Included in Build Ship Encounter Chances Correction

[Hylie Pistof]

It sure is colorful and that makes it easy to spot trends.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Wow, that must have taken you a LOT of effort to make!

Averages actually DO sound quite useful to me.

Any chance you can make the top two rows stick when you scroll down? I know how to do that in Excel. But Google Spreadsheats? Not so much.

 

[Armada]

Wow, that must have taken you a LOT of effort to make!

It took a while of scrolling through Ships_init.c and Excel side-by-side, but at least the colour gradient stuff was automatic... no way I would have done THAT manually!

Any chance you can make the top two rows stick when you scroll down? I know how to do that in Excel. But Google Spreadsheats? Not so much.

It does do that when I'm working on the spreadsheet in the full Excel version I use, but it doesn't work in the Excel Web app.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It took a while of scrolling through Ships_init.c and Excel side-by-side, but at least the colour gradient stuff was automatic... no way I would have done THAT manually!

HAHA! You've got to love conditional formatting!
No, the colours are not what I was impressed with. The amount of work to put all the info in a table, though, is!

It does do that when I'm working on the spreadsheet in the full Excel version I use, but it doesn't work in the Excel Web app.

Shame. Oh well, nothing to be done about it, I suppose.

 

[Armada]

I started making some changes to the chances yesterday, and got as far as the FastMerchantman (going down Ships_init.c). You can check the original link to see the differences in the spreadsheet.
Most of the changes so far have involved either restricting ships to certain periods or sharing out nation-specific paint schemes on certain Napoleonic ships. Let me know if anything seems out of place.

One thing I noted when researching various ships' origins and historical usage was that the stock Barque... isn't technically a barque.
Apparently the definition of a barque rig is:

a sailing ship of three or more masts having the foremasts rigged square and the aftermast rigged fore-and-aft

... but our barque has a square-rigged mizzenmast.
So what it should have on the mizzen is rigging similar to that on the stock Schooner. See the barque-rig sail plan below for reference:

Hylie, would you be willing to change the barque's rigging as described above? I think this would only affect Barque1, Barque2 and BarqueHeavy, since the others are special cases.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Hmm. It looks like all that is needed is a suitable gaff. Maybe the Brigantine could be a donor. It will be a day or two before I can look into it.

 

[Armada]

That would probably work. There's no rush.

 

[Armada]

I've just updated the file to show a count of all ships featured in each period/nation, and an average chance per ship (both by excluding zeros).
Also added the column titles again at the bottom of the page, so it's easier to relate these averages to the periods and nations.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Most of the changes so far have involved either restricting ships to certain periods or sharing out nation-specific paint schemes on certain Napoleonic ships. Let me know if anything seems out of place.

Not too much sharing, right?

This much I noticed:
NL_Trinity set for Spain only
NL_FleutWar, NL_Batavia and NL_Essex shared - Especially NL_Batavia really doesn't work for other nations
PO_Caravel50 shared between all nations; is she really that generic?
US_Schooner47 and US_Brig47 have special white US masts; doesn't seem right for England and France

 

[Armada]

Not too much sharing, right?

No, I'm trying not going overboard with them (no pun intended).
A good example is US_Schooner47: She has a 0.4 chance with America and I've given her a 0.1 chance with France and England, as they were known to use the white stripe at times.
The same applies to other ships with either the white or yellow stripes. Does that sound fair enough?

This much I noticed:
NL_Trinity set for Spain only
NL_FleutWar, NL_Batavia and NL_Essex shared - Especially NL_Batavia really doesn't work for other nations
PO_Caravel50 shared between all nations; is she really that generic?
US_Schooner47 and US_Brig47 have special white US masts; doesn't seem right for England and France

I've only got as far as Galeon1 right now, and I'll fix the Trinity/other Dutch ships later, but I didn't catch the excessive use of PO_Caravel50. For now I've removed her from England and France, but kept the others.
It's a much nicer paint scheme than the stock caravels, I'd say.

Good point about the mast colour on those US ships. I'd expect England and France to use yellow ones, but we don't have a yellow texture for deck.tga masts.
That said, I don't know if white masts were exclusive to US ships. Hopefully Post Captain or Captain Armstrong could clarify on that.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

A good example is US_Schooner47: She has a 0.4 chance with America and I've given her a 0.1 chance with France and England, as they were known to use the white stripe at times.
The same applies to other ships with either the white or yellow stripes. Does that sound fair enough?

I wouldn't even have mentioned it, if it hadn't been for those specific masts. We could just replace them with generic deck.tga masts and be done with it.

It's a much nicer paint scheme than the stock caravels, I'd say.

YES! Petros did a great job on her!

Good point about the mast colour on those US ships. I'd expect England and France to use yellow ones, but we don't have a yellow texture for deck.tga masts.
That said, I don't know if white masts were exclusive to US ships. Hopefully Post Captain or Captain Armstrong could clarify on that.

Not sure about those masts being historically accurate. But I do know they were meant for the US only by Thomas the Terror.

 

[Armada]

I wouldn't even have mentioned it, if it hadn't been for those specific masts. We could just replace them with generic deck.tga masts and be done with it.

That would probably be better than messing around with mast textures, at least for now.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So we'll make 'em both brown-masted? Just give the word and I'll sort out the HEX-ing.

 

[Armada]

Yes, go ahead. I don't think it's technically accurate to have an entire mast painted white, anyway. Usually the top half is black, and the lower half is a different colour, but using deck.tga avoids the problem.

While we're at it, I was thinking about US_Brig47; currently she's set up as a 'Sloop-of-War' (three masts) instead of a proper brig (two masts), but now that we have the Volage for the Sloop-of-War role, maybe we should change the rigging to make the ship a brig? You'd only need to clone RN_Brig and repaint the hull and yards accordingly (in fact, RN_Brig should have black yards as well).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Both done. Bit of a shame though to make them less unique.

 

[Armada]

I've now finished checking through all the encounter chances and making several changes; please take a look and let me know of any issues before I upload the Ships_init file for testing.

A few things to note:
1) I've been trying to find references on the web of the existence of large three-deckers in the Dutch and Portuguese navies, but most sources either didn't show any or said those two navies didn't make them.
This would suggest that all three-deckers belonging to Holland and Portugal in the game should be removed or given to other nations.
The affected ships include PO_Manowar, PO_Trinity and NL_Trinity. I haven't changed anything for them yet, but personally I think we should scrap PO_Manowar and give NL_Trinity to the Spanish (again).
Not sure about PO_Trinity.

2) Some ships currently designated as "RN", which predate the Napoleonic black and yellow paint scheme, should probably either be repainted or replaced to use a more authentic blue and yellow scheme.
I'm mainly referring to ships that don't look right with the black/yellow scheme, such as RN_Postillionen and RN_Trinity (I don't mean to pick on this ship ). See attached for a repainted RN_Postillionen hull.
In many cases, I've simply given a French ship to England, where either England didn't have a variant of said ship, or it looks better than the current English scheme.

 

[Armada]

Both done. Bit of a shame though to make them less unique.

Funny thing is, we could probably stick yellow masts on the ships and they'd look acceptable for both the US and RN.
As I said before though, it would ultimately be better to have the masts use black for the upper half and yellow for the lower half, but that's a lot of remapping to do.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

RN_Postillionen is admittedly a bit over-bright in her colour scheme. Your new paint scheme does look a lot more visually pleasing.

I have no love for the PO_Manowar, or any of those oversized and low-detailed manowar thingeys. So we could drop her altogether for all I care.

Noriruru went through a lot of trouble to make those Trinity reskins though, especially that British black-and-yellow skin.
And I went through a lot of trouble HEX-ing her and getting all of his skins in the game properly.
I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have bothered.
NL_Trinity does have the green stern; want to see about making that red again somehow?

Perhaps we don't quite have to go for 100% realism. Perhaps only 80% would suffice?
Bit of a shame to downsize the ships in some of the navies. Shouldn't they be vaguely evenly matched?

Funny thing is, we could probably stick yellow masts on the ships and they'd look acceptable for both the US and RN.
As I said before though, it would ultimately be better to have the masts use black for the upper half and yellow for the lower half, but that's a lot of remapping to do.

Nah, let's not bring more work onto ourselves. I want to get that Beta 2.5 out there SOON! I had been hoping for... perhaps this week.

Why do we want those US versions for the British fleet though? Not sure about giving more ships to England. They've got... a lot.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Are we really going to put the US_Brig47 in use for England when we've already got an RN_Brig?

How about making a Lady Washington skin of the HMS Interceptor and doing away with the US_Brig47 altogether?
Or REALLY change her into an FR_Brig?

Is there any point in putting an unnamed HMS Surprise in use in the game for random encounters?
While we still don't have a REAL Master & Commander storyline, is there any specific need to keep her unique?

 

[Armada]

I have no love for the PO_Manowar, or any of those oversized and low-detailed manowar thingeys. So we could drop her altogether for all I care.

That makes things simple, then.

Noriruru went through a lot of trouble to make those Trinity reskins though, especially that British black-and-yellow skin.
And I went through a lot of trouble HEX-ing her and getting all of his skins in the game properly.
I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have bothered.
NL_Trinity does have the green stern; want to see about making that red again somehow?

Yeah, that's why I didn't want to pick on the Trinity, because I know a lot of work has gone into those paint schemes.
Maybe, to minimise the amount of work we lose, we could keep FR_Trinity for France and England, use NL_Trinity for Spain, make PO_Trinity unique for Vanderdecken, and only drop RN_Trinity.
I recall Noriruru said PO_Trinity was his personal configuration from PotBS, so making it unique at least gives it a use. How does that sound?

Perhaps we don't quite have to go for 100% realism. Perhaps only 80% would suffice?
Bit of a shame to downsize the ships in some of the navies. Shouldn't they be vaguely evenly matched?

If you think about it, as far as three-deckers are concerned, Portugal loses two and Holland loses one, which isn't downsizing much.
They never did have anything like the number of large ships of England, France and Spain in the game.
In fact, I actually gave both Holland and Portugal use of RN_Superbe, which at least provides them with something that can match the other navies' largest ships.

Nah, let's not bring more work onto ourselves. I want to get that Beta 2.5 out there SOON! I had been hoping for... perhaps this week.

Why do we want those US versions for the British fleet though? Not sure about giving more ships to England. They've got... a lot.

Don' worry, I'm not making yellow masts any time soon. We have more important things to do.

About England having "a lot" of ships... this is why I added the "Number of ships" row to the spreadsheet.
If you check that, England currently has 120 ships, BUT Spain has 121 and France has 130, so they're not as over privileged as you might think.
Yes, they do have the joint highest average chance per ship, tying with the US, but not by much.