• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

Discussion Excited and thankful!

Great tips, Grey Roger. I'll admit it might of been my IRL sailing idiocy that inhibited the schooner. I had to wikipedia what tacking was, boy shoulda known that before trying to sea-battle.

I'm playing in the Golden Era right now as I figured it'd give the widest range of ships, or close to it, and has sort of the best of most worlds. Switched up to an Espadin Gunboat (I'm a Spanish Privateer, after all) and have been enjoying the performance of it a fair bit. I still have a ways to go on my evasive tactics: I open myself up to more broadsides than I should (I think). So far my basic strategy has been smash up the sails/masts with chains, batter the ship a few time with cannon-balls for good measure, than take advantage of the crippled sailing abilities to do some straffing runs with grape-shot. With the Governor hunt-a-ship missions I've had a lot of fun, but I've yet to find an undefended merchant as a target and engaging a British/Dutch/Portugese convoy feels a bit suicidal.

I do have one unrelated question for you guys, rather than making a new thread for it: When I use a musket/sword combo, my character swings the musket around in their hand in the sword-fencing animations. Is this unavoidable/intentional to make bayonets work? IE muskets should only be used with the bayonet blade? Is there a way to make the sword/musket combo more... visually appealing? Or is this alas just a sort-of hard limit with the POTC engine/game? (Let me take this moment to praise you guys again for awesomely adding muskets AND the ability to shoot the crew of a ship pre-boarding. That is a TRUE buccaneer move. My late game goal is to basically try boarding some ships from little row boats once my character is more skilled)

Also side dilemma: The sea battles on max difficulty are great - lower difficulty is a bit easy to force a surrender I find, but I find fencing at low levels on max difficulty kind of brutal. The enemy sort of spam attacks and parrying/blocking only gets you so far (I'm used to mount & blade melee if any of you play that). Anyone else have similar experience or useful tips?
 
Last edited:
With the Governor hunt-a-ship missions I've had a lot of fun, but I've yet to find an undefended merchant as a target and engaging a British/Dutch/Portugese convoy feels a bit suicidal.
Just to make sure you know, you'll never encounter a merchant during a Governor Ship Hunting mission.
You can find fairly small ships around random islands though; usually in groups of two.
And in DirectSail/on the WorldMap, you can find the occasional undefended merchant.
But those are admittedly fairly rare.

I do have one unrelated question for you guys, rather than making a new thread for it: When I use a musket/sword combo, my character swings the musket around in their hand in the sword-fencing animations. Is this unavoidable/intentional to make bayonets work? IE muskets should only be used with the bayonet blade? Is there a way to make the sword/musket combo more... visually appealing? Or is this alas just a sort-of hard limit with the POTC engine/game?
If you have a musket with a bayonet, then it functions as a sword as well as a gun.
So that means you'll end up waving it around during swordfighting.
It's the best we could do and @Jack Rackham spent a lot of time and effort getting it to work as well as it does.

Let me take this moment to praise you guys again for awesomely adding muskets AND the ability to shoot the crew of a ship pre-boarding. That is a TRUE buccaneer move. My late game goal is to basically try boarding some ships from little row boats once my character is more skilled
I'm sure @Jack Rackham will appreciate the kind words! :cheers

Also side dilemma: The sea battles on max difficulty are great - lower difficulty is a bit easy to force a surrender I find, but I find fencing at low levels on max difficulty kind of brutal. The enemy sort of spam attacks and parrying/blocking only gets you so far (I'm used to mount & blade melee if any of you play that). Anyone else have similar experience or useful tips?
There is a number in InternalSettings.h that you can change to make surrenders more/less likely without changing the Difficulty Level.
Maybe you can play around with that value and get the game to behave a bit better for you?
 
Golden Age is also my favourite period for the same reason, the best mix of ships. You won't find undefended merchants in governor missions, you need to wander around on the high seas and hope to get lucky. Failing that, try to find a few merchants with a light escort.

The musket is a two-handed weapon. In reality you would not be able to use one with a sword, so you'd fire your shot, then plug a bayonet into the barrel and use it like a spear. So yes, it's intentional to make bayonets work. The animation is indeed a limitation of the basic PoTC engine, which was never designed to use muskets. So it only has animations for swords and pistols, and therefore you fire a musket as if it were a pistol and then fight with musket and bayonet as if it were a sword.

Useful hint: after you have fired the musket and the musket has automatically plugged in, press '1' and you'll get a sword instead. It may not be realistic, but the musket and bayonet is a rather poor melee weapon and you won't live long relying on it when everyone else is using swords. Personally, once I have a decent sword I stop using the musket entirely and just use sword and pistol.

Fencing at low levels is indeed brutal, especially if you're trying to board a warship. Build up your melee skill and abilities by taking easier targets first. You can get some practice by going into dungeons - there aren't any in Spanish territory but if you can sneak into Port Royale, there's one in the same area as the church, just across the road from the gate to the main town area. Also, boarding is harder if you're attacking a ship with more crew than yours, which is most of them if you're in an Espadina gunboat with only about 70 crew.
 
Last edited:
You guys rock for all the tips and info.

I didn't mean strictly hunting for merchants during the Governor missions, but I see what you're saying. I've just had bad luck with mostly encountering large size fleets, I suppose. Maybe I should try more compelling tactics like flying a false flag until I can close in and ambush them.

Good info about the muskets, I suspected as much. Jack deserves quite a bit of credit for struggling to implement them. After all, it does seem odd to have them be entirely absent from a game set in eras where they were a common weapon.

I was sort of envisioning a gameplay situation that replicates taking a single shot with the musket and tossing it aside before engaging in melee, I'll give a twirl firing the musket then hitting 1. I'm loathe to keep the gameplay difficulty turned down so maybe I'll just develop melee skills/abilities on my character before diving into more high-intensity battles. I was thinking a fun gameplay start could e a "Buccaneer" style where you begin with high melee skills//abilities but nothing else and aim to capture your first vessel by force. May have to give that a whirl.

Oh, also another point of praise: The new options with enemy captains when they've struck their colours is great. Making a British captain desert to serve aboard a Spanish privateer vessel is all too hilarious. That's a hanging offense!
 
Maybe I should try more compelling tactics like flying a false flag until I can close in and ambush them.
Totally possible (at long last)!
Should make things interesting, since there is a risk involved. Both from being recognized AND forgetting to switch flags before going in for the kill.
I'd be curious to hear your feedback on that, since we did a fair bit of work on that too. :cheeky

Oh, also another point of praise: The new options with enemy captains when they've struck their colours is great. Making a British captain desert to serve aboard a Spanish privateer vessel is all too hilarious. That's a hanging offense!
:wp

You can also try out the dialog options with any prisoned captains in your cargo hold. Might make you some nice extra money!
Note: Ransoming your prisoners yields more money if you do it in higher-risk ports.
Do it in a port of their OWN nation (which is probably hostile to you) would be best.
Though of course... danger, danger! :whipa
 
I'll test/try false flagging today and write up the story for you. I feel with competent melee skills, in theory, it should be highly effective to false flag into range, take up an optimal position, switch flags, blast the bajeezus out of the deck with grape, then storm it. Of course the more infamous one is, the less likely that would work. Fortunately at this stage in my characters privateering career, they're not too well known.

I must admit, the idea of the "underdog" ambushing and taking larger vessels by deceit and surprise appeals to me so much. Its why I love the ability Jack added where you musket-volley the ship before boarding. I think the area of gameplay I want to focus on for now is developing strategy to capture larger vessels with smaller crews and other "guerilla" style attacks. I'll refrain from suggesting the ideas for abilities that pop into my head until I can put them in myself :p
 
So, I was off the coast of Jamacia flying the English flag preparing to make landfall to explore the island when I caught the sight of two Portugese Jackass Barks - merchants, seemingly. Portugal was presently allied with England, and both were at war with Spain.

Flying the English flag we sailed alongside them, right into grappling range. Quickly we raised the Spanish flag and let off a volley of grapeshot onto their deck. Before they could respond in kind we were boarding them. They fought to the bitter end, their captain too stubborn to yield. Placing the ship in the command of my first mate we found it was loaded to the brim with chocolate and ale.

The second bark attempted to flee, but we were faster and chain-shot to their sails slowed them greatly. Coming alongside as we reloaded, perhaps too eager, we braced against their own volley of cannon fire. With some luck all but one shot missed. We gave them one good volley of our own grapeshot, broke off from their side to fall behind them as we reloaded. Once ready we came up beside them again and blasted clear across their deck before boarding. They didn't even have time to strike their colors but the captain was ready to surrender upon our boarding.

To our joy, we discovered the hold was filled with gold, chocolate, and ale as well. The value of the cargo was at $230,000 and the ships themselves sold for $50,000. Making a profit of $270,000 gold in one rather quick battle. 10/10 would false flag again.

Now I'm emboldened to try some tougher targets than Portugese merchants.
 
When muskets, musketoons and blunderbuss first were imported into POTC they were always carried on your
side/hip like pistols. I tried to make that look a little better by adding other models carried on your back.
At the firing moment I had to use the pistol style. (one-handed)
 
Another quick question for you guys as I haven't found the answer: What are the factors playing into companion mutinies? The moral of their ship? If so how do you prevent newly captured vessels from just mutinying on you before you can bring them to port for sale?

Edit: Adding onto that, I'm also experiencing a fair few Crash To Desktops during boarding sequences, it can't seem to find what the cause is.
Edit2: Well I edited the body/loot settings and thus far, no more boarding CTD's.
 
Last edited:
@Gfresco says:how do you prevent newly captured vessels from just mutinying on you before you can bring them to port for sale?
If I have the money I always raise the moral of the crew with gold, to max. if I can afford it, else so high I can go. Also I always use
the officer with highest skill in leadership I have as captain on my captured ships.
 
Another quick question for you guys as I haven't found the answer: What are the factors playing into companion mutinies? The moral of their ship? If so how do you prevent newly captured vessels from just mutinying on you before you can bring them to port for sale?
The direct reason is indeed crew Morale.
But that gets scaled by the Leadership skills and abilities of the assigned Captain.
Most likely you are being affected though by the assigned captains' reputation.
If they are bad and you are good (or the other way around), then that also has a massive effect on crew Morale.
That effect gets larger if you are both further away from each other in reputation.
Hero player and Bloody Terror captain equals almost instant mutiny.

Edit: Adding onto that, I'm also experiencing a fair few Crash To Desktops during boarding sequences, it can't seem to find what the cause is.
Edit2: Well I edited the body/loot settings and thus far, no more boarding CTD's.
Which modpack version are you running?
That used to be a common problem until Beta 4.0, but I thought we finally managed to put it to rest in the latest Beta 4.1 WIP versions.
 
As has been said, the direct cause of mutiny is crew morale. When you've first taken a ship, its crew morale will be "Treacherous", the lowest it can get. I'm not quite as extreme as @ANSEL and only pay to raise the morale to "Good". As an absolute minimum, raise it to "Poor". High "Leadership" in the captain will help raise or maintain the ship's morale, but I often assign an officer with low "Leadership" skill, get a warning that the officer has insufficient skill to command the ship, and get away with it anyway. The ship probably has little more than a minimal crew so it isn't going into battle, therefore the officer only needs to keep the ship afloat until I can get to the next port and sell it. Once I've paid the crew to get them above the danger levels of morale, and provided the officer's reputation is at least neutral, the ship is safe from mutiny.

The problem with CTD to desktop during boarding should indeed be fixed in Beta 4.1. In earlier versions, it was sometimes triggered by looting corpses or treasure chests, or exchanging equipment with your officers. If you did none of these then you'd be safe from CTD. But playing Beta 4.1, I routinely board ships, loot everything in sight, and don't get CTD's any more. (That's not quite true. I still get the occasional random CTD. That can happen anywhere, not just during boarding. But as far as I'm concerned, the regular CTD due to boarding and looting has been fixed.)
 
I often assign an officer with low "Leadership" skill, get a warning that the officer has insufficient skill to command the ship, and get away with it anyway.
That just further reduces that officer's skills. So as you say, it doesn't really matter much if you only intend that ship as a prize and don't expect her to serve any purpose in battles.

The problem with CTD to desktop during boarding should indeed be fixed in Beta 4.1. In earlier versions, it was sometimes triggered by looting corpses or treasure chests, or exchanging equipment with your officers. If you did none of these then you'd be safe from CTD. But playing Beta 4.1, I routinely board ships, loot everything in sight, and don't get CTD's any more. (That's not quite true. I still get the occasional random CTD. That can happen anywhere, not just during boarding. But as far as I'm concerned, the regular CTD due to boarding and looting has been fixed.)
:dance :dance :dance
That one took YEARS to figure out! And in the end, it only required a few lines of code to be removed that apparently served no useful purpose anyway. :rofl
 
Thanks for the details on the mutinies. I think aggravating it is the intense wealth I've accumulated raiding some of these ships. I captured 2 light pinnaces with 800,000 in gold, etc. If I don't promptly stash it with a loanshark it seems to cause issues. Also doesn't help I keep floating between the first 2 ranks of infamy/fame (pretty realistic considering privateers were a mix of loved and loathed, entirely depending upon whom you asked) rather than staying consistent.

I've been playing with a few ships in my "range" and I have to say, the Espadin Gunboat is surprisingly hard to rival. I did acquire a sloop-of-war but it feels a bit... much for a privateer or even pirate. I did also capture a brigatine that seems quite respectable for pirating/privateering, but I'd let to get my hands on the heavy variant. So far my most audacious capture has been a Portugese Manilla Galleon. I used it as my flagship for a few weeks before the slow speed/handling became unbearable, despite the withering firepower and range it had. I thought it pretty good to of captured it with my gunboat. However capturing a dutch trade escort frigate proved beyond my abilities, even when I tried it with the Manilla Galleon - the strength of those soldiers and their darn 450hp.

According to my build info I am on 4.0 not 4.1 . Odd as I just downloaded it a few days ago. I had to use one of the alternate mirrors because moddb downloads always fail on my connection - maybe the alternate downloads are slightly outdated. Either way, changing the body/loot settings has (mostly) abated the issue.

Random question if you feel like answering: On a scale of 1 to 10 how ambitious would it be to expand the scenes used for boarding sequences? I suspect its going to be a "10" but given POTC's awkward collision detection a little extra room would be nice. Some battles I physically can't get to the enemy unless half my guys get cut down, and then usually its ending only one way for me. Alas, the combat system for melee in POTC doesn't scale up to larger battles very well and I imagine editing the melee combat system is quite tricky. Still, one can dream of it being as good as the ship combat is.

Edit: So I'm looking over some of the code in the files to edit the boarding-camera fixation/lock (I'd rather see the ugly incomplete set-piece models than be unable to have full situational awareness) and I see references to "hailing ships". Is there a ship communication feature beyond the flag you fly I've overlooked!?!?!
 
Last edited:
I think aggravating it is the intense wealth I've accumulated raiding some of these ships. I captured 2 light pinnaces with 800,000 in gold, etc. If I don't promptly stash it with a loanshark it seems to cause issues.
The idea is that you've got SO much money that the crew wants to have a share of that too.
I think you should have gotten a Questbook entry to explain what happened and why.
You don't get that if you're an honest merchant, but you, my friend, are NOT!

You might want to consider switching to "Divide the Plunder" mode, which will prevent it.
If you do well with that, it can actually help your crew get to higher morale, which will be a benefit in boarding actions and sea battles.
Of course "saving up money" will definitely be much harder. But it should be a more interesting and more piratey way to play. ;)

Alternatively (from New Horizons Playing Styles | PiratesAhoy!):

Merchant
  • Triggered by carrying a "Merchant Passport" or choosing "Merchant" at game start
  • Possible to buy a "Merchant Passport" from the WIC office on Curacao and the EITC office on Jamaica
  • Carrying a "Merchant Passport" prevents your crew from becoming envious of the large amounts of money you have
  • Only need the "Merchant Passport" if you also want to have a LoM. Otherwise the game considers you an honest merchant as long as you don't turn pirate and you don't need to worry about "too much money" either.
So looks like you've got a choice to make. :whipa

Also doesn't help I keep floating between the first 2 ranks of infamy/fame (pretty realistic considering privateers were a mix of loved and loathed, entirely depending upon whom you asked) rather than staying consistent.
Actually, that is relatively in the middle, which reduces the effect of reputation. It gets worse when you move to either extreme.
So no worries there. :onya

According to my build info I am on 4.0 not 4.1 . Odd as I just downloaded it a few days ago. I had to use one of the alternate mirrors because moddb downloads always fail on my connection - maybe the alternate downloads are slightly outdated. Either way, changing the body/loot settings has (mostly) abated the issue.
Everything linked to on ModDB is 4.0 as that is still the latest public release. It is, however, not the actual latest release, which you can find here:
Mod Release - Build 14 Beta 4.1 WIP [Last Update: 7 January 2017]
It is officially still "Work In Progress" but is, for all intents and purposes, a notable improvement again over the official 4.0 version.
You might want to consider upgrading some time. BUT doing so will require you to start a new game, so feel free to delay for a while longer. :wp

Random question if you feel like answering: On a scale of 1 to 10 how ambitious would it be to expand the scenes used for boarding sequences? I suspect its going to be a "10" but given POTC's awkward collision detection a little extra room would be nice. Some battles I physically can't get to the enemy unless half my guys get cut down, and then usually its ending only one way for me. Alas, the combat system for melee in POTC doesn't scale up to larger battles very well and I imagine editing the melee combat system is quite tricky. Still, one can dream of it being as good as the ship combat is.
Actually expanding the scenes would be a "10" for sure.
However, there may be an alternate approach that would be far, FAR simpler:

The player and crew are generated on (normally invisible) "locators", which are pre-defined coordinates in the location model.
They can be made visible using the VISIBLE_LOCATORS toggle at the bottom of PROGRAM\InternalSetting.h and we have a TOOL that allows us to move them, delete them or add more:
http://www.piratesahoy.cloud/repository/Tools/Modeling+Texturing/Inez Dias Tool.rar

It has always been on my wish-list to get those moved around so the player is generated IN FRONT, with the crew behind.
You might personally be in more danger that way, but if you really intend to let your crew do all the dirty work,
it should be easy enough anyway to let your crew pass and hide behind them like a proper coward.

On your scale of 1 to 10, I'd imagine this one ranks as a "2". In other words, it is barely harder than changing those InternalSettings.h toggles.
It just requires time that nobody has bothered to spend so far.
So if you feel like volunteering to help with modding, this might actually be a brilliant start! :cheers
 
Edit: Adding onto that, I'm also experiencing a fair few Crash To Desktops during boarding sequences, it can't seem to find what the cause is.
Edit2: Well I edited the body/loot settings and thus far, no more boarding CTD's.
Here's the related thread: Fixed - Boarding: Inconsistent Crashes Related to Looting
If I recall, this was a fix of just a few lines in PROGRAM\INTERFACE\itemsbox.c .
Unfortunately I was apparently not kind enough to upload the actual new file there like I often do,
but maybe @Grey Roger can help you get a Beta 4.0 compatible version?
That would save you the trouble of starting a new game for now, while still allowing you to do looting like usual without the game crashing.

I myself have been having a lot of non-PotC stuff keeping me busy for the past many months plus some prolonged computer issues as well.
So at the moment I don't really have access to my game files.... :oops:
 
Ah I see about 4.1 now. I don't mind starting over, so don't worry about the CTD fix for 4.0 but thanks none the less - it'll let me try my planned buccaneer start. If only I could sit around a campfire making pig jerky....

That sort of fix seems simple enough to me. My idea would be to probably have you start relatively upfront with maybe 1 fellow in front of you to eat the opening pistol volley for you. I'm up for giving it a shot - the concept seems pretty darn simply, just moving some spawn points & play-testing to ensure its not miserable. After all, what captain doesn't lead by example? I'll try and get familiar with the tool you guys use and see how well I do with it.

In case you missed my last minute edit: I noticed while examining some of the files regarding boarding a reference to "hailing" ships in the code. Is that just the term used for interactions with other ships up close (IE boarding) or are there other "social" interactions you can have with ships alongside them?
 
I've been playing with a few ships in my "range" and I have to say, the Espadin Gunboat is surprisingly hard to rival. I did acquire a sloop-of-war but it feels a bit... much for a privateer or even pirate. I did also capture a brigatine that seems quite respectable for pirating/privateering, but I'd let to get my hands on the heavy variant. So far my most audacious capture has been a Portugese Manilla Galleon. I used it as my flagship for a few weeks before the slow speed/handling became unbearable, despite the withering firepower and range it had. I thought it pretty good to of captured it with my gunboat. However capturing a dutch trade escort frigate proved beyond my abilities, even when I tried it with the Manilla Galleon - the strength of those soldiers and their darn 450hp.
Warships are supposed to be tough. Their job is to take on pirates and privateers, and they're good at it. Also, as you've found, a frigate is a lot more agile than a Manila galleon, and if it had been the other way round and you were the one in the frigate, you would probably have no trouble taking on a Manila galleon.

If you're playing in "Golden Age of Piracy", try to get your hands on a Fast Galleon. The ultimate raiding ship as far as I'm concerned is the Fast War Galleon, but they're only used by France and Spain, so you won't be stealing one unless you switch sides (or unless the random relation changes which occasionally happen in FreePlay put France and Spain at war). The Fast Galleon doesn't have the firepower of the Fast War Galleon, but it's used by Holland and Portugal, so you should be able to take one of those.

Edit: So I'm looking over some of the code in the files to edit the boarding-camera fixation/lock (I'd rather see the ugly incomplete set-piece models than be unable to have full situational awareness) and I see references to "hailing ships". Is there a ship communication feature beyond the flag you fly I've overlooked!?!?!
I believe someone tried to add ship communications but either never finished it or never got it working. So there are probably traces of the code lying around which don't do anything.
 
That sort of fix seems simple enough to me. My idea would be to probably have you start relatively upfront with maybe 1 fellow in front of you to eat the opening pistol volley for you. I'm up for giving it a shot - the concept seems pretty darn simply, just moving some spawn points & play-testing to ensure its not miserable. After all, what captain doesn't lead by example? I'll try and get familiar with the tool you guys use and see how well I do with it.
Brilliant! If you need any help with that, feel free to ask. :doff

Edit: So I'm looking over some of the code in the files to edit the boarding-camera fixation/lock (I'd rather see the ugly incomplete set-piece models than be unable to have full situational awareness)
I cannot quite remember how that worked, but there may be a "lockcamera" attribute or something like that in the PROGRAM\Locations\init\Ship.c file.
Get rid of that, then start a new game and it should change.

I see references to "hailing ships". Is there a ship communication feature beyond the flag you fly I've overlooked!?!?!
Well spotted! You really pay proper attention, don't you? :cheeky
The technical answer is: Yes and No.
Yes, because there IS such a feature and the code is indeed in the game.
No, because that feature was never fully finished and the code is deliberately disabled until anyone steps in and DOES finish it.

If you open PROGRAM\globals.c, you can find some toggles on INCOMPLETE mods at the bottom.
They all used to be somewhat functional at the time they were written and, at the very least, they should not crash the game.
You can try switching them on, just as an experiment and to find out how well (or not) it actually works.
Maybe you'll be inspired some day to do the second half! :cool:

In case you missed my last minute edit: I noticed while examining some of the files regarding boarding a reference to "hailing" ships in the code. Is that just the term used for interactions with other ships up close (IE boarding) or are there other "social" interactions you can have with ships alongside them?
I had admittedly missed it the first time around. Thanks for reminding me!

As mentioned above, it is indeed something different. For some more details, see this thread here:
Planned Feature - Friendly Contact on High Seas

The ultimate raiding ship as far as I'm concerned is the Fast War Galleon, but they're only used by France and Spain, so you won't be stealing one unless you switch sides
Legally buying just isn't an option with you, is it? :rofl

I believe someone tried to add ship communications but either never finished it or never got it working. So there are probably traces of the code lying around which don't do anything.
You can MAKE them do something though!
I fixed what was already done on that to the point where it didn't crash the game and the base functionality was in place.
If I recall, there are 2-3 things missing though:
1. The captain appearing on the deck of the other ship
2. The captain actually having something relevant to say
3. The ability to go back to sea

Can't remember though, so maybe it is even less than those 3 items.
I have to admit, I would not mind to see the job completed some time! :woot
 
Back
Top