Solved Storyline Period Changes

[Skyworm]

Good day gentlemen,

since this was also originally about too few big ships in the golden age, I'd like to add a note.

While testing Open Seas Mod adjusted to 2.4 for Pieter, I chosed the golden age to do so. From what I see, I can't say there are either too few or too small ships.
When I started at Cuba, I encountered several small ships, including Barques, Sloops and Luggers.
When I proceeded to Turks, there were some frigates around. Of course not napoleonic frigates, but that new Russiya version it was.
En route to Hispaniola then, I encountered another frigate (which chased me all the way to Hispaniola).
Near Hispaniola then, the first ships I encounter are 2 spanish ships, a man o' war, don't know the exact type, you know this about 70 guns warship that does not look too napoleonic due to its high quarter deck, and a Manila Galleon.

So, the size of ships varies widely, and the number seems to me ok for me, and the ships seem t fit into this era.

Edit:
Just met another spanish fleet near Hispaniola in that era.
A Carrack, a Naval Ketch, a Sloop of war (formerly known as postillonen 6th rate frigate), and a Galleon.
Really no lack of big ships.

 

[Captain Maggee]

I agree with Pieter in not changing the storylines at the current time due to KK's code

I think the best course would be the individual open storylines for sure atm

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Actually, I'm not sure about not making any changes. It is looking more and more that using Pirate_KK's code base is going to be a long term project.
I still don't have the required missing texture files and once I do get them, there is still a LOT of merging work to be done.
In fact, every fix I'm doing for Beta 2.4 right now is making my job to get Pirate_KK's code version working harder.
And going by how much I am having to change the Shipyard Interface, that is going to be a real pain to eventually merge correctly.

So I think the best thing for us to do would be to first make Build 14 Beta 2.4 as good as we possibly can.
I might actually call it a nice "round" Beta 2.5 by the time we've got the release version all finished up.

Since we actually have some activity going here again, I'd like to make the next release as polished as possibly can be.
Then once that is over and done with, the next project will be putting in the KK base version code.
When I get to that, we're going to have to STOP making any fixes until the merging is complete, so that any fixes can be done on the new code base.
And then we'll need substantial testing and possibly get rid again of all those parts of code that are unfinished and don't do what we want them to.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

And here I wuz thinking POTC was about dead...............

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It helps that I've actually got the time and inspiration to do something again. It helps even more that other people are joining in!
It's good to see, really. So much more fun being around at PiratesAhoy! when there's stuff going on!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I moved some off-topic posts to more appropriate threads, so we can keep this one for discussing changes to the Storyline Period Changes.

Long story short:
- The next modpack release will NOT include the customizable Select Storyline interface
- Allowing to select your starting date has not been written yet
- We want to have Free Play supported as well as possible in the next release despite the above

So what changes are we going to make for that purpose?

 

[Armada]

Here's what I think:
As said before, we could move the Sea Hawk storyline and Chevalier storyline forward by one period (moving from 2 to 3 and 1 to 2 respectively) so that the most popular free-play storyline (Sea Hawk) can include the most popular kinds of ships. DISCLAIMER: "Most popular" is based on anecdotal evidence, not actual voting.

Then, to cater for the Napoleonic period, I reckon we should add a new US free-play storyline with no quests, much like Master and Commander, and leave M&C as-is.
All we need to do is decide on the starting conditions for the US storyline, including:

• Character
• Ship
• Location
• Items

How does that sound?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sounds fair enough. And then we have to sort out the Period 4 flags so we can keep the Nathaniel Hawk ones in use.

Are there any well-known American pirate characters you could play as? Didn't Jean Lafitte have some distinct US involvement?
Starting location could be Eleuthera; then we move Master & Commander to... Antigua, perhaps? Middle of the British Navy base.

 

[Armada]

Sounds fair enough. And then we have to sort out the Period 4 flags so we can keep the Nathaniel Hawk ones in use.

Are there any well-known American pirate characters you could play as? Didn't Jean Lafitte have some distinct US involvement?
Starting location could be Eleuthera; then we move Master & Commander to... Antigua, perhaps? Middle of the British Navy base.

I thought you said we weren't going to touch the flag textures.

And generally speaking, I'd expect those who choose to play in the Napoleonic period to want to play as a naval character, not a pirate.
So... any historians here want to suggest an American character?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I thought you said we weren't going to touch the flag textures.

We can sort that out later. We'll probably have our flag-work cut out for us once we get to that anyway.
For now, I suppose for simplicity's sake, we can just take things one step at a time.

And generally speaking, I'd expect those who choose to play in the Napoleonic period to want to play as a naval character, not a pirate.
So... any historians here want to suggest an American character?

John Paul Jones is the only name that comes to mind.

 

[Armada]

Before we go any further with the US storyline, have you checked yet to see if it's actually possible to start as the US?

John Paul Jones is the only name that comes to mind.

He's someone worth considering, for sure. I'd be interested to hear from Captain Armstrong and Post Captain on this subject.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Before we go any further with the US storyline, have you checked yet to see if it's actually possible to start as the US?

I just did. Turns out it is not possible. Or at least: The nation flag doesn't display properly. Didn't test any further.
So if we really need to do that, I have to figure out how to fix that code. On the other hand, we could have French Jean Lafitte start at Eleuthera with a US flag.
Pirate_KK's advanced Select Storyline interface DOES support it, so I think I'd like a solution where I don't have to fix this. It'll work out fine later on anyway.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

At the moment, Tortuga is always French. Except in the Colonial Powers period when it is Pirate for the sake of the Jack Sparrow storyline.
Probably should make that storyline-dependent instead of period-dependent, eh?

 

[Talisman]

For a US storyline starting location -- when did Puerto Rico become a US dependancy ?

( sorry my history is not that good )

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If I understand correctly, they became independent from Spain in 1898: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico#United_States_colony
That is outside the scope of the game, I'm afraid. What we could do, however,
is start out the US character there anyway and put in a questbook entry suggesting that you eventually take Puerto Rico for the US.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So here is my proposal for a new Napoleonic free play starting condition:

Starting quest text:

title=Investigation of #sIsla Muelle#'s Defences
text.t1=At the request of the #sAlice# governor, I have arrived at #sisland_Isla Muelle# under the guise of a false flag. However, I am a free man and quite capable of deciding what to do for myself.

So what do you people think?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Does anyone else find that starting date looking a bit stupid in Select Storyline? Suggest to change the formatting to:
Napoleonic: July 30th, 1813
And do away with the time altogether. After all, who really cares about THAT?

 

[Captain Maggee]

Yep I agree, time really isn't that important and if it was the quest writer can just set it to the time they want it to start

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As per Jack Rackham's request, I added some code to the Select Storyline interface to prevent players from messing up settings unintentionally and clarify things a bit further.
I was going to leave this until the next version, but it turns out that disabling stuff is RIDICULOUSLY easy! So I've done it now instead.

Note all the missing left/right buttons. You also cannot change your personal and ship's name.

This applies to:
Woodes Rogers
Bartolomeu o Portugues
Horatio Hornblower
Jack Sparrow

While I was at it, I re-purposed the useless and disabled "Customize" button with a note on Free Play Only storylines:

This applies to:
Jack Aubrey
Jean Lafitte

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I also cleaned up the storylines a bit further;
- BlazeDevlin is removed because it is just a copy of DevlinOpera.
- Added some variety in the starting dates (almost all started on 15 April due to copy-pasting)
- Changed the starting years on Standard and La Croix as per Armada's suggestions

So this gives us the following free play options:
Early Explorers: Devlin Opera
The Spanish Main: Assassin storyline (Bartolomeu is locked due to the ship-less opening)
Golden Age of Piracy: La Croix
Colonial Powers: Standard (Jack Sparrow is locked to to the opening scenes overriding your changes anyway)
Revolutions: Jack Aubrey
Napoleonic: Jean Lafitte