Solved Officer's Alignment & Mutiny

[lokked]

Hello!

Been playing POTC w/Build Mod v 14 Beta 4 for a couple weeks now.

I have 3 ships and one of them keep mutinying. I looked around and found that the captain's alignment affects this (if it's different than mine). He was a Horror of the Seas, while I am Dashing. I did some reorganization of my fleet captains, and have me (Dashing), Captain 1 (Matey) and Captain 2 (Dashing). Captain 2's ship still decreases in morale, albeit much slower than the Horror.

I play on Realistic mode. I am a Merchant (w/Merchant License) and am carrying around about 800k Gold. I pay crew in Salary. I'd read somewhere that having a Merchant License prevents your crew from losing morale due to carrying too much money and not paying them shares. Is this true for this version of this mod? If there is a limit to when morale decrease starts, anyone know what it is?

Q1: Anyone have a reference to Alignments and the order, etc?
Q2: Do Captain Alignments have to be identical to my Character's to stop affecting morale?
Q3: What is the best strategy to handle multiple ships & Officers?
Q4: Do officer's who are assigned to another ship, but NOT as the captain, affect Morale with their alignment?
Q5: For my AI controlled ships, I only have a Navigator and a Gunner assigned to them. Good enough for a Merchant career?

Thank you! Great pirate/ship game! Great mod and great work!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

To prevent confusion, let's call it "reputation" rather than "alignment".
Technically they both exist, but they're different things.

Q1: From bad to good for male and female characters:

; reputations
string = iHorror of the High Seas,"Horror of the High Seas"
string = iBloody Terror,"Bloody Terror"
string = iSwindler,"Swindler"
string = iRascal,"Rascal"
string = iNeutral,"Neutral"
string = iBloke,"Bloke"
string = iMatey,"Matey"
string = iDashing,"Dashing"
string = iHero,"Hero"

string = wHorror of the High Seas,"Femme Fatale"
string = wBloody Terror,"Scarlet"
string = wSwindler,"Vixen"
string = wRascal,"Floozy"
string = wNeutral,"Damsel"
string = wBloke,"Lass"
string = wMatey,"Maiden"
string = wDashing,"Lady"
string = wHero,"Heroine"

Q2: If you and the companion captain are on the "good" side of neutral or both on the "bad" side of neutral, morale is not affected by it.
But of course differences in Leadership ability do still make a difference.

Q3: I hope someone else can answer that based on gameplay experience.

Q4: No, they don't. Only the captain matters.

Q5: Those indeed sound like the most relevant officers.

 

[Grey Roger]

I play on Realistic mode. I am a Merchant (w/Merchant License) and am carrying around about 800k Gold. I pay crew in Salary. I'd read somewhere that having a Merchant License prevents your crew from losing morale due to carrying too much money and not paying them shares. Is this true for this version of this mod? If there is a limit to when morale decrease starts, anyone know what it is?

This is indeed true for Build 14 Beta 4. The limit is around 1 million, so you wouldn't have crew trouble yet anyway. But the Merchant Licence prevents the crew from becoming envious so you should not need to worry about having more than 1 million gold.

Q1: Anyone have a reference to Alignments and the order, etc?
Q2: Do Captain Alignments have to be identical to my Character's to stop affecting morale?
Q3: What is the best strategy to handle multiple ships & Officers?
Q4: Do officer's who are assigned to another ship, but NOT as the captain, affect Morale with their alignment?
Q5: For my AI controlled ships, I only have a Navigator and a Gunner assigned to them. Good enough for a Merchant career?

Q3: Probably depends on what you're doing with them. As a merchant, presumably you keep the extra ships so you can carry more cargo, which is fine if you can fill all their holds with profitable goods.
Q4: Apparently not, though I'd be interested to know the reputations and abilities of the officers on your ship 2. Its captain at Dashing should certainly not be losing morale due to his reputation versus yours, so the question is why he's losing morale and ship 1 isn't.
Q5: If you're planning to get into fights then you probably also want a Carpenter and Surgeon. If you're not planning to get into fights, or at least not planning for your companion ships to do the fighting, then you probably don't need a Gunner.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

This is indeed true for Build 14 Beta 4.

Very true. As long as the "Merchant License" exists in your game version, then it has that effect.

The limit is around 1 million

Technically that is even "1 million above the estimated monthly expenses for salary".

I'd be interested to know the reputations and abilities of the officers on your ship 2. Its captain at Dashing should certainly not be losing morale due to his reputation versus yours, so the question is why he's losing morale and ship 1 isn't.

I was wondering about that too. The only explanation I could think of is that captain has lower Leadership skills.
The morale could then drop, but it should also level out at some point and not keep dropping.

I can guarantee with 100% certainty that ONLY the reputation of the captain is considered.
It was me who wrote the code for that and it simply doesn't bother looking at any officers at all.

 

[Redbeard]

So. I've only ever played the mod with the stock campaign. I was thinking of playing a piracy free-play sandbox. Now I vaguely remember that officer's had different moralities based on what you did. Same with Crew, for instance, if you hired some fine porteguese navigator lass, she would get irritated if you decided to turn to sailing the black.

Crews not hired in pirate towns often exhibited the same thing. I've never commited a crime in-game, so I have no idea, but I know one of the Sea Dogs titles implemented this. I cannot remember if it was New Horizons or Sea Dogs to Each his Own.

In POTC: NH does your crew and officers care what you do? I cannot find any references in the manual, but I'm guilty of skimming. Furthermore would I have to hire from piratical places if this was the case?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Note that crew morale and officer reputation are two completely unrelated things.
There is also officer loyalty, but that feature is still underdeveloped.

Reputation effectively only matters for companion captains right now.
If you have one that is on the other side of the "good/bad" spectrum than yourself, that may lead to Mutiny.

Crew morale is always relevant but depends mainly on what they care about most: money.
It does differ notably whether you play as pirate, privateer or merchant.

 

[Grey Roger]

So. I've only ever played the mod with the stock campaign. I was thinking of playing a piracy free-play sandbox. Now I vaguely remember that officer's had different moralities based on what you did. Same with Crew, for instance, if you hired some fine porteguese navigator lass, she would get irritated if you decided to turn to sailing the black.

As @Pieter Boelen says, the only effect of having someone whose morality (reputation) is opposite to yours is that if you put that officer in charge of a companion ship, that ship's morale will drop rapidly and it will eventually mutiny. Also, officers who are with you in the shore party get a small share of your reputation gains or losses, which means if you hire that fine Portuguese lass and start doing naughty things, your reputation will drop and hers will drop too, albeit rather more slowly - she's gradually coming round to your way of thinking.

In POTC: NH does your crew and officers care what you do? I cannot find any references in the manual, but I'm guilty of skimming. Furthermore would I have to hire from piratical places if this was the case?

As far as I can see, officer reputation is not based on where you hire them. You're as likely to get a "Hero" officer in Grand Turk as you are to get one in Grand Cayman, and the same goes for "Horror of the High Seas", and all points in between.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As far as I can see, officer reputation is not based on where you hire them. You're as likely to get a "Hero" officer in Grand Turk as you are to get one in Grand Cayman, and the same goes for "Horror of the High Seas", and all points in between.

Correct; it is 100% random.

 

[Redbeard]

Many thanks guys! I must be thinking of the Sea Dog's To Each his Own crew and officer systems. I remember one of the akella titles has officers who dissaprove of piracy etc. Or maybe I'm thinking of Blood and Gold Caribbean!

...so many pirate games lol. Anyway thanks again.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That's the Loyalty system. It is something for which a groundwork does exist in PotC and I'd like to build on it one day.
But I have zero time to spare.

 

[Redbeard]

I wouldnt consider it a huge priority. It was pretty annoying in Sea Dogs TEHO. If you played the story you got saddled with characters who would leave if you say pirated to much, or traded too much. I personally found it obnoxious. Lose my best navigater because the English are suddenly pissed at me for not making deliveries on time and such. Which makes sense in real life, but in game its a bit tiresome.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I do have a pretty nice idea (I think) for implementing the Loyalty system by tying it also into Reputation and Fame.
You can find my ideas on this on the Brainstorming. If the new update happens AND I can find the time, I still would like to make this happen.
One day....