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Included in Build Distinguish between different playstyles

What about the option to take a land crew member on as an officer through dialog ? would that be disabled as well ?
 
Red Back Dude said:
What about the option to take a land crew member on as an officer through dialog ? would that be disabled as well ?
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Not sure; perhaps we could keep that. It all depends on how things work out.
We'll need to experiment a bit and see what feels right for gameplay. It has to be different, appropriate yet still interesting and challenging.
Also... easily accomplished from a coding perspective.... :wp
 
I am returning salary payment for Commissioned officers, because not having that really messes up the game balancing, making things far too easy.

What about being able to hire officers at all? I am thinking of putting some limits on that instead.
 
Theoretically, you could still hire skilled crewmen, and have them follow you when going ashore. Their ability to apply bonuses to the ship would be hindered by their non-officer status, however.
 
Thinking about this a bit more:
As things stand now, you have two lots of money: personal money and crew money. For a naval ship, crew money would be ship's money and would belong to the navy; from here would be paid salaries as well as expenses such as repairs and provisions, at least in foreign ports. Basically, it would do what the crew money does now anyway. So it's reasonable to require the player to pay crew salaries.

There needs to be some mechanism for hiring officers so you can replace one if he gets killed in a fight. Ideally you'd have a new officer assigned from naval HQ, but that won't happen unless naval HQ is implemented first. Meanwhile the only options are hiring from tavern and promoting a crewman. In reality an apprentice officer would do some time as a seaman, then become a midshipman, and in due time take an examination to be promoted to lieutenant.

The promotion to midshipman would probably happen on board ship, so ideally you'd do it in the game by talking to a crewman on deck. However, working with what we already have, promoting an officer on shore is a reasonable approximation. Any officer you create this way should be pretty low level - he is a newly commissioned midshipman, after all. Overall level 5-6, skill 2 or 3 in those relating to his job, skill 1 for everything else, and only a few perks. He'll gain experience, skills and perks in due time...

Hiring from a tavern can be disabled if naval HQ is implemented and you can ask to have an officer assigned there. Until then, the tavern is probably the only place you're going to get an experienced officer, unless you get a free new officer assigned every time you are promoted.
 
Grey Roger said:
As things stand now, you have two lots of money: personal money and crew money. For a naval ship, crew money would be ship's money and would belong to the navy; from here would be paid salaries as well as expenses such as repairs and provisions, at least in foreign ports. Basically, it would do what the crew money does now anyway. So it's reasonable to require the player to pay crew salaries.
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Yep, that's what I figured too. :onya

Grey Roger said:
There needs to be some mechanism for hiring officers so you can replace one if he gets killed in a fight. Ideally you'd have a new officer assigned from naval HQ, but that won't happen unless naval HQ is implemented first. Meanwhile the only options are hiring from tavern and promoting a crewman. In reality an apprentice officer would do some time as a seaman, then become a midshipman, and in due time take an examination to be promoted to lieutenant.

The promotion to midshipman would probably happen on board ship, so ideally you'd do it in the game by talking to a crewman on deck. However, working with what we already have, promoting an officer on shore is a reasonable approximation. Any officer you create this way should be pretty low level - he is a newly commissioned midshipman, after all. Overall level 5-6, skill 2 or 3 in those relating to his job, skill 1 for everything else, and only a few perks. He'll gain experience, skills and perks in due time...
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I've been wondering about ranks for player officers.
At the moment officers are distinguished by type and not by navy rank. However, the game does allow rank names for officers as is applied in the Hornblower storyline.
So then the following questions arise:
1. How do officer types or character levels correlate with navy ranks
and
2. How do characters' navy ranks increase? Because as it is in the Hornblower storyline, they're pretty much static unless changed through specific quest coding.

One thing I thought of is to add a ch.professionalnavy attribute to officers as well.
This could be used to check if they can be hired from taverns (see below) but also serve as a flag to have their navy rank increase automatically as they level up.
So characters may automatically gain 1 navy rank for each 4(?) character level increases. This serves no gameplay purposes and is purely cosmetic.

Alternate would be to actually implement a dialog-based promotion system, but that would be another step I think.

Grey Roger said:
Hiring from a tavern can be disabled if naval HQ is implemented and you can ask to have an officer assigned there. Until then, the tavern is probably the only place you're going to get an experienced officer
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The new feature of "hiring a specific officer type" might seem a bit more appropriate.
After all, it should be possible to modify that to generate navy officers if you are in the navy instead of regular ones.

Grey Roger said:
unless you get a free new officer assigned every time you are promoted.
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That is one of the main purposes of this here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/naval-privateer-promotion-steps.24749/
I would very much like to see some progress being made there. If necessary, I will create a sample set for England myself just so you guys can see what I've got in mind.
Whether that will work for gameplay purposes will have to be discovered through playtesting.
 
I changed the behaviour for joining the pirates. First of all, the fame requirement is gone.
You just need to NOT be hostile with the pirates to start with and NOT have any Letters of Marque.
Does that sound like some reasonable conditions?

Then when you do join them, it'll be like joining the "pirate navy". Sort-of.
The Brave Black Flag functionality to make the Caribbean more pirate-friendly is then executed:
Code: 
      JoinNavy(PIRATE); // PB: Even simpler

       // Tortuga: Not on storylines where you start from the beginning
       if (sti(GetStorylineVar(FindCurrentStoryline(), "START_MIN_LEVEL")) != 1)
       {
         CaptureTownForNation("Tortuga", PIRATE);
         SetTownName("Tortuga", "Tortuga");
         Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Bertrand Ogeron")].Dialog.Filename = "PGov_dialog.c";
         Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Bertrand Ogeron")].Dialog.Filename.GroupDialog = "governor.c";
       }

       // Turks: Should be Safe
       Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Dante Siciliano")].Dialog.Filename = "PGov_dialog.c";
       Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Dante Siciliano")].Dialog.Filename.GroupDialog = "governor.c";

       // Nevis: Only do this when no Main Quest available
       int ChangingRelations = sti(GetStorylineVar(FindCurrentStoryline(), "CHANGING_RELATIONS"));
       if (ChangingRelations == 0) ChangingRelations = CHANGING_RELATIONS;
       if (ChangingRelations == 1)
       {
         Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Isenbrandt Jurcksen")].Dialog.Filename = "PGov_dialog.c";
         Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Isenbrandt Jurcksen")].Dialog.Filename.GroupDialog = "governor.c";
       }

       //Levis: Change the Nevis blacksmith to gunsmith -->
       Characters[GetCharacterIndex("QC_blacksmith")].Dialog.Filename = "Gunsmith_dialog.c";
       Characters[GetCharacterIndex("QC_blacksmith")].Dialog.Filename.Groupdialog = "Gunsmith_fetch.c";
       aref store; makearef(store, Stores[PIRATES_STORE]);
       DeleteAttribute(store,"blacksmith");
       store.gunsmith = "Arne Saknussem";
       //Levis: Change the Nevis blacksmith to gunsmith <--
So all pirate governors will then actually serve as REAL governors and you can gain ranks with them in all storylines.

Sounds like a plan?
 
Additional points:

- You are jump-started to the first pirate rank to avoid seeing "Pirate Letter of Marque" in the Nations Relations interface

- You cannot ask pirate governors about their relations, because they would say "Of course pirates are always to be sunk on sight" which makes zero sense.
Also, pirates are ALWAYS hostile with EVERYONE so what is the point in asking? :cheeky

- The formerly shady Nevis blacksmith now trusts you (gets a different dialog) to allow fixing blades and guns.


And a question:

- In regular play, when you start hostile to the pirates, is it possible to become friendly to them somehow?
The normal Relations Agent won't let you do it. I think the Turks and Tortuga "governors" let you while you're not a pirate.

Does it make any sense to NOT be able to reset your relations with the pirates at Nevis but for that to be the only place where you can actually JOIN the Brotherhood?
Sounds possibly needlessly complicated. But on the other hand, perhaps that isn't so bad. It does make it less easy to join the pirates (and also less obvious).
But it also gives the Brotherhood one single "main base" at Nevis, with Tortuga being technically French and Turks being not overly important.
 
Pirates oughtn't to care if you were fighting them in the past--many pirates would be at each others' throats given an opportunity. Unless they have the idea you're a spy, or you did something to offend the given pirate or his group personally (ticked off the Red Flag Fleet, and now they all want to kill you), then all you have to do is start raiding indiscriminately and convince a pirate harbour you're not spies. For HoO, we may want to make gaining entry to a pirate harbour that doesn't know you an interesting affair. For PotC, they might start letting you in when you've gained pirate status with one or all nations.
 
Basically, it used to be that you couldn't join the pirates except in REALLY special instances. That is up to current Build release.
I'm changing it now to be a lot easier (because why not?), but it seems weird to me to make them ALWAYS accept you.
Since there were some major conditions before, it seems to me that at least some conditions still need to remain....
 
Well, if there is a good gameplay reason for why those condition were originally in place. But, I can't really see much reason. It appears to only punish players, and discourage them from changing roles.
 
The feature of joining the pirates was quite ancient. Probably one of the very first mods ever done.
It didn't do much, except to make the pirates like you and make all other nations hate you.
And you had to have a quite high fame level before you would be able to do that. Quite weird, if you think about it. :facepalm

At least now either you bring your relation with the pirates above war through gameplay or you can pay some money at the Tortuga/Turks "governors".
Then when you do and you don't have a LoM, you can join them instantly and for free.
It'll still make them friendly and everyone else hate you, but it'll now also give some advantages with "gaining ranks" and a more useful Nevis blacksmith.
 
Well, you could say there are two kinds of pirate.

General pirate, other pirates will attack you if they think it is profitable, but otherwise won't. If you were in the navy, they may be more willing to attack you for fear of you reporting their activities, or attacking them at an inopportune moment. They may be open to parleying, trading and the like, as they don't feel you're likely to report them to authorities and they have nothing in particular against you*.

Ally pirates, who have relations with several captains in a region. This makes it much less likely other pirates will attack you, and more likely they'll be open to trade or joint attacks. You could probably become this by performing quests and trade with pirate ports, for PotC. For HoO, we'd want a more detailed system.


*: This makes me wonder how often legal vessels would parley or trade with, "pirates". Some pirates were just merchant ships who saw a chance. Even with more bloodthirsty pirates, I can see there being instances where they'd be open to trade over combat.
 
Of course PotC considers the "pirates" to be a nation of their own. No pirate attacks another there.
Not quite realistic, I know. But that is the way it has always been and I don't think much can be done about that.
 
Fair enough. Your original solution sounds best.
 
Is there anyone who has joined the pirates recently on the Beta 3.5 WIP? Does it seem easier and more worthwhile now compared to Beta 3.4?
This now works in ALL storylines and not just Brave Black Flag, but BBF does make it simpler because you can officially join them immediately after the tutorial.
 
Playing La Croix as a pirate.Now I cant sell my ship and swapping ships is not possible.
 

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  • error.log
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Player type Gambler. Sometimes I think the game see my like a commissioned officer, other times not.
Savegame with two ships in shipyard attached.
 

Attachments

  • -=Player=- Nevis. Pirate Settlement shipyard November 5th, 1690 1.zip
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ANSEL said:
Player type Gambler. Sometimes I think the game see my like a commissioned officer, other times not.
Savegame with two ships in shipyard attached.
Click to expand...
I confirmed it in the code and indeed you do get set to professional navy when you join the pirates.
Originally I left this in place to give you the pirate boarding models, but of course that attribute now does other things too as you noticed.

Simplest solution is to remove it by executing this through console.c:
Code: 
DeleteAttribute(pchar, "professionalnavy");
I think I'll do that by default as per the next update. Player boarder model code has to be changed at some point anyway.
So for now pirate players can just keep the regular sailor crew.
 
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