VSRouterHelp
- Install the app
- Connect the game
- The extension's badge
- When the boat does not come
- Questions
- Report a problem
Install the app
The beta and earlier versions: downloads.
The Mac app runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. Open the downloaded file and drag VSRouter to Applications. On Windows, run the installer. On Linux, make the AppImage executable and run it, or install the .deb.
At its first start the app downloads the coastlines the router goes around and the latest weather run, which takes a minute or so; a bar shows each. After that it keeps the weather up to date while it is open, and tells you when a new version of the app is out.
Connect the game
The extension is optional. It reads your own boat in your own game tab and hands it to the app on the same computer, so that the router starts from where your boat really is, with its sail, options and stamina. It never sends anything to the game.
- Add the extension from the Chrome Web Store, in Chrome, Brave or Opera (the button below). Edge's store comes soon, Firefox and Safari later.
- Open the game in that browser, in a window of its own. If its tab was already open, reload it once: a tab opened before the extension was installed has nothing reading it.
- Start VSRouter. The follow button in the app's toolbar (two arrows turning round each other) lights up green once your boat has come, and the router then follows the game: your position, your boat and your race.
Clicked before any boat has come, the follow button tells you where the extension and the game stand, and what to do next.
The extension's badge
The small badge on the extension's icon in your browser's toolbar says how things stand. Click the icon for the details.
- okYour boat went to the app. Nothing to do.
- …Waiting for your account or your boat in the game's answers. Give it a minute; if it stays, reload the game's tab.
- !The app refused it, or is not running. Start VSRouter; the popup says what went wrong.
- The game is not open, or its tab is asleep. Hover the icon to see why.
When the boat does not come
- Reload the game's tab once after installing or updating the extension.
- Keep the game in a window of its own. The browser puts a background tab to sleep, and a sleeping tab stops talking; after two and a half minutes the app stops following it.
- Check that VSRouter is running on the same computer as the browser.
- Close the game everywhere else. The game keeps one session at a time: open on your phone or in another browser, it stops answering this one.
- Look at the extension's popup (click its icon): each line says what is shared with the app and what is missing.
Still nothing? Send us the app's log.
Questions
Is it really free?
Yes: the app, every race, the weather models, the router and the extension. No account, no trial, nothing locked. We keep the right to charge for features added later; what you have installed keeps working, and this site will say what is free before anything is not.
Is this allowed by the game?
VSRouter never connects to the game and never steers a boat. It reads public weather and the game's public race list, and gives you orders you enter yourself, as players have done with routers for years. The extension only reads your own boat in your own tab and hands it to the app on the same computer.
Which weather does it use?
GFS at 0.25°, the model behind the game's wind, as each run comes out, four times a day, read the way the game reads it. ECMWF's IFS and AIFS, NOAA's AIGFS, Canada's GDPS and DWD's ICON-EU beside it, to compare, when you switch them on.
Does it work on a phone?
Not yet: the Mac, Windows and Linux apps come first. iPhone and Android are coming.
What do you collect?
Nothing. No account, no cookies on this site, no usage statistics from the app: your position, your routes, your boat and your name stay on your computer. The privacy policy says exactly which servers the app talks to.
Report a problem
In the app, Help › Report a Problem… (the ☰ menu on Windows and Linux) copies the app's log and opens a mail to us; paste the log into it and say what happened. Or write to hello (at) vsrouter (dot) com.