Included in Build Custom Pre-Defined Character Choices

[Pieter Boelen]

Yeh that's fine and indeed Will Turner as swordmaster with the Flying Dutchman does look odd going into a tutorial. Probably any selected "character" and therefore their type should skip (so explorer and merchant should be included in skips too, given Corsair is going to be via Drake?) and then only if you choose an otherwise unused player type do you get the tutorial (as a place setting function) - for which in BBF it should be possible to add another dialogue choice upfront to allow you off the ship when you skip it but also skip all the other cases to avoid shop,tavern,shipyard and spyglass nonsense.

Possibly the large start ship characters should have a .minlevel defined in initModels.c to prevent them from being too inexperienced for their ship.

Indeed any player type with an actual custom start can be skipped past the tutorial.
Of course "Rebel/Brave Black Flag" does maintain a copy of the normal tutorial functionality.
I had been thinking of just removing the tutorial from that completely as well.
OR put a GiveShip2Character(pchar.ship.type, ...) and GiveItem2Character(PChar, "spyglass2") line in the skip tutorial dialog section.

I think so I have it as downloaded 1 june which is later than the date of the zip at the top of 14 3.5 WIP (or is there a separate zip somewhere else?) but I'll do another download just to be sure rather than waste your time if it is fixed

It could be that the fix is only in the ZIP and not yet the EXE.
You can tell from the StartStoryline.c file; if the fix is there, then there should be a call to GivePromotionReward before the promotion loop.

Agent, Cursed and Navy - I don't know if this is consistent

Never saw that before. Is it a new problem? If so, perhaps there is a recent typo in an INI file somewhere?

 

[pedrwyth]

It could be that the fix is only in the ZIP and not yet the EXE.

I had too many "latest" versions floating about because I was trying to compare with and without changes. But one was with the zip applied where it is ok (you do get your ship) and one (I presume) without (because I forgot to apply it to that version - so another false flag.

For the navy questbook entry it says you have served as a Lieutenant for a couple of years - so now you've mysteriously been busted to midshipman but been given a command. They like a good joke in the navy!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I had too many "latest" versions floating about because I was trying to compare with and without changes. But one was with the zip applied where it is ok (you do get your ship) and one (I presume) without (because I forgot to apply it to that version - so another false flag.

The very latest is attached here, if you're unsure: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-5-internal-wip-for-testing.24817/

For the navy questbook entry it says you have served as a Lieutenant for a couple of years - so now you've mysteriously been busted to midshipman but been given a command. They like a good joke in the navy!

Ah, that rank is probably hardcoded in RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\English\Storyline\FreePlay\Custom_Navy.txt (or something like that).
Can probably be fixed either by removing the rank mention altogether or using a preprocessor again.

 

[pedrwyth]

OK here are is an amended Robert Fletcher_dialogue.c with a couple of minor text changes. I have also cut out the reference to Lieutenant in the navy questbook entry.

Given the reference in cursed to putting the coins in the weapons locker being nosey I immediately went to look and found none. I understand from the intro you actually have to hunt down the missing ones - but the're all missing! (bar the one in your possession). I think it is set in StartStoryline.c into TutDeck.WeaponsLocker and I wonder if that is a special location different from the character's ship weapons locker?


Next I tried Wil Turner and that seems to lock up after Malcolm's first dialogue. I guess that will be solved if or when all specific characters avoid the tutorial.

Just to be clear I am not actually working on adding to custom characters but just raising what came to light when I was drawn into the thread. Actually I'm off for a couple of weeks in a couple of days so won't be working on anything.

 

[Grey Roger]

I suspect it may be case "Tut_ReloadToOxbayPort": in the turorial section of both_reaction.c which controls where you emerge (and it certainly controls where the ships are put via PlaceFleetNearShore(loadPort); That would be why @Pieter Boelen was emerging at Oxbay after setting the value to Eleuthera in StartStoryline.c and I fixed it by working through each switch case in the tutorial (without knowingly doing so).

It turned out to be rather more complicated than that. There are a lot of cases in "both_reaction.c", most of them dealing with the tutorial. I've put conditions in all of them so that if you start as English in "Early Explorers" then you do so at the pirate settlement. Then there is "PROGRAM\INTERFACE\select_storyline.c", which has a nation-dependent switch to set the default start location, which dictates the port that appears on the initial start selection screen; that also now has a similar condition so that by default an English Early Explorer will start at the pirate settlement. (And I may need to reconsider disabling Antigua because an English naval officer in "Early Explorers" is set to start there. This makes no sense as Antigua hadn't been colonised at that time, and also makes no sense because what little navy England had at that time existed purely to defend England itself. So if you're going to do something silly, you may as well start off somewhere silly. )

That said I thought you had decided on Eleuthera for the English at that time?

I intend to make Eleuthera, specifically Alice Town, English so that English privateers have somewhere to sell their loot and buy new ships, otherwise there's currently no way for them to get the English Fast War Galleon. And once I've found everything which needs to be changed, I may very well change it again so that you start there. But for now it was easier to start at the pirate settlement because wherever I added a condition to check for "Early Explorers" period, I just copied whatever is already there for pirates and pasted into one side of the condition, and left the default England code on the other side of the condition. Making Alice Town a starting point will first require me to go to Alice Town with visible locators enabled and do a survey of all relevant locator points...

Meanwhile, one thing still eludes me. After starting, you get an entry into your questbook about arrival at <insert island here>. I haven't found where that's done, so although an English Early Explorer now correctly starts at pirate settlement and so does his ship, the questbook still says he arrived at San Luis (Portugal's name for Oxbay, alias Speightstown in later periods).

 

[pedrwyth]

It turned out to be rather more complicated than that. There are a lot of cases in "both_reaction.c", most of them dealing with the tutorial. I've put conditions in all of them so that if you start as English in "Early Explorers" then you do so at the pirate settlement.

Yes that is one reason why @Pieter Boelen skips the tutorial for character types eg corsair in this case?

Then there is "PROGRAM\INTERFACE\select_storyline.c", which has a nation-dependent switch to set the default start location, which dictates the port that appears on the initial start selection screen;

Yes sorry I should have said that.

I intend to make Eleuthera, specifically Alice Town, English so that English privateers have somewhere to sell their loot and buy new ships, otherwise there's currently no way for them to get the English Fast War Galleon. And once I've found everything which needs to be changed, I may very well change it again so that you start there. Making Alice Town a starting point will first require me to go to Alice Town with visible locators enabled and do a survey of all relevant locator points.

There's two answers to that. If you just skip the whole tutorial as per cursed,agent gambler etc you won't need the locations locators apart from standing on the dock (and I suppose somewhere in the townhall to put the Ambassador(s)). However secondly I had a vague notion of redoing the American tutorial for Alice Town (because as you pointed out Eleuthera port has to be Spanish for Bartholomeu and Assassin) and that enables my concept of just temporarily faking someone's nationality through he tutorial allows us to hijack the location for a start in any time period without all the insertion of conditions for each case you have had to do.

Meanwhile, one thing still eludes me. After starting, you get an entry into your questbook about arrival at <insert island here>. I haven't found where that's done, so although an English Early Explorer now correctly starts at pirate settlement and so does his ship, the questbook still says he arrived at San Luis (Portugal's name for Oxbay, alias Speightstown in later periods).

I think it's Preprocessor_AddQuestData("island", FindTownName("Oxbay")); in both_reactions.c you need to ensure has your condition ("in place when called. EDIT sorry you need "Quebradas Costillas" of course, or have you got that but it is still returning Portugese Oxbay?

 

[pedrwyth]

So to try and be clearer (because I don't think it came across) I think that if for Drake you just held his nation in a temporary variable and made him a pirate he would be put into QC anyway. As long as the time period has been set (which it should be) it will have whatever name is right. After the tutorial (or if it is skipped) it just needs to revert his nation before freeplay starts. If Alice Town is reworked to American tutorial the only change would be to change his "temporary" nation from pirate to american (even though they don't exist in the game in the early period the code doesn't care). The inital tutorial dialogue may need tweaking - and I suggested earlier maybe even a quick skip dialogue option to avoid it all (but not sending you into stormy start per se) much as the current specific types do. This leaves a tutorial option always available but also skip like @Pieter Boelen has already coded.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

(And I may need to reconsider disabling Antigua because an English naval officer in "Early Explorers" is set to start there. This makes no sense as Antigua hadn't been colonised at that time, and also makes no sense because what little navy England had at that time existed purely to defend England itself. So if you're going to do something silly, you may as well start off somewhere silly. )

You were going to change one of the Eleutheran ports to English agaion for Early Explorers, right?
Just change the Navy Antigua start to that one instead. Only reason it is Antigua is because that is the only English port.
But you're swapping that.

Yes that is one reason why @Pieter Boelen skips the tutorial for character types eg corsair in this case?

Oh yes! Skipping the tutorial is SO much simpler than making the tutorial work for whatever custom start you can think of.
I'd definitely recommend doing that for the "Corsair" start too and just doing a teleport to Nevis Pier and be done with it.

There's two answers to that. If you just skip the whole tutorial as per cursed,agent gambler etc you won't need the locations locators apart from standing on the dock (and I suppose somewhere in the townhall to put the Ambassador(s)). However secondly I had a vague notion of redoing the American tutorial for Alice Town (because as you pointed out Eleuthera port has to be Spanish for Bartholomeu and Assassin) and that enables my concept of just temporarily faking someone's nationality through he tutorial allows us to hijack the location for a start in any time period without all the insertion of conditions for each case you have had to do.

Aren't all the both_reaction.c switches based on pchar.nation? That is OK at game start, but technically that refers to the flag you're flying.
Better might be to use GetCurrentLocationNation() or GetServedNation .

 

[Grey Roger]

As I said, I may move all "Early Explorers" English activity (general start, naval officer start, tutorial etc.) to Eleuthera once I've done a survey of locators. Meanwhile it's too late to tell me not to do the work on the tutorial, I went through "both_reactions.c" last night and added all the conditions.

Drake is on hold, partly because someone else indicated that he might do it and partly because I can't find a suitable ship among the starting options to use for Golden Hind. It wasn't a four-masted English War Galleon (which isn't available as a starting ship anyway). The nearest equivalent might be the Light Fluyt, but that, along with quite a lot of ships, has the small mast attached to the bowsprit. What I'm now thinking of is Geoffrey Thorpe, the character from the film "The Sea Hawk", to be a specific named character with the four-masted galleon as a starting ship, and disable Eleuthera for him so he gets the challenge of raiding the Caribbean with no friendly port. One day, if I manage to learn to write a quest, I may even try to do something based on "The Sea Hawk". And its arrival will be heralded by the porcine aerobatic team doing a formation display over the icy surface of Hell.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As I said, I may move all "Early Explorers" English activity (general start, naval officer start, tutorial etc.) to Eleuthera once I've done a survey of locators. Meanwhile it's too late to tell me not to do the work on the tutorial, I went through "both_reactions.c" last night and added all the conditions.

You won't hear me complaining about things being more fancy.

Drake is on hold, partly because someone else indicated that he might do it

@Jack Rackham said he would make his character model for you, which he did already.

I can't find a suitable ship among the starting options to use for Golden Hind. It wasn't a four-masted English War Galleon (which isn't available as a starting ship anyway). The nearest equivalent might be the Light Fluyt, but that, along with quite a lot of ships, has the small mast attached to the bowsprit.

With the initModels.c code, you can select ANY starting ship, even those not available.
And I wouldn't worry too much about a ship not being completely spot on.

One day, if I manage to learn to write a quest, I may even try to do something based on "The Sea Hawk". And its arrival will be heralded by the porcine aerobatic team doing a formation display over the icy surface of Hell.

I do believe you're beginning to get the hang of it. So who knows.... Maybe one day, eh?

 

[Jack Rackham]

Drake is on hold, partly because someone else indicated that he might do it

and someone did.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

OK here are is an amended Robert Fletcher_dialogue.c with a couple of minor text changes. I have also cut out the reference to Lieutenant in the navy questbook entry.

Now added to my game version.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Jack Rackham made two character models that are to be added as starting characters soon:
Francis Drake and the original Laurens de Graaf (because he made a REAL skin for Michiel de Ruyter now).

@Grey Roger, how far did you get with setting up Francis Drake?
If needed, I might be able to find some time over the weekend to support you on that. Just tell me what still needs to be done.

And does anyone know a good player type, starting date and ship type/name for Laurens de Graaf?

 

[Grey Roger]

I haven't done anything with Francis Drake yet. Mostly I've been polishing up "Bartolomeu o Portugues". Next is to sort out the start for an English character in "Early Explorers", transferring all the start stuff to Alice Town, Eleuthera, once I find out which locators are significant in a normal start in Speightstown and where equivalents are in Alice Town. (If you decide to scrap tutorials from free play starts, this will be easier. ) So, apart from what @Jack Rackham has done, what needs to be done for Francis Drake is basically everything.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you decide to scrap tutorials from free play starts, this will be easier.

For several player types, I have already done that. I'm perfectly fine with also doing that for Corsair.
Then we can use the custom start code to throw an English Early Explorers Corsair to Alice Town instead of Speighstown/Kingston.
Tutorial not required as far as I'm concerned.

I haven't done anything with Francis Drake yet. [...] So, apart from what @Jack Rackham has done, what needs to be done for Francis Drake is basically everything.

If we're agreed on the effects of the Corsair player type, I can set that up.
Then for Francis Drake all that we need is a storyline title and description, starting date and ship name/type.
If you could take of that part (possibly also for Laurens), I should be able to do the rest.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Some info about Drake's Golden Hind(e).
Picture of an english replica.

Golden Hinde: English galleon

Details of London replica[edit]
Crew in the 16th century: 20 officers and gentlemen, from 40 to 60 crew, including a Master, Mate, Cook and 10 to 12 deckhands. The average height was 5'4" but many of the crew selected were taller to make more effective fighters. Francis Drake was about 5'6" tall.[13]
Masts: 3
Sails 6, 5 square sails and lateen
Hull: wooden
Hull dimensions:
Length:
Overall: 120 ft (36.6 m)
Hull: 102 ft (31.1 m)
Waterline: 75 ft (23 m)
Breadth: 22 ft (6.7 m)
Depth: 13.5 ft (4.1 m)
Displacement: 300 long tons (300 t)
Beam: 20 ft (6.1 m)
Height of mainmast: 92 feet (28 m)
Sail area: 4,150 square feet (386 m2)
Speed (sail): 8 knots (15 km/h)
Steering: Drake used a pole attached to the rudder called a "whip staff". For safety, a conventional wheel is used in the two replicas.
Capstan: used for hauling up the anchor, located in the armoury and gun deck
Crew complement: 80–85
Armaments: 22 guns
2 Peteras (small guns) on poop deck
2 Peteras on fore deck
2 Falcons (long range guns using two pound shot) in forecastle
2 Falcons in stern
14 Minions (guns using four pound shot) on gun deck
Load: ca. 100–150 tons (100–150 tonnes)
Maximum crew complement: 95

 

[Pieter Boelen]

There is a black pirate FastGalleon, if I recall. Perhaps that one?
Or otherwise the San Martin.

 

[Grey Roger]

The Golden Hind was much smaller and less powerful than either of those. It was certainly no San Martin! From the above stats, we're looking for something with 80-90 crew and maybe 14-16 guns of 6lb. (The real thing had 4lb guns along with a lot of smaller ones, but PoTC doesn't handle multiple calibres so approximate it with a smaller number of slightly larger guns.) The Fast War Galleon has 38 guns of 18lb and 390 crew. A fluyt has 20 guns of 6lb and 60 crew; perhaps define a variant with more crew. It still won't be accurate because the fluyt has a sprit topsail, an invention which came into fashion part way through the 17th century and went out of fashion part way through the 18th century, but at least it's vaguely right for crew and firepower.

Once he's done some raiding, Drake can either steal someone else's Fast War Galleon or buy one of the English Fast Galleon variants. (In reality he had the actual Revenge when he played his part in the actions against the Spanish Armada.)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Then I see a couple of options:
- We don't care, we'll use the Fast Galleon anyway
- Start Drake with the Revenge straight away and have his character level increased to match
- If a semi-appropriate hull is available, perhaps @Hylie Pistof can rig her more closely to the actual Golden Hind

 

[Jack Rackham]

What if
i) I retexture one of the Fast Galleons and try to remove the extra mast on the bowsprit
ii) we kindly ask one of our shipbuilders to remove the lower cannons

then we'll have something that's closer to the Golden Hind.