Engine upgrade for New Horizons and Pirates of the Caribbean

[Hammie]

I’m currently working hard to make the recently open sourced version of the Storm Engine work with the Pirates of the Caribbean game, and the New Horizons mod.

With the new engine we could run the game on modern computers without additional hacks and workarounds, as well as fix some old and long-standing bugs we could not fix before. On top of this the new engine will also come with slightly enhanced graphics, of which an improved sea shader is the most noticeable.

I’ll try to post regular updates here, as I’m sure many of you will also be excited to play an improved version of our beloved mod.

Current progress

Main UI and menus
almost complete

Everything is working except for the questbook.

Game saving/loading:
broken

It was working at some point, now it is broken again

Battle interface
partially working

The command interface (fast travel etc..) has been implemented. Most UI elements are still broken though (character portraits, compass graphics and quick action icon are all still broken).

Dialog
functional but ugly

The engine uses a completely different dialog layout system, restoring the old layout will take quite some effort, but I do think it looked better than the new system.

Worldmap
broken

Island detection does not work yet so you can’t actually sail anywhere. The map does work visually and encounters and storms are generated.

Land combat
broken

The combat system has been revamped (there are now 4 weapon types), so the old system is broken. Using your melee weapon is no longer possible (this is an improvement over crashing the game though), so only pistols can be used right now.

Naval combat
broken

Ship cannons are not detected properly, so you can’t fire at enemy ships. Navigation also seems broken because the weather system is not initialized properly.

Summary
Still lots of things are broken, but progress is being made.

Here is a video showcasing what currently (does not) work:

 

[JTem]

Thank you very much for your effort and dedication.

 

[aimgallery]

Good luck with the project!

 

[Mirsaneli]

I’m currently working hard to make the recently open sourced version of the Storm Engine work with the Pirates of the Caribbean game, and the New Horizons mod.

With the new engine we could run the game on modern computers without additional hacks and workarounds, as well as fix some old and long-standing bugs we could not fix before. On top of this the new engine will also come with slightly enhanced graphics, of which an improved sea shader is the most noticeable.

I’ll try to post regular updates here, as I’m sure many of you will also be excited to play an improved version of our beloved mod.

Current progress

Main UI and menus
almost complete

Everything is working except for the questbook.

Game saving/loading:
broken

It was working at some point, now it is broken again

Battle interface
partially working

The command interface (fast travel etc..) has been implemented. Most UI elements are still broken though (character portraits, compass graphics and quick action icon are all still broken).

Dialog
functional but ugly

The engine uses a completely different dialog layout system, restoring the old layout will take quite some effort, but I do think it looked better than the new system.

Worldmap
broken

Island detection does not work yet so you can’t actually sail anywhere. The map does work visually and encounters and storms are generated.

Land combat
broken

The combat system has been revamped (there are now 4 weapon types), so the old system is broken. Using your melee weapon is no longer possible (this is an improvement over crashing the game though), so only pistols can be used right now.

Naval combat
broken

Ship cannons are not detected properly, so you can’t fire at enemy ships. Navigation also seems broken because the weather system is not initialized properly.

Summary
Still lots of things are broken, but progress is being made.

Here is a video showcasing what currently (does not) work:

very nice!

 

[Dat Scharger]

I hope we'll receive an update on the frontpage once a stable build releases.

 

[Foop my Car]

Very nice! Could you send a screenshot of the evenings?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I’m currently working hard to make the recently open sourced version of the Storm Engine work with the Pirates of the Caribbean game

That is FANTASTIC work, mate!

the New Horizons mod

Glad to see you're focusing on the original game (without mods) for now.
Very wise!

Worldmap
broken

Island detection does not work yet so you can’t actually sail anywhere. The map does work visually and encounters and storms are generated.

I wouldn't quite call that "broken" then.
More like... half working...?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I hope we'll receive an update on the frontpage once a stable build releases.

If somebody writes it, then for sure it'll posted.
Absolutely anyone is welcome to write news articles.
Any staff member or person in the "News Gatherers" group is able to promote posts to the front page.
If you're interested yourself, I'll be happy to set you up with the rights as soon as I see your agreement.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Any staff member or person in the "News Gatherers" group is able to promote posts to the front page.

Oops, I forgot I had renamed that group to "Public Relations"!
And also, congratulations to our new member in that group: @q4a
He didn't ask for the Promotion. But he did the job, so he got it anyway.

 

[Kahenraz]

Very impressive!

 

[Mirsaneli]

Did you make any new progress? Can't wait for new video

 

[Mirsaneli]

It might seem that nothing is being done with this project, but I open up github page for storm engine from time to time and I can see that Hammie is actively working on porting POTC to updated engine.

 

[Hammie]

We are definitely making progress!

Though the current focus has shifted to porting CoAS first, which should be nearly complete now. I hope to have a beta version out at the end of this month.

After that work will go on towards porting PotC and NH. Caribbean Tales will be skipped for now unless someone can convince me otherwise.

Also, I managed to get hold of a version of the PotC source code so we should be able to fully port everything now.

 

[JTem]

We are definitely making progress!

Though the current focus has shifted to porting CoAS first, which should be nearly complete now. I hope to have a beta version out at the end of this month.

After that work will go on towards porting PotC and NH. Caribbean Tales will be skipped for now unless someone can convince me otherwise.

Also, I managed to get hold of a version of the PotC source code so we should be able to fully port everything now.

It's wonderful, thank you so much for the tremendous work you are doing.

 

[Mirsaneli]

We are definitely making progress!

Though the current focus has shifted to porting CoAS first, which should be nearly complete now. I hope to have a beta version out at the end of this month.

After that work will go on towards porting PotC and NH. Caribbean Tales will be skipped for now unless someone can convince me otherwise.

Also, I managed to get hold of a version of the PotC source code so we should be able to fully port everything now.

Don't worry about Caribbean Tales, I don't think anyone would be interested at this point since New Horizons has so much to offer.

 

[DH27]

We are definitely making progress!

Though the current focus has shifted to porting CoAS first, which should be nearly complete now. I hope to have a beta version out at the end of this month.

After that work will go on towards porting PotC and NH. Caribbean Tales will be skipped for now unless someone can convince me otherwise.

Also, I managed to get hold of a version of the PotC source code so we should be able to fully port everything now.

That's awesome! Thank you so much for trying to achieve this. On the subject of COAS, I am curious, are there many differences/improvements between COAS' engine and TEHO's engine?

 

[Hammie]

It are mostly small and configuration related differences. Most of the work is actually going towards making sure we can use the same engine for all Sea Dogs games, and laying the foundations for these compatibility tweaks. The new engine also changed quite a bit from the TEHO one (mostly to support DX9), so we also needed to fix a few things for TEHO as well.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Don't worry about Caribbean Tales, I don't think anyone would be interested at this point since New Horizons has so much to offer.

Main reason I could think of for doing it anyway is because the jump from CoAS to CT to PotC might be easier to make than CoAS straight to PotC.
But @Hammie can judge that infinitely better than I ever could.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

What @Pieter Boelen said is what my main thought is.
I expect CT to be something in between COAS and PotC.
That, and that some people still play CT. I haven't, not yet anyway. But I know some do, @Cerez did from what I know for example.

But it's your time, so you do you.
I too am more excited about PotC and COAS.

 

[DH27]

When I last played CT, I enjoyed the story quite a bit more than the one of COAS, as I felt it to be a bit deeper. But other than that, from the perspective of game mechanics and free roam possibilities, CT does lack behind in many areas compared to the other games, at least in my opinion.