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Solved Promotion Reward Ships

Marki

Sailor
Pirates!

I'm playing Build 14 Beta 2.1 full & Beta 2.2 light. After some hours I noticed that there would have been something called "Main Quest":yes. I missed it and wanted to know why. I read somewhere one has to do exactly what Malcolm says, in that order. Well, I had made the decision not to buy a new spyglass at the point he told me but later, but got a "done" in my questbook anyway. So was the order the problem (which would have been a funny joke indeed)? Wanted to know that, so I took my very first save before walking around with Malcolm (I save them somewhere else just for cases like this), and did EXACTELY what he told me, twice, but never ever saw the "video" that shows the French attack at Speightstown, this attack never happened. So?
I have no idea why that quest didn't work at all for me, but I think it would be a good idea to give a new player a hint in the quest book anyway: Walking around with Malcolm is not just a how-to-do-things but already part of a quest, the Main Quest. A new player should not be forced to read a walkthrough even before playing a FEW MINUTES.

The worst bug I saw until now is a promotion officer bug. Both with the english and the portuguese I had that one.
At some point of promotion (don't know what rank anymore) you get an ship and an officer as reward. I read one has to leave a slot open for the new ship, otherwise it causes trouble. Indeed it does, but that's not all. The worst are the officers themselves: They are bugged fuckers. The english one once I wanted to escort me in the jungle, later I noticed he was still captain of one of my ships, so he remained in the passengers list though he was no passenger anymore. Later he appeared in my passengers list TWICE. And once you have taken up that bug, it's GAME OVER, crashes crashes crashes. tried different things, but had to delete all saves and go back to a point where everything was fine, experimented a bit and finally got rid of him. With my portuguese "reward officer" it's different, but evil as well. When I do something with him, game messes up immediately. Can't get rid of that guy at all, if I put him in one of my escort slots, he does simply not appear as an escort at all:no, nice officer, so he can't be shot either, he just remains in my passengers list and I will never ever touch him again.
By the way, one of the promotion ships I got seemed to be bugged as well (though it could be a ship berthing problem in Eleuthera as well): Relaunched the ship, but it was not an Escort ship anymore but an English Galleon.. So got rid of that piece of junk as well.
I think the whole promotion ships and officers stuff is severly bugged and probably should be deleted for the next version of the game.
 
Actually, playing through the walkthrough is NOT required at all for the main quest to start.
Whatever you do on the Barbados, as soon as you set sail and the day changes into tomorrow, the invasion movie should start.
The only exception is if you do a "Stormy Start" from the opening cabin dialog, in which case the main quest will still start upon entering 3D sailing mode around Barbados.

If the invasion indeed did not trigger, something weird is going on. What are the entries at the moment in your questbook?

I've heard about those promotion officers being troublesome before, but don't know why they would/should be.
But you're right; perhaps we SHOULD disable the feature for the next update. That is easily done in PROGRAM\NK.c in the void GivePromotionReward() function.
All that needs to be done is to remove the following type of lines for each national promotion:
Code:
                    ch = CreateOfficer_Cheat(OFFIC_TYPE_FIRSTMATE, "9JdEng_A3", 3, ENGLAND, false);
                    ExchangeCharacterShip(ch, pchar);
                    SetCompanionIndex(pchar, -1, GetCharacterIndex(ch.id)));
This does not require a new game to be started, but does only apply to games where you didn't already get them.
 
Hi

I didn't do the Stormy Start. The information about the importance of the order you do the things Malcolm suggests I found here:
http://perfectworlds.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/potc-2004-pc-walkthrough.pdf
Probably the order IS important because the order of entries in my current game's book seems to be not logic:

1.
"Sell cargo to the local trader": (2 entries)
"I should find a storekeeper and sell goods ...*
"Done!"

2.
"Hire some crew at the tavern": (2 entries)
"Unforunately, a few hands were lost at sea. I should find..."
"Done!"

3.
"Repair the damage caused to my ship by a storm": (2 entries)
"The hull and rigging..."
"Done!"

4.
"Arrival at Speightstown": (1 entry)
"After surviving a fearsome storm, ... Thankfully the ship's cargo is intact."

5.
"Buy a new spyglass": (2 entries)
"It appears my spyglass has seen better days as well. Perhaps..."
"Done!"

That's it.


About the reward officers bug: I never had trouble with any other ("regular") officer before in my current game.
 
And something I noticed: In my passengers list the english reward officer had .. how do I explain that.. he had no frame around his picture in the list. Maybe that has something to do with it. The portuguese officer has got the frame.. Wait, no! He has got no frame either (top, left)!
 

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And something completely different..: There seems to be a general problem of things should happen automatically, but don't:

In Artois Voysey Quest you enter pirate settlement for the first time and should see two men fighting, I did not. After loading third time I did.
In Something Strange Going On in the Caribbean at the point where Father Gareth should walk to me and say something, he didn't. After loading several times, he did.
So one really SHOULD read a walkthrough at the beginning to know when these automatic events happen...

A good walkthrough:
http://www.piratewiki.net/index.php?title=New_Horizon_Quests
 
And another small bug I found (doesn't cause further trouble):
 

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Everything you have discussed is normal for POTC except that last bug. Something is messed up there. do you have error logging enabled?

I agree that the reward ships mod should be dumped because it is so buggy and by the time you get them, you don't want them.
 
Hylie! Just too many posts at once I understand. Don't want to criticize, you know, just report. No, have not enabled error logging, but do it if you tell me how. Normal for POTC, no problem for me, the game is still great, but as a simple gamer from Zurich I say c'est dommage the main quest doesn't start and the heavy weight bugs that can destroy 20 saves (a lot of people don't hold 20 saves) and could expulse a good hearted gamer:) Because the game is great. But it needs love. Sometimes the game is even more attractiv than COAS, some of the officers one can hire look just better, there's a lot of charme (sailed from Nevis to Jamaica and captured a nice Carrack on my way with a bit of silver, but when I tried to sell my silver in Port Royale, the game crashed directly to Nirwana, no error message, no, just gone, tried several times, it was a Carrack from hell I suppose. Done the same way without the Carrack, everything was fine:onya ). If only some big bugs could be eliminated somehow it would be on the top with COAS Gentlemen of Fortune. :shock I killed Clint Eastwood.
 
The order of the tutorial really doesn't matter. However, I have seen in the past that quest cases don't execute when they should.
Once that happened WHILE I was trying to update an existing quest and I REALLY couldn't figure out why it was going wrong.
Loading a savegame, then trying again made it work though.

Long story short: WHY it happens, I have no clue. But save often and if something doesn't happen that should, load your latest savegame and try again.

The lack of frame around pictures isn't a bug; apparently it just wasn't added to the portraits texture file.
 
Whether or not the video plays, what does your quest book say? For me the video not playing is very very rare. This goes for all of those videos.

Playing the walkthrough with Malcolm is not needed. You can dismiss Malcolm at any time and you are on your own.

Yes you get two reward officers except for the Portagee one, who will not set foot on land. I use him for captured ships that are about to sink, so it is no loss if it goes down. It is sometimes possible if you swap ships and officers in the governors office that you will end up with just one officer. Also, the reward officer will not go with you on boarding parties.


All of those CTDs are troubling. Also that missing item is an error. You might have an incomplete or corrupted install. Try reinstalling beta 2.2 again. Also, the items in this thread have helped me.
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/heap-corruption-random-crashes.19362/

Save often! I use all of the allowed number of saves every day.

The instructions for enabling error logging are in the FAQ.
 
I think I managed to get the Promotion Reward Ships to work properly again, so we'll be re-instating that for testing.
Also, apparently it IS possible to get a LoM from the Turks "governor", so we could put some pirate promotion ships in there?
Any thoughts? This is what I have now:
Code:
                        switch(GetCurrentPeriod())
                        {
                            case PERIOD_EARLY_EXPLORERS:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "PiratFastGal", "Adventure Galley", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_THE_SPANISH_MAIN:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "XebecVML", "Fancy", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_GOLDEN_AGE_OF_PIRACY:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "CursedCaravel", "Whydah", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_COLONIAL_POWERS:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "WickedWench", "Wicked Wench", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_REVOLUTIONS:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "QueenAnnesRevenge", "Queen Anne's Revenge", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_NAPOLEONIC:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "US_SteamFrigate", "CSS Alabama", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;
                        }
Better selections welcome. :doff
 
Interesting idea. This would be a good excuse to put PiratFrigateSup and CrimsonBlood/PiratCorvette to good use.
I'd suggest something like PiratFrigateSup (aptly named Marauder ;)) in Colonial Powers, followed by CrimsonBlood in Revolutions, and maybe XebecVML in Napoleonic? It only appears in the last three periods.
Then for the Golden Age I think PiratPostillionen would be nice, and perhaps FleutWar in the Spanish Main. I agree with PiratFastGal in Early Explorers.
 
Thanks! That should make it this:
Code:
                            case PERIOD_EARLY_EXPLORERS:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "PiratFastGal", "Adventure Galley", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_THE_SPANISH_MAIN:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "FleutWar", "Fancy", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_GOLDEN_AGE_OF_PIRACY:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "PiratPostillionen", "Whydah", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_COLONIAL_POWERS:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "PiratFrigateSup", "Marauder", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_REVOLUTIONS:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "CrimsonBlood", "Crimson Blood", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;

                            case PERIOD_NAPOLEONIC:
                                GiveShip2Character(ch, "XebecVML", "Royal Fortune", -1, PIRATE, true, false);
                            break;
 
Has anyone been getting any promotions with accompanying ships lately? Any weird effects or is it REALLY working this time around?
 
I'm now a Senior Lt with England in my game; how many more ranks before a reward ship?
At least I've got the English Officer's Sabre. :love
 
Sr. Lieutenant is rank 4. You get the ship at rank 6. :doff
Unlike before, this time the promotion ship doesn't replace yours, but a new officer of yours takes command of her.
So if you want to swap, it'll be your own choice.
 
It always hires one. The only REAL problem I can see is if you've already GOT three companion ships. That might do weird things.
I could check on that, but what to do with the promotion ship? how to decide who to give it to? Or just skip on the ship if you've got no room in your fleet?
 
i have 2 ideas about it:

- put in code something which check if there is no room => if true do not allow the promotion (not just the promotion ship, but the promotion globally)

- the best way for me would be just adding in roleplay when talking "make sure to have a free place for a new promotion ship"
 
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