Mod Release Build 14 Beta 3.5 Internal WIP For Testing

[Hylie Pistof]

Dunno, but it has always been like that. I don't mind as I am always on the receiving end of all those guns. I concentrate on the sails and once they are down I sit where she can't hit me and blast away.

As to why they fall, maybe it is because there is so much sail area? Methinks different sails are graded higher or lower too. Like main sails really drop the overall percentage when they get hit but the spritsail or lateen doesn't lose much when dropped.

 

[Johivas]

I do wonder what it is with the Constitution-variations and having their masts easily broken. Their sail hit points is 300, which is more than the default (200).
@Hylie Pistof or @Armada, have you got any clue what might be influencing this because I really don't.

At least with the steam frigate, you do have an alternate means of propulsion when your masts are down.
But even so, it is more of an auxiliary engine than anything else.

The turn speed permitted me some very effective turn maneuvers, the engines give a 2 knots over the speed, useful to run after a fast ship or, as you say, they can be useful to escape or as emergency power, which the ship continually need since it get its masts broken at the first opportunity... In a big battle, you can manage to survive with the low hull strength, if you are effective at repairing, but with the small cargo, it means you got to fill it to the top with planks, if you want to escape on steam in a situation where the masts are broken. With 1000 more cargo space, 1000 more hull strength, stronger masts, and 3 knots on the engines instead of 2, it would have been a decent ship. Crew number is allright, just enough to capture a good ship, but I had 3 of those steam ships, and in a big battle, while I concentrated on capturing the prize, all 3 got their sails broken, and by the time i captured, I had to switch to the new ship and watch all 3 get sunk, then it was my turn...At that point I decided it was a very bad ship...It's a shame, since i liked very much the steam option, and I won't see it again on any other ship, and what of the interface? A function that is very much wasted in my opinion...

Apart from that, i found this "turpin" chest thing, what's the use of this? And what's useful to put in the weapon locker? I know about the bandages and the aztec coins, but is there anything else, i'm ready to start buying armor, but will they wear it?

Finally, am I supposed to lose officers during battle, out of 3 tentative at capturing a ship, I lost my best officer 3 times, always the same one.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sounds like we may want to think of re balancing the steam frigates a bit.
While I did do the functional work on them, I entrusted the stats to other people.

For the Turpin, visit the Bridgetown apothecary.
He should be able to explain that one.

You can put weapons, potions and armour in the locker.
Also cursed coins if you like.

Your officers of course aren't intended to be lost.
Does the guy die or is there something strange going on?

 

[Johivas]

Sounds like we may want to think of re balancing the steam frigates a bit.
While I did do the functional work on them, I entrusted the stats to other people.

For the Turpin, visit the Bridgetown apothecary.
He should be able to explain that one.

You can put weapons, potions and armour in the locker.
Also cursed coins if you like.

Your officers of course aren't intended to be lost.
Does the guy die or is there something strange going on?

The guy dying was just your usual random scary bug, I took him by the hand on a capture mission instead of leaving him on the rooster and everything went well, he didn't disappear, and now he's in command of his own ship and doing fine.

The cursed coins are cool, but to put some in the locker you got to take them, and I personally don't like to be a skeleton at night. I ran in the jungle as a skeleton the other day when I met this woman running away from a bunch of rapists, and she decided a skeleton was less scary. After dispatching them, she came to me and actually suggested something about having sex with me, that was weird...

Another problem, as some crew members put it "you can't see a darn thing in all this unnatural smoke"...The side effect of me not wanting to have one of those coins in my inventory (For now, maybe later), is that i don't open ship chests (I do take a risk in caves and rooms, even if I know they can pop-up there too), and so there are many items I simply don't get, or extremely rarely, like jewels, idols, etc, there may be 20-30 items I simply don't get, like the wisdom tooth for instance, i just got one and i'm level 15, imagine my surprise, it's like a big treasure...The problem is that those coins appear too often, in my other game I accumulated a dozen just from chests.

For now i'm having fun with 2 bellonnas, those ships are pretty much the sweet spot in therm of capacities, when they are totally upgraded. They have a hard time in the biggest battles though, but I compensate by capturing the most powerful ship I see right away, which I load with sail cloth and planks and then put to work immediately. That's the best I got from normal shipyards, and now i'm torn between hunting for better ships on the seas, which I doubt i'll find, or starting the story and quests, which may lead me to other interesting ships, but I doubt it...

Thanks for the tip about the chest.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The guy dying was just your usual random scary bug, I took him by the hand on a capture mission instead of leaving him on the rooster and everything went well, he didn't disappear, and now he's in command of his own ship and doing fine.

Good to hear!

The cursed coins are cool, but to put some in the locker you got to take them, and I personally don't like to be a skeleton at night. I ran in the jungle as a skeleton the other day when I met this woman running away from a bunch of rapists, and she decided a skeleton was less scary. After dispatching them, she came to me and actually suggested something about having sex with me, that was weird...

Crazy game.

Another problem, as some crew members put it "you can't see a darn thing in all this unnatural smoke"...The side effect of me not wanting to have one of those coins in my inventory (For now, maybe later), is that i don't open ship chests (I do take a risk in caves and rooms, even if I know they can pop-up there too), and so there are many items I simply don't get, or extremely rarely, like jewels, idols, etc, there may be 20-30 items I simply don't get, like the wisdom tooth for instance, i just got one and i'm level 15, imagine my surprise, it's like a big treasure...The problem is that those coins appear too often, in my other game I accumulated a dozen just from chests.

You can also lift the curse by making sure there are 882 coins back in the chest on Isla de Muerta, after which you can do with any remaining coins what you want.
Of course with the curse lifted, the coins are just regular old coins and have no special powers.
But what you CAN do is to deliberately get yourself cursed, make use of the coins' special powers, then lift the curse again whenever you feel like it.
There is nobody stopping you from doing that and that might be quite a useful approach.

For now i'm having fun with 2 bellonnas, those ships are pretty much the sweet spot in therm of capacities, when they are totally upgraded. They have a hard time in the biggest battles though, but I compensate by capturing the most powerful ship I see right away, which I load with sail cloth and planks and then put to work immediately. That's the best I got from normal shipyards, and now i'm torn between hunting for better ships on the seas, which I doubt i'll find, or starting the story and quests, which may lead me to other interesting ships, but I doubt it...

Different periods have different ships available.
And some storylines have quite interesting ones too.

 

[Levis]

I think its time to add coal as a resource for the steam frigate instead of planks. That would mean you can still have stuff to repair her.

 

[Levis]

Btw didn't we disable the automatic move to inventory for the cursed coin already?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think its time to add coal as a resource for the steam frigate instead of planks. That would mean you can still have stuff to repair her.

I have no objections.... Would make more sense.

Btw didn't we disable the automatic move to inventory for the cursed coin already?

Nope. And I don't particularly want to either, because I like that feature.
I do remember disabling the curse by default either in the Standard Storyline or the Free Play one. Can't remember which, but I think it was Free Play.

 

[Grey Roger]

The automatic move to inventory for the coin is disabled, at least in "Realistic" mode. If you find a cursed coin in a chest and don't touch it, you're fine. If you want to be cursed, you can of course pick it up, and presumably it then stays in your inventory until you take it to its home. I don't want to be cursed so if I see one of these coins in a chest, I leave it where it is.

 

[Armada]

I do wonder what it is with the Constitution-variations and having their masts easily broken. Their sail hit points is 300, which is more than the default (200).
@Hylie Pistof or @Armada, have you got any clue what might be influencing this because I really don't.

I've no idea why they have a problem with falling masts. What Hylie said about sail area makes sense, and the only other anomaly is the 300 sail HP.
Do any other ships in the game use 300 sail HP? Perhaps it's worth reducing it to 200 to see if that brings it in line with other ships. If that doesn't work, then maybe increasing it would help instead, but since it's already higher than most ships, I doubt it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The automatic move to inventory for the coin is disabled, at least in "Realistic" mode. If you find a cursed coin in a chest and don't touch it, you're fine. If you want to be cursed, you can of course pick it up, and presumably it then stays in your inventory until you take it to its home. I don't want to be cursed so if I see one of these coins in a chest, I leave it where it is.

Almost true. The curse isn't in effect at all for Realistic Game Mode.
So you can safely take the coin and sell it without any adverse effects whatsoever.

I've no idea why they have a problem with falling masts. What Hylie said about sail area makes sense, and the only other anomaly is the 300 sail HP.
Do any other ships in the game use 300 sail HP? Perhaps it's worth reducing it to 200 to see if that brings it in line with other ships. If that doesn't work, then maybe increasing it would help instead, but since it's already higher than most ships, I doubt it.

There are other ships with 200 SP, but not very many. It would take an actual player to experiment with this and be able to tell if there is any difference.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Opening post updated with new ZIP.

Changes include:

Build 14 Beta 3.5:
- New Features:
  . Improved Smuggling by Levis
  > Possible to place a wager with the soldiers to gain the smuggling schedule
- Code Updates:
  . Captain skills updated by Levis
  . Ships at the shipyard may have upgrades by Levis
  . Correct address form for all characters by Pieter Boelen (WIP: To be tested)
  . Tortuga Fast Travel fixed by Pieter Boelen
  . Standard Storyline:
  > Boarding certain quest ships fixed by pedrwyth
- Model and Texture Updates:
  . Havana and San Juan "sea locators" turned 180 degrees by Jack Rackham

 

[Johivas]

I think its time to add coal as a resource for the steam frigate instead of planks. That would mean you can still have stuff to repair her.

Not only you'd now have a part of the interface dedicated to only one ship, but a resource too...What would be nice is to modify a few level 2-3 ships for steam, make them superior but not capturable and extremely expensive, like 10 millions, then adding coal. It would give a new long term goal and a refreshing option to the game too.

 

[Johivas]

Grey Rodgers, that's exactly what I did, I didn't take one until I landed in a city as a skeleton, and there I saw I had 2 in my inventory, and I didn't know where I took them, from that point on i took them all...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Not only you'd now have a part of the interface dedicated to only one ship, but a resource too...What would be nice is to modify a few level 2-3 ships for steam, make them superior but not capturable and extremely expensive, like 10 millions, then adding coal. It would give a new long term goal and a refreshing option to the game too.

Lots of work. And especially the remodelling required is not likely to happen any time soon.
I am beginning to lean in the "planks are juuuuust fine" direction....

 

[Johivas]

For the falling masts, i would have a tendency to believe it is a specific kind of mast, the one that is 4 sails high, it may be because the height of the sail raises the collision detection mechanism, so the center of the ship is seen as higher, and thus, a ship firing normal canons would calculate all its shots a little higher, which is the perfect shot for the hull too (when using normal balls) since the game got an inherent tendency to shoot normal balls a little low (probably to increase hit potential on smaller ships).

 

[Johivas]

Lots of work. And especially the remodelling required is not likely to happen any time soon.
I am beginning to lean in the "planks are juuuuust fine" direction....

Planks are just fine.

 

[Levis]

Opening post updated with new ZIP.

Changes include:

Build 14 Beta 3.5:
- New Features:
  . Improved Smuggling by Levis
  > Possible to place a wager with the soldiers to gain the smuggling schedule
- Code Updates:
  . Captain skills updated by Levis
  . Ships at the shipyard may have upgrades by Levis
  . Correct address form for all characters by Pieter Boelen (WIP: To be tested)
  . Tortuga Fast Travel fixed by Pieter Boelen
  . Standard Storyline:
  > Boarding certain quest ships fixed by pedrwyth
- Model and Texture Updates:
  . Havana and San Juan "sea locators" turned 180 degrees by Jack Rackham

You where a little bit to quick I had some last changes for the captain changes. Included it in the firstpost now. Winmerged them in so rest should be okay.
You need to use F11 to make everything work again right .

 

[Levis]

Everybody please test again and let us know if anything is out of order or wrong.
Slowly we're getting to a full 3.5 release again .
I'd say we could aim for a start of august release maybe .

 

[Johivas]

Planks are just fine.

Maybe to simplify remodeling, you could take one engine from the current steam frigate, and put it behind a few other ships, with just half of it sticking out. That way you don't have to enlarge or elongate the ship. Now, maybe some people will say they don't fit history, but I don't play simulations, i play fun games. With that you'd open the door to the steam-punk community, new modders would come in to build pipes everywhere!