Build 14 Beta 1

[Black Bart]

The armour prices were rasied just to give the player something to aim for(so not likely to be affordable as soon as possible) and to make the prices wider between the lowest armour and the highest. So that if you are able to buy the best weapons you will probably be able to buy the best armour, low armour fits more with low weapons etc. All the 'top tier'(Best) items are in general more expensive than they were, but that is more in relation to ship prices than it used to be.

And as making lots of money isn't really an issue in this game, you'll be able to afford the best stuff, just not(probably) in the first 10 char levels of the game. So yeah most of that kind of cost rebalancing is just to give the player stuff to aim for over the longer term(so they have new stuff to look forward to from level 10 and over). It would be nice to have more stuff maybe(say more armours etc) but that takes work and creating items etc, rebalancing the costs to spread things out a bit more is the easier option currently. Also keep in mind you can play this game to around level 30-40(Hylie has anyway!), you don't want all the stuff as soon as possible and then nothing new for the next possible 2/3rds of the game!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Good to be here again. Thanks. I will have sometime to do some testing. I have already noticed that many of the random vendors have only a blanks to sell.

Are those the "Pssst, I've got something here for you" guys? I think that was reported before and is caused by the item changes. We haven't fixed it yet, because Sulan made more item changes that aren't in Patch 7.

I have patch 7 WIP. Which version should I download?

The Light version should work for you then.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Harrumph! I'll have you know I made it to level 60 before my constant tweaking wrecked the game.

 

[Legendary_Spider]

Here is an update for the Queen Anne's Revenge that needs to be included for Beta 2. Somehow I messed up a couple of her textures and this will fix that.

http://www.pyratesahoy.com/potc/Legendary_Spider/RESOURCE.7z

Now she won't be too dark.

Just install that into your RESOURCE folder.

 

[tommy61157]

Hey guys, I want to help with the beta, I'm getting tired of sitting around doing nothing while bugs still infest the game, I want to start with something small, but not too small, anything out there for me? I really want to start making a difference.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For one thing, I'd appreciate some proper feedback on the performance ingame of the steamships. Then maybe you can play around with some values and see if you can get better results than we've got.
Please install this file first, then set one of the storyline start ships to "RN_SteamFrigate" (or one of the other three: "US_" or "FR_"): http://www.pyratesahoy.com/build/b14_b2_wip/pb_code_2011-11-17.exe
Since most of the code is already in place, hopefully it wouldn't take you too much trouble to experiment with it a bit.
Have a look at the appropriate thread if you're interested: http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php/topic/15276-baltimore-steam-propulsion-laboratory/page__view__findpost__p__410880

Just a thought though. If there's anything in specific you'd like to try, just let us know and we'll point you in the right direction.

 

[Jason]

Just a couple of quick points in patch 7 so far. The economics seems great and much more realistic. As I said earlier, the vendors have nothing but occasionally fancy armour,which if your can't afford it you can always steal.
Blade damage doesn't seem to be working.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yeah, those street merchants don't have anything because no one has specified which weapons are "special" yet.


I was wondering about that wear and tear thing, but I have been playing hybrid installs, so could not say for certain. I'm wondering if the fix to keep quest swords from breaking messed that up?

 

[Jason]

Yeah, those street merchants don't have anything because no one has specified which weapons are "special" yet.


I was wondering about that wear and tear thing, but I have been playing hybrid installs, so could not say for certain. I'm wondering if the fix to keep quest swords from breaking messed that up?

Also the message that you got xxxxx gold when you capture a ship is gone. You didn't get any gold just the message.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The economics seems great and much more realistic.

Some success by Black Bart and Sulan then; niiice!

As I said earlier, the vendors have nothing but occasionally fancy armour,which if your can't afford it you can always steal.

If you steal from vendors, don't you get an invasion of lots of really strong enemies?
I think the vendors not having anything is caused by us redoing the weapon stats; this is still some WIP code. I was thinking: rather than them selling high level weapons that should be unique (which they now do not do), what if they'd sell sneak weapons and such?

Blade damage doesn't seem to be working.

Not? CRAP! That probably is my "Weapons without quality no longer break" working a bit too well.
Just to be sure, what blade are you using? I'd like to do some tests with that myself.

Also the message that you got xxxxx gold when you capture a ship is gone. You didn't get any gold just the message.

Now I'm confused; do you get the message and not the actual gold or do you still get the gold but not the message?
I could imagine Sulan would have removed the on-screen message on purpose, because that information should end up in the Ship's Log interface automatically.

 

[tommy61157]

EDIT 2: Decided since people actually are working on the steam frigates, I want to work on the capture towns mod since no one is currently working on that...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

At the moment, nobody is working on the steamfrigates; I wrote the code, but I don't want to do the finetuning.

It would be great to get Capture Colonies fully operational, but that is so complex I haven't dared venture there myself either.
I like doing what I know I can do or at least I've got some idea of how to accomplish...

 

[tommy61157]

oh, okay, sorry, i couldn't really tell from the posts on that thread. I'm not good at guessing values though, so it will take a while and I'm not sure what you want me to fine-tune it to. Also, How do I change the ships characters start with?

Edit: found out how to start with steamship, but is there anywhere where there's a list of all ship codes so I could switch it with any ship? Just curious...

 

[Jason]

Also the message that you got xxxxx gold when you capture a ship is gone. You didn't get any gold just the message.

Now I'm confused; do you get the message and not the actual gold or do you still get the gold but not the message?
I could imagine Sulan would have removed the on-screen message on purpose, because that information should end up in the Ship's Log interface automatically.

As far as I know, you don't get any gold and haven't gotten gold for several versions of the build. There is no message about gold.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Open, say, PROGRAM\Storyline\JackAubrey.c and find:

sl.(sn).start.ship = "HMS_Surprise";

Replace with:

sl.(sn).start.ship = "US_SteamFrigate";

That'll give you a steamship right off the bat. Then just start out with testing her under all circumstances and see if she behaves the way you'd expect.

 

[tommy61157]

yeah, sorry, already found that out, look in the steam lab thread for my updates on that.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As far as I know, you don't get any gold and haven't gotten gold for several versions of the build. There is no message about gold.

So you don't get the gold and there's no message? At least that's internally consistent then. Does it say anything on the subject in the Ship Log interface after capturing/sinking a ship?
I can't remember if we removed that "free gold" on purpose to make gold at least a bit harder to get. That can't hurt, I suppose, since you still do get the gold from the boarding (whatever you manually looted) and the cargo and also the ship if you take her.

 

[Baste]

A last minute fix accidentally wasn't included, but here it is. It goes in "PROGRAM\Loc_ai".

 

[tommy61157]

should I apply the fix Baste posted to my game?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Can't hurt.