Zezo forum:

Post by toxcct | 2017-09-19 | 11:46:38

Hi Cvetan,

I've just looked at the new interface, freshly opened, and I can't find anywhere both important things below :
- boat coordinates
- polar data

So, not only we wont be able to locate exactly our boat from external tools, but we won't be able to know the right attitude either.

Do you have better eyes by chance ?

Regards,
toxcct

64 Comments

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 14:45:54

I'll probably deal with position and polars one way or another.

But they've turned the game into fucking Clash of Clans. You have to buy packs of random cards hoping to get your auto sails working ...

Additionally in the helm is missing in when I open the interface in Firefox, but they will probably fix that soon.

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 14:54:16

The problem is that VR want a (big) piece of the pie, actually the whole pie, so may try to extort money from the players for such vital info.

It seems that they are selling access to the weather forecast already.

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 15:26:53

Boat position is available in the 3d view. Polars are Imoca, so we can use the Summer race to some extent.

Post by toxcct | 2017-09-19 | 15:38:35

Yeah, I couldn't find the coords at first, but you're right, they are here, and you can still get the programmatically in the 3D view (which was unavailable before race start).

Regarding the polars, how do you know the boats are Imocas ? do you read it somewhere ?

Post by Old-git | 2017-09-19 | 16:07:08

You can also find the boat coordinates by clicking on your boat. This brings up a banner on the left of the window which displays the information about your speed, twa, distance to finish, etc. and the coordinates.

However the anemometer doesn't display any coordinates so there is no way to know the exact location of a mark. This will make routing very difficult.

In the cache I see very little apart for the type of boat: an imoca for this race. No sign of any files that would be polars...

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 19:45:33

They've switched the communication from http to websockets. Took me few hours to find out how to monitor, but there are tools.

The polars are probably packed inside the Unity asset bundles. Which can generally be extracted.

Post by Old-git | 2017-09-19 | 20:04:50

Having polars would be a big plus!

But there is still the question of the weather. Does it look real ? or are they manipulating it so not one can use a similar source?

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 21:03:09

Weather looks the same as before the change.

Moving away from NOAA weather will raise all kinds of questions about manipulating the data to some player's advantage so they should not be going into that.

Post by GeGaX | 2017-09-19 | 17:18:14

Hi cvetan,
I think it would take a lot of work to create polars:
- single polars (without options)
- single polars + foils
- single polars + polish
- single polars + foils + polish
- etc ...
This would determine the % improvement of each option ...
It's going to be long, very long ...

I think that each option must activate a percentage more of speed, no ?

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 19:47:01

They are probably just multiplier coefficients over the normal polars. Or could be separate set of polars like the foils. Will take some time to find out.

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 20:54:44

Hull polish is only 0.3%, so maximum 2 checkboxes - pro sails and foils.

Post by YourMomSA | 2017-09-19 | 18:08:54

Yuck. I'm probably going to quit VR as soon as my credits run out. I don't want to play a card game, and I definitely don't want to have to make $ decisions every time I adjust my strategy.

Post by JohnT | 2017-09-20 | 05:54:06

Totally agree re the card game and $ for strategy changes. Looks to me like a classic example of taking something really good, failing to understand what users really like about it, and really messing it up!

Post by zezo | 2017-09-20 | 07:40:20

Pushing away your loyal paying customers (half of which are boat owners IRL) while trying to get the attention of 13yo boys with short attention span?

It's called marketing.

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 20:44:53

The polars are passed as json arrays, and the various penalties/bonuses are also described there.

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 20:45:08

"label": "mono/imoca_60_new",
"globalSpeedRatio": 1,
"iceSpeedRatio": 0.3,
"foil": {
"speedRatio": 1.04,
"twaMin": 80,
"twaMax": 160,
"twaMerge": 10,
"twsMin": 16,
"twsMax": 35,
"twsMerge": 5
},
"hull": {
"speedRatio": 1.003
},
"winch": {
"tack": {
"stdTimerSec": 300,
"stdRatio": 0.5,
"proTimerSec": 75,
"proRatio": 0.5
},
"gybe": {
"stdTimerSec": 300,
"stdRatio": 0.5,
"proTimerSec": 75,
"proRatio": 0.5
},
"sailChange": {
"stdTimerSec": 300,
"stdRatio": 0.5,
"proTimerSec": 75,
"proRatio": 0.5
}
},

Post by zezo | 2017-09-19 | 20:50:07

I read this as:

Foil - 4% speed increase between TWA 80 and 160/TWS 16-35

Hull polish - 0.3% bonus

Normal tack/gybe/sail change - 50% penalty for 5 minutes
with Pro winch - penalty for only 75 seconds

Post by GeGaX | 2017-09-20 | 00:41:52

Yes ! Very good job !!! ;)

It's possible to give me the path for the file ? ( i can give you my mail by MP )
Thanks ;)

Post by zezo | 2017-09-20 | 07:11:11

Those are not URLs/files anymore. The new protocol is implemented as procedure calls over websockets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket)

It can be observed in Chrome developer tools. For Firefox you have to install an extension. Took me a while to figure out.

Post by toxcct | 2017-09-19 | 23:37:11

wow, good spot !

Post by karriv | 2017-09-20 | 08:36:04

This card thing sucks big time. Just noticed that if you want to use the programmation, the 1st order costs one card, 2nd costs two cards and so forth. And when you can't just buy programmation cards, but a random collection of waypoints and programmation cards... Furthermore, if you delete a programmation, you don't get the cards back.

Not good. I was about to try and write an article on VVOR to a Finnish boating magazine, but it now looks like I won't even be racing the VVOR with these "improvements"...

Post by toxcct | 2017-09-20 | 11:47:19

Cvetan,

I tried to find back those json arrays in my Chrome Network tab, but could not see them...
Could you give an hint where these are to be observed ?

I noticed some "events" traces, but their content looks nothing like what you posted previously...

Thanks.
toxcct

Post by zezo | 2017-09-20 | 11:54:16

There is a filter (along with All XHR JS...) called WS.

Click on it and there are two sockets. First one serves only the login.

The other one stays open during the entire session (state Pending)

Click on it and then "Frames" in the tabs in the right pane.

There you find the protocol dump. Find the longest frame (26K or so) - it contains the sail polars and the above data.

Right click the frame in the list, "Copy message", paste into js beautifier and enjoy ;-)

Edit: seems that you have to open the WS pane (or at least the Network tools) before loading the game interface because the monitor does not show connections which are already active.

Post by zezo | 2017-09-20 | 12:03:36

On a side note, the previous version also used json, but it was passed compressed and encrypted in http requests. There was a way to extract the encryption key and get the raw data, so no big difference.

Post by pmangino | 2017-09-20 | 14:34:33

Hi Cvetan,
Thx as always for your precious help. However, so far I agree with many other player's decision in not participating in a playing card game. Too much money ($$$$) and to much abuse. Good bye Virtual VOR, unless they reconsider their mistake.
Princess Marina
Skipper

Post by zezo | 2017-09-20 | 14:49:33

I'm not sure I would play seriously either. Spending 20 days online during a long leg is hard enough as it is.

Having the boat grounded because of the stupid cartography with the splashing waves, or losing places because you don't have an 'auto sails' card would make it worthless.

Not to mention that my current machines (Core 2 duo with Intel GPU / vintage Nvidia GPU) are too slow to display the wind and wave animations. So I'd have to spend something like $1000 to upgrade to a current laptop just to open the stupid game in less than a minute.

P.S. When the game interface is open in a browser on my laptop it takes so much GPU resources that typing in a LOCAL terminal feels like being on a 300 bps modem AND a sat link to Africa with 500 ms latency. Or a GPRS connection.

Post by pmangino | 2017-09-20 | 17:37:11

I couldn't agree more with your comment.
VR and its crew have been steping backwards for more than two years now...
I can asure you that number of players will decrease drastically sooner or later, unless they revise and correct their voracious appetite for money ($$$$$$).
Best regards,
Princess Marina

Post by MarinsEauDouce | 2017-09-20 | 19:50:34

I am posting a post on this forum to let you know that I have posted all the information about the new version of Virtual Regatta.

Take a look at http://www.facebook.com/MarinsEauDouce.

As the ClubHouse on VR is closed, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them on my Facebook page (whether technical or not, I have the answer to all your questions). I will answer you with pleasure.

Post by GeGaX | 2017-09-20 | 21:52:08

Post by GeGaX | 2017-09-20 | 22:06:40

Hi Cvetan,
Thanks for all informations ;)

I observed the WR under Chrome and found it in the {@class: ".LogEventResponse", requestId: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_3": pos ( lon, lat) ; twa ; twd and tws
and in the {@class: ".LogEventResponse", requestId: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_4": what you quoted above ( foil ; hull and winch ) as well as the polars.

I look again for the wind, you never know ;)

it is possible to modify the zezo extension to capture this info (lon / lat) ?

And in {@class: ".LogEventResponse", requestId: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_3" there are start position (name, lon, lat ) ; End position (name, lon ,lat) , BRG ;)

Post by zezo | 2017-09-20 | 23:00:10

Yep, all the race info is there.

The winds still come via http - 006.wnd 009.wnd and so on.

It's a compact binary representation, non-linear mapping of U/V components, 1 byte each with 1-degree resolution.

references.bin is actually json containing a map of path and validity times of the .wnd files, but it's AES-encrypted. I got the key for the previous version but it is different now.

About the extension - It should be possible to write Firefox extension, because there is Firefox extension called websocket monitor which does exactly that. I haven't checked yet what Chrome provides as extension API.

What would be even more useful is writing an extension which collects statistics about boat and wind speeds coming from the server and comparing them with the client-side display, because there were differences between the two.

Post by Reves_de_gosse | 2017-09-23 | 12:43:21

Hi Cvetan
Many thanks for giving us the "websocket monitor" reference for Firefox.
I had not the convenient knowledge for finding it, and I could get access to the data. +++++

Post by Klamer | 2017-10-06 | 01:04:26

Hi Cvetan,

For the No Money Sailors for the Volvo Ocean Race https://www.facebook.com/groups/vor2017nms/ we are looking for a programmatic way to have positions of our sailors, making a separate scoring for our group.

Do you expect that we can do that with a browser extension? The develepor tools seems to capable to read de WebSocket traffic, but I really would like to inject wWebSocket requests. If that is not possible any programmatic reading of the websocket stuff will be helpfull. Is there an option to share insight and results on this?

Thanks Klamer

Post by zezo | 2017-10-06 | 01:27:40

I don't think any API would be able to inject websocket data.

Firefox has an API to monitor requests and I was thinking about a plugin to monitor boat data, but it's being obsoleted and won't work in few versions.

You could probably do some kind of MITM ssl proxy to intercept and inject data, or just get the credentials and then do the entire protocol.

It could also be possible to reverse engineer the entire auth process and make standalone client, but not sure if it's worth the effort.

Post by Klamer | 2017-10-06 | 23:36:08

Thank you. I also am not sure it is worth the effort...

Post by Inicio | 2017-09-21 | 08:49:40

Zezo works well also with the vro3. Very well

THANKS!!!!

Post by nostro | 2017-09-22 | 00:26:30

I'm going to quit VR as soon as my credits run out. I don't want to play a card game, and I definitely don't want to have to make $ decisions every time I adjust my strategy

Post by JohnT | 2017-09-22 | 02:35:57

For me it's the rules of the card game that are the real problem: if you want to add more than one course change at a time, the second one costs you two cards, plus you cannot buy just the cards you want - per the information from MarinsEauDouce - even the navigation pack has a random selection of waypoint and 'programmations'. With Zezo, it is still playable, but the $ logic completely ruins it.
John (Truffle Hunter)

Post by nostro | 2017-09-22 | 14:01:24

agree

Post by zezo | 2017-09-22 | 16:40:03

Not sure if it's random. I get 2 heading changes and 8 waypoints every time I buy the pack. An I don't need no bloody waypoints.

Post by mak08 | 2017-09-22 | 17:02:24

But waypoints keep you off the coast/Ice exclusion zone and I did find them sometimes faster than programmed manoeuvres.
The bad thing is they don't work with TWA, especially considering this:

https://virtualregatta.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001602954-Why-do-I-get-different-winds-on-the-map-and-on-my-boat-

"If this wind variation reaches a threshold that triggers a sail change, and you have Auto Sails enabled, the sail will be switched to the most efficient one. In this case, your boat is not slowed down by the manoeuver. The Auto TWA remains operational and keeps up with the wind."

I previously thought ANY sail change is penalized and it has an impact on the routing algo:
Apply sail change penalty only if the TWA changes at the same time?

Michael (Raumzeit)

Post by zezo | 2017-09-22 | 17:44:10

Huh. I did not know either. That explains some things (like losing positions to other players sailing the same TWA)

Post by pmangino | 2017-09-22 | 02:06:59

I agree with many other player's decision in not participating in a playing card game. Too much money ($$$$) and to much abuse. Good bye Virtual VOR, unless they reconsider their mistake.
Princess Marina
Skipper

Post by JohnT | 2017-09-22 | 17:30:22

I tried sending some feedback to support@VR (primarily to point out that neither the IOS or Android apps worked since the versions I could download in the US dated back to July! Which was incredibly annoying given that I couldn't (wouldn't pay for) set up heading changes.
They did update the mobile apps yesterday, so that was +ve; however it appears that even with an account logging in on a mobile app kicks you off everywhere else...I assume a direct consequence of the new 'Guest' option!

Anyway, the only direct response so far was an instant automatic reply pointing me at the Help/FAQ - not useful! But also provided a link for beta feedback for Inshore:
https://vrinshore.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
(and yes, the equivalent vroffshore.zendesk.... doesn't exist)

So I'm tempted to send my input re cards, lack of anemometer position output etc to the vrinshore beta comments link, but thought I'd see if there were better suggestions as to how we make ourselves heard?

Post by YourMomSA | 2017-09-22 | 18:49:08

I think VR has placed a minimum windspeed of 4.0 kts into Zanzib. Probably to make sure the masses still have fun instead of having to sail through extremely light winds for the end of Leg 1 and the beginning of Leg 2. But that means GFS is inaccurate, and it means Zezo's routing around the extreme light winds will be incorrect. I believe I'd be on my way to winning Leg 1 if not for this. Instead, I might be able to finish 10th or so.

Post by NOR7034 | 2017-09-22 | 19:27:45

Well, it is a smart way to make us buy expencive weather forecasts and Heading Changes....

Post by marcusbelgicus | 2017-09-22 | 21:17:17

Have you bought anything yet?
Personnally, nothing, and I have already accumulated > 1700 credits with the unused cards bought by VR at the end of the first game. If VR continues to distribute cards the way they do, I am fine, and let's be honest, with this new version, the players with options do not have a significant advantage anymore, they will have to fight to be in the first 200 places. In the past the players without options could not target to be within the first 200 places (and even the first 2500 places for the last VG).

Post by YourMomSA | 2017-09-22 | 21:34:21

When they kill the VRO3 voucher code, it will be necessary to spend about 1600 credits to have a fully competitive boat (pre-race upgrades). But you can get most of that back at the finish. The real cost will be the balance between a lot of credits on Nav Packs to get enough Programmation cards to sleep and have a life, versus choosing to ignore jobs, family, and sleep to play non-stop. If you do the latter, you can probably do very well without ever spending money. So yes, I think the players who were the best SO racers in VRO2 will become the best VRO3 players, because they were willing to be awake all night.

I'll quit if my net losses to buy enough Nav Packs to compete without ignoring my family, job, and sleep, exceeds the 3400-4500 credits per race that was normal in VRO2. It isn't clear yet whether or not that will be the case. We need to do more races that take longer than 2-3 days and aren't 90% upwind, before that will be clear.

Post by marcusbelgicus | 2017-09-22 | 22:00:36

Let's see how it goes for the future races. From what I have seen, you receive enough cards to perform a good programmation even for longer races, usually you have sometimes days where you don't have to change anything, so you can cumulate cards. I guess that the 'true innnovation' is that you have now a pool of ~100 players that can win in standard races rather than ~20 which was the case when only the AO could win. And also to stimulate the non competitive SO to connect more often to get the free cards from the bin, so generate more traffic and $$. If they can generate more traffic, they will even don't need the money from the 'AO'.

Post by JohnT | 2017-09-22 | 22:53:54

The big issue I have is that rarely using waypoints and not having a life where I can be online at frequent intervals, I program course changes (mostly TWA). But first they don't let you accumulate these efficiently, and secondly they really hit you for trying to program more than one at a time (1=1 card, 2=2 cards, 3=3 cards etc). Add that they seem to have changed the weather update cycle, but haven't shared any details and the frustration level is close to extreme! I'm happy to pay a 'reasonable' amount to play, but the current rules mean that the cost to sail the course you want is dependent on the weather, which makes zero sense...

Post by YourMomSA | 2017-09-22 | 23:09:07

Cvetan - Would it be difficult for you to adjust your GFS files to have a minimum windspeed of 4.0 kts? I believe that would make it match what VR is doing.

Post by zezo | 2017-09-23 | 09:44:04

It looks like the files are ok, but there is an race-specific parameter in the config, so I've added an if() in the code.

Post by marcusbelgicus | 2017-09-23 | 12:49:45

Thanks Cvetan.
FYI, the changes in wind in VR appear to happen at 5h30, 11h30, 17h30 and 23h30, so about 30 min before the changes in zezo.

Post by mak08 | 2017-09-24 | 00:04:47

Could you mention the timezone? UTC or MEST?

Post by marcusbelgicus | 2017-09-24 | 07:20:30

MEST.

Post by zezo | 2017-09-24 | 12:22:42

Yes, that's when the GFS model output becomes available. Can fix it in about 30 seconds. But I still have to find out how exactly VR merges the old and new model outputs for the first data point.

Post by YourMomSA | 2017-09-23 | 18:46:55

Thanks, Cvetan!!!!

Post by M63 | 2017-09-24 | 08:53:54

Hello Cvetan,

I retrieved the new VRO3 polars using Firefox web development tools.
For the interpretation of the file json, serving as support for these polars, I face a small problem of interpretation of certain parameters:

"TwaMerge": 10,
"TWSMERGE": 5,

Merge means "Fusionner" in French.

What do you think these parameters are?

M63-EZ

Post by zezo | 2017-09-24 | 10:23:51

My first guess would be that it's how fast the foils kick in - there are limits in there, like TWA 80 and TWS 15-35.

So foil does not add 0% at 80 and then instantly 5% at 90, but is interpolated over the merge range.

But that's just a guess right now.

Post by JohnT | 2017-09-26 | 06:52:04

In case anyone finds this useful: The search still doesn't work, but I discovered there is a way to find the position of boats close to you in the ranking: if you click on a boat name in the ranking table, it opens the boat details panel in the UI; and there is a boat target icon in the top left of the panel which you can click to show that boat's position and course as though you had searched for it using the old UI...

Post by Inicio | 2017-09-27 | 12:53:34

Moreless 3400 credits for sails, winchs, foils and polish in the Mini-Transat

800 free credits offered for this regatta

Post by zezo | 2017-09-27 | 16:35:57

Looks like you are supposed to buy the extras with real money and then spend those 800 points for useless cards like Help and Stealth mode ;-)

Post by Inicio | 2017-09-27 | 18:49:01

LOL

The points of vro3 time ... also the points returned from those useless Help and Sthealth mode...

Post by Inicio | 2017-09-29 | 09:59:58

https://virtualregatta.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002340613-Why-does-the-wind-speed-never-drop-to-zero-

Why does the wind speed never drop to zero?

[VR] Virtual Regatta
9 hours ago Updated
In Virtual Regatta Offshore, a light wind limit is applied so that your boat is never stopped in a spot with no wind at all. This limit may vary depending on the race.

The wind available on the interface is therefore never zero, and your boat will always be able to get out of difficult weather situations (in the heart of high pressure areas, for example).