NMEA 0183 is good to use for simulation. Exampels are sail simulator 5 and FlightGear. I use programs like OpenCPN and SeaClear for plotter and navigation. Whit more baud rate options for Bridge command can make it possible to have extra navigational data for own ship and as well AIS on-line for other ships and controlled ships. I have succeeded whit using 115200 baud rate for simulation programs mention above. Hows TCP/IP NMEA interface going? UDP for NMEA 0183 is a good idea according to me works in flightgear and OpenCPN.
Thanks for your comments. I have now added a configuration setting so the user can choose what NMEA serial baud rate to use. This will be included in the next release. I'll also look into providing AIS data.
The NMEA over TCP/IP should work well, and I know of at least one person using this successfully to interface with hardware displays. (It's marked as experimental as I don't use a chart plotter that can receive NMEA data by TCP/IP, so can't test it fully myself).