Fixed No enemy captain on ship!?

[Pieter Boelen]

So the issue is with the old save... now what can be done?

That's a good question. This sounds potentially very complicated, so a quick fix seems unlikely.
And at the moment we don't really have anyone active who could give it the attention it probably deserves.
In other words: We could be stuck between a rock and a hard place here.

@Grey Roger: If you use the savegame from post #5 above, are you able to replicate this error?

 

[Captain Murphy]

Isn't this also a case where the player can have all the officer slots taken up and it doesn't allow the enemy captain to be on deck? I recall running into this a while back and just getting rid of some officers or prisoners would fix it.

 

[UnwantedNewborn]

Isn't this also a case where the player can have all the officer slots taken up and it doesn't allow the enemy captain to be on deck? I recall running into this a while back and just getting rid of some officers or prisoners would fix it.

I do think i have many prisoners... i'll get rid of them and try again.

 

[UnwantedNewborn]

I do think i have many prisoners... i'll get rid of them and try again.

It worked! I released all prisoners then boarded the ship and their captain was there!
Also i believe their captain's model was the one that @Grey Roger mentioned. The one with the "A lot of muscle, straight from Africa" description i think.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

...if anything, I'd expect it to be related to the Passengers you have.
Maybe if you have TOO many, this could start to happen?

If you have too many passengers then you won't get the options to take the captain prisoner or make him an officer, but it shouldn't prevent him from appearing.

Isn't this also a case where the player can have all the officer slots taken up and it doesn't allow the enemy captain to be on deck? I recall running into this a while back and just getting rid of some officers or prisoners would fix it.

It worked! I released all prisoners then boarded the ship and their captain was there!

Well, I suppose that confirms it. Seems that the check to do what @Grey Roger suggests doesn't actually work.

 

[Grey Roger]

Strange. I've certainly had excessive passengers/prisoners/officers before and it didn't prevent enemy captains from appearing. It just limited the dialog options - I couldn't take them prisoner or try to recruit them. The check to enforce that is in "Cabinfight_dialog.c" - which, of course, won't come into play if there's no captain with whom to have the dialog!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Strange. I've certainly had excessive passengers/prisoners/officers before and it didn't prevent enemy captains from appearing. It just limited the dialog options - I couldn't take them prisoner or try to recruit them. The check to enforce that is in "Cabinfight_dialog.c" - which, of course, won't come into play if there's no captain with whom to have the dialog!

I thought it was supposed to work like that too, since the actual officer should get copied so his slot becomes available again for new cabinfight officers.

 

[Grey Roger]

@Grey Roger: If you use the savegame from post #5 above, are you able to replicate this error?

Yes. And it gets weird.

As @UnwantedNewborn says, if I load up one of the quicksave games which has the surrendered ship in front of me, and board the ship, no captain appears. If I first go to the hold and ransom a prisoner, then board the ship, the captain is there. I take him prisoner, go looking for something else to capture (not easy when you're in a 3rd rate Centaure class with no grapeshot, which means one salvo is liable to blow the target ship out of the water ), and that ship surrenders, its captain fails to appear as well. This, incidentally, confirms that the issue is nothing to do with the "Napitan" model.

Reload the quicksave. Instead of ransoming a prisoner, I go to the captain's cabin, talk to an officer, and fire him. This should also reduce the number of passengers by 1. When I board the surrendered ship, the enemy captain doesn't appear.

That's not the weird part. The weird part is that there are only 8 passengers total, including player character, officers and prisoners. By contrast, I've a savegame from my own campaign in which I have twice that many, and can board surrendered ships without any trouble. And the system ought to be able to handle twice that again.

@UnwantedNewborn: where's Artois Voysey? The questbook indicates that he's been hired, but he's not among your officers. Did he get killed somewhere?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Reload the quicksave. Instead of ransoming a prisoner, I go to the captain's cabin, talk to an officer, and fire him. This should also reduce the number of passengers by 1. When I board the surrendered ship, the enemy captain doesn't appear.

That's not the weird part. The weird part is that there are only 8 passengers total, including player character, officers and prisoners. By contrast, I've a savegame from my own campaign in which I have twice that many, and can board surrendered ships without any trouble. And the system ought to be able to handle twice that again.

There are "arrays" of officer characters that are being reused.
Maybe somehow some of @UnwantedNewborn's officers managed to be lost without being removed from that array to free up space.
If so, your first observation cou;ld be very related to the second.

Question is: How or why would this happen?
Maybe "firing" doesn't clear the array properly? How about if officers die instead?

 

[Grey Roger]

From "PROGRAM\Characters\characters.h":

#define CABINCAPTAINS_MAX 35
int Enc_Capt[CABINCAPTAINS_MAX];

If he only has 8 characters total at the moment, shouldn't there still be a lot of free space? Unless he's previously had 35 officers + prisoners + passengers and lost an awful lot of them! (Possibly including Artois Voysey, who certainly isn't stuck in St. George because a new questbook entry appears when he wanders off, and that entry is not present.) We can also rule out berthed ships - captains of berthed ships ought to appear in the "Characters" list, and anyway I went through all colonies in the "Berthed ships" screen and there weren't any.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

There should indeed be a lot of free space, but apparently there isn't. Big question: Why?
Only "solution" I can think of is to cycle through the whole 'Enc_Capt' array and see what's going on with all the characters in it.

 

[UnwantedNewborn]

So the problem reappeared.
I tried getting rid of my prisoners...i also dismissed all my officers but same problem,
surrendered ship's captain still missing...so now what?

 

[Grey Roger]

Is that continuing the same game as before, or has the problem appeared again in a new game?

 

[UnwantedNewborn]

Is that continuing the same game as before, or has the problem appeared again in a new game?

Same save as before. It kind of started slowly this time,with me only having 2 prisoners before their captain disappeared and now it has this problem even without prisoners.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It's as if somehow some of the slots available for such captains are being filled by other stuff one by one.
But how?

In what ways do your number of passengers reduce when you play?

 

[UnwantedNewborn]

It's as if somehow some of the slots available for such captains are being filled by other stuff one by one.
But how?

In what ways do your number of passengers reduce when you play?

I think i had about 3 prisoners then on the 4th the issue appeared. Then i had 2 and it appeared on the 3rd and so on... at least i think that's how it was. It feels like what you said, about the spots filling in without anyone actually filling them..weird. Is there a way to remove my passengers/prisoners through commands or code?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think i had about 3 prisoners then on the 4th the issue appeared. Then i had 2 and it appeared on the 3rd and so on... at least i think that's how it was. It feels like what you said, about the spots filling in without anyone actually filling them..weird. Is there a way to remove my passengers/prisoners through commands or code?

How are you losing your prisoners? Are you setting them free or ransoming them or are they escaping?
Maybe certain ways of losing prisoners do not free up the slots, while other ways do?

 

[Grey Roger]

For my experiment with the supplied savegame, I simply went to the hold, talked to the prisoner, ransomed him, and he left. After that I could board the enemy ship and the captain appeared.

Ransoming or releasing prisoners from the hold must be freeing up slots because in my own game I do it a lot. Escaping prisoners presumably also free up slots, otherwise I'd probably have run into trouble by now, given that some of mine have jumped overboard.

@UnwantedNewborn: have any of your officers been killed? In particular, Artois Voysey?

I'm inclined to say that this game is corrupted beyond help and that your best choice is to start over. If the same problem happens again, we'll know it's consistent and not just confined to this particular campaign.

 

[UnwantedNewborn]

For my experiment with the supplied savegame, I simply went to the hold, talked to the prisoner, ransomed him, and he left. After that I could board the enemy ship and the captain appeared.

Ransoming or releasing prisoners from the hold must be freeing up slots because in my own game I do it a lot. Escaping prisoners presumably also free up slots, otherwise I'd probably have run into trouble by now, given that some of mine have jumped overboard.

@UnwantedNewborn: have any of your officers been killed? In particular, Artois Voysey?

I'm inclined to say that this game is corrupted beyond help and that your best choice is to start over. If the same problem happens again, we'll know it's consistent and not just confined to this particular campaign.

I do not remember if any of my officers was killed or who it was. And it worked for a few days with the whole release of prisoners thing... but then it started having trouble even without prisoners. I will try to change my ship and see if that helps at all.

 

[Grey Roger]

If Artois Voysey has not been killed then something is very wrong because he ought to be among your passengers. Your questbook shows that you have hired him. When you first went to Nevis Pirate Settlement, you saw two men fighting and killed one of them. That was Nigel Blythe. The survivor was Artois Voysey and he offered to join you as a navigator.