


Vessels may be controlled by keyboard, mouse or customisable game controllers. A large variety of vessel types and scenery have been created by users and are available on fan sites and forums. Virtual Sailor was first released in 1999 and since then has seen 13 major release versions, with many minor updates released each year. Version 7.5.1 was released on July 25, 2017. In the nine-year period between versions 7.0 and 7.5, developers turned to a new program called "Vehicle Simulator". Vehicle Simulator, first released on Maexpands on Virtual Sailor by allowing for the simulation of automobiles and aircraft as well in addition to watercraft, while remaining backwards compatible with many of the add-ons created for Virtual Sailor.
