Merchants carry huge number of items

[smrtwhkd]

Not sure if this is a bug. Merchants suddenly are carrying huge number of single items as in the screen shot below.

 

[Grey Roger]

Which version of the game are you playing?

Can you upload "compile.log", "system.log", and "error.log" if it exists? Also a saved game may help.

 

[smrtwhkd]

I am playing the latest version: Gamma, I believe. This issue is weird:
1. My last stop was in Grand Turk
2. Then I travel to La Grenade using Directsail only. When I land at port, I went to a street merchant. It shows these huge quantities.
3. I also checked the main store merchant. Same issue.

 

[Grey Roger]

Did any of the street merchants or stores at Grand Turk or San Juan also have silly amounts of equipment, or was Sao Jorge the first one to show the problem?

 

[smrtwhkd]

Sao Jorge was the first one to show this issue. That's why it's so weird. However, this was not my first ever trip to Sao Jorge. I didn't have this issue on my 1st trip to Sao Jorge.

 

[Grey Roger]

I can't read that savegame. Would you be able to use 7-Zip to archive it instead of WinRar?

Alternatively, put the attached file into your "PROGRAM" folder. Load the savegame in Sao Jorge and press F12. A message "Executed Console" should appear on screen. If it doesn't, I've made a mistake in that file, in which case upload "error.log" and I'll fix it. If the message does appear, upload "compile.log". That "console.c" file contains a command which should put a lot of information about the town into the log file.

 

[smrtwhkd]

Here is the 7-zip version. Please let me know if it still doesn't work.

 

[Grey Roger]

That's still not working either. I can't even examine it with Hex-Editor to see if it looks like any of my own savegame files. The file name is also odd, it appears as "-=Sao01=- La Grenade. S輔 Jorge town August 8th, 1740" - there are Japanese characters in what should be "Sao".

Try that console file. Log files are plain text and can be uploaded directly without needing to be compressed.

 

[smrtwhkd]

The console file already exists in PROGRAM folder. Should I replace it or rename the original one as a backup?

 

[smrtwhkd]

Here is the compile.log Should I revert back to the original console.c file or keep the one you sent me?

 

[Grey Roger]

That's your choice. You can put back the original or keep this one in case you want to check up on Sao Jorge again later.

One other odd thing about Sao Jorge is that it has a large negative amount of gold. I'd be interested to know how that happened, especially as it is probably related to the strange amount of items. Ask at the tavern about news, which should include random events such as malaria, pirate raids, slave revolts etc. Then check your ship's log, which should show all such events from the past. See if any refer to Sao Jorge.

Something similar happened last year, also to Sao Jorge:
Cannot Confirm - Broken Shopkeeper: Grenadas slow descent into Madness

That person posted a zip file containing several savegames which I was able to read, and I was able to sort out Sao Jorge by leaving the island, going to Bridgetown to progress the main story (this player was playing "Tales of a Sea Hawk", or rather, not playing it and had made very little progress). When I then returned to Sao Jorge, the town's item stocks were back to sensible levels. Try doing something similar - go to another town, if you have a quest which has been incomplete for a while then do something to progress it, then return to Sao Jorge and see if the money and items are back to reasonable levels.

 

[smrtwhkd]

Oh, I see. Just out of curiosity. Was this issue caused by extensive use of directsail? I used a lot of directsail this time around, which I have never been able to do in previous games. I have never seen this merchant madness before. Would there be any underlying correlation between the two things?

 

[smrtwhkd]

I don't see anything in particular for Sao Jorge. Please see the screen shot below. Also, I am playing freeplay with Sao Feng. There is no main storyline to follow. I am currently executing the quest to help tailor at Sao Jorge, which requires a ton of leather and I can only do that through multiple shipments.

 

[Grey Roger]

Was this issue caused by extensive use of directsail?

It's such an odd, rare problem that I've no idea what's causing it. The last person to report it never replied, so all I know is that the problem disappeared after I went to Barbados to progress the main story, then to Port Royale, and subsequently back to Sao Jorge. But delaying progress in a main story obviously isn't a factor in a FreePlay! Sidequests could be a factor, though. In theory DirectSail could be a factor, simply because at this point anything could be a factor.

Basically, something has played havoc with Sao Jorge's economy. According to that "compile.log" after you used "console", its economy is rated 0, which isn't as bad as it sounds - economies are rated from -2 (starving) to +2 (wealthy), so 0 is right in the middle (surviving). Yet it has negative gold and a huge pile of items. It could be that, if you've been DirectSailing a lot, the wind has been unfavourable, you've taken a very long time to get to Sao Jorge so it's updated itself repeatedly and gone wrong with one of the updates.

The other possible factor is the fetch quest for the tailor. I know that messes with the town's goods, specifically removing the town's stock of whatever you're supposed to be fetching because otherwise you could just go round the corner to the store, buy what the tailor wants, then return to the tailor. Whether that also affects the town's money reserve, and in turn the stock of items, I've no idea. I'll need to look into that.

 

[smrtwhkd]

1. Yes. I have had a lot of unfavorable winds. However, I turn off Directsail from time to time because Directsail would increment a day when time passes the top of hour. So I usually turn off DS when the time is nearing top of hour and re-engage DS once time passes it. So I go from Turk to Sao Jorge in 2-3 days. Or maybe we can reduce the frequency of updates?
2. Fetch quest. Instead of remove the item, could we just reduce the item down to 1 or some extremely low number? That way you don't have to mess with removing the thing altogether.

Also, btw. I checked other towns. They seem fine. This issue seems to only happen in Sao Jorge.

 

[Grey Roger]

If you're disabling DirectSail to avoid the 1 hour days then you probably sail to Sao Jorge in less time than I do using worldmap, and I've never seen this problem. So it's probably not to do with the number of updates, unless something different is happening to them in DirectSail. I'd be surprised if that's the case, they probably happen each day regardless of sailing mode.

As for fetch quests, I've yet to find out whether removing goods as part of the quest does affect the town's money, but if it does, it probably wouldn't matter whether the quest removes the town's entire stock, or the entire stock less 1. If the game decides that the town is minus a few million gold after losing the whole lot, it's still going to be minus most of that few million if 1 unit of the cargo is left.

Another point which may be coincidence or may be a factor - Conceicao, alias Sao Jorge, is the first town in the game to be initialised, so it's town number 0.

Have you done fetch quests to other towns?

 

[smrtwhkd]

I don't think so. The game is pretty fresh. So this is a run-down of things I have done:
1. Start at Speightown. Complete all tutorial stuff
2. Take an escort quest to Alice town
3. Sail to Alice town, but attacked by a pirate frigate near Governor's harbor. The port fort damaged the pirate and the my escorted merchant finished it off
4. Arrive at Alice town and complete the quest.
5. Then to Sao Jorge and got the fetch quest
6. Did a bit of smuggling and sides quests near St Martinique
7. Then to San Juan and Turk
8. Load up leather at Turk
9. Sail back to Sao Jorge
10. Start to notice the merchant stock issue

 

[Grey Roger]

I'm stumped, then. It just so happened that there was a fetch quest for the tailor in Sao Jorge in a game which I'm playing, so I took it. I didn't go as far as Turks Island to get the leather, only to Barbados, doing a bit of freelance pirating on the way. I was hoping to capture a merchant carrying the leather. One of them did, but nowhere near enough to complete the tailor's order. So I bought the rest from Bridgetown and Speightstown, then returned to Sao Jorge, where I completed the quest. The town still had positive gold and there were no huge piles of equipment for sale.

 

[smrtwhkd]

I am playing another storyline right now. See if I can reproduce it. I also feel that if you wonder around too long without completing any quest (i.e. not making any progress game wise), the bug will start to crop up. Has anyone reported this problem in any of the other towns besides Sao Jorge?

 

[Grey Roger]

As far as I can remember, the problem has only been reported once before, also in Sao Jorge, which may just be coincidence.

Do you have a sidequest in progress which you've left incomplete? Certainly in the previous case, the player had been ignoring the main storyline of "Tales of a Sea Hawk" for a long time, though I'm not sure now if he had been doing any sidequests. When I loaded his savegame and then progressed the main story, Sao Jorge's money and items returned to normal.

If you're still seeing silly amounts of items in Sao Jorge and don't have any sidequests active, you could try a simple experiment - take a sidequest, any sidequest, and complete it. Then return to Sao Jorge. St. Pierre has several quick sidequests which can be completed without leaving the island, plus "Saga of the Blacque Family" which involves going to Port Royale and then back to St. Pierre. Otherwise, if you haven't already picked up Artois Voysey or Nigel Blythe, now might be a good time to do so.