WIP Swedish East Indiaman by Philipjn

[Armada]

Some of you may remember that @philipjn built a 30-gun Swedish merchant vessel back in 2012, and started upgrading it for Hearts of Oak. It was originally made for Pirates of the Burning Sea, but he wanted the ship to appear in PotC and AoP as well, so now he's handed the original model to me to export it to the Storm engine.

I've managed to get the model into Maya and assigned existing textures to it, though I still need to replace the guns with the standardised models, create the path mesh and add the locators. She has around 110,000 triangles including guns, which is quite high, but you get a lot of detail for it. Here's how she currently looks:

Spoiler: Show images

I'm sure you'll agree this ship will make a great addition to the merchant fleet in periods spanning the 18th century in New Horizons.

UPDATE 14/09/2016:
Here are the initial GM files: SwedishIndiaman1.7z

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That ship looks positively glorious!
Major kudos to @philipjn for his modelling work.
And also massive thanks to @Armada for putting in the time and effort to convert her into the game(s).

 

[Armada]

I guess I should be clear that I'm only going to do a complete conversion for PotC. I'll make the exported files available to everyone, but it will be up to someone else to integrate it into AoP2 if they want it, since I'm not an expert on that process.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Adaption to AoP is very very easy anyway.
Main differences that I know are:
- Different deck.tga.tx so slight HEX editing required
- "penn" locators go unused for obvious reasons, but I don't think they do any harm if left in place
- Possibility to add those "fonar" locators for the lights at night, but I'm pretty sure that's optional
- Different format for the ship walk file, but assuming you do make one (which is also technically optional), you'll probably do so with the Sailor Tool that actually results directly in an AoP compatible one that you'd then have to convert to PotC format
- Background coding (ships_init.c and encounter code) is far less convenient in AoP too, but I'm sure anyone who would want to, could figure that out with relative ease as well
- Haven't the foggiest how "Ship Interface Screenshots" work in that game, but it's definitely different from PotC

So all in all, quite doable for anyone who would want to spend a bit of time doing it.
But PotC only suits me perfectly fine, so no worries there!

 

[Armada]

- Different format for the ship walk file, but assuming you do make one (which is also technically optional), you'll probably do so with the Sailor Tool that actually results directly in an AoP compatible one that you'd then have to convert to PotC format

That's definitely one benefit of the Sailor Tool generating Sailorspoints files; no need to do that step twice.

 

[Levis]

Good work guys! Love this new ship

 

[Jack Rackham]

Yes! I love to use it somehow in the swedish colony "Kristiania" later on.

 

[Armada]

I've now replaced the guns and added gunport lids where appropriate. I used two different gun sizes to fit the ports on the gundeck and the quarterdeck, as you can just about see below:

Spoiler: Show image

I've also added a large chunk of the locators, including those for the masts, yards, sails, ropes, flags (and pennants!), path mesh and camera. There are currently 48 ropes, which should be plenty. The path mesh is almost complete, and allows access to all areas including the poop deck, which originally had a closed hatch, so I opened it up.

Spoiler: Show images

I now only need to add the cannon and fireplace locators and fine-tune the path mesh before I can start exporting. If this all goes to plan, it will probably be the first time I've manually placed and exported all the locators on a new ship entirely through Maya, as opposed to using TOOL.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

"Incredible" seems like an appropriate word here!

 

[Armada]

After fixing a couple of mesh and UV errors, the export was a success! Initial tests in the game look promising...

Spoiler: Show images

(Sorry about the water, I'm currently testing on my laptop with the Intel fix.)

All guns fire in the right directions, all ropes appear to be present, and the collision detection looks good for the hull. I tweaked the camera height to make sure you can walk beneath the forecastle and quarterdeck without clipping through them, and confirmed the path mesh works as expected.

As usual, I'll need to adjust the shape of the lower sails on the foremast and mainmast, plus there's still the walk file to make, but the rest seems about right.
I've given the ship some preliminary stats based on Pinnace1, so now would be the time to start discussing some finalised stats. I'm open to any suggestions...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

She's gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I've given the ship some preliminary stats based on Pinnace1, so now would be the time to start discussing some finalised stats. I'm open to any suggestions...

@Grey Roger and/or @Tingyun: Do you reckon you could help out with the last little bits to get her in the game?
Currently still needed:
- Stats
- Ship walk file (OPTIONAL)
- Shipyard description
- Interface screenshot

 

[Tingyun]

If @Grey Roger has time, he has tons more experience than me with ship to ship combat, and I think he would be able to do a much better j0b with all things related to stats and implementation than I could. If he does not have time, I will do what I can (probably just implementing what @Armada made as a preliminary stat list)--that ship looks amazing, and I want to see it in the game as soon as possible.

 

[Grey Roger]

I can probably deal with the interface picture. Can I first have a screenshot with the game stuff removed? (Press F9. ) Preferably with the Swedish flag from the Personal range, rather than a British flag - if it's a Swedish ship then it may as well have its own flag. (I may add in interface shots of the Brandenburg Frigate and Wappen von Hamburg showing the Brandenburg flag while I'm at it. )

As for combat, I'm good at using what's already supplied but not so good at figuring out what stats to use. I'd probably have cloned them from the existing East Indiaman, which I suspect is not quite what @Armada wants...

 

[Tingyun]

I'd pretty much do the same, maybe we can talk through it and use your experience to guide the result.

@Armada mentioned there were already preliminary stats based of Pinnace1:
name class cargo hp cannons caliber mincrew maxcrew arcsadepeed realisticspeed arcadeturn realisticturn price
Pinnace1 Pinnace 5 5000 3500 24 9 35 108 12.6 9.0 29 60 51200
appears in spanish main/golden age/colonial powers

It seems this ship has 30 guns. There are lots of East Indiamen 52 gun heavy ships, but just one light east indiaman that is comparable currently:

name class cargo hp cannons caliber mincrew maxcrew arcsadepeed realisticspeed arcadeturn realisticturn price
NL_BataviaLight East Indiaman 5 2500 5000 28 18 54 200 11.0 10.2 30 65 140800
available in spanish main and golden age.

Both have a little under 30 guns. In general, the light east indiaman is 3x the price of a pinnace, is a MUCH better fighter, but has half the cargo space.

I'd say the first choice is to pick between one or the other as the basis, and then the second step is to alter its stats sufficiently (in light of the other tier 5 ships available) to give it a useful niche to fill. East Indiaman being a designation for any ship that flew under charter or license to the east india companies, it seems either role could work.

@Grey Roger so do you think from looking at the model this ship a hybrid fighter/merchant to be based on the light east indiamen, or a cargo carrier to be based on the pinnace? Is there is something about the model that tells us its likely cannon caliber, which should guide us in that choice?

Also, do we want it to be very expensive like the light east indiaman, or 1/3 the price and weaker like the pinnace?

EDIT Or do we want it really espensive and to be the best of both worlds, since the model is so nice? Given the size, should it be class 5 like the others, or move it up to class 4?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Tingyun: One potential thought if she's made a pure "cargo carrier" is that this brand new model could be linked to the Merchant License.
With the quality and the newness, that might be a nice advantage then!

 

[Tingyun]

Combined with planned merchant license, what about sort of like the Pinnace in being focussed on cargo, but moved up in class compared to pinnace/lighteastindiamen being tier 5, upgraded to tier 4 and given some solid defensive capabilities, together with a higher price? She would be weak against tier 4s but solid defensivielly against smaller vessels, with a very large cargo.

Does the model steer us in any particular choice based on size for ship tier and cannon caliber?

 

[Grey Roger]

I haven't seen the Swedish East Indiaman as a model, so don't know how it handles. Presumably the number and placement of cannons is dictated by the model itself. Looking at the pictures, it appears to have 12 guns to a side, or 15 if the smaller upper deck guns count as well. Add in a couple in bow and stern and it has a total of 34.

The Heavy East Indiaman has 52 guns of 12lb and is tier 4. The Batavia has 28 guns of 18lb - remarkably heavy for a ship that size! That probably explains why it has weight 1050 and cargo 2500, compared to the Heavy East Indiaman's weight of 1200 and cargo of 5000. Perhaps give the Swedish East Indiaman 34 guns of 12lb, max crew 250, minimum crew 70, weight 1100, cargo 4000, putting it somewhere between the two. It's slightly lighter than the Heavy East Indiaman and has fewer guns, but is equally efficient at dividing its space between guns and cargo - it's a lightweight alternative, more cargo-oriented than the Batavia with its heavy artillery.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I haven't seen the Swedish East Indiaman as a model, so don't know how it handles.

@Armada, do you reckon you could post the files you have prepared so far?

 

[Tingyun]

@Grey Roger those stats seem great, so basically with that cargo and guns she fills the niche of a tier 5 more cargo oriented light east indiamen, and fits as the choice for players not ready for a tier 4 yet but want to trade lots of cargo.

Maybe bring down the crew size a bit? She shouldn't have more crew than the batavia light east indiamen, smaller guns to operate and such, and more than double the pinnace.

Btw, @Armada said in opening post it has 30 guns. Let's check in game.

Maybe once @Armada posts the files, we take a look and see if the cannon size matches the 12lbs you suggest, and see if her size is a best fit for what tier.