Hello everyone!
[tl;dr with raw numbers is below the pictures]
As one of my 2 new upcoming ships I'm working on will be a fast sail yacht, I've been doing loads of tests on the sail engine mechanics. One of the developers that was at Gamescom told me that for cars, there is a maximum amount of engines per car. After that any additional engines won't make the car faster. Based on that I did tests and found out that this is also true for ships.
My test setup consists of a barrier, a blocked wall to see relative distances and a targetplate. Shooting the targetplate will move the barrier blocks 500 units towards the sky. So when I first put both ships against the barriers with full throttle, I can get a fair start to get accurate measurements. For accuracy I also did the tests in multiple directions to see if the wind was of any influence.
Anyway, the tests I've ran and their conclusions:
Small masts vs. Large masts: Small masts only give 60% of the speed of a large mast. To count your total "amount of sails" you have to multiply the amount of small masts times 0,6 and then add the amount of large masts. For example, 3 small masts + 2 large masts will give me 3 * 0,6 + 2 = 1,8 + 2 = 3,8.
Small ship vs. Large ship: Small ships and large ships both have the same speed with an equal amount of masts. The top speed for large ships is however higher. On the other hand, the small ship accelerates way faster than the large ship with an equal amount of masts.
The maximum amount of masts: Assuming large masts count for 1 and small masts only count for 0,6, small ships reach top speed with 4,6 and large ships reach top speed with 5,6 masts. Any more than this will not make your ship any faster. Although the large ship's top speed is higher, even with the extra masts it still takes maximum view distance for the large ship to catch up with the small ship due to the small ship accelerating a lot faster.
Mast placement: It doesn't matter where your mast is placed and with what rotation. Even flat on the deck it will work.
Wind direction: Wind direction penalty is the same for both small and large masts.
Weight: Only the ship size will determine the weight. Even if you build a massive marble cube on your ship, it will not be any slower than a ship that's only a mast, a hull and a helm.
Engines: Steam and Ylandium have the same power output,
The maximum amount of engines: For the small ship the maximum amount of engines is 4, for the large ship it is 5. Engine top speed is higher, even if the sail ship has the wind in it's back, both with maximum engines. It is fairly close though with ideal wind.
I hope these numbers can help you guys make your ships more useful and economic to sail When you want to go fast on coal it's gonna be expensive in the long run, whereas if you're just running one engine vs one sail I think I would go for the engine instead as you will be faster in all directions.
If there was a way to control the wind I could measure top speeds and accelerations more accurate, but until we can I guess this is as accurate as it gets
Adrie