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Included in Build Naval/Privateer Promotion Steps

Why do we even insist on having people forced to start as midshipman? Wouldn't it be quite possible to make the jump to lieutenant or commander when you choose to start as commissioned? That way we'd have a more realistic progression. A very small, temporary command as a lieutenant, then a brig as a commander, then a progression through frigates and finally ships of the line.

If you want to start out as a midshipman, the Horatio Hornblower storyline is a brilliant option. I haven't played through it myself and I'm not sure when it ends and if it's possible to start with that and end up with something like a "free play" commissioned game. I might try playing through the storyline (it might also be good to see if any of the changes have messed with it).

I can't remember, is it possible to join the navy/become a commisioned officer even though you start out with a different player type? Would that even be realistic? I'm not sure...
 
The purpose of starting at midshipman is probably to have maximum number of ranks.

Horatio Hornblower starts out as a midshipman and isn't really in command of the ship, he's just put at the helm and ordered to sail to various places. The game puts you in command of the ship and you can go where you like, but if you do then you'll probably break the story. But this arrangement where you're in control but not really in control only works in a fixed quest.

The ranks probably need to be renamed. Senior Lieutenant would be better as Lieutenant-Commander, which is probably as junior a rank as would be allowed to be a Master and Commander, i.e. in command of a ship. But that jumps you several ranks up the ladder and misses out progressing through the smaller ships. Starting as Midshipman may not be completely accurate but it does make for a more interesting game.

I'm not sure if a merchant officer could transfer to the navy as an officer of equivalent rank or maybe one or two ranks lower. A privateer who stuck to one LoM might have a case for taking a full commission in the navy of his country. Otherwise you're looking at buying a commission, which some very rich people did either for themselves or for their sons, so it's going to be expensive, especially if you want to jump straight to command of a ship. And a pirate who shows up at navy HQ will spend the rest of his life hanging around the port. :ko
 
FlyingGhost said:
Why do we even insist on having people forced to start as midshipman? Wouldn't it be quite possible to make the jump to lieutenant or commander when you choose to start as commissioned? That way we'd have a more realistic progression. A very small, temporary command as a lieutenant, then a brig as a commander, then a progression through frigates and finally ships of the line.
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The Nelson storyline does still contain your jump-start, though I did decrease the level that you start at to Lieutenant to maximize use of different ships.

Any other storyline on Commissioned indeed starts at rank 1 because why not? A forced jump-start just removes part of the game.
Not everyone might that. But the choice is still there through Nelson.

Alternatively, allow players to choose their starting rank in the Select Storyline interface. But that doesn't exactly make things simpler.

FlyingGhost said:
If you want to start out as a midshipman, the Horatio Hornblower storyline is a brilliant option. I haven't played through it myself and I'm not sure when it ends and if it's possible to start with that and end up with something like a "free play" commissioned game. I might try playing through the storyline (it might also be good to see if any of the changes have messed with it).
Click to expand...
I can't remember how it ends. Once we have figured out the general "Commission" type, we should really check the Hornblower storyline to ensure that didn't get messed up AND to make it work with the new system.
And, most importantly, ensure that it does end at a point where Commissioned Free Play is enabled. :yes

FlyingGhost said:
I can't remember, is it possible to join the navy/become a commisioned officer even though you start out with a different player type? Would that even be realistic? I'm not sure...
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At the moment that is not enabled. Would technically not be too difficult to add, but it would require new dialog options to be added to the governors.
That is actually one of the reasons why I spent so much time and effort making all governors use a shared file for that purpose.
So once that is confirmed working and fixed as applicable, we will be in a position to start adding more stuff to it. :woot
 
Pieter Boelen said:
I can't remember how it ends. Once we have figured out the general "Commission" type, we should really check the Hornblower storyline to ensure that didn't get messed up AND to make it work with the new system.
And, most importantly, ensure that it does end at a point where Commissioned Free Play is enabled. :yes
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Hornblower ends with you getting married and the traitor still at large. And I think I know which story I'm going to replay soon to see that it still works. ;)

I'm not sure if a merchant officer would be able to transfer to the navy at his current rank, or perhaps one or two lower. A case may be made for a privateer with a single LoM to trade in his auxiliary commission for a real one. Otherwise you'd need to buy a commission, which very rich people sometimes did for themselves or their sons; this would be expensive, especially since you're trying to jump the queue straight to command of a ship. You may as well sell your ship because you won't be needing it for the navy...

Or perhaps the governor can take your ship into naval service with you remaining as its captain. Silehard initially seems to want to do that right at the start of "Tales of a Sea Hawk", then decides his interests are best served by leaving you as a free agent. The difference is, he isn't going to give you the choice, your ship will be commandeered one way or another.
 
Grey Roger said:
Hornblower ends with you getting married and the traitor still at large.
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The main question there is if Hornblower remains in charge of a reasonable size vessel. If he doesn't, you're just about stuck ashore.
I don't think Hornblower has a LoM in the code so the regular governor promotions wouldn't work. But that is easily rectified.
If I add that at the completion of the storyline, then the normal Commissioned effect takes over.

Grey Roger said:
And I think I know which story I'm going to replay soon to see that it still works. ;)
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The main thing there is that the "professionalnavy" functionality was originally written for Hornblower.
However, I now basically commandeered it to serve Free Play "instead". It will now apply equally to Hornblower and Nelson.
But as Hornblower you are much less free to do "as you please", but paying salary IS now required again. So you might have a hard time paying your crew on Hornblower.
If that is the case, we can do two things:
1. Disable crew and officer salaries for Hornblower again
or
2. Giving Hornblower the money needed to pay that salary at various stages in the quest

I think #2 would be preferred there. Which means that we need to know how much money you need and where you need it to ensure you can pay your salaries properly.

But other than that, I reckon the Hornblower storyline should work as well as it always did.
 
Hornblower probably should not be paying salaries. For most of the story, he's not in command. And at one point he's a prisoner of war. Also, the story messes with Hornblower's money. On one occasion the story reduces you to 100 gold so that you're suitably poor when Mrs. Mason offers you reasonably priced lodging.

Towards the end of the story, Hornblower gets his own command, the Hotspur. I'm not sure if the game leaves you with that ship as it does all sorts of weirdness in the final chapter, as you switch between various characters in order to see various conversations which don't involve Hornblower in person. (In fact, as I recall, it got this wrong and I was still a different character when I should have been back to Hornblower. I'll watch for that and report if it is the case.) Hopefully the story ends with you still in command of Hotspur, in which case the transition to free play only requires salary payment to be enabled if it is disabled at the start of the game and hasn't been re-enabled since.
 
Indeed Hornblower probably needs some exceptions added to himself. Do you have any ideas on what should be different until you finish the story?
Off the top of my head:
- No salary payment
- Prevent hiring officers
 
So both Hornblower and regular Commissioned have been updated a fair bit over the past week or so.
Is there anyone playing with the Commissioned type? And if so, do you find the differences from regular play to be better than they were?
Also important, if you do this in Free Play, do you find the promotion rewards to be satisfactory?

And even more important, is anyone willing to adapt the character progression for England to the other nations as well?
 
I really DO want to have proper promotion steps added for the other nations and I really DON'T want to have to do it myself.
It is really very easy indeed for anyone to do that so there should be zero need for me to do it.
Anyone interested....? :rolleyes:
 
I like that new promotion ships system in Nelsons first Command, it works fine
makes the Game more exciting:)
 
ANSEL said:
I like that new promotion ships system in Nelsons first Command, it works fine
makes the Game more exciting:)
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Thank you kindly. Glad you like it.
The ship progression is different depending on time period and Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hownblower have got special ship progressions defined as well.

I'm hoping somebody might expand this feature to work for other nations too. Right now only England has a full range of ships per promotion.
 
I reckon England is pretty well covered for this here. Next up would be the other nations and I'd really rather have someone other than me to do it.
If necessary I can do one more nation though, since England is much, much more complicated due to many character-specific exceptions added in its code.

In any case, yesterday I laid the foundations for starting as Naval Officer for other nations and that seems to work.
Only thing missing are the ship and officer progressions.
 
Another reminder that all nations other than England still need this done.
This is not very difficult. Please do not force me to have to do it myself because I am not going to.
Additionally, I will not make another public release until this is done.
 
One thing I can tell you is that both Nathaniel Hawk and Jack Sparrow are both advised to stay loyal to Britain. The models don't seem to exist to allow them to progress very far in other nations' navies. Which means if you join the French Navy, you'll be in standard costume appropriate to your rank almost from the beginning, whoever you are. (The same will probably apply to other navies, but they don't concern me at the moment. ;))
 
I think there is one Spanish Jack Sparrow model and that's it. What isn't there cannot be used, so it starts giving generic models instead. :shrug
 
There is one Jack Sparrow model for each nation except America; they're the ones which, if you find them in the tailor's shop, are listed as "I remember Jack Sparrow as a polished officer of the <insert nation> navy". But, as I said, other nations didn't particularly concern me, and here's why.

Those of you who want to play a commissioned officer but don't want to play a British one, download this! If you want the smell of sea salt to be flavoured with garlic and onion, the French navy now awaits new recruits. :napoleon
 
Grey Roger said:
There is one Jack Sparrow model for each nation except America; they're the ones which, if you find them in the tailor's shop, are listed as "I remember Jack Sparrow as a polished officer of the <insert nation> navy". But, as I said, other nations didn't particularly concern me, and here's why.

Those of you who want to play a commissioned officer but don't want to play a British one, download this! If you want the smell of sea salt to be flavoured with garlic and onion, the French navy now awaits new recruits. :napoleon
Click to expand...
Tried your NK. zip, but I get a runtime error. I replace the old NK with your NK,isent that the right way to do it?:confused:
 
Yes. Can you put back my "nk.c" file, run the game, and when it crashes upload the "error.log" file? I haven't had a chance to try the new version myself yet but if I've misplaced a semicolon or something then that would foul it up.
 
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