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    Maelstrom New Horizons


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WIP Now included in latest patch: Trade Winds, AI armor, weapons variety, captain rebalancing, etc

@imado552
download the latest WIP patch that levis made for September, install that first, then install my TY exp + main mod fixes archive, ovewriting files in the game directory with those. You have to install the main mod patch FIRST.

Let me know how you like the new doubled running speed on land. :)
Hi Hi Captain !!
 
Yes, sorry, I wasn't clear--if you have the july 28th exe installed already, then all you need to do is:

1) Install the zip file marked EXTRA INSTALLATION in the 4.1 WIP file. That is Levis's September patch.

2) install the zip file TY exp + main mod fixes I attached at the beginning of this thread. It includes the patches released in the last 2 days for the main mod bugs.
 
Cheers mates!

@Skyworm Glad to hear it worked out. I look forward to hearing how the more extreme version works out in that eastern journey. It will be good feedback, because if you can handle that extreme version, then the main mod version shouldn't give anyone a problem. :) (for the record, I increased the exponents in the base formula, so that one is a special alternate version. Keep it around and use that one continously if you like always west winds, the main mod version will be a different formula)

Well, my experiment just ended. I finally reached La Grenade. As you may imagine, it took me a lot longer.
Bad was:
- it took really long, about 3 hours of real time. And that was a short voyage to the neighbouring island. Imagine to sail directly from, say, Cayman to Barbados :nogood
- I wouldn't have made it if I had not used the switch to another realism level and to world map to escape at least 2 fleets I'd never have outsailed manually. But oh well, shit happens. On world map, I was sunk by a storm then

Good was:
- it is doable
- it is not without action (I had to evade some fleets and some single ships
- and most importantly: the wind is steady enough to strategically plan such a travel:
In fact, I set course straight north from Bonaire, until I met the same latitude like Petit Tobac, then changed xcourse to southeast until I was a bit south of La Grenade, then again steered north to hit the island. And this is exactly what I want to do in sort of a sailing simulation: To strategically plan my course based upon a more or leass steady main direction of wind. I remember it in a very similar way in good old Sid Meiers games.
So: :onya

Wishlist:
What I still miss in direct sailing is a possibility of a storm. They can happen, but are extremely unlikely.
Also, if I were to create this about my personal preferences, I'd go for more decent wind speeds and less slow wind speeds. I don't know what is more realistic, but a game is for fun, too, and not (or close to not) moving is no fun, and I don't see what is gained by me sitting in a dull. In fact, I'd use world map to get out.

hello me mate !! glad found someone who enjoys ironman mod the same as me !!!

Arr mate, we are not alone, hurrah! Let's drink on this! Rum for all! :cheers
 
@Skyworm Thanks for the feedback. Really helps me to hear of your experience, thank you! :)It would be easy for me to make you a personal mod (just for your use) with faster winds. How fast do you want them? Give me a range.


With the less extreme version we are looking at for the mod, the player will have much more frequent S,N, and even some E winds to help on that return journey.
 
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@Skyworm I'm about to leave so I'll give you something now, let's see if it works out.

Download the attached file, and you will have fast consistent winds. Let me know if it doesn't work.

NOONE else download this, unless you have Skyworm's exact preferences. This is NOT the main version of the file. It is much more towards the west, and much faster.

Edit: removing stray files, only keeping main versions up.
 
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What I still miss in direct sailing is a possibility of a storm. They can happen, but are extremely unlikely.
We've been reducing the chance of them occurring, because people didn't like them showing up too often.
The chance depends VERY much on what month of the year it is. September is by far the worst.

Also, if I were to create this about my personal preferences, I'd go for more decent wind speeds and less slow wind speeds. I don't know what is more realistic, but a game is for fun, too, and not (or close to not) moving is no fun, and I don't see what is gained by me sitting in a dull. In fact, I'd use world map to get out.
Mostly in the Caribbean, there is a Beaufort 4 wind blowing. No wind at all is relatively unlikely in real life there.
 
@Pieter Boelen

Currently the wind generally is set to range between 5 and 30. (For the personal mod for Skyworm I made and posted above, I gave him 20 and 30).

Do you think 5 and 30 sounds like an accurate range? If you suggest any changes, I will make and test them.
 
Cheers mate,

won't test much today because its close to midnight now :rumgone


So just some thoughts:
I'll be fine with winds between 15 and 30. It's those about 10 and below I really don't like.

Also, I thought about the directions of wind. While I'm fine with the wind changing like it actually does in my special mod, I think I could go with more variation of direction, if the wind lasts longer once changed. It is not the change in direction itself that, sorry, sucks, but the high frequency. If we could reduce the frequency from once per hour to, say, 4 times per day, I could go with larger changes in direction. I just want to sail some time straight and true, before having to change course again.
 
Minimum wind speed of Beaufort 2 or 3 sounds quite reasonable.
Maybe with only the tiniest chance of the wind completely dying down.
 
@Skyworm no need to test, the latest file is just for your personal use. You've given me plenty of useful feedback already, but by now the version I'm making you is so different from what I am looking at for the mod that feedback on that version won't really help me.

Consider the specially tailored version a "thank you" for you having provided earlier feedback--only tell me if something is wrong if you want me to change it for you.

As for wind speed, I gave you 20 to 30, if you want to tailor it to 15 to 30 or something, find where it does something like this (not exactly right, but scan the file and you'll see something close): if (minwind < 20) {minwind = 20} and change both of those 20s to 15, or whatever else you like.

On wind change frequency, I can't help you with that just right now. There is a part of the code that ties weather changes to the day/night cycle and other things, if I made wind change 4 times a day, it would go from perfectly sunny to dead night in an instant.

I will be looking at pulling those mechanics apart, and making wind changes a random chance (NOT always st the exact time an hour switches), at some point in the future. When I do, I'll make the chance of a wind adjustment adjustable by the user, so you can easily make it 4 times a day on average if you like.

But that is a ways down the road, probably a beta 15 plan.

In the meantime, I hope the special version I made for you helps improve your experience. :)
 
@Pieter Boelen I apologize for my ignorance, but I don't really understand what the beaufort scale is (I haven't messed with wind speed at all). I am not sure how it corresponds with the 5-30 used in the game. Do you know offhand what the game numbers mean?

If we want a chance of the wind dying, I can make the min 0, and try playtesting that, 0-30. Because of the way wind speed changes work, it shouldn't go to 0 but only very rarely. Does that sound right to try?
 
The Beaufort scale is a way to distinguish between different ranges of wind speeds.
For example, force 1 is virtually no wind and force 12 is huge storm.
See Beaufort scale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Speaking of Beaufort and wind speed ingame, I've always found weird that a potentially catastrophic storm is at 28-30 knots ingame when in reality that's merely a strong wind/near gale (Beaufort 7) which, although quite rough, wouldn't be really that dangerous for a decent ship/captain. At least I don't think I've ever seen it higher than 30. Is it impossible for the game to handle real stormy weather (let's say over 50 knots)?
 
Where are storms controlled?
See here for the code we were tweaking for this: Medium Priority - Reduce Monthly Storm Chance | Page 2 | PiratesAhoy!
The chance for storms increases with that "rainrisk" value.

Speaking of Beaufort and wind speed ingame, I've always found weird that a potentially catastrophic storm is at 28-30 knots ingame when in reality that's merely a strong wind/near gale (Beaufort 7) which, although quite rough, wouldn't be really that dangerous for a decent ship/captain. At least I don't think I've ever seen it higher than 30. Is it impossible for the game to handle real stormy weather (let's say over 50 knots)?
No clue; I never tried. :shrug
 
@Homo eructus I'll give it a try and see. The coding for that will be easy, there is a seperate check where you can tell the game the maximum non-storm wind speed, so I'll just set the two drastically different.

I always playtest any changes in my experimental releases extensively first to ensure 0 bugs, so since this one has the potential to do something unexpected, I'll need to playtest for a bit before possiblly releasing a version with it for more general testing.

Will need several days at least, given current schedule with work, but we'll see if it works well, or capsizes the player ship at the first storm. :)
 
Cheers mates,

thanks for modding at this matter.

@Tingyun: Will look into wind sepeed now, I adjusted them to minimum 15 for me.

@Pieter: Will write something about the storms in direct sail in the other thread you linked to.
 
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