• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

East Martinique

Grey Roger

Grey Roger

Sea Dog
Staff member
Administrator
Storm Modder
You've probably seen this bridge hundreds of times:
bridge_sea.jpg

If you sail away from Martinique through the narrow end of the channel, you sail under it. But in all the years since the game first came out, nobody has ever walked across the bridge to see what's on the other side because there's no way to get there.

So let's make one. It has to be round the corner from St. Pierre somewhere. This place, at the far end of the beach at Octopus Bay, looks interesting:
beach.jpg

Break out the shovels and pick-axes and let's do a bit of tunnelling. That opens up a way to a small cave:
cave1.jpg

The other end of the cave leads back into daylight:
bridge_land.jpg

Where does that go? I don't know, but it's going to be fun finding out...

I haven't added anything beyond this bridge location yet, mainly because I don't know what I want to put there. I've a couple of ideas, but haven't got past the basic concept yet and haven't decided which, if either, to pursue. So if anyone else has any suggestions for what to put on East Martinique, they may be considered...
 
I think I have what I need of quest locations already. And this would be very similar to Citadel Rock
on Eleuthera which I have used.
 
That's fine, I didn't intend for it to be taken over for a storyline anyway. ;) All I'm looking for is suggestions for a possible sidequest which I may write.
 
Grey Roger said:
That's fine, I didn't intend for it to be taken over for a storyline anyway. ;) All I'm looking for is suggestions for a possible sidequest which I may write.
Click to expand...
Maybe searching for something that was lost?
Perhaps the bridge has been broken for a while and nobody has been there for a long time, so you get to repair it?
Maybe there's a mystery tribe of Indians or something else super strange on the other side?
 
The broken bridge had occurred to me, though not the idea of repairing it. I was considering warning the player that the bridge is old and dodgy - and then putting a locator on one side, where there's visible damage, making it small enough that you can get past if you're careful, and instant death by dropping into Martinique Channel if you're not careful. The repair idea has possibilities as well - bring a carpenter!

As for strange items, there are a whole load of skull icons in "RESOURCE\Textures\INTERFACES\items12.tga.tx" which aren't used as far as I know (the usual three red, blue and white ones are in a different file). So, perhaps do something with one of those...
 
Grey Roger said:
The broken bridge had occurred to me, though not the idea of repairing it. I was considering warning the player that the bridge is old and dodgy - and then putting a locator on one side, where there's visible damage, making it small enough that you can get past if you're careful, and instant death by dropping into Martinique Channel if you're not careful. The repair idea has possibilities as well - bring a carpenter!
Click to expand...
I like where this is doing! Sounds interesting. :woot

Grey Roger said:
As for strange items, there are a whole load of skull icons in "RESOURCE\Textures\INTERFACES\items12.tga.tx" which aren't used as far as I know (the usual three red, blue and white ones are in a different file). So, perhaps do something with one of those...
Click to expand...
Why not? If I recall, there are indeed plenty of skulls that don't do anything.
I'd fully support giving them a proper purpose. :onya
 
Perhaps the bridge has been broken for a while and nobody has been there for a long time, so you get to repair it?
Click to expand...
Yes, I did it in the Goldbug. "Repaired" the bridge by placing planks over the worst places.

Why not place a building on the other side of the bridge to avoid getting to the usual seashore.
A building with its gate/door so you get directly into it. Could be any kind of building;
a cathedral, farmhouse, storehouse, tavern, windmill etc
 
How did you place the planks? The bridge would have to look as delapidated as usual at first, but the planks could be placed after you've repaired it.

I didn't plan to have East Martinique look as though it is much inhabited. If there were another town there, the bridge probably wouldn't look the way it does - and remember, all this was inspired by the bridge you see when you sail through Martinique north channel, and that bridge looks in a bad way as well. So somebody built a bridge a long time ago and it hasn't been very well maintained since, which means there isn't much traffic across it.

A simpler way to avoid getting to the seashore is to put a locator on the other side of the bridge, in the hole in the rock through which the path leads to the shore. In that case you'd teleport to another location before you see much of the shore. I may try to use "b_leaf", which is a cluster of trees, just to make the area look a bit different.
 
I placed them like this:
Code: 
Locations[n].models.always.l6 = "";                //plank2A later
    Locations[n].models.always.l7 = "plank2B";            //plank2B, plank_gate or ""

The plank models are already in the folder Outside/Passage.

Still it would be nice if it's leading to something. A gatedoor in the hole in the rock makes it easy to place almost any sort of room
behind it. A storeroom/cave for the smugglers?
 
The bridge location will lead to something. Just not directly. :D If I put the trees in front of the passage along with a reload locator, that means I can transition to a jungle location. From there I can go to any sort of location I want, and that's where the sidequest action is going to happen - whatever the sidequest may be...

What do the 'locations[n].models.always.l6/7' lines do? How do they put the "plank2A" or "plank2B" models onto the bridge?
 
What do the 'locations[n].models.always.l6/7' lines do? How do they put the "plank2A" or "plank2B" models onto the bridge?
Click to expand...
It's one of the ways to add things to a location. The .gm models have to be placed in the location folder.
The standard game uses it for the background models. (plan_1 to 3).

It should be like this:

Locations[n].models.always.l6 = "plank2A";
Locations[n].models.always.l7 = "plank2B";
Click to expand...

to get both planks in place. The numbers 6 and 7 are not important as long as they are not used already.
Checking the passage location these numbers are used:

Locations[n].models.always.l1 = "plan_1";
Locations[n].models.always.l1.level = 9;
Locations[n].models.always.l1.tech = "LocationModelBlend";
Locations[n].models.always.l2 = "plan_2";
Locations[n].models.always.l2.level = 8;
Locations[n].models.always.l2.tech = "LocationModelBlend";
Locations[n].models.always.l3 = "plan_3";
Locations[n].models.always.l3.level = 7;
Locations[n].models.always.l3.tech = "LocationModelBlend";
Click to expand...

so 4 and 5 would do.
 
How do I tell the system where "model.always.l4" is to go? So that the plank goes to the damaged part of the bridge, rather than to somewhere else in the scene?

Meanwhile, I did manage to figure out how "b_leaf" translates through "initItems.c" into something I can feed into "build_at" and put a cluster of trees just the other side of the hole in the rock. It doesn't look very convincing as an opening into a jungle rather than a shore because if you get too close to the hole, you can see the sea. But that's because the next job is to put a locator which will be set in "PROGRAM\Locations\init\FalaiseDeFleur.c" to autoreload, which means you'll never get that close to the hole before teleporting to the jungle location...

Can I borrow your skull from "RESOURCE\MODELS\Ammo\OtherItemsJRH"? If I copy it and make a new texture for it, I should be able to make a crystal skull which you can see on the ground rather than just by looting a chest. (Still to figure out what to make the player do before getting to the skull, and who wants the player to get it...)
 
Grey Roger said:
How do I tell the system where "model.always.l4" is to go? So that the plank goes to the damaged part of the bridge, rather than to somewhere else in the scene?
Click to expand...
By default, the model is placed at (0,0,0) so the placement would have to be adjusted with the TOOL inside the GM itself.
I think @Jack Rackham already did that, so in this case you can just reuse what is already there.

There is also related way to place a model on a specific locator.
Unfortunately I always forget how that works. :facepalm
 
This is what the other side of the bridge looks like normally:
passage_normal.jpg

Now with added trees:
passage_jungle.jpg

You'll get about as close as this:
passage_jungle_close.jpg

And then you'll hit the locator which sends you to the jungle. At the moment it's a duplicate of the place between Port Royale exit and Rocky Shore because that's one of the few jungle locations which only has two exits - most of the others have three. That could change depending on what else is added to this area. But at least East Martinique is now open for quest business...
 
Yes the two plank models are already changed to their right positions.
Of cours you can use the skull.
If you want to place it on the ground place it as a randitem. So it can be picked up.
 
As for what should be on the other side of the bridge, I'm thinking maybe a little monument of stones as the tomb of a traveller who never returned, made by his now-old wife.

I like the idea of the bridge being kinda-broken at first, with two or three avoidable locators that send you back to a nearby coast in the island, with some damage; it could be repareable into a fixed state by bringing some planks to the wife (or her more work-able son) at a nearby coast, after speaking with her on the monument (so you have to cross it at least once while it's dangerous).


After being repaired... well, what about a sidequest where you board a ship by jumping onto its sails from the bridge? Ships do sail under it after all. In fact, repairing the bridge could be a way to complete this quest more easily, since once repaired you can lie in ambush with more crew without risk of overloading the bridge, so you'd have an easier combat encounter once on the deck.
 
Thinking about this a bit more, I probably won't repair the bridge, for the simple reason that what got me into this in the first place is the bridge you see while sailing through Martinique's channel, and that's never going to be repaired. There's nothing much on the east island anyway - if there were any significant settlements then the bridge wouldn't be in that condition. :D (Historically, Martinique was seriously underpopulated and vulnerable to invasion, and Britain did invade it several times. Strictly speaking it ought to be British during the whole "Napoleonic" period, but that would mess up the "Hornblower" storyline and probably a couple of sidequests.)

As for a sidequest involving East Martinique, I have my own in the works... But if anyone else wants to write one as well, I have no objection - that's why I opened it up in the first place.
 
Grey Roger said:
I probably won't repair the bridge, for the simple reason that what got me into this in the first place is the bridge you see while sailing through Martinique's channel, and that's never going to be repaired.
Click to expand...
I imagine it should be possible to apply some repairs with the TOOL to the island model as well.
Cozumel switches 3D models (for collision detection) at some point during the Standard Storyline to allow you access.
Should be possible to do some model-switching for Martinique too, if you'd like. :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top