Unconfirmed Bug Build 14 (April) - Captains who abandoned their their ship!

[Maria47]

I'm having a consistent issue in my games lately when the enemy ships' captains won't appear on-deck. I have no idea why and I have no idea how to report it. It's happened 3 times; different ships, different nations, some were surrendered, some were boarded normally.

 

[Grey Roger]

What exactly have you done with previous captains whom you captured?

There used to be a bug whereby, if you executed them, or if you hired and then fired them, they weren't properly cleared out, leaving a lot of ex-captains stored in the background, to the point where it became impossible to create any more. That would cause captains to fail to appear on deck. But that one was fixed.

Can you upload a savegame in which you are about to board a ship but have not yet done so? I can then load it, try the boarding, and see if I can find out what is going wrong,

 

[Maria47]

What exactly have you done with previous captains whom you captured?

There used to be a bug whereby, if you executed them, or if you hired and then fired them, they weren't properly cleared out, leaving a lot of ex-captains stored in the background, to the point where it became impossible to create any more. That would cause captains to fail to appear on deck. But that one was fixed.

Can you upload a savegame in which you are about to board a ship but have not yet done so? I can then load it, try the boarding, and see if I can find out what is going wrong,

Apologies I'm a bit late on this but here you go! I tend to Imprison and ransom enemy captains 'cause I have no need for more officers. You should be able to load this up and immediately board the enemy ship, and you'll see that there's no captain.

 

[Grey Roger]

It's definitely the same problem as before - captured captains are not being properly cleared, are stored in the background, and eventually there are so many of them that no new captain can be created for you to capture or fight. But this tended to happen if you hired or executed the captain. Like you, I either ransom them or release them for reputation, depending on how much ransom is being offered, and I never saw the problem in any of my games even before I fixed it for hiring and executing.

The fix is the same. Look at this post:
Fixed - Marie Celeste
Download the file "console.c" into your "PROGRAM" folder. Load your savegame, press F12, and you should see a list of ex-captains being cleared. You can then board the ship and meet the captain:

(I have ammunition for pistols enabled, you apparently don't, which is why there's a row of four empty shots over your status icon. That is nothing to do with captains.)

But there's something else odd about your game:

The questbook shows that you are playing "Tales of a Sea Hawk", which is set in 1750. So why is the date showing 1693?

 

[Maria47]

It's definitely the same problem as before - captured captains are not being properly cleared, are stored in the background, and eventually there are so many of them that no new captain can be created for you to capture or fight. But this tended to happen if you hired or executed the captain. Like you, I either ransom them or release them for reputation, depending on how much ransom is being offered, and I never saw the problem in any of my games even before I fixed it for hiring and executing.

The fix is the same. Look at this post:
Fixed - Marie Celeste
Download the file "console.c" into your "PROGRAM" folder. Load your savegame, press F12, and you should see a list of ex-captains being cleared. You can then board the ship and meet the captain:
View attachment 42195
(I have ammunition for pistols enabled, you apparently don't, which is why there's a row of four empty shots over your status icon. That is nothing to do with captains.)

But there's something else odd about your game:
View attachment 42196
The questbook shows that you are playing "Tales of a Sea Hawk", which is set in 1750. So why is the date showing 1693?

Thank you! Knew I could count on you!

I changed the date manually to fit the vanilla game's date. I thought it might be interesting to see new ships come in and out of existence as time progressed but it actually looks like nothing changes. Would that have caused the problem at all?

 

[Grey Roger]

Periods do not change when years change. The first day of "Colonial Powers" is 1st January 1740. But if you start a game on 31st December 1739, which is "Golden Age of Piracy", and then play for one day, ships and weapons won't suddenly disappear, new ships and weapons won't suddenly appear, and every soldier in the archipelago won't suddenly get a new uniform.

Changing the start date for the storyline shouldn't cause trouble with captains, though if you want to match the vanilla game, shouldn't you start in 1630? That would also match the date in the video - though the video, being made for the stock game, still uses the original name "Oxbay".

And I've still no idea how the problem happened in your game. As I said, I routinely ransom prisoners and have never seen this happen in any of my games.

 

[Maria47]

Periods do not change when years change. The first day of "Colonial Powers" is 1st January 1740. But if you start a game on 31st December 1739, which is "Golden Age of Piracy", and then play for one day, ships and weapons won't suddenly disappear, new ships and weapons won't suddenly appear, and every soldier in the archipelago won't suddenly get a new uniform.

Changing the start date for the storyline shouldn't cause trouble with captains, though if you want to match the vanilla game, shouldn't you start in 1630? That would also match the date in the video - though the video, being made for the stock game, still uses the original name "Oxbay".

And I've still no idea how the problem happened in your game. As I said, I routinely ransom prisoners and have never seen this happen in any of my games.

I didn't know what the original year was so I set it to 1690 at an estimate, didn't realised it worked like that though!