• 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!

Features of the Build Mod

Here is my sixpenny worth - but please note: I am currently working on finishing up to the point of Hornblower and Maria getting married. (Loyalty)
So it depends when I finish and you upload, as to how complete that is.
[The next addition will be "Duty"]

 Hornblower
• Naval gameplay, but, as with the Hornblower films, a lot of land action
• Based on movies, but moved to Caribbean following Hornblower from joining the King's Navy through to his marrying Maria
• Added influence: Sharpe Rifles (again moved to Caribbean)
• Sea battles: big ships straight away, though assigned to small ships later
• Land battles: period infantry battles, including field cannon
• Story scenes:
Based on
The Fire Ships
The Duchess and the Devil
Mutiny
Retribution
Loyalty
Sharpe’s Rifles
The stories follow the general progress of Hornblower but with the addition of meeting (and joining the adventures of) various characters from the “Sharpe” series of films.
 
FUTURE: Add more locations

That would be a yes, but as Pieter has said on the forum, and others have backed up. Unless a ship has storyline/historical purpose it just is really overkill. (ie we have a heap of ships like luggers, so adding another lugger makes like no gameplay sense at all and just increases the size of the download)
 
The ship model geometries don't take up a lot of room, and are highly compressible files in the first place. It's the textures that kill, so that means doing a bit of quality control. We definitely don't need a dozen skins for the stock 44 gun "lineship" that is so outdated/primitive compared to our frigates and sloops of war it's not even funny. Or useful to have around.

We have lots of nation-specific merchantmen so trimming this class down to contain only the best quality skins will reduce download size and encourage some diversity in the ship encounter random generation. Of course, the current WBT ship generation values do take into account inflated 'population' of lineships/armed merchantmen and give more priority to the unique national merchants, but I would like some of the lower quality skins (and even low quality ship models like the stock lineship) reduced.
 
I'm not adding "add more this" or "add more that" on my list.
It isn't a wishlist. It's a feature list. Sometimes I'll add a note on future things to do,
simply because those things NEED to be added for the feature to be considered complete.
This'll mainly be coding-stuff or needed models or textures for quest purposes or something.

When we get to making Build 14 Beta 2, we'll be able to do quality control quite nicely.
Now that we've got a one-file installer setup, that just makes things so much easier to control.
We just remove the files and be done with it. No need for complicated batching no more.

If anyone's got any suggestions on which ship models/skins to drop, please post a list.
There's definitly a bunch that aren't up to standard when compared to the rest.
But preferrably in another thread. ;)
 
Pieter Boelen said:
We just remove the files and be done with it. No need for complicated batching no more.
Click to expand...

Just remember that someone MADE those models and reskins and is probably proud of them (that is, will be VERY disappointed if you drop them) . I do like the diversity, even if something is lower quality. What I hate most about stock game is wherever you go, you see the same ships and meet the same people (different names but same model),
And for most of us download size isn't an issue any more these days. Or maybe it would be possible to have a separate downlad package "additional textures" or something like that ?
Don't know how the random ship creation works - does it choose from all available models or only from those that are in the code ?
 
I understand what you mean. The problem is that the Build is not just getting big. It's getting RIDICULOUS! :shock
Additional downloads are quite hard to manage from a coding perspective and keeping things up-to-date.
I don't like removing people's work and at the moment I'm not sure what we should remove.
Once I'm back home, I suppose we'll have a look into what would be the best thing to do.
 
If we can complete this project, we would have a proper, full feature list that would allow us to:
1. Define a full to-do list for Build 14 to be finished
2. Give us a base on which to write Manuals, Documentation and Articles
3. Allow us to select those mods that we'd want to include in a CoAS Build 15 project

What do I have to do to encourage people to help with this? I can't do all this on me onesy, considering I also need to do actual modding work, fixing stuff, compiling new Beta editions, posting help on the forum, posting promotional articles on the ModDB and even having a real life. I have a two-month holiday, am still stuck without a laptop and I'm getting close to only having one and a half month left. That is not much to do everything I want. In fact, there is NO WAY I am going to manage it all! So I really need some help!
 
Things have finally slowed down a bit for me at work Pieter, and I hadn't forgot about the feature list mate, just haven't gotten around to giving it a thorough inspection yet. I have gotten a bit distracted with the CoAS mods lately though.

There is no way you can possibly do everything yourself, and no one here expects you to. Do what you need to do Pieter, obviously real life always comes first. If some projects end up suffering because no one picks up the slack, then that's just the way things will have to be.
 
Well, in this case I reckon that this project really should be a priority because it'll allow us to do those three things I mentioned in my previous post. And we really DO need a comprehensive to-do list to be able to figure out how to actually finish Build 14.

And the fact that it requires NO modding knowledge to do means that ANYBODY could do it. Basically any project that ANYBODY could do, I'd prefer to NOT have to do so that I can do other things that require someone with a bit more coding knowledge. For one thing, I'd like to try my hand at changing the code that gives weapons to characters. No idea how to handle that one though...
 
Hi Pieter,

thanks for pointing me to this thread from the "Source Code" thread. I have very limited time myself, but I also see the necessity to complete this list, if we want to do things properly, so I will try to contribute. Is the list in the original post the current one or do you have a later one?

Cheers,
Sulan
 
V3 of the list is the latest one I did before my laptop got fried.
It's attached to this post: http://forum.piratesahoy.net//features-of-the-build-mod-t15438.html/page__view__findpost__p__358935

And thanks for offering to help, Sulan! I reckon if many people are willing to pitch in, it shouldn't be too much work for any one person. :no
 
Pieter, I spent the last hour or so going over the feature list, and just from memory, it looks to be a very complete list. There was one thing I noticed though, there was no mention of the Stormy Start Mod, at least not that I could find. It's possible I just missed it though, after playing with Gimp the past couple of weeks I may not be seeing things quite right! xD:

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I have started looking through the list in detail now, and when I get the chance, I will compare it with all the documentation I have and let you know if I find anything else. Again mate, sorry I took so long getting to this, but I am on it now! :dance
 
Oh, it's not complete, I assure you. Especially the gray stuff still needs filling in and expanding.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Oh, it's not complete, I assure you. Especially the gray stuff still needs filling in and expanding.
Click to expand...

Ah, OK, got ya now mate! I was wondering about all the gray stuff ...sometimes I am a little slow! :rolleyes: I'll keep track of everything I find and write it up in a convenient text file for ya Pieter.

Captain Maggee said:
Thanks for the look at it Thagarr, greatly appreciated :yes
Click to expand...

It's the least I can do mate! Now if I can just avoid being distracted till I get this done.... :wp
 
Thanks a lot, mate! What I was doing is going through the Feature Lists and files in the Documentation folder and putting everything in that bulleted text file in order. The gray stuff indicates the areas that I didn't really start on filling up yet, but there might still be stuff missing from the other areas as well. It's going to end up a huge file, but if we can convince other people to contribute also, it shouldn't be that much work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top