Included in Build Distinguish between different playstyles

[Pieter Boelen]

While it is fun early in the game when I'm in a small weak ship and struggling just to make the payroll and living on the edge, later in the game it gets boring because it is repetitive. I'm just sailing around doing the same things over and over. Then it is time for a new game. I am wary of dividing the plunder because there are lean times and fat times. There are times when I am losing money and times when suddenly I have more than I could ever spend.

Of course! But that is why that potentially makes for more interesting gameplay.
When the going is rough, you'll need to start paying attention to their crew. For example, when you don't have enough money, try to boost morale by giving the crew double rum rations.
Those options are available to you, but something tells me that they're hardly ever used. Which is a shame, because they could be quite fun.
I even have some ideas on how to improve on that stuff. But there's no point if nobody cares to use it.

About fame, I don't want it because outside of the occasional pirate ship and fat merchantman I mostly do not do any fighting, so do not deserve to be famous. Also, why would a smuggler want to be well known? I just tried that and it reduced me from scourge of the archipelago to dread pirate. Then I got a promotion and it went up again.

At the moment no characters in the game actually change the way they treat you based on how famous you are.
It is just a "score".

The only thing that IS affected by fame is the "false flag detection chance", so I can understand why being less famous is good for that.
However, we also found that functionality doesn't work right and it is on my to-do list to look at that so we can hopefully restore that to being a usable option.

 

[Grey Roger]

After reaching the rank of Commodore, you start receiving land for each promotion.
Land gives you a steady supply of personal wealth. It probably does take longer than playing as a privateer because there you get land starting at your first promotion.
But then.... Low-ranking navy officers wouldn't generally be all that famous, would they?

Hornblower is.

There is already code in place to do that. I remember seeing it.
Whether that actually works in the game is a different story though; I've always doubted that worked properly, but never bothered to properly check.
Could you check if you DO get wealth upon paying salary? If not, a Bug Tracker entry would be in order.

That would be a job for Hylie, perhaps. I got forced into Divide Plunder mode some time ago, and in fact have recently been forced to do the actual dividing.

When you talk about selling a prize ship, I imagine that you mean doing so as a naval officer, right?
If you do that as a privateer, the money goes into the crew fund and you get a share of that if and when you divide the plunder.

Which, if you're in a merchant ship while you're doing the privateering, you might never do. Maybe have the prize money divided and a small portion added to your personal money only if you're still paying by salary (which, as a naval officer, you will always be doing). If you're paying by dividing plunder then perhaps rig it so that a larger total portion goes into the crew fund, so that your eventual share is more than the small portion you get while paying by salary. Another incentive to switch to dividing plunder.

I've thought about making all item purchases taken out of personal wealth.
But how to distinguish between a sword purchased for yourself and ones bought for the crew and to be stored in the weaponslocker?
I couldn't think of a simple solution, so figured that the best thing to do is to keep that as-is

For me, there's a simple distinction. My sword either comes from a dungeon or a quest reward. Crew and officer weapons come from dead enemies. The concept of paying for a weapon is unfamiliar to me. (Armour is a different matter. I do buy that for myself and my officers, though only battle armour or gold cuirass. Anything less comes from looting chests. But any armour in the weapons locker came from someone else's weapons locker or other chest.)

Selling weapons may raise that problem, though - I get quite a lot of money from selling weapons which aren't good enough to go into the weapons locker, i.e. anything less than "Good" quality. It would be a bit unfair on the crew for all that money to go into my personal account since they helped acquire the weapons in the first place.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Hornblower is.

Hornblower has the advantage that extra lines of code to increase his wealth and fame can be added at appropriate points in the story.

Which, if you're in a merchant ship while you're doing the privateering, you might never do.

You're not supposed to be privateering with a merchant ship. The only reason for the exception is for @Hylie Pistof, though.
If I can convince him to consider Divide the Plunder mode, I could rewrite that function to make a bit more sense.
I figure that ANY privateering crew might want to sign articles sooner or later.

Doesn't work with your point about the EITC providing LoMs to their captains though.
But that would require having a joinable EITC in the game in the first place (for ALL nations) which isn't going to happen any time soon.

Maybe have the prize money divided and a small portion added to your personal money only if you're still paying by salary (which, as a naval officer, you will always be doing). If you're paying by dividing plunder then perhaps rig it so that a larger total portion goes into the crew fund, so that your eventual share is more than the small portion you get while paying by salary. Another incentive to switch to dividing plunder.

So basically drastically reduce the amount of money you get for selling any non-purchased ships at the shipyard?
But add a bit of wealth when you do so instead? Makes sense for navy and privateer characters, I suppose.
How about merchants and pirates?

Selling weapons may raise that problem, though - I get quite a lot of money from selling weapons which aren't good enough to go into the weapons locker, i.e. anything less than "Good" quality. It would be a bit unfair on the crew for all that money to go into my personal account since they helped acquire the weapons in the first place.

I think you see the problem there! So while there is something to be said for items being paid from personal wealth, that probably wouldn't work out.
So just keep as-is....

 

[Grey Roger]

So basically drastically reduce the amount of money you get for selling any non-purchased ships at the shipyard?
But add a bit of wealth when you do so instead? Makes sense for navy and privateer characters, I suppose.
How about merchants and pirates?

I wouldn't make the distinction. It doesn't matter who you are, it's how you pay your crew that determines how the shares of prize money will be calculated. Just don't make the same mistake someone else did when they tried to make selling captured ships less profitable, which led to negative prices for some ships!

If EITC ever happens, maybe make them similar to navy characters in that they can't switch to dividing plunder. As an employee of the company, your job is to make money for the company, who then pays your wages. A LoM is just another way for you to make more money for the company, which then rewards you with a share of the profit.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

So I did this divide the plunder thingy.

What is up with this "next expedition" stuff? I'm not on any expedition but just continuing my career.

Why are my ships re-equipped? That is lame and I ended up selling off a lot of that stuff.

I put $5million into my ships chest for a rainy day fund and that is still there.

I see no difference in game play besides some odd numbers showing up in the upper left corner of the screen.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What is up with this "next expedition" stuff? I'm not on any expedition but just continuing my career.

The idea is that you divide your career into "expeditions".
So after dividing the plunder, some of your crew sign off with their newly earned money and you get to prepare for your next endeavour.
En expedition takes on average 90 days. After that, morale starts to drop until eventually you get a mutiny because the crew wants to see some money by now.

Have a look at page 281 of "Documentation\New Horizons Tutorials & History.pdf" which contains the Build 11 explanation of the "Crew Morale / Divide the Plunder Mod".

Why are my ships re-equipped? That is lame and I ended up selling off a lot of that stuff.

That can be disabled. PROGRAM\Characters\CharacterUtilite.c comment out these lines:

  for(q = 0; q < 4; q++)
   {
     cn = GetCompanionIndex(&PChar,q);
     if(cn!=-1)
     {
       chref = GetCharacter(cn);
       ResetShip(&chref)
     }
   }

That is probably done to simulate you getting ready for your next trip while saving you the trouble of doing that yourself.

I see no difference in game play besides some odd numbers showing up in the upper left corner of the screen.

Those numbers control how happy your crew is.
If you have more money on board, the crew will be happier and therefore fight harder, knowing that in the end part of that money will be theirs.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Fight harder? I always get slaughtered in the first boarding action and after that as long as I can keep meself alive I always win every boarding after that. Morale means nothing as far as I can tell. Skill and equipment make the difference.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Morale is used as a scalar on your crew hp.
Higher Morale, crew stays alive longer with the same amount and equipment.

 

[Grey Roger]

I agree with Hylie on that point - morale doesn't seem to make any significant difference. If I'm attacking a larger ship, I'm unlikely to survive unless I have decent armour, decent sword and decent Melee skill. Ditto for my officers. Crew are just expendable drones who keep some of the enemy pinned down for a while until I and my officers have dealt with our immediate opponents and can then fight the enemies who have by now finished off my crew. It doesn't much matter if the enemy morale is Excellent or Awful.

And I really don't like the idea of dividing plunder marking the start of a new expedition. If that involves any background passing of time then it's liable to foul up any story or side quests with time limits (the entire "Hard Labours of an Assassin" side quest and the early missions of the "Assassin" storyline, for a start). I just want to hand out the money and continue on my way. Which, apart from the impromptu re-organisation of your ship's hold, seems to be what happens at the moment, so that's fine; and I generally check ship's stores just before heading to port anyway.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I agree with Hylie on that point - morale doesn't seem to make any significant difference. If I'm attacking a larger ship, I'm unlikely to survive unless I have decent armour, decent sword and decent Melee skill. Ditto for my officers. Crew are just expendable drones who keep some of the enemy pinned down for a while until I and my officers have dealt with our immediate opponents and can then fight the enemies who have by now finished off my crew. It doesn't much matter if the enemy morale is Excellent or Awful.

Morale is used in a lot of functions all over the place. If I recall, it also influences how fast your cannons load and many other things.
I don't quite know, but it is everywhere. If it really doesn't make much of a difference, then that whole mod is pretty much useless.
If so, a Bug Tracker entry is required so that hopefully we can restore that to proper working order.

And I really don't like the idea of dividing plunder marking the start of a new expedition. If that involves any background passing of time then it's liable to foul up any story or side quests with time limits (the entire "Hard Labours of an Assassin" side quest and the early missions of the "Assassin" storyline, for a start). I just want to hand out the money and continue on my way. Which, apart from the impromptu re-organisation of your ship's hold, seems to be what happens at the moment, so that's fine; and I generally check ship's stores just before heading to port anyway.

Dividing plunder marking the start of a new expedition is the whole point of doing that.
You hire a crew to sail with you for a while. After dividing the plunder, part of your crew goes on their merry way and you start over.
That is not exactly new. In fact, it has been like that since Build 11 if I recall which I think was release 10 years ago!

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Morale does have an influence, but I don't notice it with my crew. They get the best armor, excellent guns, and excellent swords I can give them. My officers get the very best swords.

Morale does make a difference with enemy crews and I generally wait until their morale is "awful" before attempting to board. Since I generally do not sail warships my crew is always smaller.

I have been playing divide the plunder and the only real difference I see so far is the lack of ready cash on hand. I am always on the lookout for new ships and not having the money to buy them really takes the wind out of me sails. Oh and to Grey Rodger, the ships I want are not seen on the open sea so capturing them is out of the question.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you pay by salary, you should get a salary too.

I just confirmed that does already happen.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Is there anything for this that actually NEEDS doing on short notice?
If not, I'll consider this "Included in Build" for the time being until I get round to playing with false flags and nation relations.
But that will probably be after Beta 3.5 has been released, because I don't want to break anything else for a while.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What about the idea of making a non-pirate Corsair character always start already WITH a Letter of Marque of his/her chosen nation?

 

[Levis]

I would like some toughts about the impact of the royal navy and privateering on smuggling.
Should there be a penalty etc.
For example everyone starts with a liking of 50 (on a scale of 100) and below 25 they wont trade with you.
Some small things for examle would be to have a navy officer start below 25 (just a little) so he first needs to pay them off and win theire respect before he can do real business with them?
I was also thinking that if you are caught by the coastguard while having a LOM for that country it might revoke your LOM or means a demotion. and same for navy (I wont do an direct expell, probably there is a warning first which gives you an intresting choice but I dont wanna spoil that one).
What are your toughts about this?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I would like some toughts about the impact of the royal navy and privateering on smuggling.
Should there be a penalty etc.
For example everyone starts with a liking of 50 (on a scale of 100) and below 25 they wont trade with you.
Some small things for examle would be to have a navy officer start below 25 (just a little) so he first needs to pay them off and win theire respect before he can do real business with them?

Definitely agreed on that one. Smugglers have no reason to trust Navy Officers or Corsairs (except PIRATE ones).
That can be player-type dependent and set in PROGRAM\Characters\characters_init.c I think.

Second question is what should happen if you get a LoM during the game.
Should that immediately reset the "smuggler liking" to a value below 25 again?

I was also thinking that if you are caught by the coastguard while having a LOM for that country it might revoke your LOM or means a demotion. and same for navy (I wont do an direct expell, probably there is a warning first which gives you an intresting choice but I dont wanna spoil that one).
What are your toughts about this?

Demotion is tricky because I don't think there is any code in place to do that properly.
Though a reduction in points with your served nation would probably be in order.
And that would make it take longer before you can get your next promotion. That might even functionally be consider a demotion.
I'm not sure if using SetRank with a lower rank than you currently have would work properly. Worth a try, I suppose.

 

[Grey Roger]

Any smuggler who wants to stay alive ought to be suspicious of any newcomer, LoM or not. You may need to do something to earn their trust. Having said that, if you make smuggling too difficult, players may simply not bother. Maybe have the smuggler accompanied by a large gang, at least at first - if you're going to do the deal as intended then you've nothing to fear, if you try to double-cross him then the gang will attack.

As Levis says, smugglers are automatically suspicious of naval officers, so they definitely need to earn the smuggler's trust, e.g. by a bribe. Beyond that, the smuggler shouldn't much care what character type you are. Corsairs aren't necessarily grounds for suspicion, in fact they're possibly one of the most likely types to bring in contraband, being a sea captain with a known interest in bending the law.

If smugglers hate LoM's then there needs to be a reason. A privateer ought to have some way of bringing smugglers to justice. By comparison, pirates hate naval officers because it's part of an officer's job to hunt pirates, which you can indeed do. Maybe occasionally have smugglers set up at beaches at random so a privateer or naval officer can raid them. Or maybe have a way for a privateer to get information about an imminent deal, then go and interrupt it.

Demotions: SetRank to reduce a rank certainly works for Hornblower. Mind you, he's not allowed to go to a governor for a promotion, so the fact that his relation points haven't been reduced is unimportant - he gets promoted again when the story requires it. For a regular character, you'd need to both reduce his rank by SetRank and reduce his relation points, which is reasonable as those points are a measure of how much the nation likes him, and it obviously doesn't like him as much because it's just demoted him.

 

[Levis]

All promotions for NAVY and LOM are done by the gouvenor or are there other people in play also?
Which dialog files manage it?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Promotions are given through the single Governor dialog file.
Exceptions are in the Hornblower storyline and there is now a promote Cheat in seadogs.c mainly for testing purposes.
They should all call the same functions in CharacterUtilite.c and nations.c

 

[Levis]

So if someone is caught smuggling I could tell him to report to the gouvernor of him nation or where he has the LOM.
it's possible to have more then 1 lom right?