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Included in Build Wind Direction and Storm Occurance in 3D Sailing Mode

Hylie Pistof

Hylie Pistof

Curmudgeon
QA Tester
Storm Modder
Pirate Legend
I accidentally started a new game in apprentice mode and immediately noticed how nice the winds were. I was direct sailing all over the place and having a grand time!

Then I noticed my mistake and reset it to shwashbuckler mode.

Sure enough the evil wind are back making direct sail very difficult and reducing the fun factor in the game.

Where are the difficulty level modifiers located?
 
The GetDifficulty() function is used in many places throughout the game code.
The best way of finding out is to add your PROGRAM folder to the Windows Search Index and finding all uses of GetDifficulty .

I just did this myself, but found no reference to it being used anywhere in weather or wind related code.
If there is indeed such an influence, it appears to be well-hidden. :modding
 
As a workaround, one could change difficulty when changing from sea to land and reverse. It is simple enough by just talking to an officer.
Also, I never noticed any effect of difficulty level on maval combat. Except the wind, that is.
 
Skyworm said:
I never noticed any effect of difficulty level on maval combat. Except the wind, that is.
Click to expand...
There are some difficulty effects there, related to cannon damage if I recall.
If need be, I could go through all difficulty level uses and explain what is being affected by at from what I can find in the code.
 
Cheers Pieter,

that would be interesting to know.

By the wy, I did test Hylies observation. I switched to "apprentice" and did a lot of direct sailing around Antigua, the whole way to Saint Martin, and around Saint Martin. I did not notice any difference concerning the wind. It tends to blow from the island, and changes much too often for my direct-sailor-attitude, but it "feels" no different in apprentice or in swashbuckler. But perhaps I was just lucky?
 
Sounds to me like Hylie was the one who was lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it.
As far as I can tell, difficulty level has no influence on wind direction.
 
Then again any comments on the wind are welcome. I do believe there is a setting in the internalsetting for the frequency the wind changes, but remember then a unfavourable wind also stays longer.
 
There are a bunch of weather-related toggles there:
Code: 
// ======================================
// WEATHER CONTROLS - JL
// ======================================

int     MAX_WBALLAST =           25;     // INT - how far the weighting will swing in favor of current trend.. use positive integer between 0 and 50 - 0 is no swing - 50 is major swing.. this is for Windspeed
int     MAX_RBALLAST =           25;     // ^^DITTO for rain
int     MAX_FBALLAST =           25;     // ^^DITTO for fog
float   MAX_ABALLAST =           25.0;   // FLOAT - ^^DITTO for wind angle

int     MAX_WINDCHANGE =         5;     // INT - How much the wind CAN change in one hour - use positive integer between 0 and 20
int     MAX_FOGCHANGE =           5;     // INT - ^^DITTO for fog
int     MAX_RAINCHANGE =         5;     // INT - ^^DITTO for rain
#define MAX_ANGLECHANGE           1.0     // FLOAT - ^^DITTO for wind angle

#define FREE_FOG             1     // BOOL - Allow fog during daylight hours 0 - false 1 - true
Though the 'int' ones are actually set for real in the InitOpenSeaMod function in PROGRAM\NK.c .
Note that the angle chance is in radians, so 1 = 57 degrees.

But I have never yet found anything related to deliberate wind direction settings.
As far as I know, that should just be pretty much random. Though based on the previous angle, of course.

The best possible situation is to have a vaguely real weather system in place with trade winds and storms that change this.
Research is in progress for doing that on Hearts of Oak. But I don't know if it is feasible to try for PotC....
 
Lukovsky_ said:
Couple of thoughts after testing Levis' latest fixpack.
Standard storyline, level 20, Arcade mode.

Also, the storms are annoyingly frequent. And most of the times they do not even appear in the world map. The "sky" on the worldmap is perfectly clear, no storm anywhere in sight and when I enter the sail mode, suddenly I'm in the middle of a storm.
Click to expand...
 
When you go from WorldMap>3D Sailing Mode, right?
I think they occur because the weather you get after reload is REALLY random, unless you already had a storm on the worldmap.
 
yeah, I mean that and no.. it isnt random.. it is based on the picture that is shown on the calendar.. but sometimes it gets overwritten and a storm occurs instead :/
 
I think this falls under the same category as the translation of the coordinates. If I feel like tormenting myself I might take a look at this.
A quick fix might be to disable the generation of storms on reload, and only do it if you come form the worldmap.
But I dont know how its coded so dont know for sure if its that easy.
A really dirty way would be to just call the function you made for the trident to clear storms every time we load from the worldmap so you know for sure there is not storm (unless we want to).
 
Levis said:
A quick fix might be to disable the generation of storms on reload, and only do it if you come form the worldmap.
But I dont know how its coded so dont know for sure if its that easy.
Click to expand...
That should probably do the trick. Not sure how either, though.
We do want storms to be triggered if appropriate when using DirectSail Mode.

I figure we can leave this as "Feature Request" for a later date when the whole weather generation may be checked on a bit....

Levis said:
A really dirty way would be to just call the function you made for the trident to clear storms every time we load from the worldmap so you know for sure there is not storm (unless we want to).
Click to expand...
AGH! That sounds scary. I'd like to avoid that if we can....
 
Since this can be quite annoying, especially for people who use Realistic Game Mode, it would be nice if something could be done about this.
Even if it is just a simple fix rather than another complete rewrite of the weather system.
 
Hylie Pistof said:
Unfortunately the effect is often spoiled by the band of "bad air" surrounding every island. This results in one having to constantly tack back and forth as the winds change to try to force you away from the island. Or just furl all sails and go do something else for a while until the winds eventually change so you CAN sail on towards the island.
Click to expand...
Assuming we manage to get all other pressing matters sorted, I would certainly like to work in some simplified Caribbean trade winds.
That should put an end once and for all to being annoyed by the wind and weather! :whipa

(Well, it may then still happen; but it'd be on purpose. :razz )
 
I suspect those winds are hard coded as the winds between islands is pretty consistent. I can always tell when I'm getting close to land because the winds go sour.
 
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