Maybe it was the same with the pigs; people just want to see pigs squealing around town, adding to the atmosphere of the game.
On all these other points of sail, the sails are bending the wind around the boat and there is a generally smooth, attached, laminar flow of air on both sides of the sail (if you are doing it right). Even square sails work like this, even though they are not an ideal airfoil shape. This mean the airflow is parallel to the sails. And the flag would also follow this direction and flow close to parallel to the sails as well.
There is a concept of apparent wind. The flags will follow apparent wind which is the vector sum of the true wind plus the boat's velocity. That wind direction, combined with the sails effect of twisting the local wind direction, is the wind that the flag is experiencing.
Generally the play testers are right, blowing straight forward is usually wrong.
here is a picture of a flag blowing on a tall ship that is sailing across the wind: https://sailtraininginternational.org/app/uploads/2016/06/ve...
A normal water wheel moves at nearly the same speed as the water and extracts little useful energy, like sailing DDW.
Note that the energy of the wind is kinetic energy, so taking energy from the wind slows it down.
A Pelton wheel has bowl shaped paddles that, like a spoon under a faucet, redirect the water into the exact opposite direction. The wheel runs so that the rim speed is half the water speed. From the perspective of a single paddle, the water is moving half as fast. From this perspective, the water hits the paddle and reverses to leave at the same speed. From an outside perspective, water hits the wheel and basically stops, transferring all its momentum to the wheel.
Conservation of momentum also explains how Veritasium was able to ~sail DDW faster than the wind with a land propeller craft. The propeller spun fast enough to slow down the wind behind the craft, meaning energy was extracted.
Even more astonishingly are the remote controlled sail planes than not only exceed the speed of the wind, their performance is limited by the sound barrier. "Dynamic soaring" https://newatlas.com/aircraft/dynamic-soaring-speed-record-s...
From what I understand, faster-than-the-wind downwind sailing involves tacking between broad reaches, where the wind still comes in at an angle.
America's Cup foiling boats sail faster than the real wind in any direction (even 3 times as much) so they always experience an apparent wind against them, same as a car or to a lesser degree a bicycle. However they don't have flags, I just checked on videos. They would blow backwards at a small angle, just as on cars.
Against the wind maybe, but I don't see how that's possible sailing before the wind. They're probably never going completely before the wind but instead alternating between broad reaches[0].
[0] I had to look that one up. Sailing terms are one of those things I only know in Dutch, and the English terms are completely alien to me in a way almost nothing else is.
Even AC: Black Flag does this the "wrong" way: https://youtu.be/6JwjuwPW8hg?t=891
It's all very well to claim 'atmosphere', but shit like this ruins the atmosphere for people who notice the details.
Alas, you are in minority there.
I'm going to skip trying to remember all the technical details from the last time I sailed anything and just say that the head is at the head of the boat, but it has nothing to do with "blowing the smells away". Boats do not always sail the direction the wind is blowing. We'd have never got anywhere before marine engines if that were the case.
During the "Age of Sail" those were not common for oceangoing ships, which predominately used square rigged sails and would primarily or exclusively run downwind.
Square masts can sail upwind, it's not as effective but you can get 50 or 55° into the wind.
Sure, they “primarily run downwind”... the same way cars “primarily drive on asphalt.” It's not that they can't drive on gravel or brick or off-road, it's that during the Age of Sail the main priority was swift conveyance and obviously if that's your priority you try to get back on the highway as soon as you can.
(My English sailing terminology might be incorrect; I'm Dutch, and sailing terminology is the only area of language that I only know in Dutch.)
Maybe you missed the context: the comment responded to the claim that it's a "misconception" that "sails work by the wind blowing on them from behind."
Seafarers would not learn how to sail against the wind until the early Christian era. Still, they got somewhere even before that.
You're referring to the Lateen sail that appeared in the eastern Mediterranean as early as 100AD, but it was imported from possibly Egypt or the Persian Gulf, so its origin is older and elusive. But the spritsail can also sail upwind and is far older, only appearing in Greco-Roman navigation in the 2nd century BC.
sea of thieves (rare) does it right. flags fly with the wind.
black wake (mastfire) wrong. flags fly with the boat.
skull and bones (ubisoft) wrong flags fly with boat.
ac black flag (ubisoft) wrong flags fly with boat.
Ship builders of that time did, of course, know how to make more maneuverable ships with different types of rigging. These would all be used for different jobs, eg coastal and fishing.
But for long distance transport, speed with the trade wind was the most important consideration.
That applies to any sailing ship, whether it is manned by pirates or not, of course.
Instead you combine two vectors which on net result in the ship moving in the direction you want on average. But, with noticeable limitations if you also want to avoid obstacles etc.