Mod Release Build 14 Beta 4 Internal WIP For Testing

[Hylie Pistof]

You are dropped into direct sail far away from the island in the open sea mod on purpose. This is so you get to watch the island slowly appear as you approach it giving a more realistic sailing experience. This is a strong point of POTC because what you see first is the surf line like the real sailors saw it.

 

[Fender]

I need something besides the 2 files to make it work? I was looking for an hour a "how to install guide" but I can't find it..
I loved this game when I was younger and I really want to rediscover it whith this mods but I'm having a hard time triying to install it properly

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Fender: Look at the first post of this thread.
That tells you everything you should need to install.

 

[Grey Roger]

Would you consider that a general improvement that should be added to the mod?

Depends on whether other people find the existing display for no compass or cheap compass to be too small.

If so, "PROGRAM\Reinit.c" may be needed as well. It also mentions the display settings for the compass types, though when I pressed F11 to do a re-initialisation it didn't seem to make any difference whether the modified settings or original settings were in this file.

 

[Jason]

A couple of questions.

I have the 2/14 version. I chose free play, rebel and personal nation and started with stormy start. I have random enemy, Holland but I have lost all the officers that I started with when I started as a rebel with my nation as Britain, and I seem to have only one outfit to wear as opposed to the 8 I used to have. Are these intentional changes resulting from my choosing my nation as personal or something else.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I have the 2/14 version. I chose free play, rebel and personal nation and started with stormy start. I have random enemy, Holland but I have lost all the officers that I started with when I started as a rebel with my nation as Britain, and I seem to have only one outfit to wear as opposed to the 8 I used to have. Are these intentional changes resulting from my choosing my nation as personal or something else.

The extra officers and outfits are intentionally exclusive to Julian McAllister, as is his unique opening dialog.

The outfits are variations on McAllister's uniform and therefore don't make so much sense for other characters.
And while the extra officers fit in with the McAllister opening dialog, for any other settings, having extra officers seems to me as potentially being too much of a cheat.

Does that make sense to you? If have any suggestions for changes to this, that would be easily arranged.

 

[Jason]

Yes that makes sense. I the case I cited I played as McAllister I didn't the character just his nation, so I wonder if we could tie the outfits to the character and no the nation.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Yes that makes sense. I the case I cited I played as McAllister I didn't the character just his nation, so I wonder if we could tie the outfits to the character and no the nation.

Easy enough. Extract attached to your PROGRAM\Storyline\FreePlay folder.
With this change, you can change the nation AND the character name and still get the outfits.
The extra officers and rest of that custom start remains linked to "English Rebel named Julian McAllister" though.

Should you get ALL of those outfits though?
I originally left that in place for Julian McAllister because that is what @Jason Maffettone originally set up and I didn't want to break that.
But otherwise it seems a bit much....

 

[Jason]

Thanks Pieter,

It is a lot of outfits but I personally like the variety. Some for work, some for dress, etc.

 

[Grey Roger]

The reason for all the extra goodies for Julian McAllister is historical. The original free-play was "Brave Black Flag", which was basically the "standard" storyline without the storyline. You started off as Julian McAllister and could do all the side quests without having to worry about doing errands for Governor Silehard. Free-play has been massively expanded since then but the original "Brave Black Flag" scenario has been preserved and remains the default setting. So, unless you actively choose a different set-up, you'll play "Brave Black Flag" with all its extras.

 

[Black Bart]

You are dropped into direct sail far away from the island in the open sea mod on purpose. This is so you get to watch the island slowly appear as you approach it giving a more realistic sailing experience. This is a strong point of POTC because what you see first is the surf line like the real sailors saw it.

It still feels wierd though, but only in combination with using Map Navigation then switching to Direct Sailing mode. In this specific case i was hoping to be closer to dock to avoid the CTD i get in direct sail under Beta 4. I can probably switch off the Open Sea Mod, but i do like it, especially as we lose the functionality of the island cell system. Default Build mod (open sea mod off) may not function well for direct sailing fans.

It would be nice perhaps to have the Open Sea Mod take note of Map Navigation distances when switching between the modes, to avoid the 'disconnect' in terms the two different modes not 'talking' to one another, then the player if forced/prefering to use the Map Navigation mode can make the call on how close to appear to land at any given time. Anyway, all moot as the mod developer is not around, but i may tinker with it and see if i can get something like that running?

I think for now testing Beta 4 is just not worth my time, many 'bugs' i may report may be coming form the XP (OS) incompatability issues, and the game looks terrible now i have a seemingly impossible to remove sea-graphic bug. So i will switch to running Beta 3.4 and see how it goes there, i suspect the bugs i find in that may still be relevent to Beta 4?

Also time has started to run out for me to spend too long on this, very frustrating, but it has been great to pop back and see the progress (very nicely polished GUI being the biggest improvements since Beta 1).

And also i'd like to thank Pieter in particular for the incredible efforts he has put in over the years (like over a decade!!) to keep this awesome mod project going, and abviously all the modders and guys that contribute to the Build Mod. Awesome stuff chaps and well done

My personal next step is using the various Builds (of 14) i now have on my PC, to try to Frankenstein together a working (for me on XP) version that i am personally happy with, i expect that is going to be a huge effort and may not even be possible, but i'll give it a go and maybe post that version somewhere at some point, for those on older PC's and OS etc.

I will try to ask as few questions as possible in this process, so you can all focus on Beta 4 etc

 

[Talisman]

It would be nice perhaps to have the Open Sea Mod take note of Map Navigation distances when switching between the modes, to avoid the 'disconnect' in terms the two different modes not 'talking' to one another, then the player if forced/prefering to use the Map Navigation mode can make the call on how close to appear to land at any given time. Anyway, all moot as the mod developer is not around, but i may tinker with it and see if i can get something like that running?

Apologies if you are already aware of this - but it is possible to navigate ( roughly ) using the archipelago map in your inventory, your position is shown on it by a small ship icon that moves across the map. So you don't need to go back and forth to the World Map.

see attached ( sorry it is not very clear )

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It still feels wierd though, but only in combination with using Map Navigation then switching to Direct Sailing mode. In this specific case i was hoping to be closer to dock to avoid the CTD i get in direct sail under Beta 4. I can probably switch off the Open Sea Mod, but i do like it, especially as we lose the functionality of the island cell system. Default Build mod (open sea mod off) may not function well for direct sailing fans.

It would be nice perhaps to have the Open Sea Mod take note of Map Navigation distances when switching between the modes, to avoid the 'disconnect' in terms the two different modes not 'talking' to one another, then the player if forced/prefering to use the Map Navigation mode can make the call on how close to appear to land at any given time. Anyway, all moot as the mod developer is not around, but i may tinker with it and see if i can get something like that running?

Not entirely sure I follow you there. If you use WorldMap, then Open Sea Mod OFF is quite fine, isn't it?
Also the [0]-key to disable the DirectSail updates might help to prevent the CTD.
If it then DOES still occur, then the problem isn't actually related to DirectSail but has to be searched somewhere else.

I think for now testing Beta 4 is just not worth my time, many 'bugs' i may report may be coming form the XP (OS) incompatability issues, and the game looks terrible now i have a seemingly impossible to remove sea-graphic bug. So i will switch to running Beta 3.4 and see how it goes there, i suspect the bugs i find in that may still be relevent to Beta 4?

I do appreciate you trying to tets Beta 4.
Not sure what is up with that sea; I vaguely recall that being an issue in the past, but it has been so long ago that I don't remember anymore.
There are a LOT of Beta 3.4 bugs that have been fixed already.

My personal next step is using the various Builds (of 14) i now have on my PC, to try to Frankenstein together a working (for me on XP) version that i am personally happy with, i expect that is going to be a huge effort and may not even be possible, but i'll give it a go and maybe post that version somewhere at some point, for those on older PC's and OS etc.

I will try to ask as few questions as possible in this process, so you can all focus on Beta 4 etc

Beta 4 development is going far, FAR too slow for my liking. Basically we need a bunch of things done and we need @Levis to do it.
As long as that doesn't happen, real progress is basically on hold.
Which is EXTREMELY annoying, so the longer this situation lasts, the more I am tempted to revert to an earlier version to at least be able to make SOME sort of release.
If I do have to end up doing that, doing it as a cooperation with you coul be quite convenient. Then at least it isn't just me by myself battling against this thing.

 

[Black Bart]

Well, it seems my Frankenstein version is going to be built on Beta 1 Patch 7, as i had got that to a nice balanced state in terms of XP gains and Item values (stats etc), and various other things (like the 'Mach 3' seagull problem, getting storms at sea in direct sail (iirc), good sea/weather effects in general etc), BUT that is so far behind in terms of the new (better) world map and the impressively polished GUI we have in Beta 3.1 onwards. So......yeah.

Put it this way, having worked so closely on this Pieter, if you suddenly had to go back to Beta 1, and try to import the best/least bugged bits since then over to that, would you feel enthused about that! Anyway the other option is to build from Beta 3.1 and 'retro-fit' any changes that break the better bits of Beta 1. Either way it is probably going to be a long painful and maybe simply not possible journey. I won't know until i start comparing files side by side in winmerge!

Not entirely sure I follow you there. If you use WorldMap, then Open Sea Mod OFF is quite fine, isn't it?
Also the [0]-key to disable the DirectSail updates might help to prevent the CTD.
If it then DOES still occur, then the problem isn't actually related to DirectSail but has to be searched somewhere else.

I run a game that allows me to go in and out of Direct Sail mode, so when i need to be quick i can use the World map (map navigation mode), even though much of the time i will spend in realtime (or time x3, any more and it looks too weird!) sailing directly from port to port. Beta 3.4 and Beta 4 always CTD for me in direct sail mode, which might be related to my XP OS, as that has shown issues, so could be related to memory loading issues (as with the missing ship icons in the shipyard menu, or probably the reason behind the messed up looking sea in Beta 4 (Beta 3.4 is still ok currently)).

I selected the Open Sea Mod as ON (1) in InternalSettings.h, but leave most of the 'Ironman' settings off so i can move freely between worldmap and direct sail mode (helps with playtesting).

The issue with this approach is the current disconnect between these two modes, so being close to land in the worldmap will not mean you are when you transition to direct sail, you seem, as Hylie mentions, to be placed at sea with the land on the horizon when using the Open Sea mod. So this particular configuration does not work smoothly anymore (it does in Beta 1 Patch 7, but that was using the older Islandcell hopping system, but the transitions are smooth, from worldmap navigation to direct sail mode; if close to land in one mode you are in the other).

But as i'm supposed to be in Ironman mode for the Open Sea mod, i would normally only be able to direct sail anywhere, so would not notice this particular issue. Anyway it is something i will look at in the Open Sea mod and see if it has to be that way or maybe i can make it work alongside the worldmap navigation mode?

Anyway the problem for me in terms of testing Beta 4 (or 3.4) is that with the Open Sea mod working like this, the chances i will CTD, even if sailing most of my journey in the worldmap navigation mode, is very high as the time it takes to sail in realtime to an island on the horizon is (so far) always enough time for the CTD in direct sail mode.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Put it this way, having worked so closely on this Pieter, if you suddenly had to go back to Beta 1, and try to import the best/least bugged bits since then over to that, would you feel enthused about that!

I'm considering doing that with Beta 3.3 and most definitely I do NOT feel enthused about it AT ALL.

it does in Beta 1 Patch 7, but that was using the older Islandcell hopping system, but the transitions are smooth, from worldmap navigation to direct sail mode; if close to land in one mode you are in the other

Did it really still use the cell method back then? That is positively ANCIENT by now. But yes, it did serve its purpose quite well.
With the more fancy system that actually correlates with the worldmap, we still have issues that need sorting out. One day.
See here: Confirmed Bug - DirectSail and WorldMap island transfer inconsistencies | PiratesAhoy!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Opening post ZIP updated
New Game not required; but you MUST Reinitialize (F11)!!!

Contains the following changes:
- Slightly increased size on Cheap Compass by @Black Bart and @Grey Roger
- "Disable Rebirth" quest option simplified by me
- Cannot loot too many arrows without a Quiver by @Jack Rackham
- Switch to "best blade" after using Bow by @Jack Rackham
- Hispaniola shore locator moved by @Grey Roger
- Attempted correction for "Friendly Nathaniel Hawk Patrols" by me

 

[Black Bart]

Did it really still use the cell method back then? That is positively ANCIENT by now. But yes, it did serve its purpose quite well.

With the more fancy system that actually correlates with the worldmap, we still have issues that need sorting out. One day.
See here: Confirmed Bug - DirectSail and WorldMap island transfer inconsistencies | PiratesAhoy!

Yeah, i was sailing in it (Beta 1) the other day and noticing the difference (vs Beta 3.1/3.4 and 4) in particular when switching between World Map navigation and Direct Sail. This was just because when testing 3.4 and 4 i have to limit my time in direct sailing, but with the Open Sea mod active (which i like a lot) no mater how close to shore i get in the World Map navigation mode, when i go to direct sail i'm far enough away the CTD thing will happen (as it takes too long to get to port).

I'm experimenting in 3.1 currently with going back to the islandcell method (to see if that still functions!) by switching realistic navigation to 0 (off) in whatever file i did that in But the longer term effort will be to look at the Open Sea Mod and see if i can get it working in sync a bit more with your location in respect to the World Map navigation mode, obviously you still want to be able to do the proper full sail and come in to land from distance, but it would be nice (and enable me to playtest Beta 4 a bit more) to have it not seem to teleport you miles away each time you go to direct sail mode! That's a longer term plan at any rate.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you want to use worldmap with Open Sea Mod, I suggest using that [0] key after entering 3D sailing mode.
If that prevents the CTD, then we know for sure it is indeed related to DirectSail.
If it doesn't, the cause would be somewhere else.

 

[Black Bart]

Ok, will give it a try.

 

[Lemur]

Hello! Glad to see an update of this graetest mod. Is there any way to save the game in combat? Engine is so buggy and battles in Realstic mode may take an hour or more I haven't so much time to replay them