Zezo forum:

Post by turb | 2017-10-28 | 00:08:55

Hello Cvetan,
Do you think it would be difficult to implement a "personal timeshift" after the start of a race (I guess not, as timeshift option is already available before races start, but with computer codes, it is not always as simple as we could imagine)?
From my point of view, it would be useful to have a full analysis of the options for the virtual sailors.
I give an example: we have do decide wheter to pass north or south of an obstacle (island, anticyclone...). Zezo in all options (with and without full pack and/or with and without foils with the right click menu now), gives the South option as the best one, but we don't know how much compared to the North option. With this option, we could:
- put the destination North of the obstacle and see the time needed to go there
- put this destination as starting point and the "correct" destination -> in the current version, the winds considered are wrong, the purpose of the "personal timeshift" option is to correct this.
At the end, we could see the differences between the two options and decide on our own.
During the last Transpacific race, I felt going to the North was a potential good bet, and at the end, it was (I finished ~200th without options, my personal best ;)), but I would have tested other bets in other races with such an option (I'm playing for fun, not for competition).
We saw it IRL during one of the leg of last Figaro race if my memory is good, one or two skippers did not take the same route as the others (but were not well paid for it...).

Another option would be to force zezo by adding stages between starting and arrival points, but with the gates and other blockages, it seems to be difficult.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

14 Comments

Post by zezo | 2017-10-28 | 00:15:24

I'm too tired to actually read the entire post right now, but:

Yes, the timeshift is trivial to implement server-side, it's already there. The hard part for me, as with most features is the user interface.

Actually, I was thinking yesterday when rounding the Porto Santo island myself, about the simplest possible approach - Get a "Route from here" option when clicking on a black dot, that also includes the appropriate time shift.

Post by turb | 2017-10-28 | 00:24:54

No problem ;)
What you suggest would perfectly do the job I had in mind, without forcing the user to manually put the timeshift.
Another use I forgot to mention is the one you give : after a buoy, we generally drastically change the route, and if we have to pass it at let's say 3 AM, we would be able to program our route in the perfect angle.

Post by toxcct | 2017-11-06 | 14:19:07

I'm reading this a bit late, but yes, that would definitely be a nice feature to have, as I've often wanted to have it, but fearing to ask you :p

Post by zezo | 2017-11-06 | 18:13:44

If you help with the UI I'll do the backend. I know you can ;-)

Seriously speaking, I need about 10 days of recovery after yesterday's effort around the start and the betas.

I also need a UI redesign. Ideas/mockups/code will be appreciated.

Also a front-end redesign.

One of the ideas is switching the graphics to SVG. It could be a day of work for someone with the required experience. The router executable prints a pure text output as track and isochrones as comma/space delimited lon/lat pairs.

Post by toxcct | 2017-11-10 | 14:22:41

Hi Cvetan,

Replying on this again, late again :)

It would be my pleasure to help on this, but you know, I'm not a UI guy either... HTML with simple CSS is one thing, dealing with Canvas and SVG is way beyond my knowledge ^^
(And thank you for that, I already learnt a lot understanding your polars).

Are you planning to redesign the entire "router" UI ?

Post by zezo | 2017-11-10 | 14:57:42

Well, I'm a sysadmin/engineer by trade. My entire html/css/js experience comes from this project ;-)

I think the svg code can be hacked together in 50-100 lines total, in the end you just have to convert/map the coordinate system from lat/lon to the screen x/y (which is still a linear transform) and anchor the origin.

The SVG could allow for some neat tricks like clickable/highlightable isochrones.

About the entire UI - it's the limiting factor for some features. You can't keep sticking new buttons on the screen, especially for the mobile version. The desktop could be extended with few more simple buttons in the top row. It can be totally redesigned without touching a line of server-side code, because the page is template-based.

Post by TomekN_zegluj_net | 2017-11-06 | 17:38:16

Hi Cvetan,

Please do it!

;-)

Best regards from Poland.

Post by SailorSam | 2017-11-06 | 18:41:55

Hi Cvetan I'm new to zezo. Can you confirm which options to check if you bought everything on offer - sails, foils, polish and winches.

Many thanks

Post by zezo | 2017-11-06 | 18:52:58

Pro sails and foils. Polish is implied in the pro sails.

In the beta/testing versions polish goes with the full sail pack, but those 0.3% can really be ignored for routing purposes.

Post by headless_monkeyman | 2017-11-25 | 02:18:48

Post by grantmk | 2017-11-30 | 10:11:17

Sorry, newbie post (both to the game and Zezo), what is timeshift and how does it work?

Post by zezo | 2017-11-30 | 10:47:44

The current implementation (checkbox in the right mouse menu) just moves the track/forecast start time to the leg/race actual start time so you can plan in advance. The discussion here is about arbitrary time setting that would allow you to play "what are the options if I'm here in 3 days"

Post by Ursus Maritimus | 2017-11-30 | 21:06:08

yeah, that would be really nice!
or some other option to explore different strategic options yourself, using the router to calculate them base on current weather forecast.

Post by YourMomSA | 2017-11-30 | 23:50:43

FWIW, I think the ideal for what people are discussing here would actually be to give the user a way to set intermediate waypoints. Finish is at Z. Boat is at W. Natural routing is to go W-Z. If the user could set waypoints at X and Y, then the revised routing would be for W-X-Y-Z. User could then compare that to W-Z, allowing them to see how much risk their alternative route has versus W-Z.

But a personal timeshift would allow the user to piece it together if it's easier to implement (and I'm guessing it is). Set destination at X, note the transit time. Set start at X and destination at Y with transit time as personal timeshift. Note cumulative transit time. Set start at Y and destination at Z with cumulative personal timeshift. Same end result, but in 3 pieces with a bit more work required.

The place where a personal timeshift would be superior to waypoints would be in the record attempts with flexible start times.

Just offering ideas. I'm very happy with everything Cvetan does, and won't be disappointed if he decides these concepts would be overboard. Hopefully someone with the skills he's asking for above will volunteer to assist. I have a feeling he's a great guy to work with and the experience would be a fun use of one's spare time.