• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Problems escaping from prison

1: It should not affect a saved game. Apart from starting a new game (several times) to check that I can now beat the warden to death without the guards attacking prematurely, I have a longer game in progress which still works.
2: Yes, I've sometimes noticed that as well. I've no idea why it happens. It does seem only to happen to the Armed Tartane, and then only once. So before using the telescope, I save game, use the telescope, start PoTC after the CTD and reload the saved game, and after that the telescope works. Alternatively, just go to Santiago on the worldmap. There's no particular reason to direct-sail the whole way except to earn XP for sailing, and you can't defend yourself if you're attacked by random pirates or French ships because this "Armed" tartane is unarmed.
3: If you talk to someone, watch the on-screen message carefully. Sometimes it says "This meeting has really enlightened you..." The person has said something semi-useful and you gained a few XP. And sometimes it says "This meeting has really lightened you..." The person has just walked off with some of your money. If you notice this, and if you find the person in question, you can talk again. Various things might happen and you might get your money back. Or the thief might just laugh in your face. That's when you pull out the sandbag, hit him over the head, and rob him back. In the newest update, not only does this not cost you reputation any more, you get a different dialog to show that you're getting your revenge.
 
2. I found something strange with directsail mod. Not sure if it's a bug. With that mod on, sometimes when time advances to the next hour, the date will advance, too. So I only use direct sail sparsely, when I need warp to the next island.
3. LOL, I never paid attention to "enlighten" or "lighten". So subtle.
 
2: That is intentional and nothing to do with "Ardent". In reality it takes a few days to sail to the next island. So 1 hour = 1 day. You can disable this by pressing '0' - the one on the top row of keys, not the one on the number pad. This disables direct-sail in that 1 hour no longer advances 1 day, random events such as floating cargo and "Sail Ho" don't happen, and you won't get to the next island. It's useful if you're just sailing from one port to another on the same island, and also useful if you've just forced an enemy ship to surrender - one of the most annoying things in the game is if you've been pounding a nice big ship, it's surrendered, you're closing to board, then you reach another island or there's a "Sail Ho", and that ship disappears. Remember to press '0' again to re-enable direct-sail, partly in case you do want to sail to another island, and partly because on-screen messages will keep reminding you until you do.

3: It's supposed to be subtle. Pickpockets don't tend to make much noise. :ninja (If you play on a low difficulty level, you will also hear a "clink" of money changing hands when someone picks your pocket.)
 
This isn't going to be a bug, but just a heads up: It looks like the storyline assumes that you're always playing with the default game options. Corpse looting comes up at times, which of course requires the body looting to be enabled. Disabling ammo means you'll be able to loot bows but not arrows, which throws the window rescue out the window. And I haven't tried Helen yet, but the wiki says you need to woo Edmundo by giving him different gifts (makes perfect sense), which probably means the blacksmith must be enabled.

Hornblower has a moment where you're supposed to buy gunpowder for your ship, but the plot still carries on even if you disabled the ship gunpowder and are obviously unable to buy any. Maybe Ardent would benefit a similar approach?
 
More precisely, the walkthrough assumes you're using default game options but the game does not.

If corpse looting is disabled, you automatically get the equipment you would have looted. Odd thing, though - if you kill the warden, you get his key; but the quest case to move you out of the cell, which is supposed to be triggered when you have the key, fails to trigger. If you then press F2 to enter the character interface, the quest case triggers as soon as you exit the interface. A bit of experimenting shows that if I cancel the item-based trigger and use 'LAi_QuestDelay' to trigger an intermediate quest case with a self-dialog that then triggers the cell exit, it works perfectly. So the F2 character interface is a workround for now, while the self-dialog fix will be in the next version. Killing the prison commandant while corpse looting is disabled will automatically give you the various equipment that you're supposed to loot, including the payroll letter and the prison door key, both of which do trigger their respective quests, so no further work is needed there.

The window rescue was intended as a bonus if you complete "Mayan Temple", though it doesn't check where you got the bow and arrow - you can get them from random Indian attacks in a jungle at night. Of course, if you have chosen not to have arrows by disabling the ammo mod, you won't be able to use the window - you'll just have to go through the main room and force the governor to let you out. A big point of "Ardent" is making your choices and living with the consequences - consider this to be one of them. :D Having said that, the end of "Mayan Temple" already checks for the ammo mod because the curare, tar and quiver don't exist if the mod is disabled, so you get a gem necklace instead. Arrows do exist even though you can't get them from Indians, probably so that Indians can show an arrow before shooting it at you. So in the next version, if the ammo mod is disabled, you'll get one arrow, plus a bow if you don't already have one (e.g. because you also disabled corpse looting and never got a free bow from the temple Indians).

If the weapons mod is enabled, you can only offer top quality weapons to Edmundo. The dialog already checks for the weapons mod and lets you offer basic weapons if it's disabled.

("Assassin" requires that brothels are open because one part of the quest requires you to visit one. For that reason, there's a warning on the setting that it is required for some storylines. The ammo mod also now carries such a warning, not for "Ardent", but for the forthcoming extension to "Woodes Rogers". At least for now, it can also apply to "Ardent" - the warning does say "for certain storylines". ;))
 
That actually sounds much better than it looked. I want to get back to it sometime soon. The first campaign I replay will be Ardent. I gotta say, I haven't gone through all storylines yet, but Ardent seems it does more towards taking into account the various options and enhancements the mod offers in general, and that also includes the ability to play a female character. I played the Sea Hawk as Danielle, because I'd played it as Nathaniel a gazillion times in the vanilla, but cut it short as soon as the main quest was over and every new game of mine have been a male character since. The main quest does acknowledge that you're playing as Danielle instead of Nathaniel, but the rest of the game (free play) has not been modded to do that yet. So I'll wait some more before getting back to it, since I want to try out Helen this time, but it won't be as much fun unless a hero steps forth and codes in a few sons and nephews spawning in the town halls.

Grey Roger said:
A big point of "Ardent" is making your choices and living with the consequences - consider this to be one of them. :D
Click to expand...

I can live with that! Especially after hearing the good news about the next update.
 
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