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    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Nelson's First Command & Lucky Jack in the War of 1812

Working through the various side quests as Nelson, I've recently done "Find the missing son of the Spanish admiral". This has existed ever since the stock game, so it assumes the governor of Redmond / Jamaica is Silehard. There's no alternative dialog file for Charles Windem, the tavern owner in Kingston, so when you ask him about Lucas, he says the lad has been dating Governor Silehard's daughter. But the governor is not Silehard.

There appears to be a dialog file for Henry Morgan which looks like a standard governor dialog file, and when you meet the lady in question, she's Arabella Morgan. But the governor is not Morgan either. In my game, at least, he's John Dalling.

Is the governor's name stored as a variable, the same way town and island names are? If so, I can edit Charles Windem's dialog to use "#governor_name#" instead of "Silehard". (And, for that matter, the dialog files for Arabella's guards.) Or I could change them to not use a name at all and just say "the governor's daughter". That won't help poor Arabella get her surname right, though. And I suspect this will be a problem in other storylines too...

As for Lucas, he's not quite himself. Instead of the usual chap in the golden armour, he now looks like this:
lucas.jpg
 
Perhaps Lucas got his model changed on account of being considered a "soldier"? But that doesn't make much sense, since that is an ENGLISH soldier and I don't think Lucas' nation was ever changed.
Unless he's considered a citizen of a town that has its nation modified as part of the Periods mod.

Governor names aren't stored the same way as period-dependent island and town names, unfortunately.
Sometimes they are coded to show the name of the appropriate character ID, but often they are also hardcoded.
Not ideal and one of the issues that arise from moving stories into different time periods.
 
OK, the logical solution is to remove Silehard's name from the various dialogs and just have them refer to "the governor's daughter". That's easy enough, I can do that. There's still Arabella's surname, though... I wonder if the plot could be changed so that they've already got married so she is now Arabella da Saldanha, thus making her consistent across all storylines.

If Lucas is a citizen of anywhere, should it not be San Juan? I don't think it ever changes nationality, and it's certainly still Spanish in my game. But I wonder if he's been put into British uniform because this is the Nelson storyline and I'm a British commissioned officer?
 
Was he wearing a British uniform when you met him originally? Because up to that point, the player should not be affecting his appearance I should think.

OK, the logical solution is to remove Silehard's name from the various dialogs and just have them refer to "the governor's daughter". That's easy enough, I can do that. There's still Arabella's surname, though... I wonder if the plot could be changed so that they've already got married so she is now Arabella da Saldanha, thus making her consistent across all storylines.
That would certainly simplify things. :yes
 
Yes, Lucas looked like that when I first saw him in the kidnappers' house. I just thought someone had changed his uniform for that storyline or possibly that time period. It's not a standard British soldier's uniform. I didn't hire him as I have plenty of officers already but I might hire him next time I'm in San Juan just to see which outfit he's using.
 
Have a look in the Nelson storyline character init files. That is where his model is set.
 
Code:
ch.model = "Spy2";
That's the same model as is used for Pelagius Lizarraga in the "Assassin" storyline. Perhaps the vice-admiral's agent got to Lucas before me and is now impersonating him...
 
Ah, someone must indeed have intentionally changed it then.
It should be called "Lucas" for our regular guy.
 
I have now "merged" the Aubrey and Nelson storylines together.
By default you will get the Nelson stuff but if you select Jack Aubrey as starting character, you get his starting officers instead.

If you want to play as Jack Aubrey, you should:
- Choose his character model
- Change the starting date until you are in the Napoleonic time period
- Select HMS_Sophie as your ship and rename her

Getting the correct officers and ships for each rank has been worked into the GivePromotionReward function.
The Nelson officers and ships are used as "defaults" in his time period. The Aubrey ships are used in Napoleonic.
You will only get the film version of HMS Surprise if you play as Jack Aubrey.
And if you happen to play as Hornblower, you'll get HMS Indefatigable instead.

The correct progressions work also outside the Nelson storyline. The only point of that storyline is to jump-start the player to rank 5 Lieutenant.
If you start any other storyline, you start as Midshipman and you'll progress through either the Nelson or the Aubrey set of officers as you get promoted.

This is a first try, but I have high hopes it'll give better navy gameplay for both characters than starting you as a character and then leaving it dully to free play afterwards.
@FlyingGhost, @Grey Roger and/or @Pillat would be welcome to build further on my current changes. :doff
 
Both the Nelson and Aubrey storylines are gone. However, they remain as specific Free Play characters.
They also have appropriate ship and officer progressions set for them, so you will get all the right characters and commands throughout the game.
So I reckon that the gameplay for these characters has only improved since their Beta 3.4 versions. :cheeky
 
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