Solved Questions & Thoughts

[omnimirage]

I have a very fast ship, 17, and I've noticed that when I'm hunting down the much slower merchants and the like, if the wind is against me my enemies don't seem to suffer from the same effect as I do. The AI does friggin zig zags and they're still able to escape as if the wind against their sails has no impact, why? I'm using realism mode btw.

Why is every ship that I face on the seas grossly undermanned? This game has become absurdly easy, since boarding with the musket ability means that I over-run my enemies even when their ships are of a better class. Most battles I can't even participate because my men are in the way. It's removed all the challenge and frankly, stimulation, because the game has just became absurdly easy. I'm even attacking imperial ships now and am still finding that ships that can house 140 troops typically have half that number aboard.

Could I please have some information on the differences between long guns and carranodes? I know that it was well documented in vanilla but after a fair bit of searching, both through these forums and through the original game, I couldn't find much. Please consider adding it to the tips and tricks page.

I found the firearms to not be balanced well enough, some are just much stronger than others, to a silly degree. The grapeshot pistol is supposed to be a beast, high damage impact but low accuracy, so why does the long pistol have a higher damage output?

Consider giving the blacksmith a means of providing elite weapons, such as the Knight of Templar blade, at an extremely high price, so that one doesn't have to spend hours going to every stall to find them.

For some reason some of the stores don't give me the ability to trade with them, the option simply isn't there. They aren't threatening to call the guards on me, I can just only say to them I'm interested in information, not barter. Very frustrating when my crew is on the verge of starvation, yes this has happened a few times -_-

I really disliked the mysterious coin. Just the fact that I couldn't easily dispose of it, and I had to come to you guys to work out how to do so made my experience less appealing. Maybe if I was familiar with the movies I'd appreciate it more, but consider changing that system some how.

I talked to the leader of the pirates and became a pirate myself. And I have no idea what game play differences this has actually made, beside everyone becoming my enemy. Please document these things somewhere, or better yet, add more detail in that particular dialogue so that I know what I'm getting myself into, the pros and cons.

One thing that really made my gaming experience at the beginning kinda shitty was how I couldn't fast travel without knowing the location, but more importantly, not being able to see the darn ports on the map, and having to swim right up to the darn port to dock there. Such can be frustrating when the wind is against me. You may say that arcade is the style for me, but it really isn't, I love the more tactical situations realism mode has, I just don't like having to guess where the friggin ports and shores are, nor spending a number of minutes boringly walking around looking for the tavern and the like. I'm surprised that I don't have the option to play realism mode without having to do this tedious stuff.

My game CTD a bit, which does ruin the experience a bit. If possible, an autosave would be good, maybe after battles and after leaving ports.

I get pretty lost when exploring jungles at times, signposts would be helpful.

I love being able to recruit my seamen into officers, but I feel that it's way too broken. Being able to have 3 strong fighter officers for 0 recruitment charge and a low salary just isn't right.

Autoleveling up is an amazing idea, but it's way too flawed. It frequently upgraded stats that simply were not appropriate for the actions that I was doing, that sadly led me to turning the option off.

Can I assault towns from land by landing my crew at shore? Would be pretty neat if I could do something of the like.

What's the idea behind having buildings? Can I actually profit off these?

There's a merchant who is housed in one of the stores that requests the player to escort him to some island and back for protection and I'll be payed to do so. Was kinda ridiculous considering my was nothing but a 5 man dingy with no cannon. Anyway to make there be a condition for that quest to view whether the player's ship is actually able to protect?

Can my soliders use armour? What about guns that require the gunman ability? Some more detailed information on putting weapons into the weapons locker for boarding would be appreciated and useful to add to the tips and tricks. I'd like to know what default weapons they use for starters.

Being able to command my allied ships to fire grapeshot instead of ball would be very useful.

Having to abandon ships due to not being able to command more than 4 is extremely meh. It'd be great if this could be change somehow, if even to only give them a command to go to some dock.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I have a very fast ship, 17, and I've noticed that when I'm hunting down the much slower merchants and the like, if the wind is against me my enemies don't seem to suffer from the same effect as I do. The AI does friggin zig zags and they're still able to escape as if the wind against their sails has no impact, why? I'm using realism mode btw.

A mod was added quite a while ago to make the AI tack properly against the wind. I'm glad to hear that actually works.
All you'd have to do is to tack as well. What is your "best point of sail" on your fast ship? You may be fast with the wind, but not against it.
You might want to have a look through the "New Horizons Ship Recognition Guide.pdf" file in your "Documentation" folder.
That contains some pretty good explanations on the advantage and disadvantage of various ship types.

Why is every ship that I face on the seas grossly undermanned? This game has become absurdly easy, since boarding with the musket ability means that I over-run my enemies even when their ships are of a better class. Most battles I can't even participate because my men are in the way. It's removed all the challenge and frankly, stimulation, because the game has just became absurdly easy. I'm even attacking imperial ships now and am still finding that ships that can house 140 troops typically have half that number aboard.

Is it actually the number of crew as seen by your spyglass/Sail-To menu before boarding?
There is a mod to give ships at sea random amounts of damage to hull, sail and crew as if they have already experienced things before you encountered them.

Alternatively, if you find the boardings are too easy, it could also be due to your player level.
Enemy characters' level depends on yours and I've been doing some tests myself where I had a BIG ship, but was only at level 1 myself.
That's when any boarding becomes RIDICULOUSLY easy. Have you tried to increase the difficulty level yet?

I found the firearms to not be balanced well enough, some are just much stronger than others, to a silly degree. The grapeshot pistol is supposed to be a beast, high damage impact but low accuracy, so why does the long pistol have a higher damage output?

See attached file I used to rebalance the pistols earlier this year.
If we're comparing the Grapeshot and Long Pistol: On average a Long Pistol will do 75 damage and the Grapeshot pistol will do 69 damage.
That is indeed less. But consider that the Grapeshot pistol damages multiple enemies at once.
So that is 69 damage to the MAIN enemy you aimed at PLUS a part of that damage to the ones around him too, depending on their distance of the actual target.
If you have a nice group of enemies together, the Grapeshot pistol will do MUCH more damage than a Long Pistol would.

Actually, the main reason for rebalancing the pistols was because the Grapeshot pistol was both common and VASTLY overpowered.
So enemies would be carrying them a lot. And they were SO strong this tended to be an instant death situation for the player.

Consider giving the blacksmith a means of providing elite weapons, such as the Knight of Templar blade, at an extremely high price, so that one doesn't have to spend hours going to every stall to find them.

Blacksmiths do sell weapons. But appearance of weapons depends on their minlevel. They'll all show up eventually, but they won't be available from the start of the game.
If you do want this, use the "Trader Item Availability" option in the Options>Game Preferences menu.

For some reason some of the stores don't give me the ability to trade with them, the option simply isn't there. They aren't threatening to call the guards on me, I can just only say to them I'm interested in information, not barter. Very frustrating when my crew is on the verge of starvation, yes this has happened a few times -_-

This depends on your reputation and relation to that nation. If you have a low reputation, they won't want to deal with you.
If you are at war with their country, they won't like you either. UNLESS you are a Hero.
Pirates are the other way around and don't like you if you are TOO MUCH of a nice guy: reputation Matey or above.
Once your Commerce skill gets above 5, you'll be able to deal with traders again for emergency situations. But it'll cost you double.

I really disliked the mysterious coin. Just the fact that I couldn't easily dispose of it, and I had to come to you guys to work out how to do so made my experience less appealing. Maybe if I was familiar with the movies I'd appreciate it more, but consider changing that system some how.

If you know how to do it, you can get rid of it in about five minutes' time. Of course that does assume familiarity with the movies.
If you don't like it, open PROGRAM\Storyline\[Storyline].c (fill in your preferred storyline here; or just do it for ALL) and find:

AddStorylineVar(n, "ISLA_DE_MUERTE", "1");

Change to:

AddStorylineVar(n, "ISLA_DE_MUERTE", "o");

This will make random coins NOT curse you.

The reason for having this active is because an Easter Egg is no fun if you never encounter it.
But if you've got any thoughts on how to make it more obvious how to get rid of it, I'd definitely appreciate some suggestions.
It is intended to mainly be a joke when you find one and not be pure-nasty-evil.

I talked to the leader of the pirates and became a pirate myself. And I have no idea what game play differences this has actually made, beside everyone becoming my enemy. Please document these things somewhere, or better yet, add more detail in that particular dialogue so that I know what I'm getting myself into, the pros and cons.

That is exactly all it does: everyone gets to hate you. What use does it have? Haven't the foggiest myself. Have a Letter of Marque somewhere is MUCH more profitable.
This is a feature that the modders many, many years ago thought fun to add. I'm pretty sure the dialog DOES warn you that you'll be hated by all.

One thing that really made my gaming experience at the beginning kinda shitty was how I couldn't fast travel without knowing the location, but more importantly, not being able to see the darn ports on the map, and having to swim right up to the darn port to dock there. Such can be frustrating when the wind is against me. You may say that arcade is the style for me, but it really isn't, I love the more tactical situations realism mode has, I just don't like having to guess where the friggin ports and shores are, nor spending a number of minutes boringly walking around looking for the tavern and the like. I'm surprised that I don't have the option to play realism mode without having to do this tedious stuff.

The top of PROGRAM\InternalSettings.c contains various settings to tweak the realism modes.
Unfortunately at the moment it doesn't allow you to make the Realistic Game Mode less realistic. I'll see if I can reverse that coding so that you CAN switch it off.
Of all the above, could you please tell me which ones you'd like to get rid of?

#define REALISTIC_SHIP_INERTIA       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Ships require counter-rudder and don't sail as if on rails
#define SHORE_DANGER_ALARM         0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Red flashing icon and danger music do not start until enemies draw their blade
#define DISCOVER_SAIL_TO         0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Shores and ports must be discovered by sailing there manually before you can use Sail To
#define DISCOVER_FAST_TRAVEL       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Town locations must be discovered by finding them manually before you can use Fast Travel
#define NAVIGATION_EQUIPMENT       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Items required for certain navigational information to become available
#define ENABLE_LIMITED_SHIPCLASS     0     // BOOL - 1=ON - When player takes command of ship of too high tier, Leadership and Sailing skills drops
#define CANNOT_RELOAD_WHILE_FIGHTING   0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Your gun won't reload while your sword is drawn
#define SAIL_OPERATE_DELAY         3     // INT - sailors will operate sails this amount of seconds after receiving command (set to 0 to restore stock PotC)

Then I'll know which ones to reverse in the code.

My game CTD a bit, which does ruin the experience a bit. If possible, an autosave would be good, maybe after battles and after leaving ports.

Personally I always make a manual save before setting sail. We've got an "Auto Save" feature on our To-Do/Wish List, but it is under "long term projects".
Can't figure everything out at the same time, unfortunately.

I get pretty lost when exploring jungles at times, signposts would be helpful.

Agreed. At the moment, only the stock game Barbados has them. We have a thread on the subject here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/fixing-the-signage.20705/
Unfortunately that is also quite a lot of work and we just don't have the people to do it. Perhaps if you could help, that would speed things up.

I love being able to recruit my seamen into officers, but I feel that it's way too broken. Being able to have 3 strong fighter officers for 0 recruitment charge and a low salary just isn't right.

That is an experimental feature I once added into the game just for the sake of it.
Nobody bothered to comment on it ever since. If you've got any specific thoughts on how to make it more balanced, please let me know.
Those sailors start out with all skills at 1, so they would need to accompany you from quite a while before they would be strong fighters.
But indeed they're VERY cheap once they do get there.

Autoleveling up is an amazing idea, but it's way too flawed. It frequently upgraded stats that simply were not appropriate for the actions that I was doing, that sadly led me to turning the option off.

Do you have any examples of that? The code IS very specific on WHICH skills it is leveling up for which actions.
So that sounds pretty weird to me.

Can I assault towns from land by landing my crew at shore? Would be pretty neat if I could do something of the like.

There are a few towns that have their forts accessible from the land side as well.
That works quite differently from the regular town assaults from sea, but you can see how that goes.

What's the idea behind having buildings? Can I actually profit off these?

For sure you can! You can build your own (quite weird-looking) town and talk to your building owners for all sorts of features and bonuses and added gameplay.

There's a merchant who is housed in one of the stores that requests the player to escort him to some island and back for protection and I'll be payed to do so. Was kinda ridiculous considering my was nothing but a 5 man dingy with no cannon. Anyway to make there be a condition for that quest to view whether the player's ship is actually able to protect?

That is a stock game sidequest. I see your point though. Also applies to random escort quests, I think.
They don't seem to care much for what type of ship they're escorted by.

Can my soliders use armour? What about guns that require the gunman ability? Some more detailed information on putting weapons into the weapons locker for boarding would be appreciated and useful to add to the tips and tricks. I'd like to know what default weapons they use for starters.

They do use armour, though only very few models have the ability to show it.
Later in the game, your crew will be generated with better skills and abilities and then they might use guns that require the Gunman ability. But not at the start.
If you don't put any weapons in the weaponslocker, they will use Cutlasses. That is why in the Tutorial, Malcolm makes you stock the weaponslocker with those.

Being able to command my allied ships to fire grapeshot instead of ball would be very useful.

Having to abandon ships due to not being able to command more than 4 is extremely meh. It'd be great if this could be change somehow, if even to only give them a command to go to some dock.

Ouch, that would be difficult to add in, I'm sure. I do see the point, but with just about only one active coder here, I have to be very selective.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The top of PROGRAM\InternalSettings.c contains various settings to tweak the realism modes.
Unfortunately at the moment it doesn't allow you to make the Realistic Game Mode less realistic. I'll see if I can reverse that coding so that you CAN switch it off.
Of all the above, could you please tell me which ones you'd like to get rid of?

#define REALISTIC_SHIP_INERTIA       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Ships require counter-rudder and don't sail as if on rails
#define SHORE_DANGER_ALARM         0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Red flashing icon and danger music do not start until enemies draw their blade
#define DISCOVER_SAIL_TO         0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Shores and ports must be discovered by sailing there manually before you can use Sail To
#define DISCOVER_FAST_TRAVEL       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Town locations must be discovered by finding them manually before you can use Fast Travel
#define NAVIGATION_EQUIPMENT       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Items required for certain navigational information to become available
#define ENABLE_LIMITED_SHIPCLASS     0     // BOOL - 1=ON - When player takes command of ship of too high tier, Leadership and Sailing skills drops
#define CANNOT_RELOAD_WHILE_FIGHTING   0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Your gun won't reload while your sword is drawn
#define SAIL_OPERATE_DELAY         3     // INT - sailors will operate sails this amount of seconds after receiving command (set to 0 to restore stock PotC)

Then I'll know which ones to reverse in the code.

Well, I've just reversed the code for DISCOVER_SAIL_TO and DISCOVER_FAST_TRAVEL, so you'll be able to switch those off in Realistic Game Mode as per the next update.
Let me know if there are any others you'd like to be changed. We don't want things to be annoying, of course.

That is an experimental feature I once added into the game just for the sake of it.
Nobody bothered to comment on it ever since. If you've got any specific thoughts on how to make it more balanced, please let me know.
Those sailors start out with all skills at 1, so they would need to accompany you from quite a while before they would be strong fighters.
But indeed they're VERY cheap once they do get there.

Made some code changes to this now too, so low-level crewmembers as officers require low salary, but it increases with their rank.
Rank 1 may require less than 800 gold per month, but when I tested on rank 40, the crewmember required over 3000.
If it needs to be balanced further, let me know.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Just posted a new update here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-progress.20686
This includes both changes you suggested, so I hope you'll be able to have some more fun now!

Note that the "DISCOVER_FAST_TRAVEL" change does require a new game to be started to take effect.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Just skimmed that post. Too long.

The only thing I agree with is that naval combat is too easy and needs to be made harder. Indeed most ships have very low crew levels. This is normal for merchantmen though, and I have done that myself to save money. But naval and pirate ships should have full crews, but never do. All AI ships also do not fire their cannons nearly often enough. I use 3 times as much shot as my escort ships do, and the opponents are the same way. Everyone just circles around firing every once in a great while.

About tacking into the wind, when that mod was being worked on the ships would tack much faster than now. I got the modder to slow them down because they were too good at it. Now I'm finding that I can out tack them and would like to make them a little better at it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The only thing I agree with is that naval combat is too easy and needs to be made harder. Indeed most ships have very low crew levels. This is normal for merchantmen though, and I have done that myself to save money. But naval and pirate ships should have full crews, but never do..

I think this is the relevant code in PROGRAM\SEA_AI\AIShip.c:

    switch(rFantom.FantomType)
     {
       case "trade":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(25.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/5)+1)/2.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = makeint(iMinCrew + Rand(iMinCrew) + Rand(iMinCrew));
         hulldmg = 0.5;
         saildmg = 0.3;
       break;

       case "war":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(40.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/5)+1)/2.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = makeint(iMinCrew*2 + (Rand(iMinCrew) + Rand(iMinCrew)*1.5));
         hulldmg = 0.25;
         saildmg = 0.25;
       break;

       case "pirate":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(50.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/2)+1)/5.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = makeint(iMinCrew*2 + (Rand(iMinCrew*2) + Rand(iMinCrew)));
         hulldmg = 0.5;
         saildmg = 0.2;
       break;
     }

Replace with:

    switch(rFantom.FantomType)
     {
       case "trade":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(25.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/5)+1)/2.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = makeint(iMinCrew + Rand(iMinCrew) + Rand(iMinCrew));
         hulldmg = 0.5;
         saildmg = 0.3;
       break;

       case "war":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(40.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/5)+1)/2.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = iMaxCrew; // PB: Warships always maximum crew
         hulldmg = 0.25;
         saildmg = 0.25;
       break;

       case "pirate":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(50.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/2)+1)/5.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = iMaxCrew; // PB: Pirate ships always maximum crew
         hulldmg = 0.5;
         saildmg = 0.2;
       break;
     }

Would that be better? No randomization at all?

Truth be told, that code there DOES look weird. It didn't even use the MaxCrew value at all. That doesn't make much sense to me.



Edit: Alternate idea:

    switch(rFantom.FantomType)
     {
       case "trade":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(25.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/5)+1)/2.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = makeint( iMinCrew + 0.50*(iMaxCrew-iMinCrew) + 0.45*rand(iMaxCrew-iMinCrew) ); // PB: Min crew + 50% of remaining crew + 45% random
         hulldmg = 0.5;
         saildmg = 0.3;
       break;

       case "war":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(40.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/5)+1)/2.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = makeint( iMinCrew + 0.75*(iMaxCrew-iMinCrew) + 0.25*rand(iMaxCrew-iMinCrew) ); // PB: Min crew + 75% of remaining crew + 25% random
         hulldmg = 0.25;
         saildmg = 0.25;
       break;

       case "pirate":
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.morale = makeint(50.0 * (1.0 + makefloat(rand(GetCharacterSkill(rFantom,SKILL_LEADERSHIP)/2)+1)/5.0));
         rFantom.Ship.Crew.Quantity = makeint( iMinCrew + 0.85*(iMaxCrew-iMinCrew) + 0.15*rand(iMaxCrew-iMinCrew) ); // PB: Min crew + 85% of remaining crew + 15% random
         hulldmg = 0.5;
         saildmg = 0.2;
       break;
     }

This actually checks both the minimum AND the maximum crew. By changing the values, we can define which ship types get how much crew.
Set up as above, ALL ships will start out with their minimum sailing crew. Then for the remaining possible crew:

- Trade ships always get 50% plus a random part of 45% - so that means anywhere between 50% to 95% of their additional crew

- Navy ships always get 75% and can go up to 100%

- Pirate ships always get 85% and can also go up t0 100%

If anyone can think of better values, please let me know.
Relatively speaking, how much crew would a merchant, navy or pirate ship have on board?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

About tacking into the wind, when that mod was being worked on the ships would tack much faster than now. I got the modder to slow them down because they were too good at it. Now I'm finding that I can out tack them and would like to make them a little better at it.

Look at PROGRAM\SEA_AI\AIShip.c:

//TM --> Detect when non player ship is sailing into wind and use rotate function to turn it out of wind
     float fTacking2 = 0;
     
     if (iCharacterIndex != GetMainCharacterIndex()) {
       if (fSeaExpTimer > 5) {
         if(fOffWind < fClosestPoint + (RS_CP_OFFSET * 8) && fOffWind > fClosestPoint && fSailState > 0.0) {Ship_SetSailState(iCharacterIndex, 1.00);};
         if(fOffWind < fClosestPoint) {
           if (fSailState > 0.0) {   
             Ship_SetSailState(iCharacterIndex, 0.001);
             float fTacking = stf(arCharShip.Speed.y);
             if(fTacking <= 0) {fTacking2 = -0.0010; arCharShip.Impulse.Rotate.y = fTacking2;}; //Left     
             else {fTacking2 = 0.0010; arCharShip.Impulse.Rotate.y = fTacking2;}; //Right         
           } else {
             arCharShip.Impulse.Rotate.y = 0
             fTacking = 0
             fTacking2 = 0
           }
         } else {
           arCharShip.Impulse.Rotate.y = 0
           fTacking = 0
           fTacking2 = 0
         }
       }
     }
// <-- TM

Most notably these two lines:

             if(fTacking <= 0) {fTacking2 = -0.0010; arCharShip.Impulse.Rotate.y = fTacking2;}; //Left     
             else {fTacking2 = 0.0010; arCharShip.Impulse.Rotate.y = fTacking2;}; //Right

I think you should change those values from 0.0010 to something else then.
Higher values mean stronger rotation impulse.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok, just got around to making those changes in AIship.c and will playtest today. I changed those last values from 0.0010 to 0.0015.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Modified crew numbers are now in the latest Beta 3 test version:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-progress.20686

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Anyone got any comments on those modified crew numbers? Does it make a difference? Does it need further changing?

Any further comments on any of the other points mentioned above? If not, I will mark it as "Solved".

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yes the extra crew does make a difference. It seems that before the ships didn't even have enough crew to fire all their cannons. Now they do. I'm running into surrendered ships with no shot or powder left.

Does crew size have anything to do with morale? It seems they are surrendering faster than they should and I'm getting ships in pretty good condition.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Yes the extra crew does make a difference. It seems that before the ships didn't even have enough crew to fire all their cannons. Now they do. I'm running into surrendered ships with no shot or powder left.

Ah, that's good! Do the values seem about right now? We could make it even more crew if it is still too easy.

Does crew size have anything to do with morale? It seems they are surrendering faster than they should and I'm getting ships in pretty good condition.

I'm not familiar with the formulas for surrendering. From what I understand, larger crews should maintain a good morale for a longer time. Not shorter.

But then... the surrendering code is complicated. And you know what happens with complicated code? It tends not to do what it was intended to!

 

[omnimirage]

Sorry for taking so long to reply!

Is it actually the number of crew as seen by your spyglass/Sail-To menu before boarding?
There is a mod to give ships at sea random amounts of damage to hull, sail and crew as if they have already experienced things before you encountered them.

Alternatively, if you find the boardings are too easy, it could also be due to your player level.
Enemy characters' level depends on yours and I've been doing some tests myself where I had a BIG ship, but was only at level 1 myself.
That's when any boarding becomes RIDICULOUSLY easy. Have you tried to increase the difficulty level yet?

Yup, crew members as reported by my spy glass. They're frequently 50% at maximum crew capacity, and with the musket skill that kills quite a number of enemy crew members, I'm finding that I board a ship and just nobody is there to defend against me: against ship's of similar level, I board to only find a captain there waiting to surrender, or I can't even participate in the battle because I have so many men swarming my enemy and getting in the way. I'm able to take on tier 2 ships with my tier 5, even though mine can only hold 150 men and there's 410, just because they're at 50% maximum crew capacity to start with, and my muskets kill another 80 or whatever. I was playing on the second hardest difficulty, because I found the earlier stages of the game was too tough on the hardest for my liking, but now the game has gotten much easier and I've bumped it up to the hardest, which is something I shouldn't ideally have to do.

I have a strong feeling that the musket ability is way overpowered as well, I'm often amazed at how many enemy crew members that kills. How is that calculated?

See attached file I used to rebalance the pistols earlier this year.
If we're comparing the Grapeshot and Long Pistol: On average a Long Pistol will do 75 damage and the Grapeshot pistol will do 69 damage.
That is indeed less. But consider that the Grapeshot pistol damages multiple enemies at once.
So that is 69 damage to the MAIN enemy you aimed at PLUS a part of that damage to the ones around him too, depending on their distance of the actual target.
If you have a nice group of enemies together, the Grapeshot pistol will do MUCH more damage than a Long Pistol would.

Actually, the main reason for rebalancing the pistols was because the Grapeshot pistol was both common and VASTLY overpowered.
So enemies would be carrying them a lot. And they were SO strong this tended to be an instant death situation for the player.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense then! Can you update the grapeshot weapon description at all to include this information? And maybe have an entry in the "tips and tricks" section giving a bit more detailed information on how it works?

This depends on your reputation and relation to that nation. If you have a low reputation, they won't want to deal with you.
If you are at war with their country, they won't like you either. UNLESS you are a Hero.
Pirates are the other way around and don't like you if you are TOO MUCH of a nice guy: reputation Matey or above.
Once your Commerce skill gets above 5, you'll be able to deal with traders again for emergency situations. But it'll cost you double.

The dialogue needs to be changed to express this then. Without him telling me he's not going to trade, I'm left with the impression that the game is flawed, rather than gaining information that my actions are causing him to not trade with me.

The reason for having this active is because an Easter Egg is no fun if you never encounter it.
But if you've got any thoughts on how to make it more obvious how to get rid of it, I'd definitely appreciate some suggestions.
It is intended to mainly be a joke when you find one and not be pure-nasty-evil.

Is there anyway that the item description can give some details on how to break the curse?

That is exactly all it does: everyone gets to hate you. What use does it have? Haven't the foggiest myself. Have a Letter of Marque somewhere is MUCH more profitable.
This is a feature that the modders many, many years ago thought fun to add. I'm pretty sure the dialog DOES warn you that you'll be hated by all.

It does warn me, but that's all it does. I tried it out of curiosity, and saw no gameplay changes, other than everyone hating me. Was a disappointing waste of time. Frankly, if that's all it does, I'd recommend removing that feature. If it somehow makes pirates allies, so one can join in on a pirate vs. imperial fight and not be shot down by the pirates, then that actually does something and is kinda cool. If it did, it'd be nice if it specified such.

The top of PROGRAM\InternalSettings.c contains various settings to tweak the realism modes.
Unfortunately at the moment it doesn't allow you to make the Realistic Game Mode less realistic. I'll see if I can reverse that coding so that you CAN switch it off.
Of all the above, could you please tell me which ones you'd like to get rid of?

#define REALISTIC_SHIP_INERTIA       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Ships require counter-rudder and don't sail as if on rails
#define SHORE_DANGER_ALARM         0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Red flashing icon and danger music do not start until enemies draw their blade
#define DISCOVER_SAIL_TO         0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Shores and ports must be discovered by sailing there manually before you can use Sail To
#define DISCOVER_FAST_TRAVEL       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Town locations must be discovered by finding them manually before you can use Fast Travel
#define NAVIGATION_EQUIPMENT       0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Items required for certain navigational information to become available
#define ENABLE_LIMITED_SHIPCLASS     0     // BOOL - 1=ON - When player takes command of ship of too high tier, Leadership and Sailing skills drops
#define CANNOT_RELOAD_WHILE_FIGHTING   0     // BOOL - 1=ON - Your gun won't reload while your sword is drawn
#define SAIL_OPERATE_DELAY         3     // INT - sailors will operate sails this amount of seconds after receiving command (set to 0 to restore stock PotC)

Then I'll know which ones to reverse in the code.

Some people might like to not have the items effect navigation, but I'm happy with them all, besides not being able to fast travel, of course. I didn't even realise that there's a time delay and that's pretty awesome. How did I ever play vanilla with the pistol auto reloading with sword drawn anyway? Blagh.

Agreed. At the moment, only the stock game Barbados has them. We have a thread on the subject here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/fixing-the-signage.20705/
Unfortunately that is also quite a lot of work and we just don't have the people to do it. Perhaps if you could help, that would speed things up.

I would but I don't know how to code whatsoever D:

That is an experimental feature I once added into the game just for the sake of it.
Nobody bothered to comment on it ever since. If you've got any specific thoughts on how to make it more balanced, please let me know.
Those sailors start out with all skills at 1, so they would need to accompany you from quite a while before they would be strong fighters.
But indeed they're VERY cheap once they do get there.

oh, I see. Everytime I went to recruit them they were at 6-10 melee. Having them charge some sort of "officers grant" or whatever when recruiting them would be good, maybe have it at have price of what a officer would normally charge for his particular skills, if the charging system even works like that. The monthly fees always striked me as way too low as well, if they're a officer they, imo, should be payed the same amount as the other guys; if they're a poor officer they should be payed a poor salary, but a tavern hired identical skilled officer should be payed the same as the seamen recruited one, imo.

Do you have any examples of that? The code IS very specific on WHICH skills it is leveling up for which actions.
So that sounds pretty weird to me.

huh, I don't unfortunately. When I start a new game I'll turn that back on and I'll document observations.

They do use armour, though only very few models have the ability to show it.
Later in the game, your crew will be generated with better skills and abilities and then they might use guns that require the Gunman ability. But not at the start.
If you don't put any weapons in the weaponslocker, they will use Cutlasses. That is why in the Tutorial, Malcolm makes you stock the weaponslocker with those.

Please add this very useful information to the tips and tricks.

 

[omnimirage]

Made some code changes to this now too, so low-level crewmembers as officers require low salary, but it increases with their rank.
Rank 1 may require less than 800 gold per month, but when I tested on rank 40, the crewmember required over 3000.
If it needs to be balanced further, let me know.

huh, isn't that very little for a level 40 officer?

 

[omnimirage]

This actually checks both the minimum AND the maximum crew. By changing the values, we can define which ship types get how much crew.
Set up as above, ALL ships will start out with their minimum sailing crew. Then for the remaining possible crew:

- Trade ships always get 50% plus a random part of 45% - so that means anywhere between 50% to 95% of their additional crew

- Navy ships always get 75% and can go up to 100%

- Pirate ships always get 85% and can also go up t0 100%

If anyone can think of better values, please let me know.
Relatively speaking, how much crew would a merchant, navy or pirate ship have on board?

Yay, much better

That seems good. If it's not too difficult, it'd be good if the percentages are influenced by the game's difficulty, and if navy ships in a fleet have a higher percentage than say, small craft or navy ships escorting merchants. Oh, and to make sure, the navy ships escorting the merchants have the
75% and can go up to 100%, whereas the merchant ships in the same group have the other number, right?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I have a strong feeling that the musket ability is way overpowered as well, I'm often amazed at how many enemy crew members that kills. How is that calculated?

Looks to be this code in PROGRAM\Loc_ai\LAi_boarding.c:

void MusketVolley(ref mchr, ref echr)
{
   // This only happens for ships, not forts, and is already tested in AIAbordage.c
   bool PlayerVolley = CheckAttribute(mchr, "musket") && !CheckAttribute(echr, "surrendered");
   bool EnemyVolley  = CheckAttribute(echr, "musket") && !CheckAttribute(echr, "surrendered");
   DeleteAttribute(mchr, "musket");
   DeleteAttribute(echr, "musket");

   // delta determines who fires first and affects the final casualty total
   int leadership0 = GetSummonSkillFromName(mchr, SKILL_LEADERSHIP);
   int leadership1 = GetSummonSkillFromName(echr, SKILL_LEADERSHIP);
   int accuracy0 = GetSummonSkillFromName(mchr, SKILL_ACCURACY);
   int accuracy1 = GetSummonSkillFromName(echr, SKILL_ACCURACY);
   float delta = makefloat((leadership0 - leadership1) + (accuracy0 - accuracy1)) / (4.0 * SKILL_MAX);
//   float delta = 0.0;
   float killratio1 = 0.0;
   float killratio2 = 0.0;
   bool  bEnemyShotFirst = false;

   int numVolleys = PlayerVolley + EnemyVolley;
   ref chr1 = mchr;
   ref chr2 = echr;
   if (numVolleys == 1 && EnemyVolley)
   {
     chr1 = echr;
     chr2 = mchr;
   }

   if (numVolleys == 2)
   {
     if (delta > 0.0) {
       chr1 = mchr;
       chr2 = echr;
     } else {
       chr1 = echr;
       chr2 = mchr;
       bEnemyShotFirst = true;
     }
   }

   int nShooter = 1;
   while (numVolleys > 0)
   {
     // musket fire effects have been moved from AIAbordage.c to here
     int ecrew = GetCrewQuantity(chr2);
     float fLuck = 0.5 * GetSummonSkillFromName(chr1, SKILL_SNEAK) / SKILL_MAX;
     float fShipDefense = 0.0;
     if (GetOfficersPerkUsing(chr2, "BasicBattleState"))  fShipDefense = 0.15;
     if (GetOfficersPerkUsing(chr2, "AdvancedBattleState"))  fShipDefense = 0.25;
     if (GetOfficersPerkUsing(chr2, "ShipDefenseProfessional")) fShipDefense = 0.40;
     float fCharDefence = makefloat(GetSummonSkillFromName(chr2, SKILL_DEFENCE)) / SKILL_MAX;

     int musketkills = makeint(0.25*ecrew * (1.0+delta+fLuck-fShipDefense-fCharDefence)+0.5);
     if (musketkills < 0) musketkills = 0;   // just in case

     // SDLogIt("Musket Fire - delta=" + f2s2(delta) + " sneak=" + fLuck + " ShipDef=" + fShipDefense + " CharDef= " + fCharDefence);

     string whose_fire = "Your";
     string which_target = "Enemy";
     if (sti(chr1.index) == sti(echr.index))
     {
       whose_fire = "Enemy";
       which_target = "Your";
     }
     LogIt(TranslateString("", whose_fire + " musket fire kills") + " " + musketkills + " " + TranslateString("", which_target + " crewmen") + ".");
     SDLogIt("Musket fire kills " + musketkills + " enemy crewmen, (" + musketkills + "/" + ecrew + " = " + makeint(100.0*musketkills/ecrew+0.5) + " percent.)");

/*
     // Old logic, left here for documentation
     // LDH - Morale is set as follows:
     //  It's assumed that a musket volley kills 25% of the crew.
     //  If it kills less than this, enemy morale goes up, our morale goes down.
     //  If it kills more, enemy morale goes down, our morale goes up.
     int iMoraleChange = makeint(100.0 * musketkills / ecrew + 0.5) - 25;
*/

     // Note that a killratio of zero is valid
     if (nShooter == 1)
       killratio1 = Clampf(makefloat(musketkills) / makefloat(ecrew));     // first shooter
     else
       killratio2 = Clampf(makefloat(musketkills) / makefloat(ecrew));     // second shooter
     nShooter++;

     ecrew -= musketkills;
     if (ecrew < 1) ecrew = 1;
     SetCrewQuantity(chr2, ecrew);

     // swap shooter and target
     numVolleys -= 1;
     if (numVolleys > 0)
     {
       ref tmpchr = chr1;
       chr1 = chr2;
       chr2 = tmpchr;
       delta = -delta;
     }
   }

   // we shot and we won  (hi-0)  = hi
   // we shot and we lost  (lo-0)  = lo
   // they shot and we won  (lo-0)  = negative lo
   // they shot and we lost  (hi-0)  = negative hi
   // we shot first and we won  (hi-lo) = positive
   // we shot first and we lost  (lo-hi) = negative
   // they shot first and we won  (lo-hi) = positive
   // they shot first and we lost (hi-lo) = negative

   // killratio is a float in the range of about 0.0 to 0.25
   int iMoraleChange = makeint(40.0*(killratio1 - killratio2)+0.5);   // positive number is in our favor
   SDLogIt("Initial morale change = " + iMoraleChange);
   iMoraleChange = iClamp(-10, 10, iMoraleChange);
   if (EnemyVolley)
   {
     if (PlayerVolley)
     {
       if (bEnemyShotFirst)
       {
         iMoraleChange = -iMoraleChange;
       }
     }
     else
     {
       iMoraleChange = -iMoraleChange;
     }
   }

   SDLogIt("Morale before " + iMoraleChange + " Enemy= " + echr.ship.crew.morale + " Friendly=" + mchr.ship.crew.morale);

   mchr.ship.crew.morale = iclamp(1, 99, sti(mchr.ship.crew.morale) + iMoraleChange);
   echr.ship.crew.morale = iclamp(1, 99, sti(echr.ship.crew.morale) - iMoraleChange);

   SDLogIt("Morale after  " + iMoraleChange + " Enemy= " + echr.ship.crew.morale + " Friendly=" + mchr.ship.crew.morale);
}

So it compares the player leadership and accuracy with the enemy captain's. Bigger differences makes for more crew killed.
Defence skill and abilities lower the damage again.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense then! Can you update the grapeshot weapon description at all to include this information? And maybe have an entry in the "tips and tricks" section giving a bit more detailed information on how it works?

The item description mentions it already:

A genuine hand cannon that does damage to multiple enemies at once. Formidable stopping power, but it lacks range and accuracy.

The dialogue needs to be changed to express this then. Without him telling me he's not going to trade, I'm left with the impression that the game is flawed, rather than gaining information that my actions are causing him to not trade with me.

How about:

"I refuse to trade with a person of your reputation and relations. Now get out, before I call the guards."

Is there anyway that the item description can give some details on how to break the curse?

How is this?

Large golden coin with an Aztec skull depiction. It gives off an aura of great ancient power. Rumour has it that these originate from an island that cannot be found, except by those who already know where it is. Perhaps some drunken pirate knows more about this.

"Drunken pirate" should point you towards pirate taverns and there is none more famous than the Tortuga one.

It does warn me, but that's all it does. I tried it out of curiosity, and saw no gameplay changes, other than everyone hating me. Was a disappointing waste of time. Frankly, if that's all it does, I'd recommend removing that feature. If it somehow makes pirates allies, so one can join in on a pirate vs. imperial fight and not be shot down by the pirates, then that actually does something and is kinda cool. If it did, it'd be nice if it specified such.

Looks like you do have a valid point; the "piratefun" quest case that is supposed to be executed is nowhere to be found!
I am re-adding it in simpler form so you'll become friendly with the pirates and enemies with everyone else.
And that dialog wasn't very good either. This looks like a lot more fun:

"Ahoy matey! Well, blast me to Davy Jones' Locker if ye don't be havin' the makins of a true pirate.",
"That is an interesting idea for sure. And I must admit it is getting quite tiresome to have your band of brigands chasing me all over the Caribbean!",
"I make a point of avoiding familiarity with pirates. Goodbye.",
"Ye be welcome to join our noble Brotherhood. But be warned that ye shall be hated by all the regular folk, just like the rest of us!",
"Naturally. We steal from the rich. And the poor. And keep it to ourselves. Can't expect to make many friends doing that. But that is part of the fun!",
"What? But I'm not THAT kind of pirate! I'm the NICE kind that gives candy to little children. Goodbye, you blackhearted scoundrel!",
"In that case, please be allowin me to be the first to welcome you to the Brotherhood, me lad!",
"ARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!",

Some people might like to not have the items effect navigation, but I'm happy with them all, besides not being able to fast travel, of course. I didn't even realise that there's a time delay and that's pretty awesome. How did I ever play vanilla with the pistol auto reloading with sword drawn anyway? Blagh.

Hmm, I can't invert that toggle though; so people like to have Arcade Mode with that limitation.
I'll see what I can do if people ask for it.

I would but I don't know how to code whatsoever D:

Well, we'd need a sign post model first. And texture-work to add the various town names.
And make it period-dependent too. Lots of non-coding stuff to do too.

Please add this very useful information to the tips and tricks.

Consider it done.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

huh, isn't that very little for a level 40 officer?

You're right. I changed it now so their prices should match with normal officers.
That was actually surprisingly easy: turns out the game ALREADY calculates an officer price for ANY character on a level-up.
All that needs to be done is to NOT override it in the dialog file.

That seems good. If it's not too difficult, it'd be good if the percentages are influenced by the game's difficulty

Difficulty already influences the morale and the swordfighting itself. Not sure if we should add it here too. I'd prefer the resulting values to seem historically believable.

navy ships in a fleet have a higher percentage than say, small craft or navy ships escorting merchants. Oh, and to make sure, the navy ships escorting the merchants have the
75% and can go up to 100%, whereas the merchant ships in the same group have the other number, right?

These calculations are done for each ship individually and are not related to the rtype of group or any other ship either.
Adding that would be quite difficult. Would probably require some similar code to my encounter-type based Spanish Treasure Fleets.
But that wasn't easy and required crazy global variable use which can easily have unwanted side-effects. So I'd rather keep it a bit simple.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Modifications as mentioned in my above post are now included in the latest Update: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-progress.20686

 

[omnimirage]

So it compares the player leadership and accuracy with the enemy captain's. Bigger differences makes for more crew killed.
Defence skill and abilities lower the damage again.

hmm, what is the reasoning for having leadership as a variable here? I'll have to start documenting how much crew members that this ability is actually killing.

The item description mentions it already:

A genuine hand cannon that does damage to multiple enemies at once. Formidable stopping power, but it lacks range and accuracy.

How did I miss that?

How about:

"I refuse to trade with a person of your reputation and relations. Now get out, before I call the guards."

That is perfect.

How is this?

Large golden coin with an Aztec skull depiction. It gives off an aura of great ancient power. Rumour has it that these originate from an island that cannot be found, except by those who already know where it is. Perhaps some drunken pirate knows more about this.

"Drunken pirate" should point you towards pirate taverns and there is none more famous than the Tortuga one.

That is a big improvement. I'd suggest adding a **** spoiler **** section to the tips page, under the secret tab, right at the bottom, giving more details on this quest, though, to help the inevitable few that still get stuck here.

Looks like you do have a valid point; the "piratefun" quest case that is supposed to be executed is nowhere to be found!
I am re-adding it in simpler form so you'll become friendly with the pirates and enemies with everyone else.
And that dialog wasn't very good either. This looks like a lot more fun:

"Ahoy matey! Well, blast me to Davy Jones' Locker if ye don't be havin' the makins of a true pirate.",
"That is an interesting idea for sure. And I must admit it is getting quite tiresome to have your band of brigands chasing me all over the Caribbean!",
"I make a point of avoiding familiarity with pirates. Goodbye.",
"Ye be welcome to join our noble Brotherhood. But be warned that ye shall be hated by all the regular folk, just like the rest of us!",
"Naturally. We steal from the rich. And the poor. And keep it to ourselves. Can't expect to make many friends doing that. But that is part of the fun!",
"What? But I'm not THAT kind of pirate! I'm the NICE kind that gives candy to little children. Goodbye, you blackhearted scoundrel!",
"In that case, please be allowin me to be the first to welcome you to the Brotherhood, me lad!",
"ARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!",

Perfect!

Hmm, I can't invert that toggle though; so people like to have Arcade Mode with that limitation.
I'll see what I can do if people ask for it.

It's quite a good feature, imo, so I doubt it'd be an issue at all.

Difficulty already influences the morale and the swordfighting itself. Not sure if we should add it here too. I'd prefer the resulting values to seem historically believable.

aah, good point. As I was thinking about the numbers you chose for enemy crew assignment, and my thoughts would be that it may be better if it's increased by 5% across the board, so 55%-95%, 80%-100%, 90%-100%, not only does it seem realistic to myself, who admittedly is not familiar with this part of history whatsoever, but seems to add a slightly more intense game, but this is all my opinion.

These calculations are done for each ship individually and are not related to the rtype of group or any other ship either.
Adding that would be quite difficult. Would probably require some similar code to my encounter-type based Spanish Treasure Fleets.
But that wasn't easy and required crazy global variable use which can easily have unwanted side-effects. So I'd rather keep it a bit simple.

Very valid point.


I'm a bit unsure about the books and other items that increase skills; if my compass and what not has increased my sailing skill to 1o, is there any reason to increase my sailing skill through leveling? And why does that book decrease luck? That's just plain annoying, since I may have took it from some crate and not sell my gear for awhile, which lowers my effective luck. And what do all those other books do that seem useful but don't apparently increase any skills?

When assigning officers for another ship, do the skills stack at all? So if I assign a navigator and a gunner, will the ship operate as if it has high navigation AND gunner skills?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

hmm, what is the reasoning for having leadership as a variable here?

I'm not sure, really. That was added a long, long time ago if I recall.

That is a big improvement. I'd suggest adding a **** spoiler **** section to the tips page, under the secret tab, right at the bottom, giving more details on this quest, though, to help the inevitable few that still get stuck here.

aah, good point. As I was thinking about the numbers you chose for enemy crew assignment, and my thoughts would be that it may be better if it's increased by 5% across the board, so 55%-95%, 80%-100%, 90%-100%, not only does it seem realistic to myself, who admittedly is not familiar with this part of history whatsoever, but seems to add a slightly more intense game, but this is all my opinion.

Consider it done.

I'm a bit unsure about the books and other items that increase skills; if my compass and what not has increased my sailing skill to 1o, is there any reason to increase my sailing skill through leveling? And why does that book decrease luck? That's just plain annoying, since I may have took it from some crate and not sell my gear for awhile, which lowers my effective luck. And what do all those other books do that seem useful but don't apparently increase any skills?

If your effective skill is already 10, then you're already maxed out. You could give the skill-enhancing items to your officers to help them out if you keep leveling up.

You've got three levels of books:
- Low Level: Only "Cooking with Albatross". This is completely useless and serves only as a reminder to players that "dead albatrosses decrease luck".
- Medium Level: Their effect is hidden (on Realistic Game Mode) to make the game a bit more interesting and has to be gathered from the description. They each give +1 on their respective skill.
- High Level: Two bonus points per book, clearly marked.

When assigning officers for another ship, do the skills stack at all? So if I assign a navigator and a gunner, will the ship operate as if it has high navigation AND gunner skills?

Officers on companion ships is something that doesn't work entirely right. In some instances it might, but in others it will not.
The captain is by far the most important.