The little things

[Capt Pete]

I come and go like the wind and have been sailing around with PoTC mods for years.

I have been playing with the lastest build. it gets better and better but there are these 'things" that make me shake my head.
First off, that moon looks great. Even watching through its phases during the night as you sail.
Trade missions. lets just say Im French an allies with Spain and just recently neutral with Holand and at war with the British and Pirates I get this mission over and over to go to Nevis and the Pirate settlement. regardless of the flag i use be it Britsh or Pirate. it never ends well...reload.

I try not to use the world map but there are times that I do.
For example. you see a ship you want and board it, drop a capable officer on it and then swap ships and i cant seem to use the sails >world map
Oh crap im almost toast! manage to get away >world map.
I tried Ironman mode and started with a trade ship. bad idea. this is what happened.
Got a coffee on and loaded up my save. and headed out on reasonable winds. had my coffee. not even past the fort yet. went and did some dishes. the fort is still there. So i let it go and made breakfast and came back to the computer and im still looking at the fort and thats almost 2 hours gone and didnt get anywhere. I understand the idea of Ironman, but its not for me. But! one thing i did like was the opensea mod. I think that should be default for all difficulties. Having the extra room really helps around certain places in the game where you cross into the next island and hit cliff. this can happen alot in arcade mode.sailing along and bam Rock.

How about those twisters when sailing the world map, beacause reasons. that pop on you out of a clear blue sky.Depending on your level and your gold stash, easy peasy . As a low level? reload.

You guys have been doing a really good job, my hats is of to you. there is a reason im still playing this game. Im not sure what it is, If i find out. ill let you know.

One thing i do know and have come to term with it. is that this game really tries to kill you in the begining. reloading is a thing and its real.

just my 2 cents. Opensea mod as default. what say you?

Thanks Gentlemen.
Past and Present
Pete

 

[STARk7]

lets just say Im French an allies with Spain and just recently neutral with Holand and at war with the British and Pirates I get this mission over and over to go to Nevis and the Pirate settlement. regardless of the flag i use be it Britsh or Pirate. it never ends well...reload.

You don't have to accept the mission if you don't like it,I don't understand what the problem is Pirate settlement don't have a fort...

For example. you see a ship you want and board it, drop a capable officer on it and then swap ships and i cant seem to use the sails >world map
Oh crap im almost toast! manage to get away >world map.

Only mode I use is "Ironman mode" (I guess that's why my nickname is "Stark" ),but I think that you need to get away from battle to be able to use world map,it would be too easy if you could use it whenever you're in danger.

with a trade ship. bad idea. this is what happened.
Got a coffee on and loaded up my save. and headed out on reasonable winds. had my coffee. not even past the fort yet. went and did some dishes. the fort is still there. So i let it go and made breakfast and came back to the computer and im still looking at the fort and thats almost 2 hours gone and didnt get anywhere. I understand the idea of Ironman, but its not for me.

As I said I use the "Ironman mode" and I don't have any problems with the wind,you should wait in port for good wind and good direction,also you could use "R" button to speed up time 3x,5x or 8x you can change this value outside of the game but I don't remember where exactly.

But! one thing i did like was the opensea mod. I think that should be default for all difficulties. Having the extra room really helps around certain places in the game where you cross into the next island and hit cliff. this can happen alot in arcade mode.sailing along and bam Rock.

I think that you can make distance from islands to be like in "Ironman mode" to any other mode.

How about those twisters when sailing the world map, beacause reasons. that pop on you out of a clear blue sky.Depending on your level and your gold stash, easy peasy . As a low level? reload.

Storms happen more often in certain months.

One thing i do know and have come to term with it. is that this game really tries to kill you in the begining. reloading is a thing and its real.

Most of the games I play,I play them with "one life" (If possible) if I die it's "game over" but I want to learn some things in game before I try to play it like that,so far most life threatening situations are "random events" like tavern fights,guard attacks,thugs on the street and surrendered ships captains.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

First off, that moon looks great. Even watching through its phases during the night as you sail.

@Levis and @TheBlackKnight did a pretty good job on that.
The first added the moon phases and the second improved the quality of the textures (and added wide-screen support for them).

Trade missions. lets just say Im French an allies with Spain and just recently neutral with Holand and at war with the British and Pirates I get this mission over and over to go to Nevis and the Pirate settlement. regardless of the flag i use be it Britsh or Pirate. it never ends well...reload.

Nevis is indeed not a good target if you're hostile to both England and the pirates.
It is a sort of "default" destination though if the game cannot find anything else.
Which makes me wonder: why would the game not be able to find any other destination for you?
There must be a reason of some kind...

one thing i did like was the opensea mod. I think that should be default for all difficulties. Having the extra room really helps around certain places in the game where you cross into the next island and hit cliff. this can happen alot in arcade mode.sailing along and bam Rock.

Open Sea Mod was indeed a pretty good addition!
If I recall, it is disabled only in Arcade Game Mode, but I'm not entirely sure now...

How about those twisters when sailing the world map, beacause reasons. that pop on you out of a clear blue sky.Depending on your level and your gold stash, easy peasy . As a low level? reload.

Storms do not depend on player level or gold stash at all.
They're largely random, but as @STARk7 says, they are more common in certain months (related to the actual Caribbean storm season).

One thing i do know and have come to term with it. is that this game really tries to kill you in the begining. reloading is a thing and its real.

Really? Depends on the difficult level, I suppose.
We've had a challenge forever that the game quickly becomes too easy.
I'm not sure if that has ever been fully addressed.

Only mode I use is "Ironman mode" (I guess that's why my nickname is "Stark" ),but I think that you need to get away from battle to be able to use world map,it would be too easy if you could use it whenever you're in danger.

Correct, worldmap is disabled while in battle to avoid exploits.

Also: I salute you for sticking to Iron Man Game Mode!
That... is NOT easy. Definitely puts the feeling of the game on its head.
After I made it and tried it once, I was really surprised by how much "disabling common game functionality" added to the real role-playing feeling of actually being there.

As I said I use the "Ironman mode" and I don't have any problems with the wind,you should wait in port for good wind and good direction,also you could use "R" button to speed up time 3x,5x or 8x you can change this value outside of the game but I don't remember where exactly.

You can increase up to 20x time compression. That is controlled in seadogs.c .
The maximum used to be 30x, but the game engine would start to get confused at that point with ships jumping around.
That's why I reduced it to 20x, where the engine still seems to behave itself.

I think that you can make distance from islands to be like in "Ironman mode" to any other mode.

Yes, you can. That is the same as the Open Sea Mod that @Capt Pete mentions.

Storms happen more often in certain months.

Very true.

Most of the games I play,I play them with "one life" (If possible) if I die it's "game over" but I want to learn some things in game before I try to play it like that,so far most life threatening situations are "random events" like tavern fights,guard attacks,thugs on the street and surrendered ships captains.

It is admittedly quite silly that surrendered ship captains are such a threat.
Ideally something should be done about that, but nobody bothered to do that yet.
@Grey Roger, do you have any ideas on that?

 

[STARk7]

It is admittedly quite silly that surrendered ship captains are such a threat

In my opinion the most realistic thing would be to make surrendering ships choose to which fleet they are surrendering,If they surrendered because player made the biggest impact on them then there's no fighting enemy captain,if they surrendered to someone else you can't just go there with Lifeboat and take their ship without the fight.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

In my opinion the most realistic thing would be to make surrendering ships choose to which fleet they are surrendering,If they surrendered because player made the biggest impact on them then there's no fighting enemy captain,if they surrendered to someone else you can't just go there with Lifeboat and take their ship without the fight.

There is something in place on "who they surrender to", but I'm not sure to what extent and it's probably underdeveloped...

 

[Hylie Pistof]

"For example. you see a ship you want and board it, drop a capable officer on it and then swap ships and i cant seem to use the sails >world map"

This is an old problem that seems to have never been fixed. As I recall, you can keep swapping between ships and the sails will start working or, if the sails are up order them up and then down. That should get them working again.

The "R" and "G" buttons are your friends for time compression.

I play the Open Sea mod because I like just sailing along but it isn't for everyone. Many players want the faster Arcade experience.

I don't have a problem with Nevis because a false flag works on the English and Pirates are rare. That "Master of Disguise" perk works wonders. I find that the Portagee flag generally works.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I find that the Portagee flag generally works.

Probably depends largely on the storyline and nation relations; especially when random relations are enabled.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

True, but generally the Portagees are the friendliest people.

 

[Grey Roger]

Storms: do appear to be rather frequent, even if you switch from worldmap to sailing and there isn't one anywhere near you on the map. In my experience, storms can show up if either of two conditions are true:

1. There is a "r" in the month.
2. There is no "r" in the month.

They can also occasionally show up while you're direct-sailing, and very rarely, in the middle of a battle, which is the most annoying of the lot because you have to turn into the wind to avoid capsizing while the enemy is allowed to do whatever he likes, and you can't board during a storm even if an enemy sails right next to you.

Difficulty in general: yes, early on, even low grade opponents are dangerous. If you're playing FreePlay then you start at level 5, you have some limited experience, but you're still fairly new to this. If you play most storylines you start as a level 1 wimp who barely knows which end of the sword goes into the enemy. Don't go looking for trouble! Or save often in case trouble finds you. Later on, when you're better skilled and better equipped, basic enemies are indeed rather easy, so if you want more of a challenge, go looking for it. Attack a big warship. Plunder a fort. If you're feeling really tough, attack a big battle fleet or plunder one of the tougher towns such as Santo Domingo, which has two forts. Or try your luck against Cartagena. At the last, if you've reached such a high level that even these are too easy, it's probably time to end that game and try starting a new one, with a different character, different choices along the way, and possibly a different storyline.

Surrendered captains: one reason why you should have to duel the captain early on is because otherwise it's too easy to get a really nice ship really quickly. Especially if some of the dual-purpose ships are in play. A Heavy East Indiaman or Heavy Pinnace of War can appear as either warship or merchant. Merchants have lower initial morale so they're more likely to surrender, and the Heavy Pinnace of War is practically a ship of the line. Even the Heavy East Indiaman is a very useful ship, with good firepower, decent performance and a big cargo hold. At present, whether an enemy captain surrenders or duels is governed by several factors, starting with a comparison of the total of your Leadership, Fencing and Grappling skills versus his. If you outclass him there, it goes to abilities - if you have the "Professional Fencer" and "Iron Will" abilities, or if he doesn't have them both, then he'll surrender. If his combined skills are greater than yours, or if he has the abilities and you don't, then he thinks you're too weak to deserve his ship and he'll fight. One change I've already made is that, originally, the skill check used your base skills, whereas now it takes account of items which modify it - basically, the number on the left of your character stats versus the modified number on the right. I'm also inclined to factor in a comparison of ship rating, so that he'll be more likely to surrender if he has a smaller ship than you, and less likely to surrender if he has the bigger ship. That, after all, is the main reason for this, at least as far as I'm concerned - to make it harder for you to get the ship of your dreams too early in the game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Storms: do appear to be rather frequent, even if you switch from worldmap to sailing and there isn't one anywhere near you on the map. In my experience, storms can show up if either of two conditions are true:

1. There is a "r" in the month.
2. There is no "r" in the month.

All I can say:
Fixed - Reduced Storm Chance
Medium Priority - Reduce Monthly Storm Chance

Surrendered captains: one reason why you should have to duel the captain early on is because otherwise it's too easy to get a really nice ship really quickly. Especially if some of the dual-purpose ships are in play. A Heavy East Indiaman or Heavy Pinnace of War can appear as either warship or merchant. Merchants have lower initial morale so they're more likely to surrender, and the Heavy Pinnace of War is practically a ship of the line. Even the Heavy East Indiaman is a very useful ship, with good firepower, decent performance and a big cargo hold. At present, whether an enemy captain surrenders or duels is governed by several factors, starting with a comparison of the total of your Leadership, Fencing and Grappling skills versus his. If you outclass him there, it goes to abilities - if you have the "Professional Fencer" and "Iron Will" abilities, or if he doesn't have them both, then he'll surrender. If his combined skills are greater than yours, or if he has the abilities and you don't, then he thinks you're too weak to deserve his ship and he'll fight. One change I've already made is that, originally, the skill check used your base skills, whereas now it takes account of items which modify it - basically, the number on the left of your character stats versus the modified number on the right. I'm also inclined to factor in a comparison of ship rating, so that he'll be more likely to surrender if he has a smaller ship than you, and less likely to surrender if he has the bigger ship. That, after all, is the main reason for this, at least as far as I'm concerned - to make it harder for you to get the ship of your dreams too early in the game.

Makes sense to me.

 

[STARk7]

I'm also inclined to factor in a comparison of ship rating, so that he'll be more likely to surrender if he has a smaller ship than you, and less likely to surrender if he has the bigger ship.

Oh,I like that.