Included in Build Revamped Smuggling [3.3 compatible]

[Levis]

This mod will revampt the smuggling.
You can still smuggle in excatly the same way as you could before but there are things to do to increase your chance of not getting caught now. I highly sugest to just try to find them yourself, but if you want to know more about this mod you can look at the spoilers.

Features:

Spoiler

- Islands now have a state of patrol for the coast guard, this can be from very high to none.
- Island have a dedicated coast guard which is take from the number of troops on the island. So island with a strong fort will probally have a strong coast guard to
- Only towns with the same nation as the island will contribute in the coastguard (hence the probally in the line above).
- Island now have theire contrabands set to the nation of the island and the state, this means the contraband can vary a bit, and if the nation of an island changes then the contraband changes
- Islands remember how much is smuggled to them and if to much or to few is smuggled the state will change
- You are not the only smuggler contributing to the amount so the state can change without you smuggling, but it shouldn't get to the highest state without you interfering
- There are 2 new perks (where included in a earlier post I made) for smuggling, they now also change the chance you can get cuaght
- Weather and if its day or night will also influence if you get caught. Also the difficulty will be factor now, on journeyman its normal, but after that it gets harder.
- Each island has coast guard patrols set to them and at certain times there will be a break, smuggling at these times will make sure you wont get caught.
- Expanded the use of books, you can now give attributes to the book which can be used in the text (like with quest text). This can also be done in the title and description. This can actually be done for all items, changes are made to the interfaces to support it.
- Smuggle quests are now in the questbook
- When a island changes its patrolling schedule this will show up in the town news
- You can talk to the crew members on deck to wait for 1,3 or 8 hours.
- When taking a smuggling quest the smuggler will warn you for the coast guard
- If you dont have the patrolling book there is another way to get it by talking to someone.
- You can see the prices smugglers pay in the tradebook after you dealt with them (only the item you sold ofcourse is shown )
- You can now toss items away.
- Added a option to Add an item in the game later on.
- Added a book with the patrolling schedule to one of the coast guards.
- The first smuggling perk is now locked at the start untill you find the patrol book.
- Added the possibility for GetAddingDataYear and other function of that sort to have a negative input also.

Still todo:
- Improving how the guards are spawned so its harded to get away on larger beaches
- Option to send out a decoy so you wont get caught
- Option in tavern to learn when the best time is to smuggle by winning a card game
- If you got caught by a guard in possession of a patrolling schedule (random event I think) they will confiscate it and change the schedule
- Smugglers wont deal with you once the market is saturated already (for a while)
- I you double cross the smugglers they wont deal with you for a longer periode of time
- Smugglers will ask you to help protect the goods when getting caught, when declining to help they wont like you that much the next time
- Price of goods will vary on how much the smugglers like you

Latest version:
-included in build-

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I like your thinking! Should be much more fun if the gameplay involved isn't simply 'going through the motions'.

 

[Levis]

Okay my idea now for smuggling what I'm working on:

All island will have a patrolling schedule, this will look like this:
For the island different patrols are defined, they have a start and end time and a frequency.
So for example from 0 to 8:00 they check each hour while from 8 till 12 they check each 15 minutes. and from 12 till 13 its lunch break so there is no patrol.
the more they check the higher the chance you will get caught during this time.
These patrols will be set semi-random at the start of the game, for each nation specific times are set on which there is a break but they can vary a bit, for example for a english island there will be a pause somewhere round 4 o clock for Tea Time, but on one island this might be from 16:00 till 16:30 while on the other this is might be from 15:45 till 16:45.
Islands will also have a state of warning, some will patrol more while other patrol less.
Some coastguards will carry a book with them "[Islandname] Patrolling protocols" In this book all patrolls will be stated, this book will also unlock the first smuggling perk (which was introduced in the files I posted a few days ago).
On your ship you can ask the crew what time it is and wait for 1,3,6 or 12 hours so you can plan your smuggling run better.
If you start your smuggling run you can either consult the book with the protocols, if you dont have this yet you can ask the guards in the tavern to see if you can get info about when would be best to smuggle (this will include some nice dialog considering the girl in the tavern ).
This way you can reduce the chance of being caught to almost zero.
Ofcourse if you make a mistake with the guard it could be he warns the others and you will have a higher chance (you wont know this for sure ).
Also to make things a bit more nicer there will be a counter and if you smuggeled to much to a certain island in a certain time period the captain of the guard will decide to change the patrolling schedule. This will show up in the tavern news tough so you know you need to mind this. If this happens the state will go up so the patrolling gets more often also. If you dont smuggle enough to a certain island the state might also go down (This wont happen quickly tough), this will also be noted in the rumors.

How does this sound to you guys? I think it would make smuggling more fun .

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

A lot of good ideas ... and a lot of parameters above all the hours (tea time for instance....)

 

[Levis]

A lot of good ideas ... and a lot of parameters above all the hours (tea time for instance....)

I moved all smuggling stuff already to one file and most of the parameters will just be define here. they are internal parameters and dont need to end up in the settings etc but can be tweaked if needed.
Somewhere in there the difficulty also has to be take into account and probally the severety of this will be set in the settings.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sounds like a LOT of added complexity. Should make things more interesting as well.
Smuggling is a great source of income from what I gather, so getting some more actual player involvement in that would definitely be good.
Random stuff is all good and well, but it is much more fun when there are things to "shake up the monotony".

 

[Levis]

It's more complexity indeed but as you said smuggling is very repeative atm so I hope this will make it more interesting.
Also I will try to program it in a way its easy to read and mod if needed.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Meh. Since it takes many hours, sometimes days, to sail into the island the schedule is useless. It looks like I will have to fight my way in no matter what. Once on land, then I go into town and set up the meeting. Then the only concern is getting away clean.

 

[Grey Roger]

Suggestion: if it is not already the case, make sure smugglers pay more for contraband than the storekeeper does if you have the "Trustworthy" perk. The gameplay reason is that if you're going to the trouble of smuggling the stuff to the beach yourself, you ought to be rewarded. The background reason is that the storekeeper wants his cut of the profit. This despite the fact that I sell all my contraband via "Trustworthy" - the only time I have contraband is if it's on a ship I've captured and brought into port, and I just want to clear its hold, sell the ship and sail off to look for another one. So I still probably wouldn't do a smuggling run myself, but anyone who does should get something out of it.

Or perhaps make it that you have to do a few smuggling runs to unlock "Trustworthy". It makes more sense than earning rank with the governor. He trusts you because you've shown yourself to be a loyal servant of his nation. That's not going to interest the smugglers - they want to know you're willing to break the law and not betray those you see doing so.

 

[Levis]

I'm getting somewhere .
Here are a few of the timetables for the guards which are now generated by my system.
Mind there is so much going on that I can't predict or explain completly why things are but everything is taken into account like the size of the army in the town etc. Also the state of the island will influence how many breaks there will be in the schedule, if the coast guard is on high alert there wont be many break in the schedule etc.
the higher the amount of groups the higher the chance you get caught.
here are a few examples:

Island: Turks
0 patrol starts at: 0:0 ends at: 2:30 with 1 groups
1 patrol starts at: 2:30 ends at: 7:39 with 1 groups
2 breakfast starts at: 7:39 ends at: 8:4 with 0 groups
3 patrol starts at: 8:4 ends at: 12:34 with 1 groups
4 patrol starts at: 12:34 ends at: 12:34 with 2 groups
5 dinner starts at: 12:34 ends at: 13:40 with 0 groups
6 patrol starts at: 13:40 ends at: 17:0 with 2 groups
7 patrol starts at: 17:0 ends at: 17:5 with 1 groups
8 tea time starts at: 17:5 ends at: 18:30 with 0 groups
9 patrol starts at: 18:30 ends at: 24:0 with 1 groups

Depending on the size of the troops in the town you will have more or less groups patrolling. also the state which the island is in atm (is it watching closely or not) will influence how many of the troops are on coast guard duty.

Island: Hispaniola
0 patrol starts at: 0:0 ends at: 2:25 with 6 groups
1 patrol starts at: 2:25 ends at: 7:39 with 7 groups
2 petit déjeuner starts at: 7:39 ends at: 8:49 with 0 groups
3 patrol starts at: 8:49 ends at: 8:34 with 7 groups
4 patrol starts at: 8:34 ends at: 9:4 with 7 groups
5 patrol starts at: 9:4 ends at: 12:10 with 6 groups
6 déjeuner starts at: 12:10 ends at: 14:0 with 0 groups
7 patrol starts at: 14:0 ends at: 19:24 with 6 groups
8 patrol starts at: 19:24 ends at: 24:0 with 7 groups

If there are very few guard on the island on coast guard duty its even possible there will be shifts which wont be manned at all.

Island: SaintMartin
0 patrol starts at: 0:0 ends at: 2:40 with 0 groups
1 patrol starts at: 2:40 ends at: 7:35 with 1 groups
2 ontbijt starts at: 7:35 ends at: 8:49 with 0 groups
3 patrol starts at: 8:49 ends at: 12:0 with 1 groups
4 lunch starts at: 12:0 ends at: 13:45 with 0 groups
5 patrol starts at: 13:45 ends at: 18:0 with 1 groups
6 avondeten starts at: 18:0 ends at: 19:39 with 0 groups
7 patrol starts at: 19:39 ends at: 24:0 with 1 groups

This is just a example of the patrolling schedules which I can now produce. Next step is getting them in books and give the books to the coaster guard (some will have them).
Finding the book will unlock the first smuggling perk and also you have an advantage.
I still need to make sure the patrolling schedule is also used for calculating the chance for getting caught.
And there needs to be someone on your ship who knows the time and which you can tell to wait a few hours before going to shore so you can get in the right window.
and more stuff, like trying to get the info without having the book. but i'm getting there .

@Pieter Boelen do you think these look a bit realistic?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Zero groups means unmanned patrols? And how does it work when you have lots of groups?

Looks cool to me!
You can add some dialog to your crew for time and waiting purposes.

 

[Levis]

Zero groups means there will be no patrols so you wont get caught. With more groups the chance of getting caught goes up fast, it will depend on Some other stuff to (like if its night or day and the weather).

I will Add Some dialog indeed .

 

[Levis]

Okay, do some people want to test this for me?
I had to change a lot of code and add a lot of new code also (over 500 lines at least) so there are bound to be some mistakes.
I tested it already but I probally forgot to include a file in this altough I can't find anymore which should be included so please let me know if you get any errors.
Now onto the fun part what does this do:

Well actually you wont notice much for now, but a lot is happening behind the scenes.
- Islands now have a state of patrol for the coast guard, this can be from very high to none.
- Island have a dedicated coast guard which is take from the number of troops on the island. So island with a strong fort will probally have a strong coast guard to
- Only towns with the same nation as the island will contribute in the coastguard (hence the probally in the line above).
- Island now have theire contrabands set to the nation of the island and the state, this means the contraband can vary a bit, and if the nation of an island changes then the contraband changes
- Islands remember how much is smuggled to them and if to much or to few is smuggled the state will change
- You are not the only smuggler contributing to the amount so the state can change without you smuggling, but it shouldn't get to the highest state without you interfering
- There are 2 new perks (where included in a earlier post I made) for smuggling, they now also change the chance you can get cuaght
- Weather and if its day or night will also influence if you get caught. Also the difficulty will be factor now, on journeyman its normal, but after that it gets harder.
- Each island has coast guard patrols set to them and at certain times there will be a break, smuggling at these times will make sure you wont get caught.
- When you start a smuggle mission the contraband is locked so it wont change untill the mission is done.

Some minor other things
- Added the possibility for GetAddingDataYear and other function of that sort to have a negative input also.
- moved most of the code to a single file to make it more organised
- most of it is commented so others can look at it too.
- There are some variables set in smuggling.c to change settings etc.

Now I still need to add a way for you to know these times. If you want to know them in the smuggling.c file there is a parameter called DEBUG_SMUGGLING, if you set this to 2 or higher the patrol schedule will be placed in the compile.log when its updated.

I strongly recommend to start a new savegame for this but you can also run it in a old savegame, just add this line to the console and run it once:

InitIslandSmuggling();

This will set all the things needed for this mod.

Please let me know if it works and if you think smuggling is now to hard to to easy (by just doing what you did before). I know people like @DavyJack and @Hylie Pistof like to smuggle so please let me know what you think of this.

mostly posted this now cause I dont expect to be able to work on it this weekend so I tought lets give it to you guys so after the weekend I can work on the feedback too.

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

- moved most of the code to a single file to make it more organised
- most of it is commented so others can look at it too.
- There are some variables set in smuggling.c to change settings etc.

Good

 

[Levis]

Good

contrary to popular believe I do know a bit how to code , want to get everything a bit more organised cause I get the feeling there are a lot of functions which aren't used anymore etc. still need to make a codecrawler to check this tough (made one in the past to filter out unused dialogs already).
If you know any other places where code from smuggling is please let me know and I move it to the smuggling file too.

Anyone got any weird errors (or an error log at all)? I realy cant believe I picked out all files right at once.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

- When you start a smuggle mission the contraband is locked so it wont change until the mission is done.

What is THIS supposed to mean?

I built a new install from scratch and then put this smuggling mod in it. Bought sugar in Grenada and sailed to Bonaire. It took 2 full days from "land ho!" to dropping anchor. I saw no ships in that time.

Went to the pirate camp and told them I was there with contraband, then went back to the beach. Made the deal and left without getting caught. Aboard ship there were 2 Dutch ships close by but they sailed one way and I went the other way into port.

Sea Hawk storyline at level 5.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Took a trading mission from Bonaire to Havana and along the way picked up some floating ebony. So I bought a half a ship load of ebony and sailed to Jamaica. Got hit by a storm and some got tossed overboard. From "land ho!" to dropping anchor took over 1 day and I sailed past a Bermuda Sloop. Hiked into town and met the smuggler in the tavern, hiked back to Rocky Shore and made the deal. Sailed into port escorted by that Bermuda Sloop, hired Rys Bloom, repaired the ship, got some buff tats, then got hired to haul cargo to Grenada.

 

[Levis]

- When you start a smuggle mission the contraband is locked so it wont change until the mission is done.

What is THIS supposed to mean?

I built a new install from scratch and then put this smuggling mod in it. Bought sugar in Grenada and sailed to Bonaire. It took 2 full days from "land ho!" to dropping anchor. I saw no ships in that time.

Went to the pirate camp and told them I was there with contraband, then went back to the beach. Made the deal and left without getting caught. Aboard ship there were 2 Dutch ships close by but they sailed one way and I went the other way into port.

Sea Hawk storyline at level 5.

The contraband can change on a island now. and what that line means is that if you talk to a smuggler and agree to do a smuggling mission that game wont change the contraband on that island untill the mission is done or expired.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Why does contraband or anything else change at all? This is an agrarian economy that moves at the pace of a person walking. It should take at least a year before anything changes at all.

What that line says is that from the time you talk to the smuggler in the tavern to the until you walk back to your ship the contraband will not change. That is some guaranty when it only takes 1-2 hours to do that. This implies that the economy changes hourly. I'm sticking with the old beta 3.3.

 

[Skyworm]

Cheers,

just found something more. It's not new, but dusturbing since ancient times in this game:
I just tried to sell some silk to smugglers at Antigua. I also had some medicaments in my cargo hold, just in case (I always have them, like food and rum). Unfortunately, the smugglers insisted on me selling the medicaments to them. There is no option between sell them - which I didn't want and fight the enraged smugglers after declining the offer.
I think it should be possible to sell and keep stuff. By the way, how the hell do they know what's in my cargo?