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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Very nice.

Has anyone made fluid dynamics sailing game yet?

You would need only two controls, trim and rudder (direction instead rudder might be easier to comprehend). Wrong trim and point of sail could broache or even capsize the boat. Oh, and you could add not just the winds but the sea currents and waves also.

Now I'm salivating.

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That is exactly what I am asking. So far I haven't seen such a game. But I think it is easy doable with a few changes. I will remember it as a possible idea for a game entry next year.

The boundary between air and water makes the simulation much more difficult. While you can neglect the effects of air on the water, not having a well defined boundary for where the water simulation ends means that CFD 101 level techniques aren't enough anymore.

Something like this? http://devmgames.com/sillysailing/

I could have sworn in the developer's touch arcade interview that he mentioned having a CFD sim for this game.

I suspect 3D fluid dynamics gets a lot slower a lot more quickly

You don't need 3D fluid dynamics for 2d sailing game.

You would have 3 separate 2d layers for wind, sea currents and then wave layer. The waves don't have to follow the wind, but they they could have specular reflection from the land. It would make sailing in complex archipelago or narrow choke points more realistic.

but how will it know if my sailing by the Lee is faster than the waves?

and I'll lose out of surfing!

One could get a decent experience with "2.5D" fluid dynamics.

Two 2-d planes, one for current and one for wind, and a bit of creative fakery to model sail and keel dynamics.

This could play nicely with some tuning.

You could get pretty realistic lift on the sail from simple (potential or vertex panel) methods. But the drag's gonna be a bitch to get right. And you probably have to neglect wave motion. Would be really fun to try though.

Great fun game! This tech would work great for a top-down whitewater rafting game =) or even a Canoe slalom game (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canoe_slalom)

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