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Nelson's First Command & Lucky Jack in the War of 1812

FlyingGhost

FlyingGhost

Rumrunner
Storm Modder
Hearts of Oak Donator
Ahoy there!

Here's a new scenario for those who wants to play during the period of revolutions. I've made a scenario where one starts in 1779 as Horatio Nelson after his appointment as Master & Commander of HMS Badger (using the Speedy model). There's no storyline, so alternately one can rename him and try to make post-captain as any other chap named whatever is to ones fancy. He should be ready for a cruise around the Caribbean, and he starts with a full set of officer!

This also means that, there being a scenario in that period now, I took the liberty to modify the Jack Aubrey 'storyline' to make Jack start as Captain (rank) of HMS Surprise during the War of 1812.

To apply this to your game just extract the contents of the .zip(s) into the "...\Pirates of the Caribbean\PROGRAM\Storyline" folder and overwrite (be sure to back up the Jack Aubrey files if you wish or just leave it out if you don't care for it).

Download link (More recent version of both starts included in the latest Beta)

Thankee.
 
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Hmm yes, I've had that before with Rapidshare. Here's a new one: -

EDIT: Unfortunately that one tries to make you download some download manager, you can just uncheck the "Use Download Accelerator". I've uploaded it to another site as well.
 
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Just a small request here, any chance of implementing the young Horatio Nelson as a character? I tried to see if I could somehow do it, but I'm not so savvy in terms of modding PotC...

Ideally the character would use the same model as Captain Norrington (British captain's uniform with a white wig under the hat), but use this picture instead.
 
You mean to use as starting character for your personal storyline version from here?

1. Make 64x64, 128x128 and 256x256 pixel large portrait files based on your picture
2. Add the correct borders as per this Build Template: http://piratesahoy.bowengames.com/potc/OFFICIAL/Faces.zip
3. Save all three as TGA files, then convert to TX using the TX Converter: http://www.piratesahoy.net/build/tools/Modeling+Texturing/TX Convertor.zip
4. Go to RESOURCE\Textures\INTERFACES\PORTRAITS\64 and find an unused number
5. Put your files in the 64, 128 and 256 folders using the unused number you found in step #5
6. Find the entry for captain Norrington in PROGRAM\Models\initModels.c
7. Copy the entry and change the ID for your Nelson character and change FaceID to the portrait number you used.
You can also write a different model description there. Make further adjustments to the code as you see fit.
8. Copy the relevant files in RESOURCE\Animation\Heads, RESOURCE\MODELS\Heads and RESOURCE\MODELS\Characters to work for your custom model
9. Add your model description into RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\English\models_description.txt

So the main points are: Create the portrait files, create a new initItems.c and models_description.txt entry and do a lot of copying of model files.
You can use your custom model with new portrait on a new game afterwards.
 
That's what I wanted it for, yes. Looks like something I can do, thanks for making such a nice little guide! I wonder, seeing as I'd have to edit already existing files, it would be best to do this soon and let you implement it in the patch? I've been reading up on Nelson (picked up a very nice biography) and I might be able to put in some of his actual shipmates from his first command rather than the random ones I made before. That, along with this new custom character, would make for a nice little free to play storyline I think. ^^
 
Wouldn't it also be necessary to create a new model texture? Otherwise you're going to have a character who looks like Norrington but displays Nelson's portrait. :napoleon
 
FlyingGhost said:
That's what I wanted it for, yes. Looks like something I can do, thanks for making such a nice little guide! I wonder, seeing as I'd have to edit already existing files, it would be best to do this soon and let you implement it in the patch? I've been reading up on Nelson (picked up a very nice biography) and I might be able to put in some of his actual shipmates from his first command rather than the random ones I made before. That, along with this new custom character, would make for a nice little free to play storyline I think. ^^
Click to expand...
I'm not entirely sure there is a point in adding more Free Play storylines than we currently have,
since the only real difference is the starting condition and the Select Storyline interface allows you to customize that already.
In fact, I had hoped to be deleting some of the excess ones we have as soon as the starting year can be selected as well.

That being said, Brave Black Flag is probably a better base for Free Play than Jean Lafitte/Jack Aubrey are because at least BBF has the tutorial and all sidequests.
So if we don't manage to allow custom starting date in Beta 3.3, perhaps we could use your storyline to replace the Jean Lafitte or Jack Aubrey one, depending on which time period to use.
After all, we don't need two Free Play only storylines in the same time period.

We also have the custom player professions now that give you different starting items and a different ship log explaining how you got your ship.
It would be pretty cool to adapt the Brave Black Flag base to give extra officers or modified dialog based on your selection there.
That way your work could be merged with the Brave Black Flag concept.

Even better if we do manage to allow custom starting year, merge BOTH concepts with the Standard Storyline.
That way you can tweak your character as you like and play the game how you like without us requiring nearly identical game folders.

All this would probably require a bit more doing though, so I'm not sure if we'll manage it for Beta 3.3.
So for now, if you want to get this done on short time, my proposal would be to include it in the next release to replace an existing Free Play storyline.

How does that sound?
 
Grey Roger said:
Wouldn't it also be necessary to create a new model texture? Otherwise you're going to have a character who looks like Norrington but displays Nelson's portrait. :napoleon
Click to expand...
I think Captain Norrinton uses a fairly generic model texture anyway.
But indeed if you are going to make a copy of the model, it would be cool to adapt its texture to match with Nelson as well.
@FlyingGhost: How are your texturing skills? :cheeky
 
About the model/texture, the Norrington ones are indeed a very generic. To be honest, I can't be bothered to re-texture it since, really, the model itself is much too bulky for Nelson - and even though I should be quite capable of the texturing, modelling is a bit too advanced for me.

I don't know, Pieter. I think some people like to choose a pre-made character. Actually, after adding the new officers and maybe some other tweaks to the Nelson storyline/start, I wanted to do the same for Jack Aubrey when I've come up with what year and ship would be most suitable (I'm currently reading the books, approaching 1813 I believe). I don't think one free play storyline for each period would be that bad. Of course, those small additions of starting officers and a few unique things might be nice. Maybe they could somehow all be put into a section of their own (separate from the "real" storylines) if you think they take up too much space.
 
If you can find a model shape that matches up with what you want, you can retexture that one. You don't necessarily have to use the Norrington one.

The main concerns I have with too many Free Play storylines are this:

1. It may become confusing for the players, because there is too much to choose from.
This could be adapted by changing the display order, but I don't quite know how to do that, so would be require a fair amount of figuring out.

More importantly, though is:
2. More Free Play storylines means having a lot of copies of the same identical or near-identical files.
The size of the files is not much of an issue, since they are just text. But keeping them up-to-date if anything changes is!
I can promise you stuff like that IS going to go wrong sooner or later and then you get some Free Play storylines that work right (because they're correctly updated) and some that don't.

This gets worse if these storylines are made available as "additional downloads" that are not part of the modpack.
I've got a fair amount of experience with keeping such files up-to-date myself and the easiest way of handling that is ensuring that you don't have to. ;)

--------------------------------------------------------

The above being said, I definitely agree that having pre-made characters serves a purpose.
That can make for a more interesting and involving opening to the game than having a generic start with a generic character.

There already are two systems in place to take care of part of this:

1. If you customize your character model, there are a couple of default ones to choose from.
However, you can override this and choose from early all character models available in the game if you want.

2. As per Beta 3.3 there are customized starting professions that give you different items and a different Ship's Log entry at game start.
This is already part of a pre-made character system that still works into the Free Play idea and still allows random player selection.

If I am going to spend some time on this, I would like to expand on these two existing options to make the starting professions more different,
possibly with extra officers at game start and/or custom dialogues. Brave Black Flag and your quest would work very well as basis for that.
The result would be that you have both complete freedom in your customization, yet also the benefit of having an interesting start to the game.

This would become a bit more complicated if people would add more than one custom choice for a single starting profession.
For example having both Nelson and Jack Aubrey as Naval Officer. If the system is in place though, this could still be handled though.
There if you select the Nelson model, you'll get his start and if you select any other model, you'll get the Jack Aubrey start for example.


Of course all this needs requires further research and development, so I think we can put this on the wish-list for Beta 3.4 or Beta 3.5 .
Simply because I don't think I have time to set this up properly this week.

So for the time being, my suggestion would be to replace Jack Aubrey with your Nelson story.
We will lose Jack Aubrey for the time being, but we can bring him back when you and I get to work on this for the next modpack update.
 
Welcome to the PotC Modding Team by the way, @FlyingGhost! I figured you deserve a promotion. :doff

Now you've got TWO new forum ribbons in one day. :onya
 
:bow

Oh dear oh dear, rum's on me! :drunk

What you suggested sounds good. The current Jack Aubrey start doesn't really serve a purpose anyway since there's nothing else than his character and ship added to it. As soon as he gets his good friend, Stephen, and a few more well known faces, it'll be worth adding him in again. If they're under the same category, I think Nelson's start with a small ship in the beginning of his career would be more suitable, and his officers would feel more 'random' as well since many people here would know the Jack Aubrey crew rather too well.
 
Good suggestions. I'm all for it! :woot

Would you be up for combining your Nelson storyline with the Brave Black Flag one then?
The intended differences can be incorporated based on if-statements that I would be happy to help you with.
That would already be one step in the direction we are aiming for.

Not entirely sure when I can start looking into this properly, since it will probably be after the Beta 3.3 release.
But if you can lay some foundations beforehand, that'll make it easier to work with later. :onya

FlyingGhost said:
What you suggested sounds good. The current Jack Aubrey start doesn't really serve a purpose anyway since there's nothing else than his character and ship added to it.
Click to expand...
Exactly true! The only reason for it being there at all is because we have the character and ship model.
The reason for it starting on Eleuthera is because that is the first island we added in Build 14 and starting right there was easy for testing purposes.
So none of that has anything to do with any of the Master & Commander characters! :shock
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Would you be up for combining your Nelson storyline with the Brave Black Flag one then?
The intended differences can be incorporated based on if-statements that I would be happy to help you with.
That would already be one step in the direction we are aiming for.
Click to expand...

Yeah, definitely. If that's the way you're going with the free play storylines, I'm willing to hop on board. :napoleon
Jason's done some marvellous work there too.

Pieter Boelen said:
Not entirely sure when I can start looking into this properly, since it will probably be after the Beta 3.3 release.
But if you can lay some foundations beforehand, that'll make it easier to work with later. :onya
Click to expand...

Oh yes, no rush on my side, but I'll see if I can get something done any time soon.

Pieter Boelen said:
Exactly true! The only reason for it being there at all is because we have the character and ship model.
The reason for it starting on Eleuthera is because that is the first island we added in Build 14 and starting right there was easy for testing purposes.
So none of that has anything to do with any of the Master & Commander characters! :shock
Click to expand...

Nope, not even in the correct period. [URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dmWAve3Pvk']:fiddler[/url]
 
FlyingGhost said:
Yeah, definitely. If that's the way you're going with the free play storylines, I'm willing to hop on board. :napoleon
Jason's done some marvellous work there too.
Click to expand...
Seems like the option with the most potential to me. Further suggestions welcome though, of course.

I am thinking we could do the same with the La Croix storyline and merge ALL THREE together.
Would consider doing the same thing with Devlin Opera as well, except that one doesn't just leads to a dead end at the moment. :facepalm

FlyingGhost said:
Nope, not even in the correct period. :fiddler
Click to expand...
And once more you are right. :cheeky
If I recall, the period choice was just so it would NOT be the same period as the Hornblower storyline.
That was when we didn't yet add Jean Lafitte to fill a gap in the line-up. Yep, the free play storylines are... uhm.... an eensy weensy bit messy.
 
@FlyingGhost: Have you had any luck with adding your custom portrait and character model into the game?
I'd quite like to replace Master & Commander with the storyline start that you have set up. :yes

I'm still aiming for a final (or near-final) installer to be released near the end of this coming weekend.
 
Uh oh, I'll get to work asap then! :type1


EDIT: Hmm, it seems the border provided for 256x256 isn't the right one, but no matter, I just took it from an older portrait. Now I'm having problems though, the portrait is showing fine everywhere except in the passenger view, it's all greyed out. Double checked the portrait files and they seem fine... I'm at a loss (and very tired anyway, so I'll go to bed and pray for a revelation during sleep).
 
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