Every time we race against a opponent online his skin, skin locator file and avatar are transfered to your computer and stored in the games cache. This is not a problem if we always race against the same opponents or they are using the default skins. As nowdays nearly all but the newbies have a skin it means every game we play new skins are added to our cache and older ones overwritten. As skin files can be relitively heavy in a large fleet race a lot of data is therefore transfered via the connection then overwritten on your computer. For online gaming anything that reduces your available bandwidth is not good.
The default setting for the cache is 200Mb. but this can be altered to in the advanced settingsto a maximum of 4096Mb. I use 1000Mb. and the skins of people I see regularily on the water are there in most cases.
The cache as I said contains skins, these can be accessed and placed into our boat folders if you want a copy of a particular skin! Neat... but don't forget to ask the owner permission to use it. 99.99% of players will agree so ask whilst in the game, they will probably email it to you. This is quicker and easier than sifting through all the files in the cache!!
Laylines in VSK5
How do we accurately judge when to tack and gybe?
With the in game views
F3 and F7 give an aproximate guide upwind (90 degrees to boat)
F4 and F6 give an aproximate guide downwind (45 degrees to boat)
Approximate may mean quite a few positions lost at the mark!
To be more accurate all the information is there on the head up display (VSK4 sim fans know this already)
Assume we are sailing at 35 degrees to the wind and our heading is 0 degrees on starboard tack.
When we gybe to port our new heading will be 70 degrees!
When the cnm = 70 thats the layline!
On port tack
twa x 2 - hdg = the new heading (if <0 add 360)
On starboard tack
twa x 2 + hdg = the new heading (if >360 subtract 360)
So to tack accurately
the new heading = cnm!
Also downwind at 160 degrees to the wind and our heading is 0 degrees on port tack.
When we tack to starboard our new heading will be 40 degrees!
When the cnm = 40 thats the layline!
On port tack
180 - twa x 2 + hdg = the new heading (if >360 subtract 360)
On starboard tack
180 - twa x 2 - hdg = the new heading (if <0 add 360)
So to gybe accurately
the new heading = cnm!
These formulae I have devised to demonstrate the principal are a lot more complicated than it really is in practice.
Cnm changing more quickly is also an indication that we are approching the layline!
Shortfalls
With gate marks or finish line cnm is only given for the centre point between the 2 marks!!
Currents can add a deviation.
Wind changes natuarally