Flying Dutchman

[Legendary_Spider]

Well the submersion still needs work, but I'm already having fun playing with it. Kraken attack AND submerging ability . . . Flying Dutchman fans are gonna go nuts.

I but popping out of the water looks bad-ass in a storm. I'll have to try that. lol

Is there any way to limit the number of Kraken tentacles that appear on screen at one time to 8 or 10? Being a mythological creature, I suppose the Kraken could have as many as you want, but seeing how in most cases, it's based off the giant squid, you might wanna knock it down to 8 or 10 if you can.

 

[Legendary_Spider]

An odd thing happened: I was fighting 3 ships, popping out of the water and back in, blasting them with my cannons and using the Kraken. When I defeated them, it started playing my storm music. It was appropriate since that happens to be the theme of Davy Jones, but it's really not supposed to play when the skies are clear.

Also, your Kraken thing has stretched out the buttons and they are also mislabeled according to their icons.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Well the submersion still needs work, but I'm already having fun playing with it.

What more work does it need? I'm happy enough with it as it is. It's never going to be perfect, but at least it gets the point across.
It'll need some controls though. Should it be a keyboard control? What button to use?

Is there any way to limit the number of Kraken tentacles that appear on screen at one time to 8 or 10? Being a mythological creature, I suppose the Kraken could have as many as you want, but seeing how in most cases, it's based off the giant squid, you might wanna knock it down to 8 or 10 if you can.

Not without severely rewriting the code for that, which I really don't want to. It's was difficult enough to get what we've got.
Alternatively, I could make each tentacle do more damage on its own and then decrease the number of tentacles generated. That'd be a fairly easy solution.

An odd thing happened: I was fighting 3 ships, popping out of the water and back in, blasting them with my cannons and using the Kraken. When I defeated them, it started playing my storm music. It was appropriate since that happens to be the theme of Davy Jones, but it's really not supposed to play when the skies are clear.

That's weird; I touched no music-related code whatsoever.

Also, your Kraken thing has stretched out the buttons and they are also mislabeled according to their icons.

Please use TX Converter to view RESOURCE\Textures\BATTLE_INTERFACE\cicons_command.tga.tx and let me know if it does or does not contain an additional row of icons, including the Kraken Attack one. It should do, because I did include the file in my upload.
In my game version, it all appears completely correctly and as far as I can tell, I did include all required files, so that sounds really strange.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Also, your Kraken thing has stretched out the buttons and they are also mislabeled according to their icons.

Turns out I included the Patch 7 copy of the file instead of the modified one.
This contains the correct one: http://www.pyratesahoy.com/build/b14_b2_wip/pb_code_2011-11-17.exe

 

[Legendary_Spider]

Well the submersion still needs work, but I'm already having fun playing with it.

What more work does it need? I'm happy enough with it as it is. It's never going to be perfect, but at least it gets the point across.
It'll need some controls though. Should it be a keyboard control? What button to use?

I was thinking maybe it would be a menu button like the Kraken attack. That might be easiest for players to figure out.

Is there any way to limit the number of Kraken tentacles that appear on screen at one time to 8 or 10? Being a mythological creature, I suppose the Kraken could have as many as you want, but seeing how in most cases, it's based off the giant squid, you might wanna knock it down to 8 or 10 if you can.

Not without severely rewriting the code for that, which I really don't want to. It's was difficult enough to get what we've got.
Alternatively, I could make each tentacle do more damage on its own and then decrease the number of tentacles generated. That'd be a fairly easy solution.

I guess do what you think is best. That actually might be kinda cool, since the in the movie the Kraken destroyed or sank every ship it attacked.

 

[Legendary_Spider]

My favorite thing to do is to submerge, click sail to, and pop up next to a ship, kinda like a warping ability. lol

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I was thinking maybe it would be a menu button like the Kraken attack. That might be easiest for players to figure out.

I was having some difficulties yesterday trying to make a good interface picture for that. I was lucky with the Kraken Attack one, but the Emerge/Submerge one is a bit more difficult.

I guess do what you think is best. That actually might be kinda cool, since the in the movie the Kraken destroyed or sank every ship it attacked.

At the moment, I coded it so that you'll always get twice as many tentacles as you need to sink the ship you're attacking. Since the ship doesn't hit all tentacles, it is possible for the ship to survive the attack.
That is on purpose. How overpowered do we really want to make things?

At the moment, once the first attack is done, you can immediately get to the second. Do we really want that or should there be some more limitations?

 

[Legendary_Spider]

You're right. Leave the tentacles as is.

The Kraken definitely needs more limitations. We can't have the player relying soley upon "Jones' terrible leviathan", now can we?

Besides, limitations make it more special. I was thinking of what we could do. All the standard ship special abilities can only be repeated after a certain time. So perhaps, make it so the player has to wait 5 minutes per additional Kraken attack? What do you think?

You wanna make it long enough, but also not too long. The thought of perhaps one Kraken attack per battle popped into my head, but I tossed that out, because that would kinda suck. Or would it? Let me know. These are just some of my ideas on putting limitations on the Kraken.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think the time limit would probably work best. Not sure how to even code "one per battle", because I have no idea how to distinguish between one battle and another through code.
Once per "sea login" would be easy enough to code, except DirectSail would mess up that concept. If players would use worldmap only, it'd work quite alright.
Actually, I might be able to reset the Kraken ability on a DirectSail update too.

So that poses the question:
- Time limit (bit more difficult to code, but not impossible)
OR
- Once per sea login / reset after a DirectSail update

 

[Legendary_Spider]

I think the time limit would probably work best. Not sure how to even code "one per battle", because I have no idea how to distinguish between one battle and another through code.
Once per "sea login" would be easy enough to code, except DirectSail would mess up that concept. If players would use worldmap only, it'd work quite alright.
Actually, I might be able to reset the Kraken ability on a DirectSail update too.

So that poses the question:
- Time limit (bit more difficult to code, but not impossible)
OR
- Once per sea login / reset after a DirectSail update

I know you're gonna smack me, but definitely time limit. A player might be out at sea for quite a long time without using the World Map or Direct Sail, and that would kinda suck to not be able to use the ability again if you've been sailing around for an hour.

And I'm sure in the movie world, Jones would be able to send out the Kraken as often as he'd like (granted he gives the wee beastie a rest and it needs time to swim to it's target). That's kinda why I thought a time limit was best. Question is . . . how long? Would 5 minutes be enough? 5 minutes during a battle is quite a long time, so that might work nicely.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'll give it a shot; should be possible.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

OUCH! I lost all my masts while being submerged. Not sure whether that is because it was shallow water or because I hit the land while submerged because Sail-To made me end up right in front of it.

I've also got the time limit working on the Kraken, as well as the "can't do while submerged" and "recharge cannons after emerging".

 

[Legendary_Spider]

OUCH! I lost all my masts while being submerged. Not sure whether that is because it was shallow water or because I hit the land while submerged because Sail-To made me end up right in front of it.

Way to go. lol I'm proud of you.

I've managed to knock off my masts on the Pearl by sailing too close to an overhanging cliff. That was epic.

 

[Armada]

OUCH! I lost all my masts while being submerged.

Speaking of masts, is it possible for the Kraken tentacles to cause enough damage to knock masts of its victims?
OR, if you're feeling really evil, could it simply drag small ships below the waves and sink them instantly, Dutchman submerging style?
That's something it can do easily in the films, and would certainly look cool. Just a thought.

 

[Armada]

Two more ideas I've just had:

1. Can you make the Dutchman rotate up/down when submerging/surfacing? That would make the effect much more realistic.
2. Would it be possible to limit the Kraken attacks to ships which are travelling below a certain speed? In the films the Kraken only seems to attack slow or static ships, and probably should be possible to outrun in a small, fast vessel.

Again, no idea how doable those are, but I had to ask.

EDIT: Oh, and splashing sound effects for submerging/surfacing?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Speaking of masts, is it possible for the Kraken tentacles to cause enough damage to knock masts of its victims?
OR, if you're feeling really evil, could it simply drag small ships below the waves and sink them instantly, Dutchman submerging style?
That's something it can do easily in the films, and would certainly look cool. Just a thought.

As with setting fireplace locators on fire, I also really don't know how to trigger a mast falling through code. I vaguely recall experimenting with that before.
I could make the Kraken just sink small ships right there and then like in the first Kraken attack in the film. That's boring though. At least now each ship ever attacked will still stand a chance.
The reason is that I deliberately coded the attack to have enough tentacles to sink the victim ship twice and ships never hit all tentacles, so they can survive sometimes and sometimes not.

1. Can you make the Dutchman rotate up/down when submerging/surfacing? That would make the effect much more realistic.

1. Probably not. I can read the roll angle, but not write to it. The same would go for the pitch, which I'd need to rotate her up or down.
   The code for those work the same as for what I tried before for the steamship speed code which didn't work. I only managed those when I found the push buttons, but those only work as a translation in the horizontal plane and not a rotation.
   
   

   [*]Would it be possible to limit the Kraken attacks to ships which are travelling below a certain speed? In the films the Kraken only seems to attack slow or static ships, and probably should be possible to outrun in a small, fast vessel.

Can do, I think. As long as you want the attack to fail and never start if the ship is sailing too fast. The tentacles are always generated relative to the location of the ship, so they would follow a fast-moving ship around.

EDIT: Oh, and splashing sound effects for submerging/surfacing?

That'd have to be triggered based on the submersion value, somewhere in the middle of the process. Complicated, but not entirely impossible I suppose.
The fact that you can start to emerge before having fully submerged wouldn't make things simpler here. AGH! Why do these "fun little things" get complicated so quick? I - DO - NOT - LIKE - COMPLICATED!

 

[Armada]

As with setting fireplace locators on fire, I also really don't know how to trigger a mast falling through code. I vaguely recall experimenting with that before.
I could make the Kraken just sink small ships right there and then like in the first Kraken attack in the film. That's boring though. At least now each ship ever attacked will still stand a chance.
The reason is that I deliberately coded the attack to have enough tentacles to sink the victim ship twice and ships never hit all tentacles, so they can survive sometimes and sometimes not.

Hmm, can you at least cause sail damage with the tentacles? That would at least make it possible to lose a mast, even though not very likely.
As for dragging small ships to the depths, could you simply lower the waterline quickly, similar to the Dutchman submerging, and instantly sink the ship?
That would make it seem like the ship was actually dragged below, rather than damaged and then left to sink.
Thinking about it, small ships aren't going to last long in a normal tentacle attack anyway, so why not get the deed over and done with quickly? :d:

Probably not. I can read the roll angle, but not write to it. The same would go for the pitch, which I'd need to rotate her up or down.
The code for those work the same as for what I tried before for the steamship speed code which didn't work. I only managed those when I found the push buttons, but those only work as a translation in the horizontal plane and not a rotation.

Damn, I was hoping you could write the angles too. :urgh Maybe there's a way to do it which is just less obvious right now.

Can do, I think. As long as you want the attack to fail and never start if the ship is sailing too fast.

Exactly that, yes. It shouldn't be possible to even start the attack if the ship is sailing too fast. Good to hear that's something that possibly CAN be done!

EDIT: Oh, and splashing sound effects for submerging/surfacing?

That'd have to be triggered based on the submersion value, somewhere in the middle of the process. Complicated, but not entirely impossible I suppose.
The fact that you can start to emerge before having fully submerged wouldn't make things simpler here. AGH! Why do these "fun little things" get complicated so quick? I - DO - NOT - LIKE - COMPLICATED!

OK, new idea. Why not trigger the sound effects simply by pressing the 'submerge/surface button'? That would probably suffice, as long as the sound lasts a couple of seconds.
It's always annoyed me how the game can sometimes lack sound effects when it really needs them, and it feels more 'empty' that way.
That's why I'm so keen that LS resumes his SFX project, in the hope that it will make a noticeable difference to the game in general.

All this complexity is probably due to the fact that we're trying to do things the game engine simply wasn't designed for...

 

[Legendary_Spider]

Can do, I think. As long as you want the attack to fail and never start if the ship is sailing too fast.

Exactly that, yes. It shouldn't be possible to even start the attack if the ship is sailing too fast. Good to hear that's something that possibly CAN be done!

I don't think we should limit the Kraken attack to slow moving ships. Because if you remember at the end of DMC, the Pearl is hauling ass at full speed away from the Dutchman and the Kraken speeds after it, grabs it, and just stops her dead in the water.

EDIT: Oh, and splashing sound effects for submerging/surfacing?

That'd have to be triggered based on the submersion value, somewhere in the middle of the process. Complicated, but not entirely impossible I suppose.
The fact that you can start to emerge before having fully submerged wouldn't make things simpler here. AGH! Why do these "fun little things" get complicated so quick? I - DO - NOT - LIKE - COMPLICATED!

OK, new idea. Why not trigger the sound effects simply by pressing the 'submerge/surface button'? That would probably suffice, as long as the sound lasts a couple of seconds.
It's always annoyed me how the game can sometimes lack sound effects when it really needs them, and it feels more 'empty' that way.
That's why I'm so keen that LS resumes his SFX project, in the hope that it will make a noticeable difference to the game in general.

All this complexity is probably due to the fact that we're trying to do things the game engine simply wasn't designed for...

I was also wondering if it were possible to add more water splashes while you submerge and re-emerge. You know how when you're out in a storm there's all that water splashing at the bow? Could you make that happen every time the Dutchman goes up and down? And not just on the bow, but all around the ship?

My SXF project is so on the back burner right now. I'm gonna get to that when I finish the Pearl, Revenge, Wicked Wench, and Brig rigged Enterprise.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Hmm, can you at least cause sail damage with the tentacles? That would at least make it possible to lose a mast, even though not very likely.
As for dragging small ships to the depths, could you simply lower the waterline quickly, similar to the Dutchman submerging, and instantly sink the ship?
That would make it seem like the ship was actually dragged below, rather than damaged and then left to sink.
Thinking about it, small ships aren't going to last long in a normal tentacle attack anyway, so why not get the deed over and done with quickly? :d:

Causing sail damage should be quite possible.
At the moment I'm using Ship_ApplyHullHitpoints for the damage, but there's a similar function for sail damage.

Note that the Dutchman immersion thing was not really easy to achieve; I don't quite fancy adapting that to attacked ships as well...

Damn, I was hoping you could write the angles too. :urgh Maybe there's a way to do it which is just less obvious right now.

If I ever run into some code allowing me to do it, I'll give it a shot. Indeed it WOULD look better.

OK, new idea. Why not trigger the sound effects simply by pressing the 'submerge/surface button'? That would probably suffice, as long as the sound lasts a couple of seconds.

Do we have a proper "splash" sound effect? I suppose we do need to get some special effects to go with the ability; it doesn't actually look very impressive at the moment.
It's a buggy feature to begin with and it's always going to be so though. Have you noticed the wake that remains visible on the sea surface? Or in a storm, the bow wave which persists?
(Actually, we might be able to get rid of the bow wave. As part of a bug, we once accidentally lost it in storms altogether for quite a long time. Not sure where the code for that was, though...)

I was also wondering if it were possible to add more water splashes while you submerge and re-emerge. You know how when you're out in a storm there's all that water splashing at the bow? Could you make that happen every time the Dutchman goes up and down? And not just on the bow, but all around the ship?

Here's to wishful thinking; it's got us this far!

 

[Armada]

I don't think we should limit the Kraken attack to slow moving ships. Because if you remember at the end of DMC, the Pearl is hauling ass at full speed away from the Dutchman and the Kraken speeds after it, grabs it, and just stops her dead in the water.

Well it was just an idea for balancing things out a bit more. As Pieter said, we need to give the poor victims a chance, right?

My SXF project is so on the back burner right now. I'm gonna get to that when I finish the Pearl, Revenge, Wicked Wench, and Brig rigged Enterprise.

Any idea how long you'll take to finish those ships? I don't mean to rush you at all, I'm just keen to get at least some enhanced sound effects into Beta 2. :nk
The way things were going before you took a break from the project, it seemed like you were making great progress, too.

Causing sail damage should be quite possible.
At the moment I'm using Ship_ApplyHullHitpoints for the damage, but there's a similar function for sail damage.

Note that the Dutchman immersion thing was not really easy to achieve; I don't quite fancy adapting that to attacked ships as well...

OK then, leave the submersion and try the sail damage if you can.

Do we have a proper "splash" sound effect? I suppose we do need to get some special effects to go with the ability; it doesn't actually look very impressive at the moment.
It's a buggy feature to begin with and it's always going to be so though. Have you noticed the wake that remains visible on the sea surface? Or in a storm, the bow wave which persists?
(Actually, we might be able to get rid of the bow wave. As part of a bug, we once accidentally lost it in storms altogether for quite a long time. Not sure where the code for that was, though...)

That's the trouble, I'm not sure which sound effect we have, if any, that would work for this purpose. Something related to the sinking effects, perhaps?

About the persisting wake, I don't actually mind that. In a way, it's good because you can actually see where you're going in 3rd person camera view.
It almost resembles a shark fin skimming the surface, too. I haven't tried it in a storm yet, but I think I know what you mean about the extra bow wave effects.
I DID, however, discover that you can sail directly underneath other ships without adverse effects. I was worried you'd start pushing them along, but that doesn't seem to happen.

One other thing I'd like to look into is the dark abyss that is 'total blackness' beneath the sea. There must be a way of changing the colour, at least, to make it more like dark blue.
Unless it's hard coded, of course, because players were never meant to see it.