Need Help List of available ships?

[ExtincE]

Hey guys!

I'm trying to find an up-to-date list with ships available for purchase at the shipyard, but having a hard time. I did find a list on the Wiki, but it appears to be heavily outdated.

Why? Well, i'm playing in Free Play under Personal Flag and with no allegiance to any particular nation. As neither Privateer nor Naval officer it seems it is not possible for my to buy a single Tier 5 ship or higher, even though my leadership by now is at 10.

So, is there a list anywhere that shows which ships can be purchased at a shipyard? Or is it simply impossible to buy ships from tier 5 onwards unless you're high enough rank in a navy / privateer?

Thanks in advance

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Are you not seeing any Tier 5 ships or above for sale at all? Or are you seeing them, but the game isn't letting you buy them?

At the bottom of PROGRAM\globals.c you can set:

int DEBUG =                 1;         // debug mode

If I recall, that makes ALL available ships show up in the Repaint Interface.
Then you have a look to see what's there.

Note that Period limitations still apply; so if you do this in Early Explorers, you get to see a different list of ships than in Napoleonic.

Or is it simply impossible to buy ships from tier 5 onwards unless you're high enough rank in a navy / privateer?

Yep. From PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h:

/* ----REALISTIC SHIP PURCHASE----
This mod disables the selling of navy ships to characters who don't have a high enough national rank

Note: Navy ships are ships that have Type.War = true and Type.Trade = false
      If you want a certain ship to not be considered a navy ship, change these settings in ships_init.c

Settings per ship class:
------------------------
-1 = No LoM required
 0 = Only a LoM required
>0 = National rank required (see nations_init.c)
Set all to -1 to disable this mod
*/
#define RANK_FOR_EIGHTH_RATE            -1        // Default: No LoM Required
#define RANK_FOR_SEVENTH_RATE            -1        // Default: No LoM Required
#define RANK_FOR_SIXTH_RATE                0        // Only a LoM required
#define RANK_FOR_FIFTH_RATE                2        // Lowest rank: Junior Lieutenant (England)
#define RANK_FOR_FOURTH_RATE            4        // Lowest rank: Senior Lieutenant (England)
#define RANK_FOR_THIRD_RATE                6        // Lowest rank: Captain (England)
#define RANK_FOR_SECOND_RATE            8        // Lowest rank: Rear Admiral (England)
#define RANK_FOR_FIRST_RATE                10        // Lowest rank: Admiral (England)

The logic is that nations don't like selling their warships to people they can't trust.
Of course you could just capture them.

 

[ExtincE]

Thanks Pieter! I'll check that out!

I know you can't buy navy ships with realistic ship purchase enabled but wasn't aware that there were simply only navy ships from tier 5 onwards. That explains

I'll make sure to enable the repaint trick to have a browse through the available ships in my period

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I know you can't buy navy ships with realistic ship purchase enabled but wasn't aware that there were simply only navy ships from tier 5 onwards.

Maybe there are non-navy ones too, but it can't be many of them I think.
May also differ per period. Can't quite remember...

 

[ExtincE]

I'll find out soon enough, figured there wouldn't be many but hadn't encountered any so far which got me wondering

 

[Grey Roger]

Which period are you playing in? In most periods there are "versatile" ships - these are types which count as both merchant and warship, therefore aren't naval, so in theory they should be available for sale without needing a naval rank. Some of these are larger than tier 5, especially the heavy pinnace of war ("WallerPinnace" and "NL_PinnaceofWar47").

It may also depend on shipyard size. Only the largest shipyards can build large ships.

Of course, if you want to cheat, enable cheatmode in "PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h", then you can choose any ship you want when you start the game. You're still limited to ships available to your chosen period but you can start with a tier 1 ship of the line if you like.

Otherwise, as @Pieter Boelen says, just capture the ship of your choice. It works for me - apart from one test run to see what Vanderdecken's shipyard on Isla de Muerte did, I've never bought a ship in any game I played. (That, by the way, is another option for you. Find out how to get to Isla de Muerte, then find Vanderdecken's shipyard. He sells all the ships you can't get by normal means.)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Which period are you playing in? In most periods there are "versatile" ships - these are types which count as both merchant and warship, therefore aren't naval, so in theory they should be available for sale without needing a naval rank. Some of these are larger than tier 5, especially the heavy pinnace of war ("WallerPinnace" and "NL_PinnaceofWar47").

I think "versatile" ships might be subject to the same limitations; only Tier 5 trade-only ships would probably be sold.

 

[Grey Roger]

The condition in "shipyard.c" is:

if(GetLocalShipAttrib(arCurShip, ShipsTypes[st],"Type.War") == true && GetLocalShipAttrib(arCurShip, ShipsTypes[st],"Type.Trade") == false && GetCurrentLocationNation() != PERSONAL_NATION)

That ties in with the comment in "InternalSettings.h":

Note: Navy ships are ships that have Type.War = true and Type.Trade = false

Versatile ships have both "War" and "Trade" set to true, so they won't pass that condition and should not be restricted.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Thanks for checking @Grey Roger!
Yep, then I very clearly thought wrong.

 

[ExtincE]

Which period are you playing in? In most periods there are "versatile" ships - these are types which count as both merchant and warship, therefore aren't naval, so in theory they should be available for sale without needing a naval rank. Some of these are larger than tier 5, especially the heavy pinnace of war ("WallerPinnace" and "NL_PinnaceofWar47").

It may also depend on shipyard size. Only the largest shipyards can build large ships.Otherwise, as @Pieter Boelen says, just capture the ship of your choice. It works for me - apart from one test run to see what Vanderdecken's shipyard on Isla de Muerte did, I've never bought a ship in any game I played. (That, by the way, is another option for you. Find out how to get to Isla de Muerte, then find Vanderdecken's shipyard. He sells all the ships you can't get by normal means.)

Think i'm playing Colonial period? The Nathaniel Hawk period

I'm aware you can just capture ships, and I do, however I also frequently check shipyards to see if their stats are better. Money is no issue in the game anyway, especially not with trade-in prices.

As a general rule of thumb, which are the 'big' shipyards? Martinique, Port Royale, Bonaire?

Also capturing ships is not a very efficient way to find out which ships are available to begin with, and I want to know which ships are available to see what kind of ship I want or want to work towards and if, and what, I'd have to do to get it

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Think i'm playing Colonial period? The Nathaniel Hawk period

Yep; that's Colonial.

 

[Grey Roger]

In "Ships_init.c", any ship with a positive 'refShip.period.3' can be encountered in "Colonial Powers".

Ship class, or tier, is defined by crew size. Disregard the 'refShip.Class' lines; there's a piece of code near the bottom of "Ships_init.c" which sets class by crew size. By definition anything with a maximum crew less than 250 is tier 5 (except that tier 6 is less than 100, tier 7 is less than 60, tier 8 is less than 30). Stats are randomised so you may find a ship which is classed as tier 5 even though it has a few more than 250 crew; that can happen if its maximum crew as defined in "Ships_init.c" is less than 250 but by national modifier and randomisation, it ended up with more than 250.

So what you're looking for is anything in "Ships_init.c" with 'refShip.period.3' greater than 0 and 'refShip.MaxCrew' greater than or equal to 250. And it must also have 'refShip.Type.Trade = true' otherwise it's a warship and you need a naval rank to buy it. Finally it needs 'refShip.CanBuy = true' otherwise it can't appear in shipyards, and probably only appears in quests.

Looking through "Ships_init.c", the ships I can find which match all those criteria are:
"WallerPinnace": known as "Heavy Pinnace of War" in the game, this is practically a battleship but can show up as a merchant.

"NL_FleutWar": in the game this is "Fluyt of War" and is only available from Holland. Other nations have fluyts of war but they have less than 250 crew, so they're tier 5. This one is tier 4.

"NL_PinnaceofWar47": Dutch-specific version of "WallerPinnace".

"NL_Amsterdam": Another Dutch-specific ship, known as "Spiegelretourschip".

Summary: try your luck in Dutch shipyards, they may have more types than anyone else which meet your needs. Otherwise look out for a "Heavy Pinnace of War", which is tier 3.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Looking through "Ships_init.c", the ships I can find which match all those criteria are:

Use ENABLE_CHEATMODE plus DEBUG in globals.c so you can use the Select Storyline interface to find the ships matching your criteria.
That's what I used to do. Nice and easy.

"NL_Amsterdam": Another Dutch-specific ship, known as "Spiegelretourschip".

 

[Grey Roger]

What does DEBUG do in this context? I know about using cheatmode to allow you to select any ship valid for the period you chose; you can select "versatile" ships, you can select ships of a specific tier, but I don't think you can select all ships higher than a specific tier, e.g. "any versatile ship bigger than tier 5". Also, I don't think you can select only those ships which can be bought in a shipyard, so you'll also get quest ships.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What does DEBUG do in this context?

Shows the ship ID as well, so you can find the model files and code and use it in the character init files or something.

I don't think you can select all ships higher than a specific tier, e.g. "any versatile ship bigger than tier 5".

True; you'd have to cycle through tiers 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 in succession then.
Still probably faster and easier than directly analysing the code though.
For me it would be, in any case.

Also, I don't think you can select only those ships which can be bought in a shipyard, so you'll also get quest ships.

Indeed I think Vanderdecken ships are included.
But once you recognize those (they're generally quite obvious), it should be easy to ignore them while scrolling and focus on the "real" ships.

 

[ExtincE]

So I just checked the ships_init.c file and I noticed it opens with some ship stats per nation. Am I correct in interpreting them as:
English have 20% more capacity, 15% more HP and cost 10% more,
Spanish have 35% more capacity, 10% more HP and cost 5% more,
Pirate Ships have a 10% boost to speed and turnrate, but 20% less HP
Dutch ships get 30% more capacity, 5% more speed but turn 5% slower

et cetera? If so, I'm assuming this only goes for ships in Shipyards and not for randomly encountered vessels?

Referring to these sections:
"
//Dutch
shipstatsmult.n4.MaxCaliber = 1.00;
shipstatsmult.n4.Weight = 1.00;
shipstatsmult.n4.Capacity = 1.30;
shipstatsmult.n4.MaxCrew = 0.90;
shipstatsmult.n4.MinCrew = 1.00;
shipstatsmult.n4.SpeedRate = 1.05;
shipstatsmult.n4.TurnRate = 0.95;
shipstatsmult.n4.Price = 1.00;
shipstatsmult.n4.HP = 1.00;"

 

[Grey Roger]

So I just checked the ships_init.c file and I noticed it opens with some ship stats per nation. Am I correct in interpreting them as:
English have 20% more capacity, 15% more HP and cost 10% more,
Spanish have 35% more capacity, 10% more HP and cost 5% more,
Pirate Ships have a 10% boost to speed and turnrate, but 20% less HP
Dutch ships get 30% more capacity, 5% more speed but turn 5% slower

et cetera? If so, I'm assuming this only goes for ships in Shipyards and not for randomly encountered vessels?

National modifiers apply to all ships. Those from a shipyard will probably have the national modifiers for the shipyard's nation. Randomly encountered vessels will most likely have the national modifiers for the nation whose flag they're flying. However, those national modifiers are not taken into account when calculating the ship's class, so a Dutch tier 4 ship, which by definition should have a maximum crew of at least 250, could end up with a crew smaller than 250.

Additionally, ships may already have some of the upgrades which you can buy in a shipyard. And the stats are also randomised slightly. So no two ships of the same type will ever be quite the same.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Am I correct in interpreting them as:
English have 20% more capacity, 15% more HP and cost 10% more,
Spanish have 35% more capacity, 10% more HP and cost 5% more,
Pirate Ships have a 10% boost to speed and turnrate, but 20% less HP
Dutch ships get 30% more capacity, 5% more speed but turn 5% slower

et cetera?

That's correct. Though some additional randomization is applied as well.

If so, I'm assuming this only goes for ships in Shipyards and not for randomly encountered vessels?

It also goes for randomly encountered vessels.
Even more, a Dutch ship doesn't necessarily get the Dutch bonuses as sometimes the game pretends that one of the ships is captured.
Refer to the "National Design" that you see in the F2>Ship Interface.

 

[ExtincE]

Hmm... so it helps frequenting Spanish and Dutch shipyards earlier on for higher chance of good cargo capacity, and so on. That's really cool. You guys have done such awesome jobs

Another question: I've enabled cheatmode to see which vessels are available in what tiers and I must say, the Danish ships look magnificent. Are they available for purchase / capture without having Sweden enabled, or only if Sweden is enabled?

 

[Grey Roger]

Which Danish ships? I didn't know we had any Danish ships in the game!

There are no ships specific to Sweden. If Sweden is enabled, it gets a limited selection of the ships which are available to other nations. You do not lose access to any ship types by having Sweden disabled. Even the "Swedish East Indiaman" is available to other nations - Britain, France and Portugal, to be exact.