PotC Build Mod Ship Cleanup

[Armada]

- BarqueHeavy (Barqem_1) - Personally I would rather drop this one in favour of putting the Edinburgh to more use, but I'm not too bothered if she stays.
- BrigRoyal (Brig_n1) - Hylie said this one has the 'Could not be read' problem, so fixing her isn't going to happen, I guess.
- FR_Sloop - If we can find a suitable replacement via re-texturing a high-detail ship, then drop this one.
- HeavyLineship1 and HeavyLineship2 - Drop #1 as per your suggestion, and maybe keep #2 for now, but again I don't mind losing both.
- NL_FleutWar - This seems like one of the better AOP ships, in terms of proportion and scale (besides the fat masts), and the cabin is visible, so I'd rather keep her.
- RN_Manowar - To the depths with her! :d:

Hmm... I just dropped her. Oh well, once I'm finished cleaning up, you and Hylie and anyone else who cares, can go through the files and let me know any ships that should be put back.
Now that we've got so many new high-detail models, I think the modders' ships should be replaced with some of those; there's too many dull ships in use and many repeated too.

OK, drop her for now then. I don't really mind, anyhow. The only thing that concerns me is what to fill in the gap with, but we'll figure that out eventually.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Barqem1: Yes, no, maybe. I have a soft spot for her and usually grab her ASAP and keep her for a while. But she will never get any better than she is now. The alternative is to buy another small ship, which causes other problems that early in the game.

BrigN1: Broken.

FR_Sloop: Quest ship.

Heavylineship1 & 2: They are low quality models, but they are unique in that they have 80-12lb. guns. Getting caught in a broadside from one is like getting caught in a hail storm. And they reload quickly. But, are they realistic? Were there real ships like these? The SevenProvincien is never seen in game.

NL_Fleutwar: That's a strange one. She is an effective but ugly ship. But there is no way the Derfflinger could replace her as she is far too small. The Amsterdam would be a better replacement.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Related to the clean-up, please have a look here: http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php/topic/18327-hornblower-storyline-ship-use/

 

[Pieter Boelen]

- BarqueHeavy (Barqem_1) - Personally I would rather drop this one in favour of putting the Edinburgh to more use, but I'm not too bothered if she stays.
- BrigRoyal (Brig_n1) - Hylie said this one has the 'Could not be read' problem, so fixing her isn't going to happen, I guess.

Drat. I'm inclined to keep thekm both for now, based on Hylie's comment on the BarqueHeavy and my liking of the BrigRoyal; here's to hoping on day we can do something...
Putting the Edinburgh to more use is just a matter of increasing her chance in ships_init.c and doesn't technically require any of the other ships to be removed.

- FR_Sloop - If we can find a suitable replacement via re-texturing a high-detail ship, then drop this one.

As per the Hornblower Storyline Ship use thread, she's got a fair storyline purpose, so I think we can keep her for now

Heavylineship1 & 2: They are low quality models, but they are unique in that they have 80-12lb. guns. Getting caught in a broadside from one is like getting caught in a hail storm. And they reload quickly. But, are they realistic? Were there real ships like these? The SevenProvincien is never seen in game.

Seven Provincien is set as first rate, which would make her pretty rare. But she should show up in periods 2-3-4.
I'll drop #1 for sure then. Standing by on thoughts of what to do with #2.

NL_Fleutwar: That's a strange one. She is an effective but ugly ship. But there is no way the Derfflinger could replace her as she is far too small. The Amsterdam would be a better replacement.

As per also Armada's suggestion above, we'll keep her for now then. After all, we don't need to drop every ship anyway.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm currently working on uploading my last clean-up file. Here's the numbers:

France		19
Holland		15
Pirate		7
Portugal	12
England		28
Spain		15
United States	12
Quest Ships	11
Generic		78
TOTAL		197

That seems like fairly reasonable numbers to me. Most nations have got a comparable number of ships between 12 (United States and Portugal) and 19 (France).
England has, of course, about twice as many, but that is a lot less than before. And with the special Hornblower storyline for England, at least most of those new ships are actually being put to use.
At least the final number is currently below 200, which is pretty nice. Then with the ships still to be added for Beta 2 we'll be just over 200, which seems OK to me.

As a comparison, the original game had 39 ship models, none of which were nation-specific.

So... what say you? Of course I'll post here once my files are done uploading so you can have a look at what's left and let me know if there's anything you'd like to see changed.

 

[Armada]

200 is a very nice number, and works well for advertising the game's ships, and is a huge improvement on the stock 39 vessels!
I say go ahead and finalise everything you've got. We can always make slight adjustments before Beta 2.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

On the subject of the many deck textures we've got, here's a list of ships using different files:

NL_SevenProvincien doesn't use ANYTHING, but clearly LOOKS to use the OLD deck.tga; can this be adjusted?

CursedCorvette and CursedCaravel use de04.tga for their cursed look - need to keep

Xebec3 uses 08xb.tga, which makes her look very different. What do you think of her using deck.tga?

XebecAS uses decP.tga, which also makes her look very different. What do you think of her using deck.tga?

Uses 47US.tga; this needs to be kept, but it would be nice if it could be brought up to the standard of deck.tga:
US_Brig47
US_Frigate
US_Schooner47

Uses 50db.tga (golden cannons, very different from the new deck.tga) - change to deck.tga?
SP_Galeon50
Galeon1
Galeon50
GaleonWar
NL_Fleut50
PirateBrig50
PO_Caravel50
PO_Fleut50
Schooner50
SP_Pinnace50

Uses 50di.tga (which is almost the same as 50db.tga, except the colour of the cannons) - can we drop this?
Barque3_50
Ketch

Uses dcbl.tga (intended to be black cannons) - change to deck.tga for sure!
Galeoth1+2
Frigate_sat
Frigate2
NL_Frigate47
PiratFrigateSup
RN_Frigate

Uses deca.tga, which we need to keep from what I recall of Armada's comments
FR_SuperiorWarship
RN_SuperiorWarship

 

[Pieter Boelen]

My latest Ship Clean-up file can be found here: http://www.pyratesahoy.com/build/b14_b2_wip/ship_cleanup_v2.7z
Please download and have a look! I want to have any comments on what to change and what ships to put back, etc!

Note that I didn't make any deck TGA file changes in there yet, but as per above post, that is next on the to-do list, pending people's comments and support.

 

[Armada]

NL_SevenProvincien doesn't use ANYTHING, but clearly LOOKS to use the OLD deck.tga; can this be adjusted?

Seems to be part of the main texture, but it's only a quarter of the full size, so the quality won't improve much.
Still, I can easily copy deck.tga and scale it onto this texture to make it look like the rest of the ships.

Xebec3 uses 08xb.tga, which makes her look very different. What do you think of her using deck.tga?

XebecAS uses decP.tga, which also makes her look very different. What do you think of her using deck.tga?

Try it out, I guess. I can't imagine they'd look bad with that texture.

Uses 47US.tga; this needs to be kept, but it would be nice if it could be brought up to the standard of deck.tga:

Indeed I'd like to improve that texture a bit.

Uses 50db.tga (golden cannons, very different from the new deck.tga) - change to deck.tga?

Go ahead, we don't really need gold cannons.

Uses 50di.tga (which is almost the same as 50db.tga, except the colour of the cannons) - can we drop this?

Fine by me.

Uses dcbl.tga (intended to be black cannons) - change to deck.tga for sure!
Galeoth1+2
Frigate_sat
Frigate2
NL_Frigate47
PiratFrigateSup
RN_Frigate

For those particular ships, yes. However, the Bounty and Edinburgh also use that texture for their cannons.
I suggest dropping dcbl.tga and modifying deIB.tga (used by the Interceptor and possibly others) to meet that standards of deck.tga, so it can also be used for the Bounty and Edinburgh.

Uses deca.tga, which we need to keep from what I recall of Armada's comments
FR_SuperiorWarship
RN_SuperiorWarship

Yep, this one gives the ships a cleaner deck and red interior, characteristic of some of the high-detail navy ships.

I should also mention that I've got a modified deck texture for the Frigate models, which compensates for their shifted cannon UVs (notice they look tilted slightly).
It probably needs updating, and I'll upload it when I'm done. It should be used for all Frigate models that normally use deck.tga.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I had to rename many textures on these new ships. I hope that doesn't complicate matters too much.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Seems to be part of the main texture, but it's only a quarter of the full size, so the quality won't improve much.
Still, I can easily copy deck.tga and scale it onto this texture to make it look like the rest of the ships.

If you can do that, it'd be great. At least then she'd match, even if the resolution wouldn't be the same.

Xebec3 uses 08xb.tga, which makes her look very different. What do you think of her using deck.tga?

XebecAS uses decP.tga, which also makes her look very different. What do you think of her using deck.tga?

Try it out, I guess. I can't imagine they'd look bad with that texture.

I did try it out, but the result is so different that I'd like some input from others on whether we should do it for real or not.

Uses 47US.tga; this needs to be kept, but it would be nice if it could be brought up to the standard of deck.tga:

Indeed I'd like to improve that texture a bit.

Sounds great!

For those particular ships, yes. However, the Bounty and Edinburgh also use that texture for their cannons.
I suggest dropping dcbl.tga and modifying deIB.tga (used by the Interceptor and possibly others) to meet that standards of deck.tga, so it can also be used for the Bounty and Edinburgh.

AH! I didn't check any non-stock-PotC-based ships, so I failed to notice that. Good point though. Why do some ships use deIB.tga? Can't we make all of those use deck.tga?
Alternatively, indeed making the Bounty and Edinburgh Trader use that and bring it up to the standard of deck.tga sounds good to me.

I should also mention that I've got a modified deck texture for the Frigate models, which compensates for their shifted cannon UVs (notice they look tilted slightly).
It probably needs updating, and I'll upload it when I'm done. It should be used for all Frigate models that normally use deck.tga.

Aw, that sucks. Oh well, too bad.

I had to rename many textures on these new ships. I hope that doesn't complicate matters too much.

That shouldn't technically interfere with the other texture clean-up, since that's mainly related to stock game ships. On the other hand, any textures that CAN be reused between the newly added ships would be welcome.
Of course the colour scheme textures need to be unique and there's not much choice for that, but anything else would be nice if they could use the same.
I take it you have only been renaming texture files that had to be renamed, so that's not too bad.
However, I do have the faint impression that there is a lot of copies of desk.tga-based textures as well, which I have no clue how to sort out properly.
After all, at least all stock game ships were internally consistent. But all the new ships can be really very different. But in the worst case, we'll just end up with a few more textures than we'd ideally need.
The end result after the clean-up will be cleaner than it used to be anyway, so it's an improvement either way.

 

[Armada]

Why do some ships use deIB.tga? Can't we make all of those use deck.tga?

Those that have the same cannons as the Interceptor and Bounty models need to use it, but those using the stock cannons can use deck.tga.

Aw, that sucks. Oh well, too bad.

At least we're deleting a whole lot more textures than we're adding, right? Overall the modpack size will hopefully be slightly smaller.

That shouldn't technically interfere with the other texture clean-up, since that's mainly related to stock game ships. On the other hand, any textures that CAN be reused between the newly added ships would be welcome.
Of course the colour scheme textures need to be unique and there's not much choice for that, but anything else would be nice if they could use the same.

I'll need to check some of the new ships to make sure that there aren't copies of standard textures (metal, rope, woodGrain etc).
The only ones that should be different (i.e. the only variable textures) should be the hull colours and some deck colours, I'd imagine.

However, I do have the faint impression that there is a lot of copies of desk.tga-based textures as well, which I have no clue how to sort out properly.

Indeed there's loads of those too. If you could compile a list of which ships use which textures, I can hopefully identify those we need to keep and why.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Those that have the same cannons as the Interceptor and Bounty models need to use it, but those using the stock cannons can use deck.tga.

So be it then.

At least we're deleting a whole lot more textures than we're adding, right? Overall the modpack size will hopefully be slightly smaller.

Absolutely! And once we rid ourselves of the model and texture files we don't want and need, I'll see if I can apply some compression to what's left too. If that doesn't help, I don't know what will!

I'll need to check some of the new ships to make sure that there aren't copies of standard textures (metal, rope, woodGrain etc).
The only ones that should be different (i.e. the only variable textures) should be the hull colours and some deck colours, I'd imagine.

Absolutely agreed; thanks a lot!

Indeed there's loads of those too. If you could compile a list of which ships use which textures, I can hopefully identify those we need to keep and why.

I'll see if I can manage that one soon. Though I'm, of course, not sure which files are actually deck/desk-based for the new ships.
It seems a lot of their desk-type texture files have for longer names and are therefore a lot less obvious and more difficult to prevent from adding to the modpack size.

 

[Armada]

I'll see if I can manage that one soon. Though I'm, of course, not sure which files are actually deck/desk-based for the new ships.
It seems a lot of their desk-type texture files have for longer names and are therefore a lot less obvious and more difficult to prevent from adding to the modpack size.

Well I know that all of Pgargon's ships used desk.tga or a variant of it, so they're all 4-letter words.
As for the PotBS imports, I still have those to figure out for myself, so I don't blame you for being confused. :wacko:

 

[Hylie Pistof]

For what it's worth, the first ships I started porting had the most unique textures, like the Lyon and Revenge. I checked the textures to see if they were already in POTC and removed those that were. I have noticed that there are some duplicates in there tho.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I made all deck.tga changes now. That should simplify things nicely and give things a more uniform look too.
deIB.tga is the file for the twisted cannons, right? Looks like there's a LOT more ships that have that issue. For example the Ketch and Xebecs are the ones I noticed.

 

[Armada]

No, deIB.tga is for a different type of stock cannon, which is used on HMS_Interceptor, USS_Enterprise and the Bounty models.

The 'twisted cannon' problem is totally different; it's most noticeable on the frigates, which is why I've modified a version of deck.tga for those ships.
The other instances are less noticeable, and aren't worth the trouble to add even more textures to fix.

I'm currently sorting out many of the deck textures I mentioned, and will upload the lot once I'm done.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Thanks a lot! If you've got a modified deck.tga to sort out the cannon thing for the frigates, we could just HEX-edit the other ships with the same problem to use that file too right?
Then we shouldn't need another another texture file, unless they're twisted the other way. Oh well, we'll see. Nobody has complained so far, so it's not much of an issue.

 

[Armada]

Thanks a lot! If you've got a modified deck.tga to sort out the cannon thing for the frigates, we could just HEX-edit the other ships with the same problem to use that file too right?

Actually, that might make things worse, considering the extent I've had to shift the gun barrel on the texture.
The frigates' gun UVs are shifted by about 45 degrees, but most ships' guns are only about 5 degrees out, I'd say.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Right. Oh well, I'll give it a shot with one when you post your files and if it's worse, we'll just forget about it.