Fixed Correcting "Early Explorers" Period

[Grey Roger]

STILL TO DO:

- "Help the Church" and "Strange Things Going On" will need some work - STATUS: Done by @Grey Roger
- "Sinking the Vogelstruijs" and "Elizabeth Shaw's Disappearance" need to be disabled - STATUS: Done
- Mefisto to be replaced with a fearsome, but period-correct ship - STATUS: Done by @Grey Roger
- Replace the Moulin sidequest reward blade with a new custom one - STATUS: Done by @Bartolomeu o Portugues, with model and texture files by @Jack Rackham

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ORIGINAL OPENING POST:

I'm now trying my luck as an English privateer in "Early Explorers". I haven't got the tutorial working properly for an Englishman starting at the pirate settlement, but rather than continue with that, I'll get round to doing my survey of Eleuthera, see who needs put at what locators in other ports, and try to find some suitable places to put them at Alice Town.

Eleuthera has problems. The governor won't sell a LoM. True, governors (and other people) don't always give their full range of dialog options first time you talk to them, but regardless of how many times I talk to this governor, the only options are that you're just here to talk (and he then tells you to stop wasting his time, as normal); or that you're here on business. No mention of a LoM. And if you say "business", he doesn't give you a ship-hunting quest either.

If you ask a local citizen about people, specifically a banker, you're told that Robyn Corrick runs the bank, which implies there ought to be one. If there really is a loanshark at Alice Town, I can't find it.

Martinique is so thoroughly messed up that it's getting its own thread.

I found that you can start with an English galleon after all. You can choose the tier of starting ship and if you set it to 4, the merchant version is available. Tier 4 is a bit oversized for a starting character so you get penalties to your "Leadership" and "Navigation", but competent navigator and first mate will take care of that. I was wondering if I could buy the fast or war versions since a LoM seems not to be an option, but in fact it is unnecessary because if you go into any shipyard with a merchant version ("RevengeM"), you can repaint it to either of the other types at no cost. The difference is that a merchant has 12lb guns maximum and a speed of 9, whereas the others can take 18lb guns and have speed 10. Repainting a "RevengeM" to a "RevengeF" doesn't actually get you the speed increase but pressing F11 to reinitialise everything afterwards does. You still need to pay to upgrade the guns to 18lb, of course. And "RevengeF" also has more crew. There is no difference between fast and war ("RevengeF" and "RevengeW") apart from the colours. "RevengeF" is tier 3 and is inferior in almost all ways to everyone else's Fast War Galleon, which is tier 4. It's not all that fast or agile, hardly the sort of ship which ran rings round the Spanish Armada! However, I've got one, so I'll see what I can do to the Spanish with it...

 

[A.H]

YEa it's hard for Dutch too.. Spain and frogs got it good this period.
I always hang around la nuestra island in pirate port... they buy my goods always; except that sometimes they are broke and have negative cash, I have to hang on to my ships and loot till they get money to buy my stuff.

But for english, i tried going to antigua (i have +35 relations with them) yet it is a naval base, and they won't accept selling nor repairing for me unless I bribe, which is 50-50 chance in succeeding.

And i started with a sloop.. stayed for 6 hours this way, then by luck managed to get meself a caravel.. upgraded it to full and got stuck on it for 3 whole days. until this morning I managed to surrender a fast galleon, then made my way through a spanish war galleon

 

[Nightmare]

Early explores is a good period but it needs to be fix like some of the quests show jack sparrow will turner and meny more it doesn't make any scene it needs to be fixed good period with cool as solider uniforms good ships but it needs to be fixed

 

[Grey Roger]

"Early Explorers" is something of a compromise between reality and gameplay. In reality, various places weren't yet settled at that time, including Antigua and Eleuthera (tough on England), as well as Martinique and La Tortue (tough on France). Spain pretty well owned everything which had been settled, other than perhaps a few Portuguese colonies, but Portugal's interest was more in the East Indies than the West. Any English privateer wanting to dispose of loot or refit his ship would need to go to England to do it, which is not an option in this game. So England and France have a few colonies which didn't exist in reality. Someone else can figure out what to do about the Dutch...

Otherwise you have to do what I've been doing, which is land on a beach near some Spanish or Portuguese town, raise a false Spanish or Portuguese flag so the shop owners will talk to you, then raise your normal flag again when you head back to the beach. (Which does have the amusement value of stealing a Spanish ship full of loot, then selling it back to them. )

Some of the side quests probably need to be disabled in "Early Explorers" as they make no sense. The Vogelstruijs, for example, will be based in a Spanish port (Palo Brasil), then smuggle explosives to a beach near a Spanish town (Santo Domingo) to assist Spain in capturing a Spanish town (Villa de la Vega), which worries a Spanish town (Santa Maria del Puerto). "Angelique Moulin's Father" ends with you digging up Francis Drake's sword, except that depending on how early you're exploring, Francis Drake is either using the sword himself or is a small boy whose only sword is a wooden toy.

But I'm less concerned with the likes of Jack Sparrow and Will Turner. Like many other non-player characters, they're entirely fictitious so it doesn't matter what time period you're playing when you meet them. Otherwise they're going to have to be disabled in all periods except the one in which they "really" appear...

 

[A.H]

Yes I also realized that from the moment I started in the year 1500, everyone has huge warships.. which wasn't the actual case I think.
However, I managed to find myself some small sized vessels that suited my sloop & caravel.. go to sea mode (not world map open sea), then "Sail to" .. and you got some options.. more options if you are close to a port.

Then one by one you can check out which ships.. many of them are small and fair sized.
But if you attack ships that pass by in world open map, then all of them are huge and in large fleets (fleets of 5+)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If @Bartolomeu o Portugues agrees, perhaps Will and Elizabeth can be replaced in the Silver Train sidequest altogether.
Of course apart from completely made-up characters, there is no option that will be correct for all time periods.
Same with what is now the Peter Blood sidequest. Even though that is a fictional character, he does also have a date attached.

Jack Sparrow has I think only a "fake" cameo in the Hitman sidequest. And Mr. Gibbs is required for the Isla de Muerta functionality.

There are two governors on Eleuthera; which one has the problem?
You can check their character init entries; there is an extra line that unlocks that functionality now.
Perhaps because the towns are given to another nation, that line gets deleted through code.
That happened before when you captured a town, but I thought I fixed it.

For the English War Galleons, please change the refShip.model lines in ships_init.c . Repainting is possible between all ships that have the same line for that.
However, that is not good when those ships actually have different stats.
Also since Reinit now includes a GiveShip2Character line, it can be used as a bit of a cheat.

 

[Grey Roger]

Peter Blood replaced Bartolomeu o Portugues in the crew rescue and ship search side quests precisely because of the time period issue. The original problem was that Bartolomeu arrested Nathaniel Hawk in his own quest and his sword had text about that, but Nathaniel Hawk exists in a different time period within the game. By renaming both the character whom Bartolomeu arrests in his own story, and the character whom you (possibly while playing Nathaniel Hawk) help in the side quests, this inconsistency within the game was eliminated. Though Peter Blood, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann are fictitious characters tied to specific times in their original works, it's less significant if they appear at "wrong" times in the game. Plenty of other game NPC's also appear across different time lines, including most of the characters in other side quests. But they don't interact with each other across storylines the way Bartolomeu and Nathaniel did, so this does not create an inconsistency within the game.

On Eleuthera, it is the governor of Alice Town which causes the problem. I've edited "periods.c" to make Alice Town English and renamed the governor Edward Bull; you won't have a copy of that version of the file but you can do a similar edit, or I can upload mine. Alice Town is English by default, was set to Spanish in "Early Explorers" in the original version of "periods.c", and I commented out the line which makes it Spanish.

If I'm going to edit the English War (and Fast) Galleons, what should the "refShip.model" lines be? Can I also change their stats to make the War and Fast versions a bit more warlike and faster respectively? For me, the problem isn't that you can repaint one to the other, as the stats aren't wildly different at the moment. The problem is that those tier 3 ships are inferior to the tier 4 Fast War Galleon, and aren't exactly the fast agile ships you'd expect to have outsailed the Spanish Armada.

Where is the ship's tier value set? According to "Ships_init.c", "RevengeM" is class 3 while "RevengeF" and "RevengeW" are class 4. But "RevengeM" is tier 4 while the others are tier 3. I want "RevengeF" to be at least as fast as "FastGalleon2" and be tier 4, same as "FastGalleon2" - it should be England's equivalent to "FastGalleon2", which is what France, Spain and Pirates use. "RevengeW" can either have heavier guns, more crew, more HP or some combination of the above, while "RevengeM" should be comparable to "FastGalleon1". (I'll need to check to see if you can repaint a "FastGalleon1" into a "FastGalleon2" as well...)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Peter Blood replaced Bartolomeu o Portugues in the crew rescue and ship search side quests precisely because of the time period issue. The original problem was that Bartolomeu arrested Nathaniel Hawk in his own quest and his sword had text about that, but Nathaniel Hawk exists in a different time period within the game. By renaming both the character whom Bartolomeu arrests in his own story, and the character whom you (possibly while playing Nathaniel Hawk) help in the side quests, this inconsistency within the game was eliminated. Though Peter Blood, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann are fictitious characters tied to specific times in their original works, it's less significant if they appear at "wrong" times in the game. Plenty of other game NPC's also appear across different time lines, including most of the characters in other side quests. But they don't interact with each other across storylines the way Bartolomeu and Nathaniel did, so this does not create an inconsistency within the game.

Very true. It isn't so bad with fictional characters.

On Eleuthera, it is the governor of Alice Town which causes the problem. I've edited "periods.c" to make Alice Town English and renamed the governor Edward Bull; you won't have a copy of that version of the file but you can do a similar edit, or I can upload mine. Alice Town is English by default, was set to Spanish in "Early Explorers" in the original version of "periods.c", and I commented out the line which makes it Spanish.

Did you find that governor in the character init files?
He should have a .GroupDialog attribute like the other governors do.

If I'm going to edit the English War (and Fast) Galleons, what should the "refShip.model" lines be? Can I also change their stats to make the War and Fast versions a bit more warlike and faster respectively? For me, the problem isn't that you can repaint one to the other, as the stats aren't wildly different at the moment. The problem is that those tier 3 ships are inferior to the tier 4 Fast War Galleon, and aren't exactly the fast agile ships you'd expect to have outsailed the Spanish Armada.

You can change refShip.model to literally anything else. That attribute is used only for the categories of ships that you can repaint to AND it is also used for the Select Storyline Ship Filters.
As far as I'm concerned, you're always welcome to improve ship stats, though you might want to check with @Hylie Pistof and perhaps @Armada when you do because they are the experts on that.

Where is the ship's tier value set? According to "Ships_init.c", "RevengeM" is class 3 while "RevengeF" and "RevengeW" are class 4. But "RevengeM" is tier 4 while the others are tier 3. I want "RevengeF" to be at least as fast as "FastGalleon2" and be tier 4, same as "FastGalleon2" - it should be England's equivalent to "FastGalleon2", which is what France, Spain and Pirates use. "RevengeW" can either have heavier guns, more crew, more HP or some combination of the above, while "RevengeM" should be comparable to "FastGalleon1". (I'll need to check to see if you can repaint a "FastGalleon1" into a "FastGalleon2" as well...)

The tiers are calculated at the bottom of ships_init.c and are tied purely to the maximum crew.
We had a lot of different systems in the past and eventually @Armada decided to simplify it all the way down and stop concerning ourselves with historical ship classes there because it just wasn't working.

 

[Armada]

Can I also change their stats to make the War and Fast versions a bit more warlike and faster respectively? For me, the problem isn't that you can repaint one to the other, as the stats aren't wildly different at the moment. The problem is that those tier 3 ships are inferior to the tier 4 Fast War Galleon, and aren't exactly the fast agile ships you'd expect to have outsailed the Spanish Armada.

That inconsistency with the stats is probably due to the English galleons being based on a real ship and being given 'realistic' attributes, while the others are fictional models with no real values to go by.

Your proposed changes to balance the English ships with the other galleons are welcome, as far as I'm concerned.
And as Pieter mentioned, you can adjust their Tiers by changing the MaxCrew values to fall within the relevant thresholds:

• Tier 1: >900 crew
• Tier 2: 550 - 899 crew
• Tier 3: 400 - 549 crew
• Tier 4: 250 - 399 crew
• Tier 5: 100 - 249 crew
• Tier 6: 60 - 99 crew
• Tier 7: 30 - 59 crew
• Tier 8: <30 crew

 

[A.H]

I feel sorry for all them folks who were crowded inside those huge ships
Like the saying goes:

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in jail, with a chance of being drowned… A man in jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."

Dr Samuel Johnson, essayist, biographer, and poet

 

[Grey Roger]

That inconsistency with the stats is probably due to the English galleons being based on a real ship and being given 'realistic' attributes, while the others are fictional models with no real values to go by.

How do you work out the maximum speed of a real sailing ship of the 16th century, and how does it translate to SpeedRate within the game?

If the speed for the "RevengeF" is accurate then perhaps it is the speed for "FastGalleon1" and "FastGalleon2" which needs to be reduced. Probably several other ships too, if "RevengeF" is to be significantly faster than them. Probably easier just to make "RevengeF" fast enough to do the job...

Your proposed changes to balance the English ships with the other galleons are welcome, as far as I'm concerned.
And as Pieter mentioned, you can adjust their Tiers by changing the MaxCrew values to fall within the relevant thresholds:

• Tier 1: >900 crew
• Tier 2: 550 - 899 crew
• Tier 3: 400 - 549 crew
• Tier 4: 250 - 399 crew
• Tier 5: 100 - 249 crew
• Tier 6: 60 - 99 crew
• Tier 7: 30 - 59 crew
• Tier 8: <30 crew

Ah, I see the problem. "FastGalleon2" has a nominal MaxCrew value of 390, putting it just inside the Tier 4 limit. "RevengeF" has a nominal MaxCrew of 400, making it Tier 3. But England has a MaxCrew modifier of 0.95 while Spain and Pirate have a modifier of 1.05. Thus an English "RevengeF" actually has MaxCrew 380 while a Spanish "FastGalleon2" has a MaxCrew of 410. The national modifiers put both ships the wrong side of the 400 threshold!

According to threedecks.org, the real Revenge had 250 crew. By contrast, Ark Royal had a crew of between 420 and 430. I could give "RevengeW" some more guns, ramp up its crew so it ends up with 420 after the national mod, and basically turn "RevengeW" into Ark Royal. Meanwhile "RevengeF" could have its crew reduced and speed increased to make it the real Revenge, and I've no idea what "RevengeM" is supposed to be!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ah, I see the problem. "FastGalleon2" has a nominal MaxCrew value of 390, putting it just inside the Tier 4 limit. "RevengeF" has a nominal MaxCrew of 400, making it Tier 3. But England has a MaxCrew modifier of 0.95 while Spain and Pirate have a modifier of 1.05. Thus an English "RevengeF" actually has MaxCrew 380 while a Spanish "FastGalleon2" has a MaxCrew of 410. The national modifiers put both ships the wrong side of the 400 threshold!

I think the national modifiers and all randomization are applied AFTER the ship tiers have already been set.
So those shouldn't be involved here.

...I've no idea what "RevengeM" is supposed to be!

Merchant version.

 

[Armada]

How do you work out the maximum speed of a real sailing ship of the 16th century, and how does it translate to SpeedRate within the game?

By making an educated guess and adjusting it based on similar ships in the game.

I could give "RevengeW" some more guns, ramp up its crew so it ends up with 420 after the national mod, and basically turn "RevengeW" into Ark Royal. Meanwhile "RevengeF" could have its crew reduced and speed increased to make it the real Revenge, and I've no idea what "RevengeM" is supposed to be!

I wouldn't increase the number of guns, otherwise you'll just get some guns firing twice per salvo. Increasing the gun calibre would be more ideal.

Real-world crew values have tended to translate poorly into the game, with ships lacking enough men to sail the ship effectively and to fire guns quickly. I recall hearing something about this being changed recently, though. Does it work differently, now?

I believe RevengeM is supposed to be a merchant variant, with more cargo capacity, fewer crew and lower-calibre guns, while being slightly slower than the others.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Real-world crew values have tended to translate poorly into the game, with ships lacking enough men to sail the ship effectively and to fire guns quickly. I recall hearing something about this being changed recently, though. Does it work differently, now?

I tried to automatically include this here: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/some-notes-on-setting-the-ships-crew-numbers.13282/
But I disabled it again because it caused too high numbers for many ships.

 

[Grey Roger]

By making an educated guess and adjusting it based on similar ships in the game.

That second part is what I'm trying to do - adjust the speed of "RevengeF" based on similar ships in the game, specifically "FastGalleon2".

I wouldn't increase the number of guns, otherwise you'll just get some guns firing twice per salvo. Increasing the gun calibre would be more ideal.

The main gun on both ships was the culverin, which is more or less our 18lb long gun. Ark Royal also had a similar number of demi-culverin, effectively our 9lb long gun. I suppose if I can't mimic that by giving Ark Royal more guns then making them 24lb, effectively a culverin and demi-culverin added together, is a reasonable approximation.

Real-world crew values have tended to translate poorly into the game, with ships lacking enough men to sail the ship effectively and to fire guns quickly

If 400 (less the modifier for an English ship) is needed for the "RevengeF" with its 18lb guns then presumably a "RevengeW" with 24lb guns will need more? Besides, more crew means better chance of winning a boarding action. Maybe drop "RevengeF" to MaxCrew 380, putting it into the tier 4 category, and raise its SpeedRate to 11, slightly better than "FastGalleon2" (though slower than the Pirate version once national modifiers are applied).

I believe RevengeM is supposed to be a merchant variant, with more cargo capacity, fewer crew and lower-calibre guns, while being slightly slower than the others.

Yes, I'd figured that much. But "RevengeF" is presumably supposed to be Revenge, and "RevengeW" will be Ark Royal. "RevengeM" is which real ship?

As for "refShip.Model" lines: "FastGalleon2" has 'refShip.Model = "Fast Galleon";'. "FastGalleon1" has the same but it's commented out. "SP_BattleGalleon" and "PiratBattleGalleon" don't have "refShip.Model" lines at all. It seems that if the ship is not to have multiple paint schemes then it doesn't need that line, so I'll just comment them out in the "Revenge" variants.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

"RevengeM" is which real ship?

They're all the same model so they're all the same real ship.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

There is more to speed than speed. The fast galleon is fast, but does not sail into the wind well. The Revenge is slower but sails into the wind better. The Spanish Galleon San Felipe is slower yet but sails into the wind well.

Then there is how cargo affects the ships. The more lightly built fast galleon slows down more when fully loaded, the Revenge slows down a lot too, but the heavily built San Felipe does not slow down so much.

In a long run between islands the fast galleon often ends up being the slowest.

 

[Grey Roger]

I think the national modifiers and all randomization are applied AFTER the ship tiers have already been set.
So those shouldn't be involved here.

That is exactly the problem. Before national modifiers, "FastGalleon2" has less than 400 crew and is therefore tier 4, while "RevengeF" has exactly 400 crew and is tier 3. After national modifiers, "FastGalleon2" has over 400 crew and "RevengeF" has less than 400. So tier 3 is defined as 400 or more crew and we have a tier 3 ship with less than 400; tier 4 is defined as less than 400 crew and we have a tier 4 ship with over 400.

So I suggest dropping the MaxCrew of "RevengeF" to 370, making it tier 4, same as "FastGalleon2"; and raising the MaxCrew of "RevengeW" to 440, which will then drop to 418 after national modifier, so it's tier 3 and rightly so, especially since it's getting 24lb guns to make up for the fact that it can't get extra guns.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Or give "RevengeF" exactly 399 crew.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Grey Roger: I'll probably try to make another modpack release some time next week.
So if you have any Early Explorers updates to include, please let me know!
And if you need any support to set up some thing you're unsure of, I might be able to help there too.