Flag Locators Repair Project

[Armada]

Hello all,

This thread is for us to track the progress made in fixing the flag locator issues on most ships,
which we have now speculated to be the cause of the random graphical anomalies encountered at sea.
Discussion on this began here: http://forum.pirates...post__p__396538

The intention is to go through all ships in the game and ensure each one works correctly.
So, here are the ships which now work correctly, having been tested and repaired:

- All Corvette models (Light Frigates)
- All Lugger models (Luggers)
- Barque1 (European Barque)
- Barque2 (European Barque)
- Barque3_50 (Jackass Bark)
- Barque4_47 (English Bark)
- Brig1 (Heavy Brig)
- Brig2 (Heavy Brig)
- Brig3 (Heavy Brig)
- Brig3_44 (Heavy Brig)
- Brig4_44 (Heavy Brig)
- Packetbr (Packet Brig)

Ships pending confirmation that they now work correctly include:

- [None at the present time]

Ships which are thought to cause the bug include:

- Schooner1 (Gaff Schooner)
- Schooner2 (Gaff Schooner)
- Schooner3_44 (Gaff Schooner)
- Schnyava1 (Snow Brig)
- Schnyava2 (Snow Brig)
- Galeon5W (English War Galleon)
- SchoonerWar1_18 (Naval Topsail Schooner)

Watch this topic for regular updates and downloads; all testers are welcome to help out!

 

[morgan terror]

since i've got no idea what the codename for these ships is, i'll have to write down the in-game names for ships that still have the big last time i checked:

gaff schooner
snow brig
english war galleon
naval topsail schooner
packet brig (fixed now)
at least one of the light frigates

there's more of them, but those are the ones i found myself so far.

 

[Armada]

Good point, we should probably list both the ID and the in-game name of each ships, for clarity's sake.
I'll see about reconfiguring the first post for that.

At some point, we might need a text file containing all the ships and their names, so we can easily find the codes of ships spotted in-game.
Currently, you have to cross-check ships_init.c with common.ini to figure that out.

 

[Black Bart]

So what exactly will this change entail? Do you need to use the ship modeling tools at all to fix the locators or is it simple 'text' editting of certain files? If the former it might be better if people familiar with the graphic tools do the task to avoid 'other' errors creeping in? If the later give this monkey a decent list of names of ships(ship code as well as 'normal' names maybe?) and the location and names of the files needing editing and i'll be happy to help out(between bananas).

If this is a huge task then i'm prepared to under go 'training' in using the graphical tools etc Basicaly you don't have to do this alone if it seems too daunting! I'll let you guys organise this thread and decide which way is best. It would be a huge advantage to get rid of these graphical glitches and i'm pretty stocked we seem to have the answer

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Black Bart: The work I have been doing needs three tools. GMViewer, TOOL, and notepad++. They are all available around here somewhere, and are actually easy to use, but can be confusing to set up. Also, you will need to use the console to get the ship you want to test in game.

I'm in poor condition today and will be for the rest of the week, so this will probably get garbled.......

The attached screenie shows my latest work. This is for the Jackass Bark. I haven't sailed the ship in this form yet but it is exactly the same as the English Bark, which I have sailed and demasted and will say is ok. I did that yesterday morning before the party started. :beer

First get the ship in game. I used the Assassin Quest. Look at the flags/pennants and decide what needs doing.

Then go to ships.init.c and make sure it agrees with your ideas. Change it if needed. ( The path to ships.init.c is in the screenie.) This one needed changing. I moved the flag from mast2 to mast3.

Now open TOOL and look at the masts. I changed the numbers for the flag/pennants so that no.1 was the one I wanted to see in game. The screenie shows this.

Play POTC to see what you got. What I got was a good ship with no fractals, but the flag was all wrong.

Open GMViewer and TOOL. Look at mast3 in both. This is where I am today. I am reshaping the flag to look like a flag. When I am done I will post them to the FTP.

Try it. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Done. As well as I know how to make it, anyway.

Barque1,2,3_50,&4_47 have all been tested by me and when sailing alone with a mast missing are good. They are on the FTP, both old and new, so please confirm that they are ok.

PS: The Snow Brig has a problem. The compound mast can not be read in TOOL. Let us hope the problem is not there.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Try putting this line in the console:

LogIt("Played ship type = " + pchar.ship.type);

Pressing F12 should then tell you the ID of the ship you're currently sailing.

Just in case there's still any confusion, here's a short summary of how the mod is supposed to work:

ALL sets of flag locators MUST have an accompanying set of penn locators in the same model file.
The penn locators do not need to be in the exact same coordinates as the flag ones,
so you can resize both sets according to their type seperately.

In ships_init.c, the number of refShip.Flags lines must correspond with the number of flags to display on the model.
In other words, this should be half of the number of flag and penn locators combined.
The number of flag and penn locators in the models should be equal.
You can decide in what order you want the flags/pennants by setting FLAG_ENSIGN or FLAG_PENNANT accordingly.
Note that this can require some trial-and-error because the masts in ships_init.c do not always correspond with the model files.
Personally I like to have an ensign on the main mast and stern and have pennants on all other masts.

If, for whatever reason, the penn locators cannot be added, none of the ship's model files must have penn locators.
The ship will then need this line in ships_init.c: refShip.Flags.NoPennants = true;
All refShip.Flags lines must then be of the FLAG_ENSIGN type.

 

[Black Bart]

Well it does sound pretty complex/messy! maybe you really don't want a rank amateur(with a penchant for quick and dirty fixes!) poking around with this

If i find the discipline to work out how to do it properly i'll give it a go, but for now i still have quite a bit of dialogue stuff to sort through, and will look more into this later on :

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Last week I noticed that the fractals/GA got bad when there were luggers around. I also noticed that they have 2 flags on their main mast. k Last night I looked into it, and the rear mast had no flag/pennant. So. I added a flag and pennant to the rear mast and lost the pennant on the front mast but got a flag on the main and stern mast. Long story short, after much frustration I tried hitting F11, and suddenly the changes I was making worked. So, the luggers now have a pennant, flag, and a ribbon on the stern. I'm no modeler it seems.

I put them in the FTP along with the needed ships.init.c. I installed them in an older install and there were no problems in over an hour of play.

One thing I noticed is that the straight Build 14 install has much worse fractals/GA than the hybrid B13/B14 install. I'm going to recommend POTC be installed that way from now on. For example, with the hybrid install the snow brig gave almost no issues when demasted in two different battles. But with the B14 install the GA were so heavy I could hardly see at all.

Another thing. The forts at Kralendijk, Santiago, and Havana do not have flags. They do have flag poles. Would that be a cause for concern?

 

[Armada]

Last week I noticed that the fractals/GA got bad when there were luggers around. I also noticed that they have 2 flags on their main mast. k Last night I looked into it, and the rear mast had no flag/pennant. So. I added a flag and pennant to the rear mast and lost the pennant on the front mast but got a flag on the main and stern mast. Long story short, after much frustration I tried hitting F11, and suddenly the changes I was making worked. So, the luggers now have a pennant, flag, and a ribbon on the stern. I'm no modeler it seems.

I noticed that strange double-flag problem too, but never looked into it.
Why did you end up with a 'ribbon' on the stern...? :blink:

One thing I noticed is that the straight Build 14 install has much worse fractals/GA than the hybrid B13/B14 install.

This is really starting to annoy me now. There shouldn't be so many differences between B14 Full and B13+14 Light, yet there do seem to be.
Maybe we need to have a closer look at what B14 Light adds to B13, compared with B14 Full alone.
Could someone with an install of both types do a WinMerge comparison?

Another thing. The forts at Kralendijk, Santiago, and Havana do not have flags. They do have flag poles. Would that be a cause for concern?

That certainly sounds like it could be a problem.
Are the fort flags added in the same way as ship flags? If so, maybe the flag locators are not correct, or not present.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Why did you end up with a 'ribbon' on the stern...? :blink:


Because it was late and I wanted to test them in game. It is easy to change.

I have no idea how to do forts.

Can Winmerge handle folders that big? My installs are 9-10gb. I've tried Winmerge twice and really don't know what I'm looking at.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you make any changes in ships_init.c, including flag/pennant ones, you must first press F11 for them to take effect.

The Bonaire/Douwesen fort never even had a flag in the stock game, so that has to be unrelated.

WinMerge is perfect for comparing full PotC installations with each other; I do that all the time.
The only difference between Build 14 Full clean and Build 13 + Build 14 is that the latter method leaves some unused files.
It really should make absolutely zero difference. If there'd be files missing in Build 14, you'd get crashes and missing texture errors.

 

[Armada]

The Bonaire/Douwesen fort never even had a flag in the stock game, so that has to be unrelated.

So in that case we can assume that fort doesn't have the flag locators, right?
Is there code in place which should make a flag appear there, as long as the locators are present?

The only difference between Build 14 Full clean and Build 13 + Build 14 is that the latter method leaves some unused files.

Well perhaps those unused files are more of an influence than previously thought.
If all other files are exactly identical, then what else could be causing the differences? It really doesn't make sense.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Well, I can work GMViewer and TOOL well enough to find that there is a flagpole and flag locators at Bonaire/Douwesen.


I can not get Winmerge to look at anything but individual files.

No it doesn't make sense. That is why I am asking if someone else can duplicate what I am seeing. We know the water is different between them. Maybe the excessive graphic anomalies are a part of the location where the battle happened.

 

[Black Bart]

In terms of the ships, i take it there are more reworked ships in Build 14 over Build 13? Maybe on the hybrid install some of the Build 13 ship models are not getting overwritten by the Build 14 ones(for some reason that makes no sense really, as they should be!), or simply there being more of the reworked ships with the locator issues in build 14 means you see more graphical annomolies on that version?

I've only used Build 14 myself so far(well Build 12 previously, but all that had long gone from my PC), and do see the graphical mess during ship battles most times, but i've never had an issue with the way the sea or sky looks.

In terms of the Forts with flag locators but no flags/flag poles, why not just remove the locators? to be safe?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

There are a lot more and better ships in build 14 than build 13. There are at least 250 ships now, and some culling is needed. There are no graphic anomalies in build 13, so it is something in build 14 doing it, and the consensus is that it is the flag mod.

I'm off the charts here, but I would guess that there is a file similar to the ships.init.c somewhere for the fort flags. The flagpole is there as well as the flag locators. Maybe there is a clue somewhere else.

 

[morgan terror]

it's been a longstanding suspicion of mine that it might have something to do with the new flags added. it started occuring somewhere around the moment that they were introduced. before that, there was only a single file from which the flags were selected which had a maximum limit, so a second file was made for the other flags. unless i'm mistaken.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I never checked if the fort does have flag locators, but indeed probably not.
If the locator are added, the flag should show up straight away.

Build 14 Beta 1 overwrites all Build 13 files.
The additional patches might not if you don't let it, but YOU SHOULD!
Not doing so is going to cause massive issues.

There's now 54(!) files with flags instead of only one as before.
I'm pretty much convinced that the fractals have something to do with the Different Flags mod, but am not sure what part of it.
I'm not convinced it is to do with errors in the locators, because we did have them correct and up-to-date before.
At the time, we checked every single ship to make sure the flags displayed correctly.
The appropriate locator-work was done mostly by me, but Captain Maggee did some ships that I couldn't open on my computer.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I give up on the Luggers. Most of them do not recognize "penn" in the mast GM and show two flags. The locators work. I have renamed the "penn" to "flag" and gotten long skinny flags. Nothing else I tried had any effect.

The luggers like that are: lugger2, lugger5_44, lugger6_44, lugerCT, luggerCT2, luggerCT3. IMO these ships should be sunk. I just finished a battle where one lost a mast, and I swear I saw two masts fall!

The good ones are: Lugger1, Lugger3, LuggerVML. Here is a zip for my Lugger1 with a streamer. If you don't like it I'll put a pennant on it. I was using blue and white striped sails and the Dutch flag, and it looked so good I renamed it to "Carnival".

I was getting GA with the barque longue (barqem1) last night. Methinks it is because it has a lot of ropes ending in mid air. Does anyone have AOP? It can be repaired except that mast3 can not be read in TOOL. The alternative is to remove a lot of rigging and leave it like that. I would rather add ropes rather than remove sails and ropes.

 

[Talisman]

I was getting GA with the barque longue (barqem1) last night. Methinks it is because it has a lot of ropes ending in mid air. Does anyone have AOP? It can be repaired except that mast3 can not be read in TOOL. The alternative is to remove a lot of rigging and leave it like that. I would rather add ropes rather than remove sails and ropes.

Which do you mean AoP Caribbean Tales - or AoP City of Abandoned Ships :?

I have both

Which files do you want :mm