Current watercraft implementation causes them to act like wheeled ground vehicles with delayed inputs and overly high inertia rather than vessels traveling on/through a fluid medium.
A few examples:
- When traveling at forward speed, if throttle is reduced to zero, the water resistance should cause the vessel to slow much faster than it currently does. This is not to say that it should come to a stop very quickly, but it should at least lose the top 1/3 of it's speed particularly rapidly. This is especially true of boats traveling on plane (like the speedboat) in which as soon as speed decreases, more of the hull descends into the water, causing even more drag to slow the vessel. If you couple this with reverse throttle, it should decrease speed even faster.
- Whenever throttle is reduced to zero, the turning capabilities of the vessels should reduce to almost zero. These are not ruddered vessels, in which the wash of water over a rudder creates lift to cause a change in direction. The direction is changed by vectoring the power of the engines off of centerline. Currently, if you let off throttle, if forward or backward speed is maintained, there is absolutely no loss in handling capability, much as if the boat were on wheels.
- The above issue also creates problems when trying to do skillful boathandling maneuvers. If I am backing down a boat and hold the key to turn left, then apply heavy forward throttle, the stern of the boat should move quickly to the right while also decreasing rearward speed. The inertia should keep the boat traveling someone close to its original vector even as the heading changes. As it currently stands, what would happen now is that the stern would continue traveling left (changing heading to the right), stopping when rearward motion stops, then moving right (changing heading to the left) when I achieve forward motion.
There are a few other issues as well, but I will stop the post here. Hopefully future versions will address this.