HI VSTEP team and community,
With regard to the Doggerbanke's bridge wing view I think that the current angles looking forward and aft as well as down are very good now and it is possible to do a berthing as would be similiar to real life. However these positions have to be within the bridge, namely where the control stands are already sketched in the sim, and not outside on the maintenance walk. There are various videos on YouTube where the wing views and the location of the control stands are nicely visible. Two examples below.
"Classic Shipping TV - North Sea Ro-Ro part 1 and Stena Jutlandica Departure Fredrikshavn. The Jutlandica clip is not too good but shows clearly what I mean.
To go back to the previous views is not a good idea, because we cannot see what is going on right below...
When changing to the orbit underwater view (which we will probably never see in real life😉) I noted two things regarding variable or controllable pitch propellers.
When I put the engine telegraph to 0 pitch (=stop) the propeller(s) stop completely which for CPPs is wrong.
One idea of a CPP is to avoid multiple starts and reverse engine manouevers which require a lot of starting air and which create considerable wear on the engine especially on short sea employments. At zero pitch the propeller is virtually just a disc, there is a rapid loss of propulsion and subsequently a reduced steering effect of the rudder. But the propeller is still turning at low revolutions.
By the way, and this is just for information, modern ships with controllable pitch props often have a device which is called "combinator". With this fitted a CPP can be operated in two modes: Combinator on means that the engine revs and the pitch are adusted (combined) to get optimum load and output (as in NAUTIS). Combinator off means that the engine is set to fixed certain RPM and all manouevers are carried out with the pitch alone. This feature is utilized for example to drive a shaft generator which powers the bow thruster during the manouever.The Doggerbanke is fitted with twin controllable pitch propellers. Since the first release of NAUTIS Home I find that the manouevering abilities have very much improved and are going in the right direction. When we dive into the sea and look at the two propellers, we will see that both propellers rotate "outward", i.e. the port propeller rotates counter-clockwise and the starboard prop operates clockwise. Since the vessel is fitted with controllable pitch propellers, we would -in real life- have no or very little steering effect when going astern with propellers rotating "outward" because with pitch set to astern no or insufficient thrust would build up at the stern.
Maybe I'm too picky here, as the Doggerbanke behaves quite nicely at present, but since we are talking about a simulator and not a mere game here....
Best regards
Uwe