Coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator is a new generation of 4 controllable boats with user-friendly controls, detailed interior, refined textures, water trails, night lights and custom sounds. They are: Atalaia, a Luxury Yacht with two decks, Formosa, an incredible speedboat of great capacity and Nostalgia, a beautiful sailboat with detailed interior below the waterline, with different sail positions. Now you can select sails during the game and Nostalgia has 7 color options. There is also the boat Classic Nostalgia, which is the original version of the boat in its three versions with different sail position in the livery menu.
GENERAL UPDATE 11 - v2.5 10/09/2022
Fixed fuel management system causing engines to shut down after a few minutes of navigation under certain conditions.
GENERAL UPDATE 10 - v2.4: 08/28/2022
Updated 3D models of the Atalaia, Formosa and Nostalgia Classic boats
Added 5 special livery to the Nostalgia Classic boat
Added Multi-Function Tablet in Nostalgia Classic
Added detailed below waterline interior on Yacht Formosa
Added startup and shutdown procedure in sailboat Nostalgia Classic
Updated navigation physics for Atalaia, Formosa and Nostalgia Classic boats
GENERAL UPDATE 9 - v2.2: 15/08/2022
Improvements to Nostalgia Sailboat:
3D model redone
New colors in the livery menu
Detailed interior below the waterline with two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom and suite
Updated navigation physics
Added Multi-Function Tablet for animations of sail, anchor, mooring ropes and lights control
Startup and shutdown procedure
GENERAL UPDATE 8 - v2.1: 07/03/2022
This update re-includes the original Nostalgia sailboat in its 3 versions of sail in the livery menu.
GERERAL UPDATE 7 - v2.0: 03/07/2022
New model of the Nostalgia boat
Added sails selection panel
Added navigation system and night lights
UPDATE 5 - v1.8: 01/25/2021
Added propeller rotation and radar animations
functional displays with GPS and navigation
RESOURCES
water balance
detailed interior
Start anywhere in the world over water
night lights
Water trails instantly when on the go
sounds
friendly fps
INSTALLATION SIZE:
Total boats extracted - 581mb
HOW TO PLAY:
Start the game at the headland of some seaplane runway, put the engine on 100% and wait a few seconds for the boat to start moving. The water trails start with the slowest speed you are. Boats do not have a reverse engine for the time being, but this will be implemented in an upcoming update. Click Ctrl + L to activate an overnight navigation beacon. Quickly activate and deactivate the landing gear to honk. It is possible to start anywhere in the world on water, read the last paragraph of the following section to understand how.
IMPORTANT TO KNOW:
This add-on will continue to be developed for improvements such as: addition of a rotating steering wheel, animated candle movement and functional instruments such as GPS, radio and speedometer. Soon all models will receive this update.
The amount of water trails is limited by Asobo for now, when this limitation is removed from the SDK boats will have more sprays on the front and sides.
The speed of all boats is limited to less than 20kts for water stability reasons.
Don't start cold, a boat's starter function is unrealistic without a panel.
Notes
This product features our simInstaller technology and is available after purchase via our APP only.
Requirements
Minimum system requirements for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
CPU: Intel i5 9600K.
RAM: 16 GB.
OS: Windows 10 64-bit.
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti.
PIXEL SHADER: 5.1.
VERTEX SHADER: 5.1.
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2 GB.
STORAGE: HDD.
Pretty good and I hope the author will continue to improve such as darker cabin and option to remove the people on the boat. Wake has to be improved dynamically but this is more with Asobo. The sound is standard MSFS, but if you use one of those ambient relaxing sound of a sailboat for like ten hours, it makes it more realistic and kind a relaxing.
I'm really enjoying visiting the great coastal cities of the world in these delightful boats. The author has made it clear that these are basically early access, but he's already added live map displays and that bodes well for the rest of his plans. This is why I've given this package 4 stars, it is quite satisfying as it is, and if his future plans are implemented as well as they have been so far, a 5th star is a real possibility.
I do have one suggestion for a critical missing feature, good side views. The are some great views from these boats, but they are all front and rear views (the latter showcasing the great interiors). There are no useful side-to-side views, which is odd given the main purpose of these boats is sightseeing. We need to be able to look to the right and left when at the helm, especially since a boat spends a lot of time paralleling a shore and it is ridiculous to have to go to third person view to look right and left.
Some folks don't appear to be reading the descriptions of some of his boats packages because I've seen negative reviews based on features the author has clearly stated aren't currently present but are in the development plan (like the helm moving).
Great package, highly recommended!
Definitely like the idea of boats in MSFS to appreciate the beauty of scenery close up. I applaud the devs for taking this on as it is more natural than let's say a car in MSFS which would be difficult to use. Other positives are that the boats are easy to use, speed up, slow down, move left, move right. However, I do wish that moving left and right were a bit easier as the rudder system can be a bit frustrating. The lack of being able to reverse makes you have to restart if you ever get stuck, especially frustrating when bumping into invisible barriers for example, under bridges. The design of the boats are probably the best feature, they look great and even have night lighting. Using the boats in VR is also just as fun and immersive as flying with the exception of lack of steering support.
I love the product however, there are some issues that I hope get fixed, here are some below:
-First, I bought 3 boats but the motorboat seems to be invisible. Downloaded it three times, 2nd time I was able to see it and use it but the third time, after the update, it was invisible again. It does show up in the menu but not in the profile hanger or in game, bummer because that probably would be my favorite one.
-The 3D modeled captain can be immersion breaking as I can't find a way to remove him having to set my view in front of him, not terrible but inconvenient.
-I love that they added monitor and map functionality however, once you pick something on the monitor, you can't seem to go back to the main menu again forcing you to have to restart or just deal with it.
-As I mentioned, there's no reverse so getting stuck really sucks.
-Last issue is not really the fault of the devs but MSFS seems to have some invisible barriers in the water, I've only seen them under bridges like Brooklyn Bridge. The boat gets stuck and can't move forward. Strangely, planes can fly underneath them and the drone camera works underneath them as well.
I see that the dev has plans to continue working on this so hopefully these few minor issues gets resolved in future updates.