Tides play an essential role in navigating a vessel, and we’ve received some questions about how tides work in NAUTIS Home since introducing the environment options in free roam mode. Due to the simulation's limitations, achieving the correct water level and current in specific locations will require changing some values yourself.
In the real world, the flow of seawater causes currents and a change in water level, but in the simulator, current and water height are not connected. In NAUTIS Home we have a few options to simulate the tidal effects.
NAUTIS Home users can adjust the water height in the environment to simulate the tide. The water height also changes automatically depending on the local time in the scenario. This is based on the average tidal range at one point in the environment. So, it is a rough approximation.
To simulate the tidal current, you can add a global current to a free roam session, this means it has the same strength and direction in the entire environment. In the free roam variations and some scenarios, you find local currents which follow a river or a coastline for more realism.
A limitation of the simulator is that our water level is the same in the entire environment. In reality, land and water are higher as you go further inland, and the water will flow towards the lower areas and into the sea. But in the simulation, this does not happen. In the Antwerp environment, for example, this limitation becomes very obvious: when you set the correct water level for the port in Antwerp, the Terneuzen area will be flooded. When you set the water level correct for Terneuzen, the port in Antwerp will be almost dry. The environment is correct, but the water surface is flat. If you want to sail the entire Wester Scheldt, you will have to adjust the water level yourself during the voyage to compensate for the flat sea.
Hope this provides the required clarification.