Ship Pack Details and Updates

[Legendary_Spider]

I'm on it peeps.

My ex gf and I have downgraded to "friends with benefits", so I have plenty of time to test stuff and work on my own menial projects for the game (the sound thing is taking quite a while).

Is that everything you want me to test on that list?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That glass looks pretty cool on your screenshot; I'll see about installing this tomorrow.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm currently merging your latest update with my current game version. Here's some thoughts I ran into:
- PO_SotL code line is replaced with US_SotL in pictures.ini; this would mean the PO_SotL no longer has an interface picture, no?
- Common.ini: the new class type names are different for ships sharing the same model. Shouldn't they sort-of indicate being the same model by being the same class?
- Common.ini: seems "Convoiship" is used as a class name. Is that a real class type? It always sounded like a bit of a weirdish name to me.

Which modpack should this work be installed on top of? Not the Christmas Ship Pack by the looks of it; think I'd better install your previous ENS release first...

Attached file contains more descriptions than the one from your ship pack; you might want to have a look at it. Actually, I thought that one was half based on your work anyway. :wacko:

Seems you removed the PO_SotL on purpose, eh? That explains a lot.

The Dauntless and Endeavour walk files are still exactly the same.

What is the difference between refShip.Model = "SteamFrigate2" and refShip.Model = "SteamFrigate" ?

Should we now maybe use Pgargon's Surprise version for the HMS Surprise and keep the original model for La Boussole? That way we don't double up our Surprises so much.

Unless I'm mistaken, I didn't yet see these ships by Pgargon in your files:
http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php/topic/16806-dutch-pinnace-1627
http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php/topic/17397-portuguese-caravela-redonda/

 

[Armada]

Is that everything you want me to test on that list?

Well everything on that list needs to be confirmed to work, and all the previous issues need testing to make sure they've been properly fixed.

- PO_SotL code line is replaced with US_SotL in pictures.ini; this would mean the PO_SotL no longer has an interface picture, no?
- Common.ini: the new class type names are different for ships sharing the same model. Shouldn't they sort-of indicate being the same model by being the same class?
- Common.ini: seems "Convoiship" is used as a class name. Is that a real class type? It always sounded like a bit of a weirdish name to me.

PO_SotL has been replaced by US_SotL, for reasons of historical accuracy, and a lack of the US even having a 2nd Rate.
After a bit of reading up on the Portuguese Navy, I found that ships of these kind were very rare, so it makes some sense to remove it.

I already mentioned before that I have split some ships of the same type into nation-specific classes, because it seems more accurate than making them share one class.
That would cause problems choosing which nation's class name to use. Plus, the names were chosen carefully, after reading up on historical matches for each navy.
Having said that, there are some names which I really couldn't figure out, the 'Convoiship' being one of them. If anyone can come up with a better type name, then please tell me. :hmm
I'm also stuck on 'Lineship5' (classed as a '56-Gun 4th Rate'). I've already used many names for similar ships, but this one is difficult to pinpoint. Again, other suggestions are welcome.

As for what to install the update on top of, it should be the Preliminary pack, which requires the Xmas pack first. I should have been more clear about that.

EDIT: I didn't see your edited post:
This time I'm going to make the Dauntless and Endeavour walk files different. Thanks for reminding me about that!
One of the two SteamFrigate model groups is for the 'unique' Vanderdecken ones, the other is for the ones which can be encountered.
The thing with the Surprise models is that our original HMS_Surprise has more guns than Surprise1, and a very nice texture, too. I didn't have the heart to replace it this time.
You're right about those ships by Pgargon; I haven't yet fully converted them, but will do when I get a chance.
I completely forgot about the descriptions work. Again, thanks for reminding me. ops2

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Lydia1_deck2.gm is not used. Is it really necessary to have the additional details be so many different files? Doesn't really matter, I suppose.
Also, the bottom of her bow is rather white, but this seems to be textured like that. Looks weirdly contrasting to me, but it's technically not a bug.
Some of the model files refer to "neptunehead copy.tga", but this should be "neptunehead_copy.tga" (with underscore) to prevent texture missing entries in system.log .
In any case, she does look a lot better with the newly added detail. Too bad the player walk patch is still mystifying.

I must admit I'm finding myself quite missing the old colours of the HMS Interceptor and HMS Dauntless.
While I'm sure the new colours are more movie-accurate, I really liked their old colourfulness. See attached screenshots of the old vs. the new situation.
It always seemed to me that the movies themselves are rather less colourful than they could and maybe should be.
I've spent a LOT of time in the Caribbean and even while the movies were SHOT there, they don't LOOK like it.
Our game is quite different in that respect, because it IS very colourful. Could we maybe get away with having more colour on the film ships or would people complain? :?

One of the two SteamFrigate model groups is for the 'unique' Vanderdecken ones, the other is for the ones which can be encountered.

So it's to prevent you from having too many options when repainting? That makes sense. Good thinking.

The thing with the Surprise models is that our original HMS_Surprise has more guns than Surprise1, and a very nice texture, too. I didn't have the heart to replace it this time.

Texture-wise I don't see much immediate difference between HMS_Surprise and Surprise1; I reckon we can do away with HMS_Surprise and keep the old model used by only FR_Boussole.

 

[Armada]

Lydia1_deck2.gm is not used. Is it really necessary to have the additional details be so many different files? Doesn't really matter, I suppose.
Also, the bottom of her bow is rather white, but this seems to be textured like that. Looks weirdly contrasting to me, but it's technically not a bug.

You can delete deck2 now. Also, you don't need 'Poseidon14.tga' either, since that was a mistake in the preliminary pack.
If you spot anything else unused, please let me know.
The extra details don't need to be separate files, but I just haven't got around to merging them into one yet. It's not difficult, but it's time consuming.
I can't avoid that extra white section, I'm afraid. It's the way the texture is mapped, and it uses part of the lower hull texture.
I'll probably ask pgargon to make a better walk patch for the final release. Luckily it's not a complicated one, but admittedly it really is about time we had a proper one.

Some of the model files refer to "neptunehead copy.tga", but this should be "neptunehead_copy.tga" (with underscore) to prevent texture missing entries in system.log .

Which models? Can you tell me as many as you can find so I can correct them?

I must admit I'm finding myself quite missing the old colours of the HMS Interceptor and HMS Dauntless.

Hmm. Perhaps they still need some work. I'm think that the images I used for reference were from relatively dark shots in the film, so that's probably why.
It's just a shame there are so few reference images out there in the first place.

Texture-wise I don't see much immediate difference between HMS_Surprise and Surprise1; I reckon we can do away with HMS_Surprise and keep the old model used by only FR_Boussole.

Maybe a better solution would be to merge the textures of HMS_Surprise and La Boussole with the new Surprise1 model, and then we get the best of both.
As it happens, the real ship that Surprise1 is based on came from a French 'Unité class Corvette', captured by the British, so we could say that the Boussole is one of those.
Let's not forget the 'official' movie-accurate Surprise is still to come. I really need to ask Jack how far he's getting with that ship.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The extra details don't need to be separate files, but I just haven't got around to merging them into one yet. It's not difficult, but it's time consuming.

Don't bother then. It wouldn't make any difference ingame anyway, so there's no point.

Which models? Can you tell me as many as you can find so I can correct them?

Lydia's boat1 and boat2 have it, but I already fixed it on all.

Hmm. Perhaps they still need some work. I'm think that the images I used for reference were from relatively dark shots in the film, so that's probably why.
It's just a shame there are so few reference images out there in the first place.

True; I don't think you can see the ships very well at any point in the films. Which is unfortunate; I'd have liked some shots of the ships just sailing around in a pretty fashion for all the world to see.

Maybe a better solution would be to merge the textures of HMS_Surprise and La Boussole with the new Surprise1 model, and then we get the best of both.
As it happens, the real ship that Surprise1 is based on came from a French 'Unité class Corvette', captured by the British, so we could say that the Boussole is one of those.
Let's not forget the 'official' movie-accurate Surprise is still to come. I really need to ask Jack how far he's getting with that ship.

The Surprise issue remains a complicated one, no? I'd prefer not having too many different versions of her in the game, though obviously the movie one can be added in addition to the current non-movie one.
Maybe we can name the movie one "Surprise" and use the other one as a generic royal navy frigate or something like that?
Then since we DO have some many different versions, I was thinking it'd be nice to have La Boussole use a model that is not exactly the same as the royal navy non-movie Surprise version.
That'd help with variety and allow us to use more versions without having yet another Surprise.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For the sake of the change log in "Build Info.txt", do you have somewhere a complete list of everything that is changed/new in your Christmas Ship Pack and Easter Naval Supplies pack?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Good morning gents. :j1

I started out by cycling through all the ships starting at index 0. Made it to the 3rd ship and ctd. In this install that is caravol1, the carrack. It seems that it only has one file, caravol1. All of the others are missing. Are all the files there in your install? I will put my files in there and continue. Ahh. Then it was something I had done.

What is brig_n1 and why does it look like this? Ahh. Will have to look into this some day. :hmm

The Constitution is much improved. There is no longer an error report about its walk file. But it looks like discipline is strict with offenders hung from the rigging.
I just got the Endeavor, and it had hanging crew too. Then I noticed that it was in combat. Finished that, went back to the dock, boarded her again, and the crew was normal. The Constitution was in combat too. So methinks the hanging crew has something to do with combat and is fine in normal operations.

Lydia 3 has no mast textures. All Lydias have crew now!

I have been unable to buy the ketch1 Nonsuch in the shipyards. Got to look it over, and it's a nice little ship.

Are the supports under the rear walkways of the Apostol Felipe supposed to be bright? I reported them with the reverse lighting bug before, but might have been wrong.

The San Felipe is huge!

 

[Legendary_Spider]

OMG!

I just about to post my test report when I realized I forgot to install like half your update. UGH!

Now I have to test all over again. Won't bother posting my report from testing cause I know it will be all wrong. So I'll post when I finish testing it all AGAIN. lol

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The Caravol1 files should be part of the regular modpack and have got nothing to do with Armada's ship pack. :wacko:

Maybe brig_n1 never had her rope locators adapted for PotC?

 

[Armada]

For the sake of the change log in "Build Info.txt", do you have somewhere a complete list of everything that is changed/new in your Christmas Ship Pack and Easter Naval Supplies pack?

This Word document should cover everything. I used it as a checklist while compiling all the content.
View attachment ENS_checklist.7z

The Constitution is much improved. There is no longer an error report about its walk file. But it looks like discipline is strict with offenders hung from the rigging.
I just got the Endeavor, and it had hanging crew too.

Why can't these blasted crew just DO AS THEY'RE MEANT TO?! What's more, I didn't even change the Endeavour/Dauntless walk file yet.
I'm beginning to think that our sailorspoints/walk file converter has something to do with this weirdness. I can't find any other explanation.
They all work fine in their 'Sailorspoints' form, and the only way they can go wrong, without actually being wrong to start with, is through the conversion.

Lydia 3 has no mast textures.

Oops. I knew I'd forget something. Happens every time. ops2
This texture is what you need: http://www.pyratesah...ain/MST1.tga.tx

Maybe brig_n1 never had her rope locators adapted for PotC?

Confirmed. It's covered in 'fal' locators. They just need changing to 'rope' locators and they'll be fine.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Lots of ships have walk files that are fine until combat, then go wacky bonkers. i don't know why it is only some and not all.

I acquired the light brig a day ago and it had missing ropes. Decided to mess with it and started renaming fals to ropes. The bowsprit got some ropes showing,but it also had sails pointing at the sky, so there is more to it than just renaming things. :sad

The Lydias aren't bad now. Maybe I'll give one a try.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That sounds pretty much exactly like what happened when I tried to do the fal/rope conversion.
I think the problem comes from fal locators using the same numbers as rope one that are also there.
So then they end up being linked wrongly. Wasn't it your idea to change the fal ones to always have a number in front of them?
That way you'd be sure that they link up with the other former fal locator rather than a random existing rope one.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

It couldn't have been my idea because the 1st ropes I messed with were on the carrack, and that light brig was my 1st attempt with fals. Does it matter how big the numbers are? Like if I renamed fal24 to ropee124, would that work?

Idiot! Why bother asking? Just do it.

 

[Armada]

I think it was my idea to start with, and it's been a successful system I've been using ever since.
Adding a 1 is not enough, so I usually play it safe and add a 100. That guarantees no conflicts.
You need to be very careful not to remove the 'e' or 'b' after 'fal', or things will get nasty with rope errors everywhere.
The best thing to do is write the locators to a file and run a 'find/replace', to find 'falb' and replace with 'ropeb100', and then 'fale' with 'ropee100'.

Just wondering: what do you think of the new cannon texture in deck.tga? Does it work well?
Opinions on new stuff are just as valuable as bug reports.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

You add 100? Will try that. Adding 1 didn't work.

Deck.tga? I'm not too observant today.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ship cleanup discussion moved to this thread: http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php/topic/14731-fixing-the-build-mod-ships

 

[Armada]

@miklkit, seems I missed some of your edited post:

I have been unable to buy the ketch1 Nonsuch in the shipyards. Got to look it over, and it's a nice little ship.

Wait, do you mean you were unable to buy it this time, or had been unable to buy it before? :?

Are the supports under the rear walkways of the Apostol Felipe supposed to be bright? I reported them with the reverse lighting bug before, but might have been wrong.

Whether they are or not, I can't do anything about them. Your best bet is to ask pgargon.

In the meantime... how's this for making Surprise1 resemble HMS_Surprise a bit more:

[attachment=6368:Surprise1_blue.jpg]

Do you like the subtle 'navy blue'? I think it works well with the brighter yellow, personally.
One thing I couldn't do (without an IMMENSE amount of trial and error) was to put the little stern emblem from HMS_Surprise onto this one.
Finding the exact spot is like a needle in a haystack! :wacko:
And concerning La Boussole, I think Pieter's right about keeping her as she is. It's too difficult to put her colour scheme onto Surprise1, because of how the latter is not mapped to deal with smaller details which aren't modelled.

EDIT: Ah, one more important thing: I've experienced a strange error on two occasions, since changing the chances of the player's ship being encountered.
In two different encounters, I've had the loading screen take a long time to load (around 2-3 minutes), and when it finally did, I was confronted by a ship identical to mine (and even two of them, once).
What's more, the computer beeped upon loading completion.
Therefore, perhaps a value of '1000' in Ships.c is too big. I've going to change it to 500 and see if the problem occurs again. Note that it was fairly rare, mind you.
This is where the code is, as a reminder:

// Screwface
bool finish = false;
int end = 0; // Security to avoid infinite loop
while(!finish && end < 500) // maximum of 100 loop should be enough
{

 

[Pieter Boelen]

EDIT: Ah, one more important thing: I've experienced a strange error on two occasions, since changing the chances of the player's ship being encountered.
In two different encounters, I've had the loading screen take a long time to load (around 2-3 minutes), and when it finally did, I was confronted by a ship identical to mine (and even two of them, once).
What's more, the computer beeped upon loading completion.
Therefore, perhaps a value of '1000' in Ships.c is too big. I've going to change it to 500 and see if the problem occurs again. Note that it was fairly rare, mind you.

That sounds exactly as what I'd expect to happen here. But if 1000 causes 2-3 minutes, 500 would still potentially cause 1-1.5 minutes.
Sure, it'd always be a rare instances, but it's still possible. I reckon we should have it as high as we can, without there being a chance of the load ever taking too long.
If we still end up with player ships occasionally, then we're just going to have to come up with a different solution.
Which could be as simple as, instead of the player ship, always using the "Cutter2" (you can insert any other ship here).
That would make that ship more common than it should be, but at least you wouldn't get two Black Pearls or something.