Suggestions and bugs for an upcoming version!

[Skyworm]

Cheers!

Hello Skyworm, and thanks for your answer too! It's just my personal experience, but, as stated above, consistent across all storylines with all characters I've tried so far. I've gone through the Advanced Options and Internal Settings and changed everything I think could influence this a bit for my last game, but it's still the same.
I'm not asking for promotion swords for the sake of power, but rather that they be increased a bit, to keep up with better standard swords that become available, like the Polish Huszar's Szabla or US Cavalry Sabre. I'm actually using the weaker Corsair's Pride in my current game, just because I like it and because I still have no problem beating opponents with better swords... I don't think they should be quite as strong as Nicolas Sharp's sabre, but not too far away either, giving them a special feeling apart from being unique. While I still use them because of their look, it would be nice if they were a bit stronger too...

Well, I agree to this. The promotion sords should be among the best swords. Not much sense of getting a reward that one wouldn't use bacause it's crap
I jst say they shouldn't be more powerful than other top swords.

Hm, I'm having different experience here, at level 30 I usually have about a hundred pieces of gilded cuirass in my weaponslocker and all my officers equipped with the same. By that time, there's barely any way but going afk to loose a swordfight... It's the same at level 5 for me though, definately, it's way more challenged and risky at that level. I like that!

I think we do have very different playing styles. From what you tell I guess you use some fast travel options to quickly get in and out combat. This of course makes one advance fast. I for example am a strict direct sailer, which means anything I do takes a lot more time. Usually, I don't even reach level 30 in my carreers before I get bored of the character and the setting.
I think I spend most time between level 10 and 20, with medium sized ships. And I still fail to have seen any guilded cuirass (that's the golden one I guess?) since a long time. Not in my last 2 carreers. They are simply not in the shops here. Don't know why.

 

[Faith]

Cheers!


Well, I agree to this. The promotion sords should be among the best swords. Not much sense of getting a reward that one wouldn't use bacause it's crap
I jst say they shouldn't be more powerful than other top swords.


I think we do have very different playing styles. From what you tell I guess you use some fast travel options to quickly get in and out combat. This of course makes one advance fast. I for example am a strict direct sailer, which means anything I do takes a lot more time. Usually, I don't even reach level 30 in my carreers before I get bored of the character and the setting.
I think I spend most time between level 10 and 20, with medium sized ships. And I still fail to have seen any guilded cuirass (that's the golden one I guess?) since a long time. Not in my last 2 carreers. They are simply not in the shops here. Don't know why.

i commonly find those all over the place o.o

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Thanks for checking that Faith, and for all the quick replies!
Ah, I understand and would love to help out, but I've never done a single bit of coding so far. I will gladly help out with any testing, but not before next week, except very minor things...
And I'm glad I could help with the Portuguese Soldiers (started worrying that something on my side was broken)

Testing is very valuable as well, especially now that I've gotten around to doing some things again.
If we want to do some rebalancing, we're going to need some substantial testing to find out the effects.
And the coding for that is very simple too. What you haven't yet done, you can learn.

Well, I've been Admiral in Britain before I decided to have a look at the United States, as I've never worked for them before (Master and Commander Storyline). Unfortunately, I forgot to resign with Britain and simply went and "convinced" the governor of Governor's Harbor to like me again, then bought a letter of mark.
Additonally, when I save and load, it still states that I'm playing Admiral Jack Aubrey.

The game might be displaying the highest rank you've got. If you check the F2>Nation Relations menu, you will probably see that you hold a rank both for England AND the US.
Would be interesting to know what happens if you DON'T have that English rank.

I've advanced a few ranks by now, but never had my uniform changed or any weapons received.
When I've got some time in between studying, I'll look through that code you posted and see if I can make any sense of it!

Shouldn't be too difficult. We'll help, of course. I just don't have time to figure out good choices myself at the moment; trying to do get some other work done.

I'm not sure, honestly. I've went through them for the first time and adjusted a few things. After that, every new game started crashing upon loading, most old saves were fine. I have the suspicion that I implemented a typo somewhere, which made the game crash, but I didn't track it down, rather took the standard Internal Settings file and edited it another time. Now I've changed quite a few things, but it's working properly for a good while already.

If something went really bad, you should get an error.log in your main game folder that can help you figure out where it went wrong.

I can't confirm 100%, but the last few ships it happened with were all US Design First Rates, the exact name eludes me unfortunately... I'm pretty sure it was 42 pounders too, but I'll try to check once I'm at my PC again! But maybe the game checks for the next possible level of cannons within the 1.5 multiplier and simply displays 42 because 48 is not available? For example, a frigate usually uses 24 pounders, but americans can use up to 36, it still should display only 32, because nothing else is available, right? As mentionned before, I'm no coder though, that's just a thought that just occured to me...

It could indeed be doing that. In any case, I confirmed that an American design US_FirstRate has a MaxCaliber of 42 as you said, despite being set as 32 in the code.
Trying to find a fix now...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If people want to edit the weapon stats to something more sensible, be my guest!
Those promotion reward blades were put in there more to see if it would work at all; nobody bothered to balance them.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It could indeed be doing that. In any case, I confirmed that an American design US_FirstRate has a MaxCaliber of 42 as you said, despite being set as 32 in the code.
Trying to find a fix now...

In PROGRAM\Ships\Ships.c find:

        if(atrname == "MaxCaliber")
        {
            if(NatStatMod)
            {
                //special manual handling for caliber
                if(stf(natstats.MaxCaliber) == 1.0) continue; //caliber doesn't get random variation
                cal = GetCannonCaliberIndex(sti(refShip.MaxCaliber));
                if(stf(natstats.MaxCaliber) > 1.0)
                {
                    if(cal != -1 && cal+1 < CANNON_CALIBERS_MAX) { cal++; arShip.MaxCaliber = Cannon_Calibers[cal]; }
                }
                else
                {
                    if(cal != -1 && cal-1 >= 0) {cal--; arShip.MaxCaliber = Cannon_Calibers[cal]; }
                }
            }
        }

Replace with:

        if(atrname == "MaxCaliber")
        {
            if(NatStatMod)
            {
                //special manual handling for caliber
                if(stf(natstats.MaxCaliber) == 1.0) continue; //caliber doesn't get random variation
                cal = GetCannonCaliberIndex(sti(refShip.MaxCaliber));
                if(stf(natstats.MaxCaliber) > 1.0)
                {
                    if(cal != -1 && cal+1 < CANNON_CALIBERS_MAX) { cal++; arShip.MaxCaliber = Cannon_Calibers[cal]; }
                    if(USE_REAL_CANNONS && sti(arShip.MaxCaliber) > sti(Cannon_Calibers[CANNON_CALIBERS_MAX-2]))
                        arShip.MaxCaliber = Cannon_Calibers[CANNON_CALIBERS_MAX-2]; // PB: Limit to 32
                }
                else
                {
                    if(cal != -1 && cal-1 >= 0) {cal--; arShip.MaxCaliber = Cannon_Calibers[cal]; }
                }
            }
        }

 

[Hylie Pistof]

About the swords, the most valuable ones are Sir Francis Drake's sword and Bart O' Port's sword. Then come the Russian, Polish, and American swords but my favorite is the Knights Templar sword.
The reward swords are for display purposes and I put them in my private collection, never to be used. Although the swords of certain town guards are pretty good and they have a high attrition rate.
About the overall levels of combat it is good to have more input. For too long I was the only one saying anything at all. Go ahead and crank up the difficulty at the higher levels. I find it challenging but doable, but I'm old enough to be your grandfather with bad eyes, reflexes, and coordination.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'd prefer not touching the ACTUAL difficulty calculations. There are a lot of formulas involved there that I don't want to try to rebalance.
But rebalancing the rest of the game should be quite doable even for anyone without much coding expertise.

 

[Skyworm]

Hello there,

I just started a new career, this time using "Adventurer". Want to see how I handle that.

 

[Don Lasagnetti]

Alright, an I'm back again after a rainy holiday weekend, tested the 2.4 WIP a bit already, and I love it! I was wondering though, which ones of the bug corrections you suggested in this thread have gone into the mod yet? So I know which ones to test and so I can update the first post.

Found two more bugs already!
If you sell cannons to Monsieur Vanderdecken, you can make a real fortune, a few million actually. He seems to instead of adding each cannon, to always multiply by 2. So if he pays 1000 for a cannon, if you sell two, he'll pay 2000, sell 3 that nets you 4000, 4 cannons 8000 already, etc...

And in the Jack Aubrey era, every tailor I have visitted so far tries to sell you two American Soldier Kits, no matter what nation he is from, is that intentional?

I'll now be looking through the promotion swords a bit, see if I can come up with decent suggestions to improve them!

 

[Don Lasagnetti]

For reference, posting the stats of a few strong and some unique blades I found:
Excellent Saber of Nicolas Sharp: Damage 31/51, Piercing 73%, Block 83%
Excellent Russian Coszack's Shashka: Damage 33/49, Piercing 58%, Block 38%
Excellent Knights Templar Sword: Damage 25/56, Piercing 38%, Block 43%

Sword of Cortés: Damage 25/40 , Piercing 65%, Block 85% +1 Melee, -1 Luck (Unique)
Sword of Bartolomeu: Damage 29/46 , Piercing 75%, Block 80% +1 Melee (Unique)
Francis Drake's Sword: Damage 28/43 , Piercing 70%, Block 65% +1 Melee (Unique)

Okay, now going through this with all the weapons I have on my characters right now!
Please, if you have more weapons that I missed, let me know and I'll add them, I might have lost a few in boardings or to officers

Spain:
(Excellent) Moorish Saber: Damage 28/44, Piercing 48%, Block 31%
I can't recall when exactly that sword is received, but it's not too shabby for being for one of the earlier promotions, would not change it.
(Excellent) Spanish Nobility Longsword: Damage 20/32, Piercing 36%, Block 43%
Suggestion: Improve this sword slightly, right now it's weaker than the first spanish promotion sword in my opinion.
(Excellent) Spanish Nobility Longsword: Damage 24/36, Piercing 36%, Block 59%

Britain
(Excellent) English Officer's Saber: Damage 25/42, Piercing 43%, Block 43%
Again, this is a pretty neat sword by itself, especially considering that it doesn't require a high rank
(Excellent) Corsair's Pride: Damage 17/29, Piercing 33%, Block 28%
Well, this sword has nothing cool about it but the looks. Just compare it to the Officer Saber and you'll know what I'm talking about. So here's the suggestion:
(Excellent) Corsair's Pride: Damage 31/43, Piercing 52%, Block 37%

Portugal
(Excellent) Damascus Shamshir: Damage 28/56, Piercing 52%, Block 28%
Not sure which one of those is received first, to be quite honest, but will test! I think the Portuguese Officer Sword comes second though, if that's the case, it could do with improvements! If not, they could probably both be left the way they are
(Excellent) Portuguese Officer's Sword: Damage 23/34, Piercing 39%, Block 37%
(Excellent) Portuguese Officer's Sword: Damage 33/44, Piercing 49%, Block 47%

Netherlands
(Excellent) Dutch Admiralty Sword: Damage 23/34, Piercing 43%, Block 33%
Not sure if I ever received another promotion sword from the Dutch, but the Admiralty Sword could surely do with some improvements!
(Excellent) Dutch Admiralty Sword: Damage 30/41, Piercing 55%, Block 45%

France
(Excellent) French Admiralty Rapier: Damage 25/37, Piercing 48%, Block 38%
Again, I have no other sword in my inventories currently, but this one could become slightly better
(Excellent) French Admiralty Rapier: Damage 29/45, Piercing 60%, Block 38%
Pirate
(Excellent) Dragon's Head: Damage 34/46, Piercing 53%, Block 23%
Not too shabby by itself, but to make it useful compared to some of the standard swords, I'd suggest the following changes:
(Excellent) Dragon's Head: Damage 37/50, Piercing 53%, Block 43%

Alright, that's some rough thoughts I've put into promotion swords for now, they're definately not all balanced and that is intentional, in my opinion nations don't have to be equal with handing out swords.
But I think with these changes they would be useful and not too far behind the standard loot swords, so whoever prefers a rewardsword over those, it would no longer be a pain to equip them.
Now, since I'm a n00b at all of this, which file contains the weapon stats? And is there a way to view the models of items and/or characters without starting the game? If not, I'll have to cheat the various models to find some suitable for progression working for the US.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Alright, an I'm back again after a rainy holiday weekend, tested the 2.4 WIP a bit already, and I love it! I was wondering though, which ones of the bug corrections you suggested in this thread have gone into the mod yet? So I know which ones to test and so I can update the first post.

Click that "Show Spoiler" button in the opening post here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-2-4-test-version-2-available.20513/
That will show you the full changelog.

If you sell cannons to Monsieur Vanderdecken, you can make a real fortune, a few million actually. He seems to instead of adding each cannon, to always multiply by 2. So if he pays 1000 for a cannon, if you sell two, he'll pay 2000, sell 3 that nets you 4000, 4 cannons 8000 already, etc...

I think I know where that comes from, but he's doing the opposite of what he should be doing then.
If you manage to trade with enemy shipyards, they sell for double the price and buy for only half the price. We applied this effect to Vanderdecken as well.
By the looks of it then, the tradeHigh code doubles both the purchase AND the sell price of cannons, which isn't good. Will have to look into that.
Thanks for paying attention!

And in the Jack Aubrey era, every tailor I have visitted so far tries to sell you two American Soldier Kits, no matter what nation he is from, is that intentional?

No, it's not. I remember always seeing two Portuguese soldiers there the last time I actually played the game.
I suspect those two issues are related, but I'd have no idea at the moment on how to fix it.

 

[Don Lasagnetti]

Ah, thanks, looked through the changelog!
Unfortunately, I have to report that I now do get two different models when boarding portuguese ships, but still by far not all of them, some decks are still empty. I'm getting the Portuguese Officers with Golden Shoulderthingy and some with a smaller red Shoulderthingy. Will look through the models soon to provide further information.

Ah, glad I could help! I found the cannon/money bug rather useful, as my game doesn't like the HMS Surprise, I crash really often on collisions, so I usually sell the ship to get another tier 4 vessel. Couldn't afford that without selling cannons at ridiculous prices

The game might be displaying the highest rank you've got. If you check the F2>Nation Relations menu, you will probably see that you hold a rank both for England AND the US.
Would be interesting to know what happens if you DON'T have that English rank.

Hm, I checked again, and I'm quite positive that it isn't possible to have ranks with more than one nation.
At least for me, if I am British Admiral (Relation of around 350), then sail to Eleuthera and buy a letter of mark, my relations with Britain now are -30 and no rank is displayed.
But I advanced properly in the US army if I simply told the British Governer that I can't work for Britain any longer.
Actually, by doing that, I can later go back and ask for a letter of mark again, starting right as Admiral again...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Now, since I'm a n00b at all of this, which file contains the weapon stats?

PROGRAM\ITEMS\initItems.c . Let us know if you can't figure out that file.

And is there a way to view the models of items and/or characters without starting the game?

You can view them with https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gpalg0tpyyfcivy/g72E4_5fDh/Storm engine Utilities/gmviewer.zip
Files are in RESOURCE\MODELS\Ammo and RESOURCE\MODELS\Characters . Textures in the similar subfolders under "Textures".

If not, I'll have to cheat the various models to find some suitable for progression working for the US.

On most new computers, textures refuse to show on character models in the GM Viewer.
I think these are the models you'll be wanting for US promotions:
"USA_cpt_18"
"USA_lut_18"
"USA_adm_18"

To cheat the models, you can use this code:

GiveModel2Player("Jack",true);

Replace "Jack" with whatever model you want to give to yourself.
Put it in PROGRAM\console.c below this:

void ExecuteConsole()
{
    ref pchar = GetMainCharacter();
    if (!bSeaActive) ref lcn = &Locations[FindLocation(pchar.location)];
    ref ch;
    int i;
    int limit;

Execute F12 to give yourself the model.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ah, thanks, looked through the changelog!
Unfortunately, I have to report that I now do get two different models when boarding portuguese ships, but still by far not all of them, some decks are still empty. I'm getting the Portuguese Officers with Golden Shoulderthingy and some with a smaller red Shoulderthingy. Will look through the models soon to provide further information.

Really? When this happens next, can you check system.log in your main game folder?
Any model files that cannot be loaded should show up in there. Maybe that'll give us a clue on what is going wrong now.

Hm, I checked again, and I'm quite positive that it isn't possible to have ranks with more than one nation.
At least for me, if I am British Admiral (Relation of around 350), then sail to Eleuthera and buy a letter of mark, my relations with Britain now are -30 and no rank is displayed.
But I advanced properly in the US army if I simply told the British Governer that I can't work for Britain any longer.
Actually, by doing that, I can later go back and ask for a letter of mark again, starting right as Admiral again...

I thought it was possible to have ranks from more than one nation?

 

[Don Lasagnetti]

Well, it didn't work for me at least, but that might be because UK and US are at war...
And sure, I'll upload that file next time it happens!

And, I think I made sense of that inititems.c file, uploading the updated version now. Of course I tested it and I'm getting improved stats now.
Concerning US Promotion Outfits, I would suggest the standard Soldier Model for Sarge and Master Sergeant, USA_lut_18 for Sub-Lieutenant and Lieutenant, USA_cpt_18 for Captain, Major and Colonel, USA_adm_18 for Commodore, Counter Admiral, Admiral and either Capitalist and Corporation Head too, or a different model for those. Gherarde_De_Jongh might be fitting, or 9Jd (I remember Jack Sparrow as a polished Officer), both have black Uniforms too... Since I found no better fitting Blade so far, so simply receiving the US Cavalry Saber would probably be okay for the rank captain? It's a pretty useful sword and depending on your level you could get it before it spawns as loot. My other thought was a Cuirass being handed out instead of a sword, or adding a blade with the looks of the US Cavalry Saber but slightly improved stats

How would I integrate outfits and a Promotion Sword into the code you posted earlier, and which file do I find it in?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The file for the promotion rewards is PROGRAM\NK.c . Just search for "AMERICA".
Use a line like this for the promotion model:

                    if(pchar.sex != "woman")
                    {
                        GiveModel2Player("spa_adm_18", true);
                    }

And this for the presentation blade:

                    GiveItem2Character(pchar,"blade29"+qual); // Portugese Officer's Sword
                    EquipCharacterByItem(pchar,"blade29"+qual);

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you sell cannons to Monsieur Vanderdecken, you can make a real fortune, a few million actually. He seems to instead of adding each cannon, to always multiply by 2. So if he pays 1000 for a cannon, if you sell two, he'll pay 2000, sell 3 that nets you 4000, 4 cannons 8000 already, etc...

Just had a look through the code for that, but I'm not quite understanding it just yet.
We could disable the Cannons, Upgrades and Appearance tabs for Vanderdecken, which seems to make sense to me.
In fact, I thought I had done that ages ago, but apparently not. That wouldn't fix the issue for enemy shipyards though.
Simple solution could be to just not apply the tradeHigh functionality to cannons at all. Any thoughts on that?

And just to clarify on the problem, Vanderdecken sells at 1000 and buys at 2000 (example)? Instead of selling at 2000 and buying at 2000?
Or, as technically should be the case, selling at 1000 and buying at 2000.

 

[Don Lasagnetti]

Actually, it is even worse, as each cannon I sell doubles the price he pays.
Example
I sell 1 cannon, he pays 1000
If I sell 2 cannons at once, he pays 2000, still normal
But if I sell 3 cannons at once, I get 4000 (should be 3000)
If I sell 4 cannons at once, I get 8000 (should now be 4000)
It's doubling with each cannon, a few minutes ago I got over 600.000.000 by selling 4 pounders...

And I've added the promotion rewards for the US and changed the PROMOTIONSWORD file again, since I found out which sword Portugal hands out first. Set the Portuguese Officer Sword back to what it was and improved the Damascus Shamshir slightly, going to check the US promotion stuff, then I'll upload both changed files

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I do not see the Polish Szabla on that list.
Methinks the sabre of Nicholas Sharp is too good and needs to be detuned. It would also be nice if it was available in every time period.
The Dragons Head sword should be upgraded. It's really not that good considering it is only carried by Barbossa on the Black Pearl at Cozumel.

 

[Don Lasagnetti]

Yes, the polish Szabla is pretty good too, but if I recall correctly, not as good as the Knights Templar Sword or the Russion Shashka. And I didn't have one in my inventory to post the stats...

I totally agree, in the Nathanial Hawk and Jack Sparrow Storyline, it's nearly impossible to die once you get that sword.
It always was my weapon of choice, while I usually gave the three unique swords (Bartolomeu's, Drake's and Cortes' swords) to my officers. Actually there is another way to obtain a Dragon's Head, working for the pirates...