018-05-01 | 18:03:59

The buoys are actually one end of the gate. The other end is invisible and is on the coast. So you have to pass between the island and the mark.

Post by alulo | 2018-05-01 | 19:06:10

Bonsoir
vous partez avec quelle voiles?

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-01 | 17:48:10

In the Carribean, I cleary a buoy and tried going the other way round, but than the buoy was uncleared. I guess there is a gate near the buoy that you need to cross and cannot cross back before clearing the next buoy (gate).

I don't like (at all) the way the mods at the House Club treat visitors (VR-customers). How about asking VR-support directly?

Post by zezo | 2018-05-01 | 18:05:55

All unpaid moderators of commercial forums in the world are dickheads. No way around it as no sane person would do that work for free.

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-05-01 | 18:15:04

I find Ceres to be helpful and polite. Oxven also. The tough thing for them is that because they aren't employees, they don't always have access to the information being requested, etc.

I try to give them a break because they're unpaid... As long as they're trying to be helpful, I appreciate it.

Thanks, Cvetan, for the confirmation. Ceres responded in the VR thread a few minutes ago to also confirm that you must leave both islands to starboard. The silly thing is... why make one end of the gate invisible? There would be no risk of confusion if the gates were fully visible. Oh, well... C'est la vie. Hopefully there won't be many people upset after paying and taking the wrong route.

Post by zezo | 2018-05-01 | 18:27:17

All buoys in VR3 are gates. If there was a "leave FdN to port" buoy in this VOR leg the other end would be somewhere in Africa. It may make (visual) sense or not, but that seems to be how the current game engine works.

Lack of real information is one of the reasons no sane person would do that kind of work. But it's more than that. I wrote in my employer's forum once about a piece of code I've written myself and one of the semi-voluntary mods (level 1 tech support) tried to correct my words. Had to get two floors down and explain who's who in person.

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-05-01 | 18:53:47

Very interesting... I didn't know they were all gates. In that VOR leg where I sailed most of the way to Tokyo, I wound up leaving a buoy roughly 1,200 nm to starboard. I guess the other end of that gate was in South America or Hawaii.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-01 | 19:59:48

remember JVT challenge? There all gates were very clear so that would be a preferred solution. But maybe the gates would me overlapping in this mediterranean thingy.

Post by Xeelee | 2018-05-01 | 18:42:29

In the image below you find the visualisation of the gates and buoys as defined in this race. The gates with
orange lines are hidden ones and just used for rank calculation and to to control if the correct path to the
next mark is used. (source of the data is the LegInfo the server sends to the client)

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-01 | 20:01:30

is that inside information? looks like gate 1 and gate 2 are very small gates between buoy and Corsica.

Post by Xeelee | 2018-05-01 | 20:50:50

Yes, but that's also visible on the game map.

Gate 1 is between Barcaggio and Giraglia
Gate 2 is between Piccovaggia and the small island Ile du Toro

Actually each of these visible gates are there twice, slightly shifted, one for each round

Post by huditojo | 2018-05-02 | 10:57:14

Is it better to start with "AUTOSAIL" on or do it manually???

Post by ogin8 | 2018-05-02 | 15:02:11

loraline - what a pretty crash. From leadin the race to ...?

Post by BigOz | 2018-05-02 | 19:11:25

hey!

Does anyone know if you have to sail east or Sardinia.

Zezo gives me a route to the west?

Post by zezo | 2018-05-02 | 19:12:44

You have to sail around all islands, but within the buoys. I've implemented some of the constraints in the router but not all of them.

In general this race is not a big routing challenge. More like watch-standing challenge - you have to be up at odd times for few days to get the best possible mark rounding.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-02 | 19:45:28

after buoy 2 west of Sardinia is shorter to buoy 3, but maybe not allowed. temping ...

zezo suggests the routing that way ;)

Post by toxcct | 2018-05-02 | 22:43:47

So what are you doing far east of sardinia right now, uh ?! :p

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-03 | 00:56:15

already tred to break the rules in Carribean by taking a shortcut. Didn't work ...
They just unmarked my buoy from green to 'open' and cost me three hours.

This will cost a day or so to the sailors trying it (Elwin, Wintermaan)

Post by BigOz | 2018-05-02 | 20:20:17

Thanks Guys. I re read the previous posts and I now understand all those weird hidden gates.

Post by toxcct | 2018-05-02 | 20:24:23

Ah ah, Cvetan, in your "races2.json" (which is consumed by VR Dashboard if I'm remembering well), you wrote 'Nice UNLIMITED' instead of 'Nice ULTIMED' :-D

I guess they tried to make a word trick between ULTIMATE Trimarans and MEDiterranean Sea, which we're in...

Post by zezo | 2018-05-02 | 20:37:49

Thanks. Fixed. Funny that It's correct in the other location - probably copy-pasted it without paying much attention.

Post by rowie | 2018-05-03 | 03:19:19

Hey there. Short time lurker, first time poster.
Quick query, as an NMS I have chosen not to spend any credits on boat setup for this race and intend to use the 'race specific' credits for navigation packs. My questions are; what if I only buy 3 packs and have credits remaining from my initial 1600? Do I get to keep that or do they disappear at the race end? Am I better off to spend it all on cards i dont need so I can sell the unused cards back at the end of the race?

Thanks

Post by zezo | 2018-05-03 | 07:19:49

They are gone once you finish the race. You can get about 300 credits back by purchasing random card packs. You can probably earn more credits by purchasing waypoints and sailing the course faster. Too bad you still can't buy just the cards you need.

Post by rowie | 2018-05-03 | 21:33:24

Thanks.

Post by taifale | 2018-05-03 | 06:54:31

Just realized we're doing the race the other way round from the real racers and we've got an extra island to go around. Usually the virtual races quite stick to the real ones. Perhaps they shouldn't have too much ap�ro at VR with our poor players money.

http://www.niceultimed.com/fr/acte-3

Post by zezo | 2018-05-03 | 07:12:24

There makes quite a difference with the coming low pressure system centered around the course.

Post by Lasse | 2018-05-03 | 13:47:57

Nicke move there Cvetan, going west of Sardinia! 👍

Post by zezo | 2018-05-03 | 14:01:26

The mark did not check. Somebody should make a big fuss about the invisible gates someday ;-)

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-03 | 15:55:10

you? :p

Post by zezo | 2018-05-03 | 17:49:21

Me? No. It's none of my business. But we have lawyers in the forum ;-)

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-03 | 19:47:19

you were misleaded by the UI not telling about hush-hush gates. if you knew you would not have tried west, right?

Post by zezo | 2018-05-03 | 20:45:39

No. I started my second boat (that was not intended to participate at all) just to make an experiment and confirm if the invisible gates count, for the benefit of all players.

In most races the invisible gates are placed in a way that you can't sail past them even if you want to, so it does not really matter.

In this particular race it matters. I can't see any reason that VR could not have placed a big rotating mark right in the middle of Sardegna and be done with it.

There were times when a lot of players would jump at that stupidity. Sadly (for VR) or maybe not (also for VR) all those folks have moved to other platforms a long time ago. The VR3 was not even needed to drive them away.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-04 | 11:58:52

to put it simple: invisible gates are misleading the sailors (= customers).

Post by Xeelee | 2018-05-04 | 12:34:20

The course (white track on the map) gives you a clear indication of the path to take around the marks.
On the current 4 races the invisible gates are quite logical and only there to assure the correct rounding and
to calculate ranking. Sometimes a large invisible gate is on top of a visible gate, but the visible marks should
always be enough to find the correct course.

To take the correct path is simple. Imagine you have a very long rope on your boat, tied to the start
until the finish. At the end you tighten the rope and the rope must pass all the marks on the correct side
in the correct sequence.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-04 | 17:01:32

along the last line: so you could round Sardinea, provided you round buoy 3 in the right direction. Round it from west, thab south and cross the gate east-to-west.

However the invisible/secret/mean gate make that choice impossible.

Post by Kela70 | 2018-05-04 | 22:27:05

like that?

https://i.imgur.com/vO03tHU.png

Post by Xeelee | 2018-05-04 | 22:55:32

I think according to the racing rules of sailing this would violate rule 28.2 as described above.

Some insight on the topic:

https://www.racingrulesofsailing.org/rules?part_id=46

https://www.sailingworld.com/how-to/don-t-get-tied-string-rule

Post by huditojo | 2018-05-04 | 19:00:28

The route of the 2nd turn is the same as the 1st? This time we do not have rotating marks to obey...

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-04 | 19:08:49

and you cannot see whether you cleared a buoy ...

Post by huditojo | 2018-05-04 | 19:10:38

unless something happens when we pass it...

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-05-04 | 20:53:34

It looks like the time limit has been pushed out 3 days. I don't think this was envisioned as an upwind slog.

Post by huditojo | 2018-05-05 | 00:39:09

If I join the frigate now,will I overtake the 68 boats in front of me and stay ahead with 3 hours difference ?!?!?!?

Post by zezo | 2018-05-05 | 02:17:58

Nope. It's one lap behind you.

Post by zezo | 2018-05-05 | 02:17:28

@Xeelee what about rule 25?

25 NOTICE OF RACE, SAILING INSTRUCTIONS AND SIGNALS
25.1 The notice of race and sailing instructions shall be made available to each boat before a race begins.

The white line is not replacement of the sailing instructions, and proper sailing instructions would mention something about keeping the island of Sardegna to starboard.

Also, the mark is obviously intended to be a boundary mark and you should not get outside of it, but what prevents yo from clearing it is not the side. It's that you have not cleared the previous invisible mark (or two), namely "Keep Sardegna to starboard"

Your second link also says

"What if a boat's string makes an extra 360-degree turn around a mark? Provided she leaves the mark on the required side initially and while making her extra turn, the boat does not break the string rule (see ISAF Case 90)."

So if a rotating buoy means "leave to port" then making a loop around it is valid move.

Post by ogin8 | 2018-05-05 | 03:12:33

It looks that it is not only me. Mark No.1 should stay on port side! VR removed arrows from all the marks.

Post by zezo | 2018-05-05 | 06:35:21

There are two set of buoys for the two laps, but the second set is invisible, so you can't track your progress and check if you have cleared everything.

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-05 | 07:00:21

and another bug in the ui, as usual called a feature :p

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-05 | 07:01:34

there is also a new feature now:

you can now check whether you correctly cleared a buoy by looking at your ranking. if it suddenly starts to increase, you have missed it ...

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-05 | 07:02:43

By the way, VR changed the online help 5 hours ago into:

"The route you need to follow is represented by a white line on the map.

It begins at the start of the race and connects it to the finish line.

This plot is for reference only; it is not linked to any calculation. It represents the right course to follow, observing all course marks by passing on the right side of them, but not necessarily the best trajectory.

It does not take othodromy into account."
https://virtualregatta.zendesk.com/.../115001442414-How...

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-05 | 07:03:54

Changing the rules again, during a race! nice job Mr. Guigne, nice job ..

Post by Xeelee | 2018-05-05 | 12:00:58

@zezo yes, you're absolutely right about Rule 25

VR should really publish sailing instructions for each race ! This would help to avoid confusion.
Instructions like 'leave Sardegna on starboard' are crucial if they enforce it in the game using
their hidden gates but don't tell anybody.

Rule 28.2: (String Rule)

We had to deal with several protests concerning rule 28 in several of our (real) regattas in our sailing club.
It was sometimes quite difficult to decide. I must confess I was not aware of Case 90 which really clarifies
the 'string problem'.

CaseBook, see page 178

http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/20172020WorldSailingCaseBookv1.1-[22915].pdf

And of course it would be nice if VR could improve the game engine to really support double rounds of the same
cours. This would also allow courses like Start - Mark 1 - Mark 2 - Mark 3 - Mark 1 - Mark 3 - Finish

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-05 | 17:03:55

we're not sailing by real rules, only by virtual rules.
vague, some of them invisible and definetely changing during races!

Post by karriv | 2018-05-06 | 16:48:56

The problem here with that rule is that VR doesn't understand that in sailing we round marks, not islands. Just looking at the course, you could totally omit Corsica and Sardinia sailing west of both leaving all three marks to port. There are no marks visible on either of the islands. Nor does any mention in a NOR about leaving said islands to starboard, which would effectively make them marks.

Post by Stormbringer | 2018-05-06 | 03:20:00

I don't have a dog in the race, but my 2 cents would be that you're all complaining about lack of clear sailing instructions and ambiguous interpretations of the RROS when unfortunately those concepts don't apply here. This game is not made for sailors, it is made for gamers. It is futile to impose your real world constraints on something that is not conceived of out of love for the sport but rather an economic engine.

Harsh reality everyone sorry. I've got 30+ years and 1000's of offshore miles in the real world sport and I'm in the same boat as all of you (pun intended).

Post by toxcct | 2018-05-06 | 05:44:51

as far as gamers inject real money into the game, it is legit to request rules and transparency !

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-06 | 07:21:57

It is in the nature of gamers to try to find ways within the game rules to gain advantage. What I (and many othe virtual sailors) react upon is the fact that the rules aren't clear.

In the VOR leg from Australia to China some players rounded Australia west and it looked for a long time they would win by far. In that race, the white line was east of Australia and going west was allowed.

In this race apparently it is not, even when rouding the buoys in the right sense. that what triggers me to react, unclear and (worse) changing of rules without any form of communication.

I think this bevahavior of VR towards their customers make that the numeber of players is steadily decreasing since relase of VOR3, both free players as well as players that Pay2Win.

Post by karriv | 2018-05-06 | 16:51:05

Ursus Maritimus, spot on. Ofcourse one possible rule could be that you need to figure out the rules, but in that case the rules should at least be consistent making it possible to figure out the rules.

Post by lorenzo | 2018-05-07 | 12:04:10

this race is becoming a nightmare, I am stuck north of Cala Morell in Minorca with winds shifting everywhere.
Wonderful place by the way if you have never been there.

Post by YourMomSA | 2018-05-07 | 20:17:09

Wow. That was the race from hell. I normally sleep 6-8 hours per night and I only wake up during the night if there's tricky coastal stuff... This was constant tricky coastal stuff. I think I averaged 4 hours of sleep the last 4 nights.

Thanks, Cvetan, as always. You make it possible for everyone to compete equally. This is my fourth career win, all using Zezo.

Great work by Tame Bird, Marcusbelgicus, Tipapacheri, Freizh, Buddha, etc. I almost felt bad about passing Tame Bird at the end. I thought he had it until the last 20 minutes.

Post by Lasse | 2018-05-08 | 00:08:44

Congratulations to YourMomSA! Well done as always!

It felt as the wind fainted during the last lap for us farther behind. For instance, I was about an hour behind Ursus Maritimus when we passed Sardegna but now I am 10+ hours behind...

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2018-05-08 | 11:32:13

we've had our fair bits of minimum wind limit area's as well