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A start for the "Master and Commander" storyline

Very much agreed. I think that's the way to go. Added advantage: it doesn't require much quest coding,
because once the battle is set up, it will take care of itself, so to say.
Indeed using different ships vs. different opponents could bring a lot of variety in the sea battles.

You're definitly right about the "Uber-Ship-o'-Doom".
If you cheat, you really lose a LOT of the gameplay value.
Especially if you use DirectSail and Realistic Game mode properly,
that can make for a LOT of additional gameplay that you'd really miss when playing in Arcade.

Thankfully with WBT, more so than ever before, there are no uber-ships.
Each ship has advantages and disadvantages and will thus require different handling.
In fact, certain ships will work better in certain situations than others.
For example, try to sink a schooner when you've got command of a ship of the line.

One thing for a sea-battle-based storyline is that you'd need to spend quite a lot of time
on finding battle setups that are varied, challenging, but winnable.
That could take quite a while to find some good setups.
 
When I said "Uber-Ship-O'Doom" I wasn't really referring to cheating. If by cheating someone ruins their own fun, then they can hardly complain. What I was getting at, and I think you understood me correctly, was taking people out of their comfort zones and challenging them with learning new techniques and tactics. "Varied, challenging, but winnable," yes, this is the key. But winnable by whom? A battle that challenges me to my limits may put Morgan Terror to sleep, for example. (Just want to see if he's paying attention!)There would have to be a number of willing testers at varying levels of ability to ensure that criterion is met. As far as the coding question goes, I am willing to take a crack at this, but there are some things I will need help on. First off, as I mentioned earlier, is there any way of porting over the COAS function of "Launch a boat"? This essentially puts you on the deck of a friendly ship with dialog choices. You can then initiate the quests by visiting the flagship and entering dialog with the ship's captain. Selecting the proper response would then take you to the ship's cabin. I think most of the quests' starting and ending points shoud take place in an admiral's cabin, with the admiral seated behind the desk. I have no idea how to create this setting though. Another question- in Direct Sail mode, can we script an event? Say your orders are to sail from port a to port b, but the actual challenges are the scripterd encounters that happen on the way. The only way I have made scripted encounters with ships is in the sea-space surrounding an island, where entering the sea space from map mode triggers the ships to be spawned. But many of these battles would be better suited to the open ocean. Then again, we should probably not make direct sail a requirement for triggering an encounter. Not everybody uses it, some for very valid reasons.
 
I can handle pretty much anything in a schooner. I've even reduced a man'o'war to 1 cannon and forced it to strike to me using only 4 pounders(a story for another time).
Click to expand...

Fun!

Speaking of which you can defeat a fort using a small ship if you got some kind of special weapons. Like a bomb ketch or just wait for whomever to add some interesting historically derived artillery like the English "saker" type.

A saker's barrel was approximately 9.5ft (2.9m) long, had a calibre of 3.25 inches (8.25cm) and weighed approximately 1900lb (860kg). It could fire round shot weighing 5.25lb (2.4kg) approximately 7400ft (2250m) using 4lb (1.8kg) of black powder.[sup][3][/sup][sup][4][/sup] The shot was designed not to explode but bounce along the ground to cause as much damage as possible.[sup][5][/sup] Tests performed in France during the 1950s show a saker's range was over 3000ft when fired at a 45 degree angle.[sup][6]
Click to expand...

[/sup]On a naval mount the guns may not be elevated that high but it shows that period artillery had far greater ballistic range than the 500-700ft we have for long guns. Might not be possible for a brig to outfight a fort but with indirect fire? Might be made to work with this game. Another way of course is to generate a "quest specific" fort that is matched to the player's ship level and that way you'd have some interesting shore bombardment missions (target doesn't have to be a fort).

And yes, on the previous page, using Build as sort of a platform for naval combat gameplay is a very good option for those of us who prefer the wargaming instead of the roleplaying concept. (we should do up some simple single missions based on quest battles. Basically puts you in 3D sail mode and no world map, battle ends after objective met, player retires or is sunk.
 
I found the Sophie in the Shipyard, finally. It is called "Brig", but it would be better to rewrite to Brig-rigged Sloop", i guess ;)

Today i finally finished reading the first book of the Aubrey-Maturin's series. I could already imagine my player standing in a captain's cabin of a Man'o War with the Judge and the Post Captains judging you in the Martial Court in the very end of the story.

Then the storyline would end and you would be without a command, so you would have to buy your own ship and start a free-play game.

And thats it. We would have the first part of the storyline ready to be playable while we start to make the second book storyline.

And i cant imagine the Master and Commander storyline to be boring, because your character will command at least 7 different ships in the way.

By the way, there are some things that could already be done in the storyline:

- Changing the starting age to 1800.
- Changing the starting ship to HMS Sophie, instead of HMS Surprise.
 
The SloopBrig is called "Snow-Brig" at the moment, though.

Starting date to 1800? Can do, but then we don't have a storyline in the "Revolutions" period anymore.
Don't you need the US at war with England for the storyline?
Of course we can override default nation relations anyway, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Feel free to make your first adjustments in the PROGRAM\Storyline folder.
Might also then want to modify the starting location; right now it's in the middle of a hostile US town.

Rum Runner said:
"Varied, challenging, but winnable," yes, this is the key. But winnable by whom? A battle that challenges me to my limits may put Morgan Terror to sleep, for example. (Just want to see if he's paying attention!)There would have to be a number of willing testers at varying levels of ability to ensure that criterion is met.
Click to expand...
I'm sure you'll be able to find people interested once you've got something.
People have wanted an actual M&C storyline for quite a while :yes

Rum Runner said:
First off, as I mentioned earlier, is there any way of porting over the COAS function of "Launch a boat"? This essentially puts you on the deck of a friendly ship with dialog choices.
Click to expand...
I'm certain it is possible and we've even had someone working on this in the past.
That person disappeared though and nothing ever got released. :(

Since we don't really have anyone at the moment who could work on adding this in,
I'd recommend handling the cabin scenes as scripted events for now.
Have you played the Hornblower storyline? That might show better what you can do.

Rum Runner said:
Another question- in Direct Sail mode, can we script an event? Say your orders are to sail from port a to port b, but the actual challenges are the scripterd encounters that happen on the way.
Click to expand...
We might be able to arrange that, though that would require some figuring out.
I have a Davy Jones encounter at sea that is triggered by going from worldmap to sea anywhere,
so that way you could have it in the middle of the ocean too.
Alternatively, you could use a reload to the middle of the sea and have the encounter staged there.
I think there's possibilities. :yes
 
When do start and end the Revolutions period?

All that i know is that the storyline will happen in the Napoleon Era, from April, 18th 1800 ahead.

I dont know if the US is at war or just neutral with England, but i know that in the future (Far Side of the World, i guess) Jack Aubrey haunt an American ship around the American continent (the same ship in which the Acheron of the film was based on).

I will see what i can do in the PROGRAM\Storyline folder, despite my lack of knownledge of what im going to do there. I will learn somehow :keith
 
Code: 
	makeref(period, Periods[n]);
period.name = "Revolutions";
period.date.start = "1770";
period.date.end = "1789";
n++;

makeref(period, Periods[n]);
period.name = "The Corsican";
period.date.start = "1790";
period.date.end = "1820";
n++;
This is mainly for flags, really. Revolutions doesn't have Napoleonic French flag and The Corsican does.
Default nation relations can be overridden.
 
Take a look at the Build 14 quest writing tutorial by me and Short Jack Gold and then what I suggest is taking an existing sidequest and see if you can get it to work in that storyline...

Or if your a total novice and not confident, play through a storyline and then change some things (eg dialog/location) and then play through it again and see the changes in game :)
 
That seems to be funny xD:

And yes, im a complete novice. I started to change some things in the PROGRAN folders, to make my character to start with a specific ship and start with more money and skills, but then i started to search for guidance in the net and discovered the Pirates Ahoy! site. Since then, i never touched the folders, because you guys already did what i want to do xD:

So The Corsican period corresponds to the Napoleonic Era... Well, the series start at April, 18th 1800 and the 20th book ends in 1819 or 1820, as far as i know, so yeah, thats the right era.

Is there a way to know aforehead the relation between the nations in this period?
 
The nation relations are defined in PROGRAM\NATIONS\relations_init.c:
Code: 
	// Set Nation Relations
switch(GetCurrentPeriod())
{
case PERIOD_EARLY_EXPLORERS:
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, HOLLAND,  RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  PORTUGAL, RELATION_NEUTRAL);
SetNationRelationBoth(SPAIN,   PORTUGAL, RELATION_FRIEND);
break;

case PERIOD_THE_SPANISH_MAIN:
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, HOLLAND,  RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(SPAIN,   PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
break;

case PERIOD_GOLDEN_AGE_OF_PIRACY:
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, HOLLAND,  RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  SPAIN,    RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(SPAIN,   PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
break;

case PERIOD_COLONIAL_POWERS:
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, HOLLAND,  RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_NEUTRAL);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  SPAIN,    RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(SPAIN,   PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
break;

case PERIOD_REVOLUTIONS:
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, HOLLAND,  RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_NEUTRAL);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, AMERICA,  RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_NEUTRAL);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, AMERICA,  RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  SPAIN,    RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  PORTUGAL, RELATION_NEUTRAL);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  AMERICA,  RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(SPAIN,   PORTUGAL, RELATION_NEUTRAL);
SetNationRelationBoth(SPAIN,   AMERICA,  RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(AMERICA, PORTUGAL, RELATION_NEUTRAL);
break;

case PERIOD_THE_CORSICAN:
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, HOLLAND,  RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(ENGLAND, AMERICA,  RELATION_NEUTRAL);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, FRANCE,   RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(HOLLAND, AMERICA,  RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  SPAIN,    RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  PORTUGAL, RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(FRANCE,  AMERICA,  RELATION_NEUTRAL);
SetNationRelationBoth(SPAIN,   PORTUGAL, RELATION_FRIEND);
SetNationRelationBoth(SPAIN,   AMERICA,  RELATION_ENEMY);
SetNationRelationBoth(AMERICA, PORTUGAL, RELATION_FRIEND);
break;
}
But you need not care about this; just pick the period with the FLAGS that you want.
Most notably, do you want France to be Royal (Revolutions) or Napoleonic (The Corsican)?
The above are only default relations, but you can override those with storyline relations if you want.
 
The problem is, im not an expert in nautical history :rolleyes:

I will take a quick look in the history (God bless the internet!) and when i learn enough, i will plan what im going to do. The relations between the nations are the most important to learn. I will take a look at the flags while im studying it.

I just discovered that here in Brazil we already have the first five books of the Aubrey-Maturin series publishied, and the Far Side of the World aswell. I just bouth the fifth book, "Desolation Island". I still have to find the 2nd, the 3rd and the 4th book and read them all this year.

After the Carnival holidays (February) i will have a lot of time to spend in all this.

Now, im going to take a look at the folders you just pointed me.
 
Andyintore Falcus said:
The problem is, im not an expert in nautical history :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Most of us aren't mate! In fact, most of us aren't experts in anything we do here. We simply do it because we want to and we enjoy it. Nothing needs to be 100% historically accurate, or even exactly how things happen in the books. Just have fun with it! :onya
 
Ok, good to hear that :onya

Now, i opened the Storyline archive and i want to change the starting place and time. How do i do it?

If i want the character to start in Jamaica, i have to change the "Eleuthera_Port" to "Redmond_Port", or is it "Kingston_Port"?
 
Never mind, i already made the changes.

I changed the starting location to "Redmond_Port", the date to "18-4-1800 (Corsican Era)" and the ship to "SloopBrig (HMS Sophie)".

I also changed the end of the storyline description. Instead of "(...) war with the United States" it is now "(...) war with Napoleon"

But now i want to change the quest. It still says that i've infiltrated an american port and blah blah blah. How can i change it?
 
Oh, i almost forgot.

After i did those changes, i noticed that the lag disappeared in the ports. Everytime i went to a port, any port, the game started to run VERY slow, but now i start in the "Redmond" port and the ships in the jetty disappeared. Not that im complaining, at least now i can move at normal speed, but im worried with this consequence.

Any hint of what could have happened?
 
Never mind, again.

When i left the port and returned the ships were back (and, consequentily, the lag too :modding ).

I just want to learn how to rewrite the quest message in the quest book now.
 
RESOURCE/INI/TEXTS/ENGLISH/Storyline/#storyline#/#name#.txt and then its just
SetQuestHeader("#name#"); (to set the header)
AddQuestRecord("#name#", #NUM#); (to add the entry)
 
I managed to change the entry, but the header wont change. It still says "Governor Harbor's Infiltration".

Do i have to start a new game to get it to work or what?
 
I think the header is saved in your savegame once it's created.
Try starting a new game and see if it does work properly then.
 
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