Mod Release Build 14 GAMMA [Last Update: 31st December 2021]

[Pieter Boelen]

Well, that's just no good at all.
If you can give any suggestions on what could be changed to rectify that, please do say.
I'm definitely missing something here.

 

[Grey Roger]

Indeed, playing as a law-abiding merchant should be a valid option. If that is no longer the case, we need to know why. And, for preference, when was the last time that it did work well?

 

[Captain Murphy]

Indeed, playing as a law-abiding merchant should be a valid option. If that is no longer the case, we need to know why. And, for preference, when was the last time that it did work well?

Only thing I have noticed is that it isn't really profitable to run your own merchant routes unless you have a fleet and a LOAD of money to buy entire islands out of stock. Even then , it is faster to take a frigate out and capture a few prizes than to run 3-4 merchant runs for the same amount.

 

[Grey Roger]

Well, yes. The profit on selling cargo is a lot higher if you didn't pay for it in the first place. But if my impression from a short game as a merchant is true, i.e. that it's almost impossible to make any profit by buying goods where they're exported and selling where they're imported, then the economy needs an overhaul.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm not even sure where those profit margins are defined.
They probably change depending on import/export state, player and NPC skills and several other factors.

 

[DeathDaisy]

Well, yes. The profit on selling cargo is a lot higher if you didn't pay for it in the first place. But if my impression from a short game as a merchant is true, i.e. that it's almost impossible to make any profit by buying goods where they're exported and selling where they're imported, then the economy needs an overhaul.

This is very true, I tried to make a few trade runs in between my pirating, figured I could as well buy exported goods on an island when I was going to an island that imports it anyway. I made a substantial loss, like a 25-50% or so loss. I didn't have 10 commerce skill at that point, but it wasn't 1 either and I had a fairly skilled quartermaster for the level I was, which was 15-20 I think.

Also I realized now that when you buy in bulk, I don't think it gets cheaper the more units you buy? I might be wrong. But if you try and sell 5000 silver, the last few thousand units will fetch a MUCH lower price than the first. Not at home so can't try it rn, but maybe that could be a reason it's so incredibly hard to make a profit? Unsure if this happens with smuggling, which could explain why I feel I get so much more money even if the price on paper isn't that much higher? (I could be imagining this last part tho)

EDIT: I just tried it, and goods actually get more expensive the more you buy, which means you got to find a place with much higher prices to turn a profit. Now I also got 10 commerce and all perks on this character, so my buy prices and my sell prices are pretty even. At lower levels I guess the difference is even more pronounced and a profit is pretty much impossible?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Also I realized now that when you buy in bulk, I don't think it gets cheaper the more units you buy? I might be wrong. But if you try and sell 5000 silver, the last few thousand units will fetch a MUCH lower price than the first.

It is indeed the other way around. Supply and demand logic, but I don't think it works very well.
Wished somebody would change that, but it's a tricky bit of code.

 

[Grey Roger]

Where do I find the code which handles prices?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Where do I find the code which handles prices?

I think the prices changing in the middle of a transaction is somewhere in the trade.c interface file.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I used to play as a shady merchant, buying here and selling there with a little smuggling on the side. But that was 3 years ago. Now smuggling is not worth the bother so I play as a plain merchant. As a merchant the Pirates and English make the least profits and are the best enemies, but the others are good for some good profits so I become friendly to them.

It is not possible to make reliable profits buying and selling your own cargo until you unlock the 2 merchant perks. Until then just hauling cargo is the only way to go. Also, engaging in fighting to get a LOM and access to certain ships is very risky and is not recommended.

As an example I got a dutch LOM in order to get the FWzP. So the Dutch got in a war with the English and I went looking for English ships. I found 2 at Marigot, sank one and captured the other, a very desireable Light Fluyt of War. Sailed into port and was immediately recognized as a pirate and had to fight everyone. It happened again in town and in the tavern a soldier attacked me. I got the ships repaired anyway and set sail. We were still in sight of port when the first ship mutinied!

It turned out that in the time it took me to sail from one island to another the Dutch had ended their war with the English so when I attacked the English ships I was engaging in piracy. I lost my Merchants license, nobody wanted to trade with me and I couldn't go anywhere anyway because my crews mutinied constantly. So I deleted all that and started over. This time the Dutch stayed at war and when I approached Marigot they were fighting the fort. There was the first FWzP I have seen in this game, at level 43! I tossed their LOM over the side and moved in to capture it when the frame rate dropped to 1 fps. Another missed opportunity. This is an old bug that seems to only happen to me. When in a battle at Marigot fort sometimes the frame rate drops to nothing.

Si I'm back to just sailing around hauling cargo and never firing the cannons.

 

[DeathDaisy]

It is indeed the other way around. Supply and demand logic, but I don't think it works very well.
Wished somebody would change that, but it's a tricky bit of code.

I agree each unit should cost less when selling, but I also think it should do so when buying, but maybe not by as much, for gameplay reasons. Afterwards each unit should def be more expensive tho, but just not during transaction. But I guess that's what you and roger were already talking about

It turned out that in the time it took me to sail from one island to another the Dutch had ended their war with the English so when I attacked the English ships I was engaging in piracy.

It may be a bit off-topic, but how often do nations switch relations with eachother on average? I haven't seen it happen yet during my ardent playthru and about a year has passed ingame.

Also, another question (I hope it's alright to ask in this thread), I'm doing some work to make characters use the proper titles and pronouns instead of "Sir" and "him" etc, and I think I'm making good progress. But some characters scream using upper case and I'm trying to minimize hardcoding english strings in the dialogue files for words that already exist in dialog_func, so I'm trying to convert the ADDR_* string to upper case using code. ToUpperEng(string) doesn't work, am I missing some argument? and I've tried to write my own function for it inspired by FirstLetterUp, but I don't actually really know how to code very well at all, so I can't figure it out. Ive been banging my head against it for hours, i'm sure I'm missing something obvious.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It may be a bit off-topic, but how often do nations switch relations with eachother on average? I haven't seen it happen yet during my ardent playthru and about a year has passed ingame.

It depends on the storyline. In most of them, the relations don't change at all.
They're probably fixed in Ardent as well.

If I recall, there is a function to change text into upper case, but I can't remember which one it is.
Might be hiding in utils.c .

 

[Hylie Pistof]

If you are playing a storyline then the relations probably do not change at all, but in free play they can and do change, but it is highly variable. The relations may not change at all for a year and then start changing daily. I'm working on my Dutch military rank and check nations relations before every battle as they do change constantly.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Relation changes, if they're enabled, are 100% random.
So indeed they could occur quickly after each other or take a long time between them.
If I recall, on average there should be around 100 days between changes.

 

[salonikasurf]

I think there was a large change to the traders with Levis's changes a year or more ago. The balance was completely changed and I think the code was rewritten. I agree that there is little or no point to trading anymore which is sadly missed. There is no point in borrowing from the loan shark in Speigstown at the start of the Standard quest to buy trade goods as recommended by Malcolm as you actually loose money at this stage in the game. Taking a delivery quest is the only way to make money trading and this shouldn't be the case. At higher levels Trading can be profitable but not early in the game at all. It should be though for trade from exporters to importers - just not as great as later on.

I haven't played in free play mode - I prefer to play storey lines with lots of free play in between the story sections. This works well for me - maybe not for Hylie.

 

[DeathDaisy]

It depends on the storyline. In most of them, the relations don't change at all.
They're probably fixed in Ardent as well.

If I recall, there is a function to change text into upper case, but I can't remember which one it is.
Might be hiding in utils.c .

Aha, that explains it

And thanks, I did find the function immediately when starting again today after failing hours yesterday. I tried to use ToUpperEng() that I found in utils, but turns out I had to use strupper() which was farther down thank god I failed to write my own useless function

is Preprocessor_Add an alright way to go to change the pronouns? I hope it's not too taxing on the resources, because I've been adding it to a lot of dialogue files and I'd hate if all my work turns out to be trash but it should only run during that particular dialogue, right? I'm not much of a coder, I'm kinda learning while I go by looking at other code that does roughly the same thing

should I make a thread maybe or is it alright to discuss it here?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

is Preprocessor_Add an alright way to go to change the pronouns? I hope it's not too taxing on the resources, because I've been adding it to a lot of dialogue files and I'd hate if all my work turns out to be trash but it should only run during that particular dialogue, right? I'm not much of a coder, I'm kinda learning while I go by looking at other code that does roughly the same thing

I think @Grey Roger used it in a similar way. Should be fine.

should I make a thread maybe or is it alright to discuss it here?

New thread might be best, just to prevent things from getting confusing.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I think there was a large change to the traders with Levis's changes a year or more ago. The balance was completely changed and I think the code was rewritten. I agree that there is little or no point to trading anymore which is sadly missed. There is no point in borrowing from the loan shark in Speigstown at the start of the Standard quest to buy trade goods as recommended by Malcolm as you actually loose money at this stage in the game. Taking a delivery quest is the only way to make money trading and this shouldn't be the case. At higher levels Trading can be profitable but not early in the game at all. It should be though for trade from exporters to importers - just not as great as later on.

I haven't played in free play mode - I prefer to play storey lines with lots of free play in between the story sections. This works well for me - maybe not for Hylie.

Due to playtesting I played nothing but the main quest for years and am now totally burned out on it. Now I free play and enjoy all the little side quests. I would like to see more "short stories" and less "novels" in order to make the late game more interesting.

Once one learns the quirks of the system it's not bad to play as a merchant. Yes it is not possible to reliably make money on your own until your skills and the merchant perks are unlocked, but carrying cargo and doing a little trading on the side is profitable. Hint: A fully perked up Hoy is a sweet little money maker. Then there is the extremely rare Grand Schooner. It's a good money maker plus it can defend itself.

I like the Hoy and the Diligente Tartane as starter ships because they are fast and sail well into the wind plus they are tier 8 so don't capsize in storms like the Luggers do.

 

[Grey Roger]

I agree each unit should cost less when selling, but I also think it should do so when buying, but maybe not by as much, for gameplay reasons. Afterwards each unit should def be more expensive tho, but just not during transaction.

The problem with that is you sell off your cargo and the price drops because there's now a lot of it available. You buy it all back at the lower price, and now the price rises because there's a shortage. Sell, buy, sell, buy, repeat until rich - I've seen the commerce system in another game ruined by exactly this mechanism.

On the other hand, prices really should not change during a transaction. If I offered you a certain price to buy something from you, we agreed the price, and then I changed the price, you'd probably either sue me or take your business to a more honest trader.

It may be a bit off-topic, but how often do nations switch relations with eachother on average? I haven't seen it happen yet during my ardent playthru and about a year has passed ingame.

As @Pieter Boelen said, relations don't change at all during a storyline because they'd be likely to mess up the plot. Specifically in "Ardent", several events would make no sense at all if France suddenly made peace with either England or Spain. Once the storyline ends and plot is no longer an issue, relations are allowed to change and you can continue to free-play as long as you like. "Hornblower" does the same.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

On the other hand, prices really should not change during a transaction. If I offered you a certain price to buy something from you, we agreed the price, and then I changed the price, you'd probably either sue me or take your business to a more honest trader.

Fully agreed! But neither me, nor somebody else (can't remember who) could figure out a simple way of doing that.
It must be possible though. The prices were fixed in the unmodded game, after all.