Notes & Tips - Index of this page
* Races against AI Boats - Creating Courses
* Having a Coloured Name
* Autohotkey - fast writing in chat
* Graphic Settings
* How to see the Polars & Windshadows
* How do I silence the menu music?
* Cancelling Penalties in online races
Races against AI Boats - Creating Courses
How to create Custom Races (for VSK5 and 32nd America's Cup) which include Computer controlled AI boats with which you can race:
Note that you cannot create or edit course maps with the free version of the game (VSK5Online).
Launch vsk5 and click [play].
When 1st menu screen appears, hold right mouse button down. Then type ‘friends’ while continuing to hold the right mouse button down.
Click [Editors] then [create a race]. Click a Location eg [Isle of Wight] .
Click [Params] - Beside ‘Rules’, make sure [Fleet Race] is showing, if not – click on it until it does.
Click on [None] beside AI Opponents – it will change to [1] - then click on the [1] until the number you want shows, up to 8.
Click on [Easy] beside ‘AI Level’ it will change to [Intermediate]. More clicks will change this to other levels. Then click [OK].
Make course as usual with at least 9 players. Save it with unique name.
Note that if you click on [Play] on this screen, you will not see the AI opponents.
Click on [Exit], then [Yes]. Go back to the Race menu & click [Solo].
Click [Custom Race] and find your saved race (usually it’s in Challenges unless you've made a new folder for it).
Click on the Race and then [OK] in the race menu box and you should now be on the start line with your AI Opponents.
It helps make the AI races more competitive if you play in Arcade mode, which gives a boost in speed to any boats which are behind (10% I think). If you are designing courses yourself, make sure you remember that the AI boats cant 'see' land or traffic and make sure you provide enough buoys to guide them around these obstacles. It helps to space out the starting spawn points so that all the boats don't arrive at the 1st buoy at the same time.
Go to the Settings page in VSK5 and place the cursor just in front of your Nickname. Type $02F in front of your nickname and then click the mouse anywhere else on the screen. You will see that your nickname is now blue. This method can be used to change the colour and format of your name, not only on your PC but also as seen by others in the Multiplayer lists online.
Use the following codes to format your nickname:
$i: italic
$s: shadowed
$w: wide spacing
$n: narrow spacing
$m: normal setting
$g: default color
$t: changes the text to capitals
$z: reset all
$$: to write a "$"
Use the following codes to control the colour.
The three characters after the $ each have the ability to have a value from 0 to f (0123456789abcdef).
The first character represents the red color, the second green and the third blue.
For example:
$000 black
$f00 red
$0f0 green
$00f blue
$ff0 yellow
$f80 orange
$f0f pink
$0ff light blue
$888 grey
$fff white
For example, to write 'My Nickname' with "My" in italic and "Nickname" in large red, you should type $iMy $z$w$f00Nickname
This will produce MyNickname
You can see examples of the colours and a list of their Hex Codes (with an explanation of how to use them), by clicking Here
Autohotkey - fast writing in chat
This is a useful small programme that lets you enter pre-programmed words into the chat box with a press of a single or combination of keys. Firstly you need to download the programme and then once it is installed, you need to have a script file which you activate before you run VSK.
To get you started, you can download my own script file HERE which has a simple collection of handy chat entries in non-coloured text. 'Chameleon' at VSK-AUS has worked on this programme with some colleagues there and has developed a script that means that you simply press the Control key with a letter key and the text will write to the chat box of the VSK window, if it is active. You should not press 'Enter' first, as you do normally.
So before you launch the game, double-click the .ahk script file (I keep mine on my desktop) and then once in the multiplayer game try it out. Eg [Ctrl + G] should put 'Good winds' in the chat (dont forget NOT to press 'Enter'). The list of commands in my script is below; you can easily change it by editing the script file. You get a good help file with the programme.
1:: Restart coming
2:: Restart & go at 1.30 approx
3:: no more restarts
4:: NPC - No Pen Cancel Race
5:: Cancel only wrong pens please
g:: Good winds
h:: Hi all :-)
l:: Last race here ....No next race
n:: NPC - No Pen Cancel Race
o:: Room to tack
p:: proper course please
r:: Room please
s:: Starboard
t:: tacking
w:: Water please
x:: thanks for racing
The frequent question is 'why can't I see the crew on my Acc?'. The answer to this is that it's probably because the game has judged (having looked at the graphics capability of your PC) that your graphics will struggle if the crew is displayed. This can affect either the crew on all the boats, or just the crew on the opposition boats.
If you want to see if it's possible to have the crew shown and still have good game performance, launch game, then click on Configure, then Advanced, then click Customise on the Display tab. Then go to the Game tab and change the drop-down menu for Team mates to have the game show all boats or just 'MyBoat'. Click OK and then Save. You can offset the change you have made by reducing the settings on the other drop-down menus if you need to. Click the thumbnails to see the settings that work on my PC.
Why cant I see the hull?
Some models are made so that they can only be seen when your 'Boats Quality' is set to high. To do this, launch the game and click on 'Configure' and then 'Advanced'. You will probably see on the 'Game' tab that the Boat Quality is less than High. Go back to the 'Display' tab and click on the 'Customise' box to tick it. Then in the 'Game' tab you will be able to access the drop-down menus to change the 'Boat Quality' to High. Click on 'OK', then 'Save'. The hulls should now appear. This issue affects the Orma but not necessarily every model which will be made.
How to see the Polars & Windshadows
If you look at the 1st page of Settings / Inputs, you will see that pressing Keys 8 & 9 will let you see 'Boat Curves' (Polar Diagram) and 'Wind Shadow'. In fact you can't see these during solo or online play. To see them you need to go to Editors and then Edit or Create a Race. Once you have a course with at least a start & finish lines and four or more players, you should click on Play and you will then find that the keys for Boat Curves & Wind Shadows work in this mode.
How do I silence the menu music?
You can replace the media file (Intro01.bik) with a file with a silent sound track. The file is in the location:
C:\Program Files (x86)\VSK5\GameData\Menu\Media\BackgroundTexture. (Substitute your game version for VSK5 if necessary).
You can download a silent Intro01.bik here (It's quite a large file!)
If you make a copy of the original (a good idea), then it is important NOT to save it in the same file folder, even if you re-name it. Two files in the folder will probably cause the game to crash.
Cancelling Penalties in online races
P - Protest (used to ask VSK for judgement, if pens are set to manual mode - this is not common)