A separate setting for water state

[Lace]

The simple compromise, which I've mentioned on other similar threads is to disassociate swell with chop.  Chop can be linked to wind, as in real life, and swell can be independently set.  Chop is largely cosmetic, and swell effects the vessel pitching, rolling and heaving movement.

[pepin1234]

I'm right now stuck on that. an option for waves is needed. 

[Dragon1-1]

On 6/22/2023 at 8:33 PM, Ironhand said:

Either they’re not correct or I’m using them incorrectly. Either can be true. A 40 mile fetch was much smaller than what I was using.

There's a lot more to wave dynamics than wind. For instance, I sail the Baltic, and there the waves are shorter, but more frequent. Perfect for making the crew line up on the rail on a regular basis for the first one or two days, especially on one of those plastic tubs designed for summer cruises in Mediterranean. OTOH, they're not likely to swallow your yacht whole even in a storm, which is a risk when the Atlantic gets rollin'.

Also, there's nothing worse than the swell after a storm, when you get little to no wind, and the waves are still high, because the swell lags behind the wind a fair bit. At that point, you can expect even the captain to routinely pay respects to Neptune, as we say, even if he's been at sea for half a year by then.  Swell coming from a different direction than the wind, or bouncing off land or a shoal and crisscrossing (not rare on Baltic, with all its islands and shallows), is also annoying, because there's no good way to steer so that the waves don't throw the boat around as much. 

Generally, water has a lot of mass and therefore a lot of inertia, and when it starts waving, it takes a while to stop. Changes in wind strength and direction take a while to be reflected in the sea state. Beaufort scale wave height references are for a steady wind in the middle of open ocean (where, admittedly, it tends to be steady). Close to shore, especially on an inland sea, things get funny.

I'm not going anywhere near Black Sea until it's thoroughly demined and the coast cleared, but I'd love to afterward. Being a rather small sea it's probably more like the Baltic than Mediterranean, but every sea has its own peculiarities.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Dragon1-1

[Kappa-131st]

UP, a slide to set the waves size (with a checkbox to synchronyse / desynchronise to the wind) will be a must have.

It is not for making wind with calm sea, but the opposite, making big wave with moderate wind (for landing on heliports ships !)

Edited October 18, 2024 by Kappa-131st

[schurem]

Up!

[Furia]

Please!

[waterman]

On 10/16/2024 at 7:52 AM, Kappa-131st said:

It is not for making wind with calm sea, but the opposite, making big wave with moderate wind (for landing on heliports ships !)

Yes it would be great to adjust this - I have lived on the coast for 50 years.

You can have very strong wind and the ocean has no swell and is flat as a pancake.

Zero wind and 3 metre swell from a distant cyclone with surf rolling in neat lines ( sets ) makes it easier to catch waves surfing.

off shore breeze with 3 metre swell with the surf tops being sprayed off ( ideal as it holds up the breaking wave longer for surfing )

Large swell from distant cyclone and strong wind = Washing Machine effect - waves breaking from many directions and very messy and dangerous - red no swimming flags up beach closed.

This could also be usefull infomation for when the Hawian Islands get built in DCS !

Aloha from Australia !

[Kappa-131st]

up

[TGP14]

+1, 

On 6/23/2023 at 12:01 PM, Lace said:

The simple compromise, which I've mentioned on other similar threads is to disassociate swell with chop.  Chop can be linked to wind, as in real life, and swell can be independently set.  Chop is largely cosmetic, and swell effects the vessel pitching, rolling and heaving movement.

The above quote seems the most practical, this would keep things visually and physically in sync and would make naval ops far more immersive.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

The new trailer for the competition showed sea states that look better than the ones we have in DCS, and you likely won’t need to set 50-60 knot winds at 500m for those to happen…

[MAXsenna]

8 minutes ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

The new trailer for the competition showed sea states that look better than the ones we have in DCS, and you likely won’t need to set 50-60 knot winds at 500m for those to happen…

I just watched it!

[draconus]

Please, share the link.

[MAXsenna]

Please, share the link.

That will be breaking the rules. Let's say they've set a new "benchmark" for sea swelling. Just search on YT for 4.38 release trailer.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[draconus]

Just now, MAXsenna said:

4.38

Oh, that competition  I was looking for "DCS competition trailer". Thx.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

1 minute ago, draconus said:

Oh, that competition

Yes, *THAT* competition: I was trying to choose my words carefully to avoid naughty points

[Lace]

49 minutes ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

Yes, *THAT* competition: I was trying to choose my words carefully to avoid naughty points

Yes, it does look rather good, doesn't it. 

[Ironhand]

Hmmm…MiG-29…

[Honez]

Hey guys — I need to jump in here and voice my thoughts on this.

It seems like a lot of folks are getting hung up on the physics of the ocean and trying to explain how the real ocean works. Honestly — I don’t think anyone is asking for an accurate ocean wave simulator here.

As a mission builder, the feedback I get from my crew is simple: they want cool-looking seas for immersion, without having to crank wind speeds up to ridiculous, unflyable levels just to get decent wave visuals. And I 100% agree with them.

DCS already did a great job giving us a set of cloud presets that look awesome without forcing mission builders to match them with dangerous, gameplay-breaking weather. For example — I can drop in a big thunderstorm from the cloud library, and it doesn't require me to set hurricane-force winds to match. It’s about visual storytelling and immersion.

So to the DCS dev team: please don’t waste time coding realistic ocean physics, currents, and all that. Just give us a visual sea state picker — like the cloud presets — so we can set the look of the water to fit our mission atmosphere.

It’s a game. It’s about fun, immersion, and giving mission builders more creative tools — not turning DCS into a naval hydrodynamics lab.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

4 minutes ago, Honez said:

So to the DCS dev team: please don’t waste time coding realistic ocean physics, currents, and all that

They already said they are not going to do that: it’s the main reason why we won’t get a full-fidelity SH-3.

[Honez]

I didn't know that, it's a shame! It would have made a lot of pepps happy.

[draconus]

2 hours ago, Honez said:

immersion

Immersion is gone when you can set unrealistic weather so it's not going to be a simple wave height setting but neither the ocean simulator.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

[Kappa-131st]

On 6/30/2025 at 7:10 PM, Honez said:

Hey guys — I need to jump in here and voice my thoughts on this.

It seems like a lot of folks are getting hung up on the physics of the ocean and trying to explain how the real ocean works. Honestly — I don’t think anyone is asking for an accurate ocean wave simulator here.

As a mission builder, the feedback I get from my crew is simple: they want cool-looking seas for immersion, without having to crank wind speeds up to ridiculous, unflyable levels just to get decent wave visuals. And I 100% agree with them.

DCS already did a great job giving us a set of cloud presets that look awesome without forcing mission builders to match them with dangerous, gameplay-breaking weather. For example — I can drop in a big thunderstorm from the cloud library, and it doesn't require me to set hurricane-force winds to match. It’s about visual storytelling and immersion.

So to the DCS dev team: please don’t waste time coding realistic ocean physics, currents, and all that. Just give us a visual sea state picker — like the cloud presets — so we can set the look of the water to fit our mission atmosphere.

It’s a game. It’s about fun, immersion, and giving mission builders more creative tools — not turning DCS into a naval hydrodynamics lab.

It must be something like that : 

 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Yes, or simply selectable sea state 1-9 (as in those pictures above) as that seems to be officially recognised and thus more likely to be approved by ED I’d think…

[skywalker22]

With the new map of Marianas WWII and warbirds dogfights its so damn hard to define the distance between yourself and the water, since is looks so calm down there, there are no swells on the sea, or bairly anything. So there is almost no perception how much margin you still have before hitting the water. Would be really cool to do something about it ED.

Please ED, now its about time to grant this long awaiting wish 

Edited Friday at 06:11 AM by skywalker22