Fixed Suggestions and a few bugs

[PotMaster]

Some time back I suggested that they put rats in the game and when I re-installed the game, I found that they have put rats in the game, thanks for this. It's one of those details that is just funny to have in the game.

I have a few suggestions (and a few "bugs", if they are even bugs, I don't know)

Suggestions:

1. Secret chest (To hide money from crew, to prevent them from becoming envious and rebellious)
2. Rats only in food storage room and on open deck (and other areas where they can hide, not so much in the captains cabbin, where they are likely to get caught almost instantly)
3. One more variation of a captain's cabbin that isn't as large as the biggest, not as small as the smallest. Somewhere in between, it's larger "crampy" on medium sized ships with the small cabbin it has

"Bug" reports, beware i'm not sure whether these are bugs or not, so if they are not, just ignore them:

1. After fighting the hollander ship (That fast cursed ship) and I don't actually want to capture it, because I like ordinary ships better than the cursed one, the deck of other ships become "greenish" and have a "cursed look" to it, even if I didn't capture the hollander ship. I want it to have the ordinary wooden color look.

2. After being caught up in a storm and just when the storm ends, the screen lights up with brightness and if there are enemy ships nearby, I have to fight them in a screen with so much brightness that I can't actually see the enemy ships because of all of that brightness to the screen.

3. Not a bug report, but after very much gameplay, I do seriously think that there are too many storms appearing, this is an imbalance that needs to be re-adjusted.

4. Not a bug report, bug ability to fine adjust the angle of sailing, in map mode, I find that when I turn my ship it always turns too much to one side when I push the left or right keyboard arrow keys.

5. I can't rotate my view (other than up and down) when I am being presented with a new pair of clother from the tailor at Nevis, Pirate Island, that tailor who is standing on the streets. The view is locked on the vertical axis and i can't actually see the clothes he is presenting to me. Can you unlock the horizontal rotation view so I can actually see the clothes he is wearing, my own character is blocking the view.

6. "Pay crew" dialogue disappears too quickly when i'm going to sleep in the tavern, so I am not able to pay my crew in the tavern when going to sleep, the dialogue just disappears and a month of payment is gone.

7. The tips that appears on the load screen (tips related to the game) disappear too fast (maybe my computer is too fast) so I never get to read any of the useful tips, I only get parts of it, and I've never actually managed to read a single tips.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The rats have always been there. They are part of the stock game.

1. The loan sharks work for that function.
2. Too minor to bother with.
3. That would need someone to do it. Dunno who.

1) I have never heard of anyone mentioning a green deck before. Can you get screenies of this?
2) That only happens at one certain time of day and is well known.
3) That has been discussed. It seems ok to me but some don't like so many storms.
4) Ayup that is kind of a large change of course. But then one does not need to be too precise on the world map.
5) I can not recall anyone complaining about that before. I can see the tailor fine from one side while on the other side the tailor icon hides him.
6) Ayup! That gets me quite often too.
7) All I know is that they can be toggled on and off. You could take screenies of them if you really want to read them.

What version of POTC are you playing now? Beta 3.4?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Suggestions:

1. There are only three places where the crew DOES see your money: Your own money, ship's chest and weaponslocker.
There are many other places to hide your money, for example by giving it to an officer or storing it with a loanshark (you'll get interest!).
That being said, why do you want to "fool" the game? Also, we're rewriting this behaviour a bit for Beta 3.5 so it is only triggered if you have a LoM.
Plus you'll be able to get a trading license to end it again.

2. If I recall, those rats were added absolute ages ago and I don't know where to find the code responsible for it.
You're welcome to search for it and if you find it, perhaps we can do what you suggest.
But I certainly have no time to spare to look at it myself.

3. We have no modelers to do that. So unless you can find an appropriate model in another Storm-game, that won't happen.


Bugs:

1. Do you mean the "Black Pearl" at the end of the Standard storyline?
I do remember there was an error with the deck textures after that, but I made some code changes last year to fix that.
What modpack version are you running?

2. That "brightness" must be fog. That often happens after a storm.
I'm not entirely sure why, but the weather system is quite complex and the persons who modded it are no longer here.

3. On the worldmap or not? There is a "rain season" programmed into the game so there is a much higher chance of storms in for example October.
You can also get the "Trident of Neptune" from Vanderdecken to immediately end storms when you don't like them.

4. The worldmap ships are very responsive and don't behave like they're on water at all.
So I'm not sure what you mean there.

5. I don't know if that is even possible during a dialog. I always just move the camera so that I can look over my player character.
You can try the "Dialog Camera" option in the ingame Options>Advanced Options menu and see if that helps any.

6. Not quite sure what to do about that.

7. I don't think we can make the loading slower and I don't think that would be a good idea either.
Get this program: http://www.piratesahoy.net/build/tools/Modeling+Texturing/TX Convertor.zip
Then use it to look at the actual tips files here: RESOURCE\Textures\Tips

 

[Jack Rackham]

The rats have always been there. They are part of the stock game.

No, I added them a long time ago. About rats on ship the idea was:
most in the hold a fewer on open deck and in captains cabin. That can of course be tweaked.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

No, I added them a long time ago. About rats on ship the idea was:
most in the hold a fewer on open deck and in captains cabin. That can of course be tweaked.

Ah, that was you! Couldn't remember after all those years.
Well, at least PotMaster can now figure it out with you and I don't need to dive into it.
That's always a good thing! (For me.... )

 

[Jack Rackham]

I can tune down the rats in Captains cabin a little but don't have time for more right now.

 

[PotMaster]

I am not home right now so I can't tell what version of the game I am using but I downloaded the latest version 3 days ago, so it should be the latest beta version of Build, unless there have been a new release the last couple of days.

If there were any questions I didn't answer, it's okay. I'll just pump in some more "bug" reports here, or suggestions. If they are not bugs just ignore them. I only care for a better game and don't have much time to reflect over them, I just put them in here, so people become aware of them if they are not already aware of them.

1. inca temple mission, right when I enter the final big room (the temple itself) the name that appears in the upper left corner begins with a $ (dollar sign) and some weird name of what seems to be a variable or a macro which i can't recall what it was. Is this a bug? There should appear some other text there, it begins with a dollar sign.

2. "Go to pirate ship" always appear on Bonaire, even after mission is complete a long time ago, and I even got the nice sword from the guy in the tavern, the "go to pirate ship" always appear in port on bonaire, and if I go to the ship, I can't do anything there, not depart from the ship either.

3. Temple portals (The pink and green one) on the inca temple mission does not work, I'm stuck in the temple forever

4. When porting at Saint John's and if i have my 3 companions with me, all of those 3 companions block my path, change so that my own character is standing not at the edge, but the 3 characters are standing behind me, so I can actually walk when I enter that port. I always have to fast travel on Saint John because of that, or I have to leave my partners in the ship

5. Shop trade job does not disappear from the list of unfinished jobs if I don't make it in time. You have a certain amount of time to deliver goods to shop dealders, if I cant make it in time, the job always lists in the list of unfinished jobs, i want it to disappear even when i fail to deliver on time, they accumulate

6. When fast travelling to a port, my ship takes damage because it crashes into the port even if I am fast to click the "Dock" icon, it takes damage and so the "travel to port" is a dangerous option, it actually costs money to use that option. The alternative is to take down all sails first and then fast travel to port, but its annoying to do that

7. Some times I get a weird bug when I am at sea, after a battle, or after being on the deck and going back to sea again, I can't really recall, my ship is dispositioned to an entirely different world position, randomly. One time I was in a battle around Le Granade, and suddenly when going back to map mode again, my ship "magically" transported itself to south of Port Royale, this have happened a few times and its definitely a bug

8. Crews are climbing in mid-air (Like superman) after I've shot down the masts on enemy ships.

9. When fixing a lot of swords at the blacksmith, it should give a warning if too many days are required because my ship goes empty of food and alot of "shit" happens as a result of that, pay-crew dialogue, "emergency buy of food" etc. etc. Perhaps a warning dialogue would be proper here if too many weapons are to be fixed at the same time

 

[Hylie Pistof]

1. Not a bug.
2. That bug got fixed a long time ago.
3. Have you tried starting from your last save? Those almost always work.
4. It will take a major mod to fix that irritating dock.
5. That has been addressed in the latest WIP.
6. That has never happened to me.
7. That happens. No one knows how to fix it.
8. That is a normal feature of the game engine.
9. It says on the left side of the screen how many days of supplies you have left.

 

[PotMaster]

That's about it, I think I have put everything in here. I have more things to report about this game, but that has very little to do with the Build mod. The crashes that I experience is probably related to the incredibly and horrible engine that they have designed for this game. It's so buggy that real bugs in nature would be horrified with them, thats the nature of games that were designed by people under high pressure and a limited amount of time on their hands.

It's a shame, a real big shame that incredible games like these didn't get more time to really evolve to a bugfree game, because, this game is really unique in its quality. Really fantastically unique and not even Hearts of Oak will be able to replace it, imho. It seems as if hearts of oak focuses on 3 major things: 1. Scale 2. graphical lift-up 3. More realism.

All these 3 things are good, but PoC is successful, not because of any of these 3 things, it's successful for some other reason. Somehow the designers of PotC have managed to create an unbeatable environment, and it's just so incredibly vivid and enjoyable, that hearts of oak will have a hard time beating it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you got the latest update from ModDB then you're definitely behind.
There are some important fixes in a zip attached to the Beta 3.4 thread on this forum.

If you really want the latest, which might be a good idea, use the link in my signature.
Then at least we would all be looking at the same game version, which does simplify matters a bit.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

4. When porting at Saint John's and if i have my 3 companions with me, all of those 3 companions block my path, change so that my own character is standing not at the edge, but the 3 characters are standing behind me, so I can actually walk when I enter that port. I always have to fast travel on Saint John because of that, or I have to leave my partners in the ship

Indeed that is a very tight pier. Would be nice if somebody could move the locators around.

5. Shop trade job does not disappear from the list of unfinished jobs if I don't make it in time. You have a certain amount of time to deliver goods to shop dealders, if I cant make it in time, the job always lists in the list of unfinished jobs, i want it to disappear even when i fail to deliver on time, they accumulate

You mean the "Fetch Quests"? If I recall, you do need to complete those.

6. When fast travelling to a port, my ship takes damage because it crashes into the port even if I am fast to click the "Dock" icon, it takes damage and so the "travel to port" is a dangerous option, it actually costs money to use that option. The alternative is to take down all sails first and then fast travel to port, but its annoying to do that

Does that happen very often? Perhaps the anchoring delay can be reduced a bit further.

7. Some times I get a weird bug when I am at sea, after a battle, or after being on the deck and going back to sea again, I can't really recall, my ship is dispositioned to an entirely different world position, randomly. One time I was in a battle around Le Granade, and suddenly when going back to map mode again, my ship "magically" transported itself to south of Port Royale, this have happened a few times and its definitely a bug

Known issue, but unfortunately difficult to fix: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/directsail-and-worldmap-island-transfer-inconsistencies.24673/

8. Crews are climbing in mid-air (Like superman) after I've shot down the masts on enemy ships.

The game was never really made properly to allow masts to fall. That is probably why that feature wasn't in the original game.

9. When fixing a lot of swords at the blacksmith, it should give a warning if too many days are required because my ship goes empty of food and alot of "shit" happens as a result of that, pay-crew dialogue, "emergency buy of food" etc. etc. Perhaps a warning dialogue would be proper here if too many weapons are to be fixed at the same time

Fixing lots of swords already goes 24 times faster than doing them one by one.
The shipyard and trade interface don't tell you in advance the time they'll take either.

If we would do something about this, my preferred solution would be to not automatically wait the time at all but lock all reloads to sea until the time has passed.
Then you can either wait on purpose in the tavern or do some other things ashore while you're waiting. This would not be easily to accomplish, though.

 

[Grey Roger]

Some time back I suggested that they put rats in the game and when I re-installed the game, I found that they have put rats in the game, thanks for this. It's one of those details that is just funny to have in the game.

I have a few suggestions (and a few "bugs", if they are even bugs, I don't know)

Suggestions:

1. Secret chest (To hide money from crew, to prevent them from becoming envious and rebellious)
...

Edit "PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h", find the line "#define UNLIMITEDLOOT 0", change the "0" to "1". Never worry about envious crew again. (Well, at least until another update is released, overwriting "InternalSettings.h", which means you'll need to edit again.)

"Bug" reports, beware i'm not sure whether these are bugs or not, so if they are not, just ignore them:
...
4. Not a bug report, bug ability to fine adjust the angle of sailing, in map mode, I find that when I turn my ship it always turns too much to one side when I push the left or right keyboard arrow keys.

Don't press the key so hard. Or get a larger, slower ship. Also note that once you've pressed the key to start turning the ship, you then need to press the opposite key to stop turning. This is the equivalent of turning the ship's wheel to move the rudder to turn the ship, then turning the wheel the other way to return the rudder to centre.

...
7. The tips that appears on the load screen (tips related to the game) disappear too fast (maybe my computer is too fast) so I never get to read any of the useful tips, I only get parts of it, and I've never actually managed to read a single tips.

I don't like the tips anyway, and always get rid of them entirely. Edit "engine.ini", find "numoftips = 77", change "77" to "0", never worry about tips again.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Edit "PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h", find the line "#define UNLIMITEDLOOT 0", change the "0" to "1". Never worry about envious crew again. (Well, at least until another update is released, overwriting "InternalSettings.h", which means you'll need to edit again.)

That doesn't work in the current Beta 3.5 WIP version, but we're restoring it for the next update.

Don't press the key so hard. Or get a larger, slower ship. Also note that once you've pressed the key to start turning the ship, you then need to press the opposite key to stop turning. This is the equivalent of turning the ship's wheel to move the rudder to turn the ship, then turning the wheel the other way to return the rudder to centre.

From what I understand, he refers to on the worldmap. You describe the behaviour in 3D Sailing Mode with Realistic Game Mode selected.

 

[Grey Roger]

I am not home right now so I can't tell what version of the game I am using but I downloaded the latest version 3 days ago, so it should be the latest beta version of Build, unless there have been a new release the last couple of days.

Where did you download it? The really latest version is here:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-5-internal-wip-for-testing.24817/

That's Beta 3.5, and although it's a work in progress and probably has new bugs of its own, that's the one actively being worked on. Some of the bugs you've reported, e.g. dark decks on all ships after capturing the Black Pearl, have been fixed in this one.

2. "Go to pirate ship" always appear on Bonaire, even after mission is complete a long time ago, and I even got the nice sword from the guy in the tavern, the "go to pirate ship" always appear in port on bonaire, and if I go to the ship, I can't do anything there, not depart from the ship either.

This is odd. That quest has always worked correctly for me except on one occasion because it got mixed up with dialog from another quest. So the next question is, what other quests did you have active at the same time as that one?

4. When porting at Saint John's and if i have my 3 companions with me, all of those 3 companions block my path, change so that my own character is standing not at the edge, but the 3 characters are standing behind me, so I can actually walk when I enter that port. I always have to fast travel on Saint John because of that, or I have to leave my partners in the ship

Edit "PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h", scroll right down to the bottom, find "#define SIDESTEP_ENABLED 0", replace the "0" with "1". You can now sidestep. There is no check on where you end up which means it's possible to sidestep through walls; this is unlikely ever to be corrected so don't bother reporting it. But it also means you can sidestep round your companions to another piece of walkway. Make sure you're properly centred on the walkway because you won't be able to walk again until you are. There are other times when companions get in the way, so enabling sidestep is really useful.

6. When fast travelling to a port, my ship takes damage because it crashes into the port even if I am fast to click the "Dock" icon, it takes damage and so the "travel to port" is a dangerous option, it actually costs money to use that option. The alternative is to take down all sails first and then fast travel to port, but its annoying to do that

Strange. I've never seen that, and I tend to keep relatively fast ships.

9. When fixing a lot of swords at the blacksmith, it should give a warning if too many days are required because my ship goes empty of food and alot of "shit" happens as a result of that, pay-crew dialogue, "emergency buy of food" etc. etc. Perhaps a warning dialogue would be proper here if too many weapons are to be fixed at the same time

Or just go to the store and buy plenty of food and rum before getting a lot of weapons fixed.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

About that narrow pier at Antigua: There is a wide version in COAS in one of the English ports. I have COAS but have no idea how to port it into POTC.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Antigua was heavily modified by CouchcaptainCharles to serve as a navy base instead of a regular town.
If another location is to be ported from CoAS, all that work would have to be repeated too.
It's probably easier to move the locators around a bit.

 

[Grey Roger]

Antigua is the worst offender but there are others. The fences outside the doors of the Sao Jorge gunsmith and tavern, as well as the San Juan store, all create problems when you have a full set of companions. There are plenty of reasons why I always enable sidestep.

 

[PotMaster]

I had beta 3 installed, not beta 3.5. I've reinstalled it now and I'm here to report the next bug in this new release. When I get an escort job from curacao to escort him to cuba, Havana, when I enter the port, I can't move and I cant fast travel, and the guy I escorted won't walk up to me, I have to reload an earlier game from here, there is nothing that can be done.

I will report the next 10 bugs in this new beta release later, I haven't found the 10 bugs yet but I will find them very soon and then report them as well. I'm not playing at the moment, that is why I haven't found the next 10 bugs. As soon as I launch the game, I will discover them instantly.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

A bugged escort quest? I had one a while back but it was Tortuga and was fixed.

 

[PotMaster]

It's okay I'll just reload and get a different destination for the escort quest. Hawk is just standing on the port, scratching his head, immobilized, no fast travel options and the escort "mummy" is standing there like an oak tree, totally rooted to the ground, we're staring at one another.

Yesterday when I was in the inca temple, I think I spent an hour trying to get out of there, I had to revert to an earlier save.

This game is so seriously filled up with bugs. If you're not stuck, if you're ship isnt magically transporting to a random place, the game is probably crashing, either of these 3. It's unplayable. The only way that you can manage to put this game into a playable state, is if you're very very very experienced with how this game reacts to your actions and you've learned to avoid the bugs, but it's easy to forget that newer players aren't that familiar with ways to avoid them.

I reloaded the game and did the same quest over again, still immobilized in Havana port.