Mod Release Build 14 Beta 2.4 Test Versions

[Pieter Boelen]

We have started on a bit of a fixing, testing and balancing odyssey before the release of Beta 2.4 and can use all the help we can get!
See the post below for the test file.

Bugs Fixed (please confirm):
- Tier 1 Ships no longer give a penalty on characters with Leadership and Sailing skill of 9 and above
- Worldmap encounters are no longer always skippable; this now depends on the relative speeds between squadrons as per the original game
- Nation Relation related issues fixed, including Governor, Storekeeper and Tavern Owner quest availability AND MORE
This is potentially a BIGGIE and needs serious testing; more information: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-update-news.16164/page-22#post-449275
- DirectSail automatically switched off upon accepting a governor's Pirate Hunting quest to prevent a DirectSail update from making the target ship disappear: need feedback

Experimental Code Changes:
- Repeatedly Paying Salary gives an increasing Leadership bonus each month - Needs testing and balancing; more information: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/crew-and-officers-cost-no-gold.20484/#post-449325
- Repeatedly Skipping Salary payment given an increasingly large morale drop - Needs testing and balancing; more information: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/crew-and-officers-cost-no-gold.20484/#post-449325

Balancing Help Required:
- Can the gaining of Leadership without playing quests be balanced properly with this: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-update-news.16164/page-21#post-449177
- Can the fencing difficulty be balanced properly with this: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-update-news.16164/page-22#post-449256

Feedback Required:
- What adjustments should we make to the Build Default Controls: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/new-default-controls.20483/

Other slight fixes included in this file:
- Steam engines fixed for non-player ships
- Storm sea colour improved
- Moving the camera to NON-player vessels disabled in Iron Man Mode
- Rush, Immediate Reload and Instant Boarding abilities disabled in Iron Man Mode
- Nation Relations text adjusted to display properly regardless of character's name length
- Pirate black sail code slight typo fixed

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Extract attached file to your main game folder to get the latest code updates that we need checking.

 

[Skyworm]

Heya!

I'll gladly help testing, but I do have two questions.

1) Do I need to start a new game to do so or will old savegamges work, respectively what will be better for testing purpose?

2) Unfortunately, I can not read 2 of the linked threads. It's the two in the
... build-14-beta-update-news ....
The link produces an error because I am not allowed to read. Though I don't know if reading the thread is necessary to testing whatever.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

1. Pretty much everything should work even when loading a savegame. Only some of the new Iron Man Mode update changes are in the Initialization files.

2. The balancing stuff is on the Modding forum, of course.
I can make a separate thread on the Build Alpha & Brainstorming forum tomorrow so everyone can pitch in though.
Anyway, we don't need to start with that yet; if you can help with the others for now, that'd be great!

 

[Alestorm]

so will this fix the Bad Sea Colour for the Intel Graphic's Fix?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

so will this fix the Bad Sea Colour for the Intel Graphic's Fix?

No, it won't. But Armada just posted some files that might help. Try the attached.

 

[Alestorm]

Yeah, Read Armada's Post's Just after posting this my bad

 

[Pieter Boelen]

No worries.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok, so I installed this patch and started a new Sea Hawk game.

I did not pay the crew because I had no money and nothing happened, so I payed them the next period after selling the cargo. Then I did not pay them again and they mutinied! I payed them because I had the money and was just testing them. But! The fools drank up most of the rum and when we finally made port there was only a 1 day supply left.

I talked to a Governor and he offered me a mission to sink a Spanish warship. I declined because a Lugger with a drunken inexperienced crew is no match for any kind of warship. This is normal for level 4. We shall see what happens later.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

When you skipped paying the crew the first time and nothing happened, do you mean that the morale decreased, but no mutiny occurred? Or did REALLY nothing happen?
Did you get any Leadership skill increase the time you did pay?

Any chance you could play a storyline where you have different nation relations than the Standard one?
I had been thinking that the problem might occur from relation mismatches between the Standard storyline and others.
So while it WOULD match up in Standard, it might not in the others. Or something.

 

[Skyworm]

Gentlemen,

I did almost the same last night. I startet a new Devlin Opera and tried my luck as a free trader. Took a Merchant mission to Antigua. Then I spent any remaining money in recruiting officers ... perhaps too much, because three days later on high seas ...
... my crew demanded pay.
Who would have expected this after three days, in the middle of a month ... well, not I. Since there simply was no money left, I did not pay them.
The morale dropped instantly, but recoverd through the next few days.

I can not yet say what will happen when I next have to pay them, for this didn't actually happen. I will play further to find out.

Oh, a bit off topic but ...
I did already know that St. Johns at Antigua is by far the most unfriendly port in the game, but this guy at the shop ... Agent Victuallier or such ... well, I'd like to make him walk the plank.
It took me 7 talks and as much reloaded saved games to get him to accept the merchant mission I had been given. In all other cases, we ended up with some navy guys storming in and killing me.

Shall I ever give up my life as an honest merchant and become a pirate, I swear St. John's will be the first port being sacked and plundered and burnt to the ground ...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The game always likes asking for salary to be paid right after starting it.
Not entirely sure why, but since the owed salary isn't much yet by that time, we never bothered trying to fix it either.

Antigua is a British naval base, which is why it behaves rather differently from any other town in the game.
Good point though; indeed he would be difficult even if you've got a cargo deliver, which doesn't really seem fair.
Extract attached to PROGRAM\DIALOGS . This should give you the "I was asked to deliver a cargo to you" dialog right there in the beginning and finish the quest successfully.
Edit: The Jack Sparrow storyline uses its own file, for which I have now also made the same fix.
Will be included in the next modpack release.

 

[Skyworm]

Cheers Pieter,

nah, that wasn't a complaint about that early asking for payment. I just did not expect it. Must have run into that a couple of times, and always forget it when staring a new career ...

And with Agent Victualler, I finally succeeded in fulfilling my quest. I shall look if I have that savegame still and test if your zip works and solves the problem ... until soon.


Edit:
It works fine!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

And with Agent Victualler, I finally succeeded in fulfilling my quest. I shall look if I have that savegame still and test if your zip works and solves the problem ... until soon.
Edit: It works fine!

Brilliant! Thanks for confirming. And that's one more potentially frustrating event flushed down the drain!

 

[Skyworm]

Heya,

just an idea ...

- DirectSail automatically switched off upon accepting a governor's Pirate Hunting quest to prevent a DirectSail update from making the target ship disappear: need feedback

That's a nice thing if it works, I will look into it as soon I have a ship capable of doing such stuff.
But this leads to another aspect:
Hunting pirates and enemies for the governor is a boring matter. This is because the pirate ship always spawns at the same location. Thus, with some experience one knows precisely wher to search for it.
Imho, it would be more exciting if one has to actually search that ship somewhere around the island. Sure there must be several locations where ships can spawn.

I understand that this will perhaps be too much efford for those who like it easy and quick action like, but then again, those won't be direct sailers anyway, so they can just "jump" to the ship.
But for us direct sailors, it would just double the challenge, because now it is only "defeating", and then it would be "finding and defeating".

And another idea:
Perhaps it is possible to give the governor a dialogue option for the case you did not find or destroy the ship. This too is a direct sailor problem. It is possible, that
a) the ship is destroyed by other ships or even the fort (yes, I have seen this happening ...)
b) it simply escapes by outsailing me
While I appreciate that such thing could happen, I'd like to play them out rather than to load the latest savegame. So a dialogue option with the governor like
"Sorry, but the enemy ship escaped us" and then the option of another task may be fine.

Just thoughts.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

At the moment, my main intent is to try to fix issues that we've got and balance the game further.
So anything that technically already works, I'd like to keep as-is for the time being.
Once we managed to do that much, we could try to add some more improvements to the actual game.

The only exception to the above is the Customize Character interface I am trying to get to work for Beta 2.4.
But that is not proving overly easy.

I'm hoping that disabling DirectSail during Pirate Hunting quests will allow every single one of them to be completed.
If that proves not to be the case, we're going to have to come up with a method to allow further quests even after a failed or still-open one.
This could be as simple as eliminating the attribute for them after, say, a month of game time.

 

[computica]

Very cool everyone! I'm gonna try out the beta.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

While entering the harbor at Martinique there were 2 pirate ships there and the 1st one surrendered to the fort and all fighting ceased. I sailed up to that brig and killed the Captain, took the cargo, and scuttled it. The fort then began firing on the other pirate ship and sank it. All of this with not one ship to ship shot being fired and the pirate ships shown as not enemies.

How can the pirates NOT have been enemies to you? And what do you mean with "all fighting ceased"? Did the other pirate ship turn neutral?
But then why did the fort start firing on it again after you visited the surrendered ship? You're making it sound VERY buggy.

Later I tried the Governors mission at San Juan and got it. Went to my ships and the pirate ship spawned in the harbor, so the fort helped out and in fact got the last shots in that sunk it. But I still got credit for it. When I got my reward from the Governor I immediately asked for another mission but he did not have anything. I did not wait and set sail for another island.

As long as the ship is sunk, it doesn't matter if it was your cannonballs or not.
So at least the "not getting the missions" issue is fixed then, right?
I was wrong about you being able to get a new mission after completing another one. There is some sort of "wait_timer" involved, but I cannot trace what that refers to.
Please try that same governor again later on and see if he has a mission again. If he does, it sounds like the problems have been fixed for real then.

I have not paid my crew for 3 months now and when we pulled in to port their morale was about 26. If I miss another pay period they WILL mutiny.

Did you observe each payment skip giving a larger morale drop?

Report:
No effect. The poor pirate schooner Nebraska appeared right in front of the fort, and was sunk immediately.

Could you try another island and see if the target ship's starting position DOES vary there?

 

[Armada]

On that subject though, the following ships don't have any model descriptions:
- All versions of the Postillionen
- Empress
- La_Marianna (also no interface screenshot)
- US_PrinceNeufchatel
- All versions of the Volage
- PO_Trinity, RN_Trinity and NL_Trinity (also no interface screenshot)
- All versions of Essex have no interface screenshot
- All early Neptunus versions
- XemecVML (also no interface screenshot)
- HMS_Centurion (also no interface screenshot)

Also, I think some model descriptions need editing now that we changed some paint schemes.

All the missing screenshots should be covered by the modified textures I have yet to release (waiting on finished corvette versions).
I might be able to write some of the descriptions if I have time.

That's a Sloop-of-war now?

It's a more accurate name for the model. I did mention this when I released a heavily modified ships_init.c and common.ini ages ago.

 

[Captain Maggee]

I have my game updated to Beta 2.3 now will add the 2.4 and help test it sometime in the next day or so