Minor bugs in Beta 3.3

[Grey Roger]

I'm now well into the "Assassin" storyline under Beta 3.3 and it's definitely an improvement over both Beta 3.1 and Beta 3.2. There are a couple of minor bugs, nothing that messes with gameplay - perhaps call them buglets.

After boarding an enemy ship, all the enemy crew on the deck are dead and so are some of mine. Time to loot bodies. All the bodies (and, for that matter, the survivors) have names consistent with the nation of the enemy ship. For example, in this storyline I'm under the flag of Spain, I've just boarded a Dutch ship, and all the crew have Dutch names - even mine, who are in Spanish uniform.

Returning to Havana, I'm met by a random thug in the port, one of my officers takes a shot at him and hits someone else, one thing leads to another, and basically we end up massacring everyone in port. Time to loot bodies. That's when I find that the soldiers are actually self-propelled munitions bunkers:


There seems to be a peculiar, unfinished weapon:

I don't know what a magic wand which summons lightning is doing in a game which is trying to be realistic, and I really hope nobody else gets hold of one and starts using it against me. Is there any way to get rid of it? Not sell or drop it, but edit a file or two so that it never appears again? (Better would be to hide it somewhere the same way Clint's super-shotgun is hidden, so you have to go somewhere and do something special to get the magic wand.) In any case, it seems to still need its name to be assigned properly.

Navigation is still fouled up. Having done the job in the "Alliance" section, I was sailing out of Sao Jorge, Concepcion, trying to direct sail at least part of the way to Havana, so I was heading northwest. "Land Ho" came up, and I was off the south coast of Barbados, a bit further east than a NW course from Concepcion should have taken me, but no real problem. I turned to west intending to pass Barbados and then turn northward again. "Land Ho" came up again, and now I was between Concepcion and the mainland, a long way south of where I should have been despite not having been on a remotely southward course since leaving Concepcion. I loaded up my saved game at Sao Jorge, went to worldmap as soon as I was clear of the harbour and pointing north, and got to Havana without any serious trouble.

Although there's a minor oddity at Havana. I can be on the worldmap, sail next to Havana yet there's no message about being near an island. I go to sea view, and all that's in view is sea. Back to worldmap, where I immediately get a message that I'm near an island; back to sea, where I am indeed now next to Havana.

 

[Dextr]

There seems to be a peculiar, unfinished weapon

Aha, so the only thing left to do is x10 the damage dealt by it, add it to the player's inventory at the beginning of the game and create an accordingly new profession - wizard

Better would be to hide it somewhere the same way Clint's super-shotgun is hidden, so you have to go somewhere and do something special to get the magic wand.

BTW, Clint has the shotgun only in some time periods, in other he has a brace of 4 horse pistols.

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

The maquahuilt is a maya weapon and will be an unique quest weapon only available in my storylines.
I'll ask Pieter to let this weapon available in the next updates only through the console.c
Last thing, i like this weapon and Jack Rackham did a great work. I'm a bit disappointed to read some comments in the forum.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I have noticed the names also. It is a minor thing so I never mentioned it. It is still an improvement over how it used to be with skeletons and women in dresses running all over the ship.

I too have noticed the recent change in the soldier's load and do not like it. Dunno what the purpose is.

There is a small island between Sao Jorge and Barbados that can really toss you about the map. I can direct sail between Barbados and Sao Jorge fine, but it takes a long time to fully get past that little island's influence. I have ended up South of Sao Jorge many times.

Finding Havana can be a problem because of the size of Cuba. The Land Ho!, no land, Land Ho!, land routine is normal. It can happen at Hispaniola too.

That special Aztec weapon was mentioned months ago and I didn't know it made it into the game. A magic wand eh? Does it fit in the storyline ok? A 3 second reload time sounds very fast for lightning strikes.

 

[Grey Roger]

The only skeletons I remember were the crew of the Black Pearl; the only women in dresses I remember, unless you changed the boarder model variable to have your own boarders be women, were the occasional one-eyed wench. There were also sometimes other women, e.g. Catalina or the icy-eyed blonde piratess, who didn't wear dresses; it might be good to have them back.

As well as soldiers, you sometimes get to loot the body of a dead captain after the final battle in the cabin. He has silly amounts of ammo as well, and sometimes a pile of weapons.

The island between Concepcion and Barbados is Petit Tabac, the cause of a bit of confusion a while ago because an inaccurate map put an island of that name somewhere near Hispaniola and led some people trying to raid the silver train astray. But I didn't run into that island this time; one "Land Ho" put me next to Barbados, the next "Land Ho" put me south of Concepcion, and I never saw Petit Tabac. (Correction to my previous post: it was the entire island of Cuba, not specifically the port of Havana, which wasn't announced until I'd gone to sailing mode and then back to worldmap. Once I've found Cuba, Havana is easy, it's up at the north end.)

At the moment the maquahuitl doesn't fit into any storyline, I found two of them in random treasure chests. Having it unique and tied to a storyline would perhaps make more sense. The real maquahuitl was an Aztec melee weapon, basically a wooden club inlaid with shards of obsidian. It couldn't call down lightning but it could decapitate a man or possibly even a horse. That could make an interesting weapon in the game, perhaps carried by various natives (especially temple guards).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The newly added weapon is a very recent experiment. While it was included in the code, it is NOT supposed to ever show up at random.
I am not sure why it does, but that is definitely a bug and I'll check it as soon as I can.

As for the amount of ammunition carried by soldiers, do you have any idea since when that has started to occur?
Was it the MOST recent release or the one before it? There can be a few culprits:
- LAi_event.c rewrite (shouldn't be, but never know)
- Re-equipping soldiers on each location could perhaps, maybe, theoretically be giving them a bit extra ammunition on each reload
- Unintentional side-efect of some of @Jack Rackham's work?
Not sure what would be the case here, really....

At the moment the maquahuitl doesn't fit into any storyline, I found two of them in random treasure chests. Having it unique and tied to a storyline would perhaps make more sense. The real maquahuitl was an Aztec melee weapon, basically a wooden club inlaid with shards of obsidian. It couldn't call down lightning but it could decapitate a man or possibly even a horse. That could make an interesting weapon in the game, perhaps carried by various natives (especially temple guards).

That is exactly what is supposed to be the case. We'll get there.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I have not started playing the latest release, so it would be the one before that. The one dated 23 Oct. 2014.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Thanks. That rules out the LAi_events.c rewrite.

Can you confirm it really only applies to soldiers?
And can you check on a new game if the problem is apparent immediately or does it gradually get worse?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I started a new game (Assassin) and went free play. Looted some French and Dutch soldiers and their ammo loads were ok at 24 each powder and shot.

But I know from experience when boarding ships later in a game at much higher levels that the corpses there normally have 4,000 of each and not much else.

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

unique and tied to a storyline would perhaps make more sense.

This is what I want. As I said, the weapon will be a quest-item and will be found in a temple. At the moment, I don't want this item used by anyone except the player.
Another thought, not especially for you Grey Roger but for the entire comunity, in my storylines I can accept some advices, I'm not a dictator, but I won't release a quest if I think I cannot put all the features I want to. That's why for instance, I don't want the lightning effects removed from the weapon.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I played a bit of another storyline at level 33 and looted 2 Spanish soldiers. 5,000 powder.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Please extract attached to your main game folder and press F11 to reinitialize.
That should make the "pistolmaquahuitl" a quest only item just like it should be.

Additionally, looks like I was correct on my ammo suspicion. Looks like soldiers now get resupplied with some ammo on every single location reload.
Apparently that stacks up pretty quickly. This code change should ensure they only get new ammo if they don't already have some.

Please let me know if this behaves a bit more sensibly.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Will this code reset them to the standard load? I just tried it and the soldiers still have over 5,000 powder.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

No, it won't. In fact, it wouldn't have worked at all, because I missed a bit.
Attached one should fix it properly and also restore all the already-messed-up soldiers.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Well, the soldiers now have their powder reset but not their musket balls. Haven't chescked an early period to see about pistols, although sometimes the late period soldiers also have pistol balls.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Third time's a charm.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ayup! Third time's the charm!

 

[Grey Roger]

Thanks, Pieter! I finally got time to play some more PotC, installed the fix, and sure enough the soldiers do have more sensible amounts of ammo.

It seems that captains in large cabins accompanied by some crew aren't lootable, but captains in small cabins whom you meet by themselves are. I don't know how captains can stack up ammo because you only meet each one once, briefly. Nevertheless, before the patch, those captains which I could loot had silly amounts of ammo, like soldiers. With the patch, the captains have sensible amounts of ammo, like soldiers.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Those unlootable captains were indeed reported before by @Jason. Not sure why it happens, but I don't think it is an easy fix.
There are plenty of lootable characters left, so I am not too fussed.

The enemy captains are generally the same characters being reused over and over again. I suspect that was why they were included in the ammo weirdness.
In any case, that is all back to normal, so no worries there.

Please also keep an eye out for that maquahuitl. It really shouldn't be showing up anymore, but weirder things have happened.

 

[Grey Roger]

Another thought, not especially for you Grey Roger but for the entire comunity, in my storylines I can accept some advices, I'm not a dictator, but I won't release a quest if I think I cannot put all the features I want to. That's why for instance, I don't want the lightning effects removed from the weapon.

That's us back on common ground, then. Of course I didn't mean to limit your (or, for that matter, any other modder's) creativity in designing stories and special items to go with them! What had me worried was that the lightning weapon had escaped and I'd found more than one of them hiding in treasure chests.

Perhaps, in addition to the lightning weapon in the quest, we could have a realistic melee maquahuitl which is more generally available, wielded by natives or to be found in treasure chests.