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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Let's talk boats: an advocation for realistic sail plans
PavlovDead
Member
I'd like to talk about in-game boats, and more specifically their sails. This may seem like a pedantic topic to some (and may be!), but I suspect that the people who will care the most about how ships look in-game will also be the sort of people who care about how ships work in general. To that end, I think it's worth having a look at the details we've seen about ships so far, and how they compare to how actual ships are laid out. I'm going to be doing a lot of critiquing of concept art and WIP assets, which are clearly not meant to be 1-for-1 with the finished products. This is intentional though, because it is much easier for developers to implement feedback before their assets are finished than it is afterwards.
For brevity, the short version of my argument goes like this:
I would like to make an appeal in favor of historical accuracy with regards to the sail plans of ship assets being made for this game. This is not because historical accuracy to our world is particularly important for an MMO in a fantasy setting, but because sailing ships function much like complex pieces of machinery. It's not always intuitive or obvious why they look they way that they do, and therefor it is easy (and common) for game designers to end up producing sailing ships that don't make much sense from a functional perspective, or even with regard to the laws of physics. The easiest way to avoid this is to find reference images of real ships, and copy how their sails are arranged closely. There are a wide array of interesting sail layouts already out there, so this shouldn't hinder attaining visual variety.
The long version of my argument goes like this:
I was recently looking at the May 2022 dynamic weather showcase, which contained a sailing vessel that looks like this:
While it's pretty good aesthetically, I noticed an issue that I've seen before with video game ships. I'm going to try to be light with the nautical terminology (because it's all very silly, and there is a lot of it) but I'm going to have to use at least a little. In this case, here are the three types of sails you can see in the above image:
In addition a "spar" is a long piece of wood that sticks out from a ship, usually to tie a rope or sail to. Different types have different silly names, but I'm just going to call them spars.
The problem with the ship in the stream can be better seen with the concept art for a backer ship called the Dragonborne's Maid:
This is in general a good design for a ship. You'd call this a "topsail schooner", and you can see the inspiration from the real ship above. The problem comes from how gaff sails connect to a mast. Here's what it looks like up close:
Notice that the connection wraps around the entirety of the mast, and that it has roller bearings, because it needs to freely slide up and down the mast to raise and lower the sails. Now notice how the spars are located on our real and concept art ships:
In our real ship, the jaws of the gaff spar are below the square sail spars, because the square sail spars are pressed flush against the mast, and the gaff spar wouldn't be able to slide past. You'll consistently see this on every real ship that uses both gaff and square sails, it's just a matter of mechanical operation. On the Dragonborne's Maid you can see that the gaff extends above at least one other spar, which would make the gaff almost impossible to lower. One might argue that this is just a matter of the concept art being loose with the design, but the same issue is present in the weather showcase ship, which had at least made it to a 3d model.
The solution for the dragonborne's maid is simple: you move the spars a little to make it looks like the reference ship. For the showcase ship, you would probably need to change the design somewhat more. As best I can tell it was attempting to mimic a brig or brigantine:
In these the rear gaff is smaller, to fit under the square sails, and the forward gaff is replaced with "staysails", the (usually) triangular sails often seen in the front of ships.
So having noticed this issue with the showcase ship, I set off to the wiki to see what other ship design had been advertised over the years. I'm going to bring some up here, talk about their issues, and give some recommendations based on real ships.
These are the Glory Redeamed, the Gilded Galleon, the Trader Ship, and the Grimsail. The problem with these is all the same. They appear to be large, later european style ships, but only have square sails (the Grimsail might have a lateen at the back, it's hard to tell). This makes them look somewhat like a medieval Cog:
If the intent is to have these ships look like early medieval trade vessels, then these designs are mostly fine. If they are meant to look like real age-of-sail ships, then they have a problem. The problem with cogs is that square sails only work well when the wind is at your back, so these sorts of ships spent most of their time in port waiting for favorable winds. Unless the concept ships above are meant to be ponderous, unmaneuverable vessels, they would realistically have some staysails, which would give them a lot more versatility in different winds.
The Cygnus Galleon is the opposite, in that it's only appearing to use staysails, apparently to evoke the sense of "swan wings". This isn't actually much of a problem though. I've placed it next to a "Staysail Schooner", which also primarily uses staysails. The orientation of the staysails in the Cygnus is unusual, but I think they would still work even placed like that. It would probably want at least one other type of sail somewhere though, like how the above reference image has a "Bermuda" sail in the rear.
The "Eternal Guardian of the Dark Seas", and the Flamefin Frigate are both also trying to evoke the sense of wings, but their method is a lot less practical than the Cygnus. I'm pretty sure the extra masts protruding out the sides would snap under the forces they're placed under, and even if they didn't, they wouldn't be very effective at actually catching wind to move the ship forward (and I'm worried they would end up looking somewhat silly when fully in 3D). If you're trying to give a sense of "wings" I might suggest something like this:
This ship to the left here has a style of Chinese "junk" sails, which it has splayed out to the left and right in a butterfly style in order to catch the wind coming from behind it. It's about as close to dragon wings as you're going to get on a ship that actually sails. Notice that the right picture is the exact same ship though, just from a different angle and with sails reoriented. The ship still has its masts in the usual places, with the "wings spread" appearance only there when looking at it from the front or back. Mediterranean style "Lateen" sails can also do this if a slightly different look is desired:
(These might also go well on the Cygnus)
The Wind's Veil is obviously inspired after east-asian vessels. The frontal junk sail seems fine, though it's a little more crinkled than a real one, and it should have some sign of the characteristic rods which hold the sail in shape. In the rear there are two small junk sails, where a real ship would only have one (it is common to have a small one back there though). I think one reason you wouldn't have two sails out like that is that junk sails are usually "unstayed" which means that they don't have tensioning lines keeping the masts stable like in western ships. This means the masts on junks have to go through the deck and embed themselves into the keel of the boat in order to keep stable. I think the small sails in the concept might just snap off in a stiff breeze.
The Star Chaser and the Shimir both look to be galleys. It's difficult to make out the sails on the Star Chaser to the left there. I kind of looks like the sails are being held up without a spar on their top edges, but that could just be a trick of the light. Otherwise no complaints. For the Shimir, it looks like they're trying to evoke the sense of a pyramid for this Egyptian inspired ship. The only problem I can notice is that the rearmost sail looks like a lateen sail that's been flipped around and placed so that there's no way it could balance against the mast. There's an easy fix though: if you move the spar on the top of the sail to its bottom instead, it becomes a bermuda sail, which would work just fine while keeping the pyramid shape.
I'd like to give a shout out to a similar ship though, the Xebec (shown in model because they don't really exist anymore):
These were some of the most notorious pirate ships in history, and have an iconic, aggressive look to them. Note how the frontmost mast actually leans forward to let the lateen stick out farther.
The Grave Galleon is in fact a galleon, meaning it has two square rigged masts and one lateen rigged mast. The masts are in the wrong order though. The lateen is supposed to be the rearmost one so it can be used to steer.
Both the Twin Hunters and the Voyager Speed Skiff appear to be outriggers inspired by Austronesian vessels with crab claw sails. Unfortunately neither of these appear to have placed the sail correctly. The crab claw sail is a weird design, where to change direction you actually pick up and move the sail across the ship. The Speed Skiff appears have its sail fixed in place, and the wrong corner of the sail is attached to the hull. The Twin Hunter sails appear to be on the wrong side of the mast, and when there are multiple sails on one ship, I believe those sails should be on the same side of the boat. As an alternative, one could also take inspiration from the hawaian crab claw sail:
These ones actually function around a fixed mast, and don't require you to detach your sails to turn. They also look really neat. There is also the tanja sail:
Which is maybe the weirdest looking sail still in use. Don't ask me how though, I'm still surprised they work at all.
Lastly we have the Coral Corser, which appears to be based on a fever dream. The primary problem I see with this one is that a 3d modeler is going to have to model it in euclidean space. You might consider manipulating the local spacetime around this vessel into a hyperbolic curvature to make this more practical. Alternatively the sailplan as presented could be charitably interpreted as a "suggestion".
Now, what was the point of all of this nit picking? You could take it as just a collection of suggestions for the specific vessels as presented, and I suppose that would be fine. On the other hand I think both these and future issues could be addressed with a change in methodology. Ships are complicated. I don't expect the development team to get a degree on the matter (although, contacting a consultant with one might be useful). What I'm trying to express is that it's very difficult to invent a new way for a ship to function and have it appear reasonable to anyone who cares. The best way to avoid these kinds of issues for sails in particular is simply to copy a design that we know people in the real world have used. If it's been in use, then obviously it works to some extent. Hopefully I've shown that there are enough real sailplans out there that physics defying ones aren't entirely necessary.
And that way the boat nerds can remain mostly quiet and mostly happy.
For brevity, the short version of my argument goes like this:
I would like to make an appeal in favor of historical accuracy with regards to the sail plans of ship assets being made for this game. This is not because historical accuracy to our world is particularly important for an MMO in a fantasy setting, but because sailing ships function much like complex pieces of machinery. It's not always intuitive or obvious why they look they way that they do, and therefor it is easy (and common) for game designers to end up producing sailing ships that don't make much sense from a functional perspective, or even with regard to the laws of physics. The easiest way to avoid this is to find reference images of real ships, and copy how their sails are arranged closely. There are a wide array of interesting sail layouts already out there, so this shouldn't hinder attaining visual variety.
The long version of my argument goes like this:
I was recently looking at the May 2022 dynamic weather showcase, which contained a sailing vessel that looks like this:
While it's pretty good aesthetically, I noticed an issue that I've seen before with video game ships. I'm going to try to be light with the nautical terminology (because it's all very silly, and there is a lot of it) but I'm going to have to use at least a little. In this case, here are the three types of sails you can see in the above image:
In addition a "spar" is a long piece of wood that sticks out from a ship, usually to tie a rope or sail to. Different types have different silly names, but I'm just going to call them spars.
The problem with the ship in the stream can be better seen with the concept art for a backer ship called the Dragonborne's Maid:
This is in general a good design for a ship. You'd call this a "topsail schooner", and you can see the inspiration from the real ship above. The problem comes from how gaff sails connect to a mast. Here's what it looks like up close:
Notice that the connection wraps around the entirety of the mast, and that it has roller bearings, because it needs to freely slide up and down the mast to raise and lower the sails. Now notice how the spars are located on our real and concept art ships:
In our real ship, the jaws of the gaff spar are below the square sail spars, because the square sail spars are pressed flush against the mast, and the gaff spar wouldn't be able to slide past. You'll consistently see this on every real ship that uses both gaff and square sails, it's just a matter of mechanical operation. On the Dragonborne's Maid you can see that the gaff extends above at least one other spar, which would make the gaff almost impossible to lower. One might argue that this is just a matter of the concept art being loose with the design, but the same issue is present in the weather showcase ship, which had at least made it to a 3d model.
The solution for the dragonborne's maid is simple: you move the spars a little to make it looks like the reference ship. For the showcase ship, you would probably need to change the design somewhat more. As best I can tell it was attempting to mimic a brig or brigantine:
In these the rear gaff is smaller, to fit under the square sails, and the forward gaff is replaced with "staysails", the (usually) triangular sails often seen in the front of ships.
So having noticed this issue with the showcase ship, I set off to the wiki to see what other ship design had been advertised over the years. I'm going to bring some up here, talk about their issues, and give some recommendations based on real ships.
These are the Glory Redeamed, the Gilded Galleon, the Trader Ship, and the Grimsail. The problem with these is all the same. They appear to be large, later european style ships, but only have square sails (the Grimsail might have a lateen at the back, it's hard to tell). This makes them look somewhat like a medieval Cog:
If the intent is to have these ships look like early medieval trade vessels, then these designs are mostly fine. If they are meant to look like real age-of-sail ships, then they have a problem. The problem with cogs is that square sails only work well when the wind is at your back, so these sorts of ships spent most of their time in port waiting for favorable winds. Unless the concept ships above are meant to be ponderous, unmaneuverable vessels, they would realistically have some staysails, which would give them a lot more versatility in different winds.
The Cygnus Galleon is the opposite, in that it's only appearing to use staysails, apparently to evoke the sense of "swan wings". This isn't actually much of a problem though. I've placed it next to a "Staysail Schooner", which also primarily uses staysails. The orientation of the staysails in the Cygnus is unusual, but I think they would still work even placed like that. It would probably want at least one other type of sail somewhere though, like how the above reference image has a "Bermuda" sail in the rear.
The "Eternal Guardian of the Dark Seas", and the Flamefin Frigate are both also trying to evoke the sense of wings, but their method is a lot less practical than the Cygnus. I'm pretty sure the extra masts protruding out the sides would snap under the forces they're placed under, and even if they didn't, they wouldn't be very effective at actually catching wind to move the ship forward (and I'm worried they would end up looking somewhat silly when fully in 3D). If you're trying to give a sense of "wings" I might suggest something like this:
This ship to the left here has a style of Chinese "junk" sails, which it has splayed out to the left and right in a butterfly style in order to catch the wind coming from behind it. It's about as close to dragon wings as you're going to get on a ship that actually sails. Notice that the right picture is the exact same ship though, just from a different angle and with sails reoriented. The ship still has its masts in the usual places, with the "wings spread" appearance only there when looking at it from the front or back. Mediterranean style "Lateen" sails can also do this if a slightly different look is desired:
(These might also go well on the Cygnus)
The Wind's Veil is obviously inspired after east-asian vessels. The frontal junk sail seems fine, though it's a little more crinkled than a real one, and it should have some sign of the characteristic rods which hold the sail in shape. In the rear there are two small junk sails, where a real ship would only have one (it is common to have a small one back there though). I think one reason you wouldn't have two sails out like that is that junk sails are usually "unstayed" which means that they don't have tensioning lines keeping the masts stable like in western ships. This means the masts on junks have to go through the deck and embed themselves into the keel of the boat in order to keep stable. I think the small sails in the concept might just snap off in a stiff breeze.
The Star Chaser and the Shimir both look to be galleys. It's difficult to make out the sails on the Star Chaser to the left there. I kind of looks like the sails are being held up without a spar on their top edges, but that could just be a trick of the light. Otherwise no complaints. For the Shimir, it looks like they're trying to evoke the sense of a pyramid for this Egyptian inspired ship. The only problem I can notice is that the rearmost sail looks like a lateen sail that's been flipped around and placed so that there's no way it could balance against the mast. There's an easy fix though: if you move the spar on the top of the sail to its bottom instead, it becomes a bermuda sail, which would work just fine while keeping the pyramid shape.
I'd like to give a shout out to a similar ship though, the Xebec (shown in model because they don't really exist anymore):
These were some of the most notorious pirate ships in history, and have an iconic, aggressive look to them. Note how the frontmost mast actually leans forward to let the lateen stick out farther.
The Grave Galleon is in fact a galleon, meaning it has two square rigged masts and one lateen rigged mast. The masts are in the wrong order though. The lateen is supposed to be the rearmost one so it can be used to steer.
Both the Twin Hunters and the Voyager Speed Skiff appear to be outriggers inspired by Austronesian vessels with crab claw sails. Unfortunately neither of these appear to have placed the sail correctly. The crab claw sail is a weird design, where to change direction you actually pick up and move the sail across the ship. The Speed Skiff appears have its sail fixed in place, and the wrong corner of the sail is attached to the hull. The Twin Hunter sails appear to be on the wrong side of the mast, and when there are multiple sails on one ship, I believe those sails should be on the same side of the boat. As an alternative, one could also take inspiration from the hawaian crab claw sail:
These ones actually function around a fixed mast, and don't require you to detach your sails to turn. They also look really neat. There is also the tanja sail:
Which is maybe the weirdest looking sail still in use. Don't ask me how though, I'm still surprised they work at all.
Lastly we have the Coral Corser, which appears to be based on a fever dream. The primary problem I see with this one is that a 3d modeler is going to have to model it in euclidean space. You might consider manipulating the local spacetime around this vessel into a hyperbolic curvature to make this more practical. Alternatively the sailplan as presented could be charitably interpreted as a "suggestion".
Now, what was the point of all of this nit picking? You could take it as just a collection of suggestions for the specific vessels as presented, and I suppose that would be fine. On the other hand I think both these and future issues could be addressed with a change in methodology. Ships are complicated. I don't expect the development team to get a degree on the matter (although, contacting a consultant with one might be useful). What I'm trying to express is that it's very difficult to invent a new way for a ship to function and have it appear reasonable to anyone who cares. The best way to avoid these kinds of issues for sails in particular is simply to copy a design that we know people in the real world have used. If it's been in use, then obviously it works to some extent. Hopefully I've shown that there are enough real sailplans out there that physics defying ones aren't entirely necessary.
And that way the boat nerds can remain mostly quiet and mostly happy.
20
Comments
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
Heh heh ehh...
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
from body anatomy, to medieval armor/weapon experts, to phisics, weather, veichles, food,
if intrepid takes this on.. AoC will never see the light of day and will continue in perpetual development, not everything can/needs to be extremely realistic and detailed, we just want a good game
True. The first post is actually cool, but it looks like something that should be implemented in the forthcoming updates after the launch. Not before the launch, as I believe the majority of player base would prefer to play AoC not from nursing home
My hope is that they are at a stage of development where ships have not been a priority, and therefor haven't had much work done on them yet. I think the only watercraft that's in a complete enough state that they've cared to show us up close is the caravan raft. Even the 3d model from the weather showcase is only seen at a great distance, which makes me think that it's really a low-res mockup.
If that's the case, I don't think what I'm suggesting is really much additional work. Despite how wordy I've been, I'm really only suggesting that they use good reference images (of which I've tried to provide some), and not to take too many liberties with them.
Trust me, sailing is something I want to do in Ashes, but we still haven’t seen some core systems yet.
I hope/believe this is the case! If your detailed post brings just one improvement, then your amazing post was worth it imo!
Thank you for the time and effort you put into the post!
As most have said already in this post though to be accurate in all subjects may prove to be too much of an ask when timelines may be at risk. But as you said maybe for future boat designs this is something that can be taken into consideration if they have not gotten that far in development.
One of the first games I dumped too much time into was Sid Meier's Pirates! (the original, before the dancing was added).
Not only did you have to know which sail type your ship had but also the direction of the wind - Sailing downwind was relatively fast with square-rigged sails which caught more of the wind, while sailing upwind severely curtailed your speed unless you had staysails.
Would like to see sails types and wind speed/direction added, if nothing else just at a basic level.
Oh trust me, I'm a big fan of games like Sailwind, where you're pulling on individual ropes, but I've found that your average person is really put off by the idea. Even just the idea of tacking seems annoy of a lot of people. Any game that doesn't let you sail directly into the wind inevitably gets quite a few people complaining about it.
I've come to the conclusion that these sorts of mechanics are best relegated to niche games for people who actually enjoy them, and that most games are better off with an "arcade" experience. Nobody seems to complain about real looking ships though, so that's why I'm hoping we can get some of those.
That's a real thing!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=nHA9P3dQ4jY
The ship on the right appears to be an updated model of the old ship that got this thread going. They've removed most of the square sails, except for the topsail on the foremast, along with some other minor changes in proportion. This is a real sailplan now! The staysails on the front still look a little oddly proportioned, but that's a much more minor issue. I'm not sure if this thread in particular had an impact, but regardless, this is a move in the right direction.
Solid work
Are there any games that you feel have nailed the accuracy of ships and sails?
You didn't mention, but the experience of *Sailing* you will obviously be aware that Sea of Thieves is considered the gold standard. I am certain that if Ashes was capable of creating that experience they would, but going by the raft I saw in the Caravan showcase, I think the water movement isn't intended to have the usual water physics i'd expect but since we've only seen a raft I stand to be corrected!
This is some AMAZING Work you put into this Opening Comment/Topic. Well done.
There have been S~OOOOOooooooo many Years as of now - around Twenty, in fact - where i as a VideoGamer dreamt of supporting my fellow Players, Guildmates, Allies, etc. - as a hard-working Craftsman ingame, a Miner, a Shipyard-Piece-worker, a Ressource Gatherer, whatever.
But in the end ... ...
... ... ... not one single Situation where i was EVER needed - came to pass ... ... ... ... ... and i didn't play early ArcheAge 1 when it was apparently a LOT like so.
There was just never this Feeling, this "Situation" - of belonging. Holy damn if i could be part of a huge Community Group, Guild-Alliance, whatever - which can constantly and i mean CONSTANTLY - around the Clock, support and help out my Allies and Friends with,
that would be great. Not a single other VideoGame - ESPECIALLY MMO's, apparently dared to try this for real. I mean okay "Planetside II" tried for a little while - but in the End that Game stayed Pay to Win and this is not really what a truly good Game should aim for.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
The game I can think of that best represented real sailing ships is probably Naval Action. It's a kind of age-of-sail mmo-ish sandbox game. I think all of the ships in it are pretty laborious recreations of specific real ships. Unfortunately Naval Action is just not a very good game, so I can't actually recommend it to anyone.
The game Sailwind is notable for having you tugging on individual ropes to move your sails around, but is a little looser with sail layout (it also lets you have gaffs conflicting with square sails in weird ways). Its better at actually being a game though (so long as you are fine with gameplay mostly consisting of pulling on ropes).
There's also an in-development game called Following Seas I've been following, which doesn't have a demo out, but is similar to Sailwind in the tugging-on-ropes aspect, and in the dev diaries is notable for having *really* good sail physics. You can find the dev youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdo7f0qrl4gUW5adGbHGAw
I understand what you mean, but I really do think there’s room for something in the middle. Valheim, to me, is the gold standard of small scale sailing. My favorite moments in that game were managing the ship against wind direction and dealing with realistic turning mechanics while facing coastal enemies or being chased by a sea serpent with a load of cargo under my feet. Really makes sailing seem like a dangerous activity, but makes the rewards feel that much more earned. I know it’s not an MMO, but if any of that can be taken, or expanded upon with the same spirit for larger scale vessels, I’d be happy to see it. Perhaps requiring other players to be on board with you, or a hired NPC crew if you want to sail vessels that would be impossible to captain alone.
Pulling on individual ropes would be a bit monotonous, I think certain little things like that would need to be automated or bundled into other actions. But that’s what a video game is supposed to do well. Take real (or fantasized) experiences and make it feel as close as possible to the real thing without the annoying fiddly bits.
To me, tank controls don’t make sailing feel anywhere near the real thing. It’s actively immersion breaking and boring because it takes no skill to do and is way too easy for how grand of an experience it’s supposed to be. There should be some risk of screwing it up or being bad for a while before you master the skill and can rely on your abilities to earn the rewards which sailing can offer. There should be a class of players who are far more skilled at it than others who don’t invest the time, even if it’s more like 25% rather than the 1-5% you might see in a highly complex and realistic niche title.
If you start caring about accidental jibing, it’s time to turn off the game and just go sailing.
I agree with this but I'd also want the basics of what sea of thieves has. Not necessarily in the actual game physics, because that's asking alot, but sail control being separate from the helm (at least for medium to large ships), wind directions, and manned artillery. Those in their most basic forms would keep me happy.
I do think small ships should be able to be sailed either alone or with 1-4 people efficiently. But if solo sea content is reserved to just using a water mount I wouldn't be mad about it.
Personally, I think wind speed/direction and proper turning radii for each kind of ship goes a long way to make sailing feel far more realistic and somewhat more skill based without needing to actually control more instruments.
I agree that sail control should be separate from the helm on any ship too large to steer with one hand and manage your mainsheet (the ropes that tighten and loosen the sails on a spectrum between being parallel to the ship and perpendicular to it) with the other. Don't get me wrong though, it doesn't need to be a minigame or something to solo-sail a small craft. The shuffling of mainsheet ropes and movement of the tiller would all just be animations which respond to your A & D / Right-Click-Hold & Pan turning input and W & S speed-management input. Obviously, speed should be a slider with no firm "brake" besides raising the sails entirely and slowly drifting to water-current-speed before dropping anchor. So it's not that complicated to ask for some added flavor there.
On a larger ship where solo-sailing would be impossible, I think sail management definitely needs some additional management system. Having total control over a ship while standing at the helm with no one else on board just sounds like a silly mini-game. Perhaps there can be two tiers of multi-manned ships. The first size upgrade from solo-sailing requires one extra person on deck to man the sails. This can be a hired hand from the docks, or a fellow player. The next size tier requires 2-3 extra people - again, either hired or PCs.
If it's a fellow player, they need to be posted at the sails and channeling on them in order for the captain to be able to adjust ship speed. While channeling, that player will be animated according to the input of the Captain. When the sail-managing-player is away from their post, the ship cannot speed up or slow down unless the captain changes course or leaves the helm to adjust the sails themselves - in which case they can only speed up and slow down, not change course, until they return to the helm. As an additional incentive, when the sails are without someone manned at the post, the ship becomes less efficient when sailing at any angle less than 90 degrees away from the source of the wind, since no one is there to adjust the sail angle.
I personally don't think managing the sail height or angle needs to be a manual task for anyone, but making the absence of an actively channeling player hit the ship's efficiency when adjusting the ship's direction or when the wind direction changes would give a mechanical incentive for that sail-managing-player to stay at their post. In a fight, it gives people the option if they're under-manned. Do you continue fighting while the captain has limited mobility without you at your post, or do you go back and continue channeling on the sails?
If you're paying an NPC(s) to man the sails, then you control everything automatically the same way you would with a solo-vessel - the NPCs just do all the sail-management for you as a series of animations in response to your input. The cost for an NPC crew shouldn't be terribly expensive - as long as you have some purpose for going out in such a large vessel, you should be making more than enough money to pay for it. It just takes a small bite out of that income.
Other than tiller/helm and sail control being separate on anything too large to multitask, the only mechanical adjustments would be added consideration to your facing direction in response to shifting wind speed and direction.
I think a system like this would create options for solo-sailers to enjoy sea content without always needing a crew, while also incentivizing player interactions to secure a PC crew in order to save a bit of cash, adds just enough complexity to ship movement through wind direction/speed and varying turning circles to make sailing feel immersive without being too burdensome to design, execute, or interact with, gives players economic and strategic choices on how to man their ships and how to engage with the ship during combat situations, and makes the overall experience more engaging and rewarding.