Naval Officer expanded Gameplay

[Andouce]

Alright lads and lassies, been watching this closely and when I saw this build I just had to come and start testing it

Love the new changes so far. I have a few questions on some features though.

1. When you are a Naval Officer, and usually you start the game as a Lieutenant and with 1 officer as a master at arms, I noticed he has a title of midshipman. When you hire someone at a tavern this obviously isn't the case and they just stay with "Officer". Is this a feature of the promotion system? Like it gives you the impression you have a "Naval Officer" as opposed to your average tavern one

I really like that and would like to see pretty much all of the Officers I use to have titles like that if they are in the navy profession. Wonder if you could hire "Naval Officers" in that sense with rank titles to match from your nation so to speak in some way that would fit into the game. (Would give functionality to the Port Royal Naval HQ perhaps?)

2. When you start a new game as a Naval Officer, and it is all set up custom in that regard, could you perhaps choose what ship you start with from a restricted list specified? So if you are a Lieutenant, you usually start with that tier 5 Heavy Brig. This isn't really an issue because I love the new system anyway for the progression of a NO. Cheers

3. How does the boardermodels work as of this build? If you are playing as for example, non-Naval Officer classes, then get a LOM and then rank up to a midshipman etc. Do you then obtain soldiers as your bordermodel or is it only if you are a Naval Officer from start?

If you are a NO from the start are all these aspects already in place ? (Sorry for all the questions but I like clarity on certain areas I love about this game/mod ! )

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The companion midshipman is indeed one of the promotion rewards.
Technically it is possible to apply ranks to all characters in the game. But how and when would you promote Tavern officers?
We have thought of giving NOs a different source of officers, but that would require a fair bit of development time.

The Naval HQ would be a nice thing to put to use but we would first need such a building for each nation then.
Right now there is only one on Jamaica and one on Guadeloupe.

The ship progressions for NOs are pre defined for each nation and period with some variations for specific characters.
That was need to make them period correct and give a sensible progression.
I can think of no simple way of allowing selection from multiple ships.
Partly also because the interface doesn't actually control the ship NOs get as that is defined elsewhere.

A real navy officer would have no choice either and you'll get a new ship on each promotion anyway.

Getting a LoM means becoming a Privateer and not joining the navy. We have now distinguished between those two quite different things.
As Privateer with a LoM, you do not get soldier boarders. That happens only for navy officers now.
For now you cannot join the navy during the game, though there is already a basis in place to allow this in the future.

There are some more details in the Build Info.txt file in your main game folder to show the differences between the various play styles that we have implemented.
And there is a page on our Wiki about the various nation ranks.

I'm glad you like this new feature we have included and all your feedback on it will be appreciated.
There is also still an open issue about it on the Bug Tracker where players lose their navy status for some reason we do not understand.
So please keep an eye on that one if you get the chance!

 

[Andouce]

Thanks for the response! I appreciate it. Yes all of what you say makes sense and I understand the time that would have to go in for the whole officer thing. At the end of the day it is just a "title" but just small details like that make it more enjoyable.....at least for me because I am so into detail

Only currently annoying issue I have encountered is already being tracked, which is that of officer's class types randomly changing into another. Seems to be happening more with members who are part of your landing party "bodyguard" party. I shall keep an eye out for the Naval Officer status issue then but so far not encountered anything major.......yet

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For that changing officer type, try the fix @Levis posted above.
It isn't in the latest update yet but I'll include it on Monday.

If you're willing to help out with expanding on the Naval Officer feature, it would be appreciated.
While we've come a long way since the original game, there is still a lot of room for improvement as you have anyway noted.

 

[Andouce]

Well guys just another thing happened.. Started a new game as a merchant so my profile was "Merchant" but suddendly the F5 was not working and could not save the game but in manual way (Esc-Save Game)

The only issue I have had in regards to saving was when by default it was trying to load "player" profile and it couldn't find it always because it never existed. Thus when in my actual profile saves when i wanted to save it would not show my profile and say that it didn't exist even though a new save did save it into the profile :O

So i created a new game and kept the profile as player, saved one game. Now it finds and saves everything properly in my other profiles the fact that the "player" profile is now there.

@Pieter Boelen - Does Levis fixes sort that issue because I currently have his latest changes and it still seems to occur unfortunately Responded via the appropriate tracking thread in realtion to this issue.

EDIT:

Just thinking about this. How would one go about creating naval officers like the promotion ones with titles ? Would be nice for James Norrington character to have them based off his actual ship crew from the films. Like Theodore Groves etc etc (If it were not an upcoming thing on bottom of a list, just so I could do myself )

Not sure what would be more appropriate though. Given when you reach a certain rank, probably commodore or just have them from the start on the interceptor :/

 

[Pieter Boelen]

His fixes are intended to solve that Changing Post issue, but I haven't checked because I'm not near my game.
Sounds like that may require some further figuring out.

 

[Andouce]

Hi there,

Upon making new characters recently and blasting away suggestions I decided to make a list specifically in relation to Naval Officer gameplay and that associated with each Nation.

Will be updated when new suggestions are made

So here we go:

Changes:

- Expanded missions given by the Governor's of Ports.

* This could be more than the simple destroy x ship. My thoughts currently are:

1. An enemy ship has landed on the coast of town x.

1.1 Meet with the local garrison commander at x location and join them in defeating the enemy landing party.
1.2 (short ending) The enemy has surrendered. Report to the Governor of the news.
1.3 (Long ending) The enemy ship is trying to escape, return to your ship and assist in destroying or capturing the enemy Captain. Report to the Governor of the news once completed.
​

2. An invasion force has been spotted by the local Fort watch. Help defend the port against the enemy.

2.1 Join the local defence fleet and the Fort to destroy/capture enemy ships advancing on port.
2.2 Report news to Governor
​

3. There are reports of an enemy spy in town. Use your sources (Tavern, Store, people, soldiers) to find out who he is and arrest him.

3.1 The spy is found and refuses to surrender leading to a fight
3.2 The spy surrenders and is arrested to appear before the Governor and Garrison Commander.
​

- More Random Encounters

- At night, group of bandits? outlaws? attacking the patrols at night or even you.
- Pirates have infiltrated the area, be aware. Warning from a guard.
- These Pirates could be found within the city somewhere, perhaps randomly attack the city or be located on the outskirts of town.

- More suggestions welcome to this. At the moment I just feel land combat so to speak is very limited currently. Especially if you are doing Freeplay mode so to speak.

​

- Naval Academy

- New Naval Academy (based on levis idea) except that you can join the Nation x's navy upon being successful for examination. (Lieutenant)
- Academy will provide a place for Naval Officer's to be hired based on ship size.
e.g Frigate can have up to 3 Lieutenant's once you are a Captain.
- Upon Major Promotions you must report here to receive your new equipment and letter of promotion.
​

- Admiral of the Fleet and Ranks

- The Highest rank which you can obtain is now Vice Admiral
- When you start the game as a Vice Admiral you will receive a letter from a Captain which explains your role and duties from the Admiral of the Fleet who is back in Europe in X nations Capital

- When you are at a level to be promoted to Lieutenant you must undertake an examination at your nation's Naval Academy. Until you do this and successfully pass, you will remain an "Acting Lieutenant".
- If you fail the examination you will be offered another chance to re-take it in a time frame which will be decided on (x months? x weeks? x days?)

- When receiving promotion or reward officers that are also in the navy and have x rank, they will be stationed on your ship in that role capacity. For example if they are a Senior Lieutenant they will be second in command of your ship.
If a more senior Officer is added aboard your ship they will take over this role and in this case the Senior Lieutenant would downgrade a post matching that.​

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Just for reference, this was my own short initial list of ideas:

Some of the main things I can think of:
- Governor gives different missions than just "sink the coast raider". An obvious option would be : "Capture this town".
- Add "Naval Academies" for all nations where you can JOIN the navy during the game and hire additional NAVY officers.
- Perhaps even add an "Examination for Lieutenant" as part of the regular navy gameplay.

 

[Grey Roger]

- Naval Academy

- New Naval Academy (based on levis idea) except that you can join the Nation x's navy upon being successful for examination. (Lieutenant)
- Academy will provide a place for Naval Officer's to be hired based on ship size.
e.g Frigate can have up to 3 Lieutenant's once you are a Captain.
- Upon Major Promotions you must report here to receive your new equipment and letter of promotion.​

​

France has a naval academy on Guadeloupe. Britain has two on Antigua and Nevis (Charleston). Do you plan to allow the player to use both for all the above?

Britain also has several naval HQ's (Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados). These might be more suitable for the above, especially if you want consistency with the "Hornblower" storyline - he reports to all three naval HQ's for various reasons, in particular the examination for Lieutenant at Jamaica.

In any case, you'll need to find locations for everyone else's naval academies / HQ's.

"Early Explorers" is a particular problem because Antigua and Guadeloupe are both disabled (they hadn't yet been colonised). On the other hand, what little navy England and France had at that time was probably fully occupied defending their homelands. Perhaps you should not be allowed to be a naval officer in "Early Explorers" except if you're Spanish or perhaps Portuguese; any ship in the Caribbean belonging to any other nation would almost certainly have been a privateer.

- Admiral of the Fleet and Ranks

- The Highest rank which you can obtain is now Vice Admiral​

​

Presumably that's the highest rank at which you can start the game. It should probably still be possible to be promoted to full Admiral, but no further.

- When you are at a level to be promoted to Lieutenant you must undertake an examination at your nation's Naval Academy. Until you do this and successfully pass, you will remain an "Acting Lieutenant".
- If you fail the examination you will be offered another chance to re-take it in a time frame which will be decided on (x months? x weeks? x days?)

I'm interested to know how you'll run the examination. By dialog, probably? If the player fails, perhaps drop the character's relation points back down to the minimum level for Acting Lieutenant, then he has to earn the promotion to Lieutenant again before re-taking the examination. That shouldn't take long and it means you don't need to worry about setting a timer.

 

[Andouce]

I like the idea of what you proposed for the Early Explorers. I would imagine since a Navy wasn't really in major force in that period most Captain's etc would be Army Officers in charge of ships with the majority of each nation basically as you said being privateers or explorers themselves serving on behalf of the nation.

The Lieutenant exam I like what you suggested again. I would say it probably would be easier via dialogue, perhaps selecting from a random number of questions or something which would be randomised each time you had to take the test. The reducing to minimum level to earn the promotion makes sense for the timer issue.

Admiral wise that is what I meant to say, whatever rank is before that of Lord Admiral of the Fleet or whatever.

 

[Levis]

Moved some posts from the main topic here