Mod Release Build 14 Beta 2.5 Internal Release Available!

[Pieter Boelen]

Here is new one too me at least. I saved Artois at Nevis, one of overzealous officers shot the guy who was trying to kill him and then also shot Artois and killed him. The character has regenerated with Artois' stats is part of my officer roster. His name however Abelard Clari. I am off to Le Grenede to see if the quest still works.

That happens with any INIT character that is regenerated. He should still have his same ID, so there is a good chance it'll still work.

Also I have noticed that now that I have taken several pirates and have a British LOM the pirate merchants and ship yard want to charge more and pay less for my services. As I recall that was once in here but hasn't worked for a long while. Is that right or is it new.

I fixed that code so that it now REALLY does what it was intended to do. So you get the "trade high" effect for all enemy nations.
Except pirates. They don't care about your relation, but DO care about your reputation. Anything above Matey and they will not like you anymore.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Forts of the period had cannons with that range. You may not like the range of the fort guns but that is about what they could do. In 1702 the Spanish claimed 3,000 yards range for their culverins.

 

[Skyworm]

Some thoughts ...

3,000 yards may be a realistic firing range for forts, but I think we must count in our calculation that most islands size is not realistic. As in many computer games, they are much smaller than in reality.
This enables some forts to shoot from one side of the island straight to the other side of it. A example may be Saint Martin, where you can be shot at by the other factions fort almost everywhere excapt in your nations port.
For gameplay, this is not good.

About firearms ... I support Pieters point, a firearm that can kill an enemy with one shot, will be able to kill you or your officers in one shot, too. And I think I already mentioned in that rebalancing fencing system thread that I don't really like this one-hitting.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Armada said:

I know I don't usually say this, but I don't care about the realism in this case. Whether forts really had a huge range of attack in reality or not, my view is that it needs to be reduced for gameplay purposes, at least to compensate for the fort AI's inability to recognise obstacles such as cliffs.

 

[Jason]

Got it, that's great. Nice!!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Before we release the final Beta 2.5, I think we should have a test of all the stuff we did over the weekend too.
So I put it all together for easy install on top of the file from the opening post.

Download: http://piratesahoy.net/build/b14_beta2-5_patch.exe (3.07 MB)
Installation: Extract on top of the Build 14 Beta 2.5 Internal Release
New game: Recommended
Contents:

Spoiler

Build 14 Beta 2.5:
- Bug Fixes:
  . Pistol reload progress updates properly again by Pieter Boelen
  . Cartagena excluded from Trade and Escort Missions by Pieter Boelen
- Code Updates:
  . All firearms rebalanced by Pieter Boelen
    > Misfire chance restored to Blunderbuss
    > Multi-damage added to the musketoon
  . Town guards and soldiers made much stronger from game start by Pieter Boelen
  . Clint Eastwood at the strange house in the Nevis jungle now works as intended by Pieter Boelen
    > He is the ONLY way to get the "Pump Shotgun". Try to take it from him!
  . Skill level and critical hits taken into account for fencing skill increase by Baste
  . Range of fort cannons reduced by 50% by Armada
- Ship Model Updates:
  . Rigging improved on Barques by Hylie Pistof

Bonus contents:
- Small boat with crew you encounter during DirectSail replaced with better-detail model
- Cartagena town location lighting files updated (still not accessible in any way though)
- Spanish soldier portrait files updated

Let me know how that works.

Edit: Opening post updated with both links and the full, combined feature list.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Let me know how that works.

Just a note that I need to know that we're pretty much agreed on those recent changes, most notably the firearms rebalancing and fort cannon range change.
Those are quite experimental for now and based on preliminary values; can't make a proper release until we know it is right. Or reasonably playable, at least.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok I dl'ed that new patch, installed it and started a new game. Got everything dialed in and it was working well until i got back to Havana. Two CTDs in a row!
I didn't save anything from the first one. I was in the shipyard trying to paint a ship and it showed no ships to paint. Then it CTDed.
Started over from the last save and got my trade mission and made it to the waterfront where I was attacked by two muggers. Survived that and was heading up the dock towards my ship when........CTD.
Here are the logs.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That... is really quite weird. There isn't much of any substantial changes to the code in there at all. No obvious clues in those log files either.

So let me get this straight:
- One CTD occurred in the Shipyard Interface, while looking at the Appearance Menu?
- The other was while walking on the pier, but not during any reload or conversation?

 

[xxzoltanxx]

When I want to talk to the governor in Eleuthera, he responds with "Can't load Cole Arkwright_dialog.c assigned to me"

Also I was having the same shipyard issue as Hylie, it also showed no ships to paint and a CTD occurred when I closed the shipyard window.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Correct.

The shipyard appearance menu had no ship and the other was right after looting the corpses.
I went back and continued playing and got out of Havana, went to Tortuga and wandered around there, and sailed to Port Royale and just completed a smuggling run with no problems.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

When I want to talk to the governor in Eleuthera, he responds with "Can't load Cole Arkwright_dialog.c assigned to me"

You're absolutely right! Looks like I somehow missed out on him when I was modifying the Pirate Hunting Quest code. Remy Gatien on Guadeloupe too.
See attached for the fixed files. Extract to your main game folder.

Also I was having the same shipyard issue as Hylie, it also showed no ships to paint and a CTD occurred when I closed the shipyard window.

The shipyard appearance menu had no ship

Could you tell me what ship you were sailing at the time so I can try myself?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Could you tell me what ship you were sailing at the time so I can try myself?

NO ship at all, eh? Not even your own ship type. I just gave myself the QueenAnnesRevenge, which I know doesn't have a refShip.model line.
Unfortunately even that didn't allow me to replicate the CTD. One thing we can try though: In PROGRAM\Ships\ships_init.c find:

if(DEBUG && !HasSubStr(refShip.id, "obj_")) refShip.model = "all"; // PB: Allow repainting to all ships

Above this, add:

if(!CheckAttribute(refShip,"model"))        refShip.model = refShip.id;

This will make sure EVERY ship gets a refShip.model line and you should never see the Appearance interface completely empty again.
Perhaps that helps.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I kept forgetting to check in the shipyards last night to try to replicate the no ship bug.
At Havana I had just bought a Hoy and wanted to repaint it. There was the usual bunch of ships to choose from to buy, but nothing when I tried to repaint.

I have lost track of all of the changes but it seems that maybe combat is a little easier. Maybe. Also, all of the special weapons like ether bottles, poisoned throwing knives, and stinkpots are very rare. My officers and I are using just normal swords so far in this game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I kept forgetting to check in the shipyards last night to try to replicate the no ship bug.
At Havana I had just bought a Hoy and wanted to repaint it. There was the usual bunch of ships to choose from to buy, but nothing when I tried to repaint.

The HOY was un-repaintable? But that one DOES have repaint options!

I have lost track of all of the changes but it seems that maybe combat is a little easier. Maybe.

Baste added various pieces of code to help your fencing skill to increase quicker than before. So that should help.
And the redone gun stats should have reduced the chance on one-shot deaths.

Also, all of the special weapons like ether bottles, poisoned throwing knives, and stinkpots are very rare. My officers and I are using just normal swords so far in this game.

The "Sneaky Traders" in town sell them. You should be able to get them if you want them, right?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I just repainted my current ship, a light pinnace at Sao Jorge, and it went normally. So maybe it is a Havana specific problem or it goes away after a time.

There are not so many people in town any more, sneaky or otherwise.

 

[Skyworm]

A short report from me ...

Started that french fry in napoleonic times this time. Used that long jungle path at Puerto Rico to build up my melee skill early. Adventurer level.

Character is now lv 4, melee at 8, so yes, this works fine. As soon I had a fairly decent weapon, I did comparably well in melee and was able to kill most opponents. The long pistol worked fine early, severely hurt or even outright killed an enemy from time to time.

From the "feel" of it I'd say melee is better now, at least it is a lot less frustrating.
Haven't yet tried officers.

One remark ... Good Brace of small pistols ... 15/39, 25 seconds reload seems ok, but 6% accuracy? Seriously? Why should I bother firing a weapon, when it's obviously more sense throwing it or clubbing with it?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

One remark ... Good Brace of small pistols ... 15/39, 25 seconds reload seems ok, but 6% accuracy? Seriously? Why should I bother firing a weapon, when it's obviously more sense throwing it or clubbing with it?

I toned the Small Pistol and, by extension, the Brace of Small Pistols waaay down, because I was able to one-shot kill the merchants at the stalls from the lamp post at the jetty in Port Royal.
I figured, with the lowest-level pistol in the game, you should pretty much put the barrel in someone's stomach in order to hit 'em.
We could put it a little higher though, if you find you can't seem to hit anything ever at all.

There are not so many people in town any more, sneaky or otherwise.

I really wonder where that comes from; nobody touched the code generating them!
One thing I DID notice is that "monsters" error message, which turned out to be due to an error in initModels.c .
This could prevent random characters from showing up. I fixed "oldwoman2" now, which seems to have been a favourite model to use.
And today I put in a log message that will let us know if it happens again, so we can fix any others too.
So that should help

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I'm liking Clint Eastwood! Outnumbered 4 to 1 he punched out all 3 officers and had me on the ropes. Good man!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Since tomorrow I'll be away for most of the day, I think we'll make the real 2.5 release on Wednesday.
Anything that still needs addressing or changing before that time, now is the time to say so!