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Mod Release Open Sea Mod and Realism Settings

No need of that.
I am very happy with the game as it is right now, to be honest.
And about modifiying the spyglass settings, from what I see I can do it myself, or at least try.
But for the moment, I won't even do that, but just continue playing, because I like it. :dance
 
Do we need more toggles? We could just refer people to buildsettings.h and internalsettings.h and let them do it manually.

I don't mind storms. They are a great way to improve your sailing skill. But in the OS mod once you get caught in a storm you can be sure that there will be another one soon. If you can not make it to port in time you will eventually be sunk by them. The world map is the answer there.

The one thing that bothers me about the OSmod is that there is very little sailing skill increase. It takes 2-3 hours game time in standard time to get 1% increase in sailing skill and there is no skill increase at all when using time compression. I just spent 4 hours real time in order to get a 2% increase in my sailing skill. :rumgone
 
Heya!

Hylie Pistof said:
Do we need more toggles? We could just refer people to buildsettings.h and internalsettings.h and let them do it manually.
Click to expand...

Agreed!

The one thing that bothers me about the OSmod is that there is very little sailing skill increase. It takes 2-3 hours game time in standard time to get 1% increase in sailing skill and there is no skill increase at all when using time compression. I just spent 4 hours real time in order to get a 2% increase in my sailing skill. :rumgone
Click to expand...

Aye, that's bad. This is because of settings in \PROGRAM\BATTLE_INTERFACE\Loginterface.c
There is a section about sail experience, and it tells it will not happen when in compressed time. You can put these lines in // so you get sail exp whenever you sail. This did it for me.
I'd implemented the lines, but I did not figure how Pieter does this :wp
 
This will give you sailing XP even when you do use time compression:
Code: 
// LDH accumulate sailing experience - 21Dec08
void AccumSailTime()
{
    ref mchr = GetMainCharacter();

//    if ( ! IsPerkIntoList("TimeSpeed"))        // not in compressed time
//    {
        if (!CheckAttribute(mchr, "SailingMinutes")) mchr.SailingMinutes = 0;
        mchr.SailingMinutes = sti(mchr.SailingMinutes) + 1;        // Note: do we want to add more if in battle?
//    }
}
Do you agree we should just do that by default? Why penalize people for speeding this up?
They're already using DirectSail; no need to force them to also just watch the sea for a long time without anything happening. :shrug

Anyway, any preferences on the realism settings are easily adjusted in the code files.
One trick you can try:
1. Add the PotC folder to your "Windows Search Index"
2. Search the folder "bArcadeMode" and "IRON_MAN_MODE"

This will show you all instances where the realism settings are set up. Note that "!" in the code means "not".
You can change those code instances to get the game experience you want.
Until I manage to find the time to make separate InternalSettings.h tweaks for them.

So once we add all those separate settings, of course we should also maintain the simple Arcade/Realistic toggle we have.
What do you reckon should be included in Realistic Game Mode?
And should we keep the IRON_MAN_MODE toggle at all or just replace that with separate "uber realism" settings?
 
Yah, I'm running out of books I want to read and I've got over a hunnert here. I DO NOT want to read War and Peace again.

Replacing Iron Man with toggles sounds ok to me. How many toggles would it add?
 
Not sure; tomorrow I'll make an inventory of all the different realism options and then we can discuss how to deal with them.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Do you agree we should just do that by default? Why penalize people for speeding this up?
They're already using DirectSail; no need to force them to also just watch the sea for a long time without anything happening. :shrug
Click to expand...

As I mentioned before in that other thread then, I was greatly surprised to find out that sailing does not give sailing exp when using compressed time. I would not give sailing exp for using "world map travel" or "sail to", but for compressed direct sailing? Why not! I see no sense in that, so yes, I vote for this becoming default. Time compression is not an easy mode or something like that.
 
I set that up last night and it works wonders! No more sitting there for an hour going 1 knot waiting for the wind to shift.
 
Ha! I found it again. It is in POTC--->Program--->BATTLE_INTERFACE--->LogInterface.c Towards the bottom.

I have been changing so many things I no longer know what goes where. :unsure
 
Hylie Pistof said:
I set that up last night and it works wonders! No more sitting there for an hour going 1 knot waiting for the wind to shift.
Click to expand...
You mean you were deliberately not using time compression just to get the skill increase even when in unfavourable wind conditions?
Well, that's definitely the last straw! That "no time compression" requirement is going away! :whipa
 
Yes. That is the way the Open Sea mod was set up. Also it was set up so that even in straight time one only got a 1% sailing skill increase every 2-3 hours game time. This made getting increases dependent on just letting the game run for hours on end while just casually monitoring it until one started meeting teachers and getting your skills that way.
It sounds boring and it is, but there are other good things that it does that make up for it.
 
Well, hopefully once we've got our realism settings set up the way we want, people won't need to deal with the stuff they don't want to deal with anymore.
It should be FULLY enjoyable; not be frustrating on some needless level or another! :whipa
 
So these are the realism options we have:

Realistic Game Mode
- Sail-To menu hidden HP bars and nation flags for ships
- Spyglass inaccuracy
- Fast Travel disabled ashore for locations not yet visited
- Sail-To disabled at sea for locations not yet visited
- Sail-To disabled for ships that are too close or can outpace you
- Arcade Mode game speed higher at sea
- "Alarm" music disabled until an enemy draws his weapons
- Minimum crew required to sail the ship
- Ships cannot sail into the wind and NPC ships will tack to avoid doing so
- Ships slower and less manoeuvrable, making for slower and longer battles; inertia plays a big role in ship handling
- No logs when entering 3D sailing mode indicating what ships are around
- ARCADE: Higher accuracy skill when firing from your ship's deck

Iron Man Mode
- No ships ever shown on the compass interface
- Worldmap disabled
- No spyglass information at all, except ship's name under 350 yards (for quest purposes)
- Unrealistic abilities disabled (Rush, Immediate Reload and Instant Boarding)
- Cannot move the sea camera to other ships with Ctrl+Arrow Keys

So of course we're going to have to keep a simplified Arcade/Realistic Game Mode switch. So which of the above do you think should be included in Realistic Game Mode?
And which realism settings would YOU like to be able to toggle separately? And which ones would make sense to group together?
I think we should also keep the Advanced Options "Iron Man Mode", which will enable ALL realism options at once.
 
Hello there,

I think the options are already grouped well as they are. Iron mode is fine as it is, and the one thing I would love to toggle seperately is the world map.

Explanation:
After we discussed some aspects of iron man and realistic mode here, I gave it a try, switched off iron man mode, and tried to play with realistic mode. Only modified the spyglass to not show anything. :keith

Then I was surprised what I found out ... after one travel in this realistic mode, I immediately switched back to iron man mode.
So I am very happy with tis as it is ...

About world map:
I can not prove it, but I am convinced that the original game engine somehow counts on having a world map available. I would just like to have it, to escape really strange situations, or just to induce a quick (in real time) weather change when sailing. While it may be very realistic to be stuck in a situation with a 5 knots wind blowing right from where you want to sail to, there is surely not the least bit of fun in playing that out. And 20 seconds in world map can completely change this ... instead of 2 hours realtime sailing in direct sail.
 
Now that the sailing skill increase is being fixed I am quite content with the Open Sea mod now. I prefer it to the standard Realistic mode because:
One hour game time is one hour game time. The standard game has one hour counting as one day.
All ship sightings happen at much greater distances which gives one the time to make the fight or flee decision well before needing to fire any shots, and it also gives you the option to sail to a better fighting position before engaging your opponents.
The smaller islands that are farther apart means accurate navigation is kinda important, especially early on when your ship does not appear on the map. That means if you miss an island it's off to Africa we go!
 
Well, the people who MADE the game didn't even remotely believe that travel between islands without using the worldmap was possible.
Turns out they were wrong. But yes, that does support your claim that the original game was made to depend on having a worldmap out there.

My thoughts would be that you can set things MORE realistic with the toggles, but not less (just to keep the coding simple. Ish.)
So you'd have to go back to Realistic Game Mode and switch on whatever additional options you want to have.

Are there any realism settings that should be taken OUT of Realistic Game Mode so that less people have to revert back to Arcade?
 
Ah .. now that's what open sea did. I am sure I used it when it was released, but I am not so sure if I installed it manually into my latest PotC installation. Or was it built-in 2.3?

I agree with Hylie that Open Sea shall be the standart Realistic mode. It is just better in any aspect. I too never liked those 1 hour = 1 day. Sailing was slow then, but I don't think it is realistic to sail 5 days just to get out of port ....

Is Open Sea now actually used in my 2.3 + 2.4 installation, or not? Any way to check that? I actually use that adjusted map with the small islands and great distances, and 1 hour is 1 hour. So it would be Open Seas right?
 
Skyworm said:
Is Open Sea now actually used in my 2.3 + 2.4 installation, or not? Any way to check that? I actually use that adjusted map with the small islands and great distances, and 1 hour is 1 hour. So it would be Open Seas right?
Click to expand...
You're probably using half of it. Some of the files were overwritten with the 2.4 Test installer, but not all.

I don't want to make the Open Sea Mod the "standard" in ANY game mode for at least one reason: the map texture doesn't look so good.
If something can be done about that, we could have it included in Realistic Game Mode if we think that is a good idea.
Anyone care to do some texture work on that map?
 
I never said that the Open Sea mod should be the standard. I am comfortable with the current system of Arcade, Realistic, Open Sea, and Iron Man modes of game play.
Arcade gives the fastest most exciting game play which many prefer.
Realistic is pretty good for all around play with a good balance between fast play and realism. That one hour = one day thing actually balances out the travel time between islands well, but the world map is mandatory.
Open Sea has a slower pace that gives me more of a sense of "being there".
Iron Man is for the purists who demand the utmost realism possible.

Perhaps Iron Man could be set to be Open Sea with no world map?
 
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