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Arrival at Falaise de Fleur and "escort" mission in the main plot

konradk

konradk

Privateer
Storm Modder
Storm Modeller
In order to help English to liberate Oxbay, Nathaniel Hawk had brilliant plan. He sailed to Falaise de Fleur, bribed or killed Amiel Berangere to be able to escort barque with ammunitions and then, after some time, attacking that ship to prevent she from reaching Oxbay.

The concept is good, but it has one flaw.

France is at war with Great Britain. Furthermore, French hates Nathaniel Hawk for his former crimes against French ships. But, somehow he's able to peacefully moor close to a french fort, even hoisting an English flag. The French don't see nothing bad with fact that during French-English war the ship with military transport is escorted by English corsair. The disillusion comes to the head of captain of ship 'Oiseau' at the open sea, after leaving the fort.

After that incident the French attitude toward Hawk remains neutral.

I think that more logical would be one from two options. The worse one would be to force Nathaniel to stop at beach and sneak to the governor to buy French neutrality before entering the port by the ship (but the main problem remains - who will let to anchor ship belonging to enemy nation in a port and not arrest her). Another possibility, which I suppose to be better, is following: don't change French ships and forts attitude to neutral toward Hawk; they should remain hostile. Instead, let Nathaniel to hoist a French flag in the time from after questioning Massoni at Oxbay until attack of 'Oiseau'.

In my opinion it would add some realism into the plot. I don't know if it's possible to make changes I have proposed and I don't have experience in modding. I would look into code trying to find the solution, but I'd like to know what do you think about it. Is it worth of effort?

I wish you good winds and tons of water under your keel. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

pirate_kk
 
i think they should have it as an opening to french quest line, by either sinking ship or escorting it all the way
 
It would be possible, yes. And it's quite a good idea too. Unfortunately, I personally don't know how to change it. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />
 
@merciless.. yes but then you'd need to start the game as a neutral guy.. as to saying you can make your pick into going on for the english or going on for the french... but you're really stuck with doing stuff for the english at the start. Moreso, you should be able to pick your nation and start with a quest for that nation. That's a shite load of work, but yeah... I'd love to start as a Dutch semi-pirate. Just doing whatever I want, under my own nationality.
 
since new quests are being implemented all the time maybe we could eventually rewrite the quest and add lines for the french, spanish, duth and portugese, each line with diffrent missions and stuff but ultimatley leading to the shores of Kael roha(sp?) with Silehard's Man-O-Wars waiting <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />
 
Mayhaps. I cannot judge the rate of work. But personally, I like open-end gameplay like in Pirates!. Being the side quests you do for nations pretty much irrelevant to the main quests.. But yeh! Will it all be done in time for AoP? <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
 
As I look at code it looks that I have much to do before I could understand basics. Currently I plan to read all available tutorials. I thought about making the game more open with possibility of choosing nation, but it in fact requires adding "main quests" for rest of the nations. Because now I'm only trying to learn, I can't estimate when I'll be able to make reasonable modification of the scripts. I still haven't any idea for making interesting quests for nations other than England.

As a side remark: I assume that unmodded POtC was weak because Bethesda signed agreement with Disney which shortened the time available for Akella required for development. They were in hurry and because of that their product was of lower quality than i.e. Sea Dogs. I believe AoP and Captain Blood should be better, but if it wasn't true I would consider further improvement of Build Project. If something bad happened and new products of Disney/Bethesda/Akella disappoint, it's better to work on improvement of one program which is well known than abandoning one thing and starting next from scratch.

Sincerelly,
pirate_kk
 
The only reason I think AoP could be worse if there is nothing else new that the screenshots can tell. That would suck. (Making it have less as in PotC) I doubt it'll be as buggy though... And think of all the correct(ly finished) quests! (L)

Back ontopic:
An option would be duplicating the main quest, making clones for it for every nation. (Maybe even a pure pirate one with the pirate boss as your leader! A war between the two pirate islands!) Y'know, the french barque Ousiau would be a douwesen pirate brig you have to sink. That is, if you're going for Quebrellas Costillas pirates. If I knew C I'd be happy to help, but I did not finish that schoolyear due to some difficulties. And being incredibly busy trying to straighten my derailed carreer-plan back on track, I cannot get into following tutorials. Sorry, I'm just here to whine <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />
 
I've been thinking about adding main quests for the rest of the nations. I think they should meet following criteria:
1. They should be with the same length as british quest.
2. All of them should end with battle for Silehard Manowar and defeating of Black Pearl.
3. In all of them Danielle Greene and Clement Aurentius should be present (because their absence would destroy effect of last cutscenes. Besides, what would it be a main quest without Danielle?)

Currently I have concept for most of French mainquest and some ideas for Spanish mainquest. The French side is relatively easy, at least at beginning, because it should be a "reverse" of British mainquest.

One of episodes for Spanish mainquest would be capturing of Peter Blood together with his officers and destroying his fleet. The Sabatini's book starts with Monmouth uprising in 1685 while the game starts in 1690, so he should roughly fit. He has books and film in which he's glorified; soon he will have a game. I think it would be good for a once to allow Spaniards to defeat him. Blood is so hopelessly ideal and high-minded while Spanish are in their definition treacherous and cruel... What is your opinion?

I welcome all suggestions about this topic. Moreover, I'll appreciate any help - currently I can only modify existing dialogs. I don't know if I should publish my suggestions or try to implement by myself - in first case it would spoill all the challenge, in second it would take me ages with a danger of my surrender and doing nothing at all except speaking/writing. So I would appreciate any suggestions, opinions and advice.

SideNote: I didn't test it, but when I choose option to "show everyone I'm a girl" and become Danielle Greene, later in the game I meet my twin-sister Danielle Greene and mention my past affair with her... Looks strange... It would be changed by preparing versions for man and woman point of view - when player's alterego is Nathaniel Hawk he meets Danielle Greene, while when this alterego is Danielle Greene she meets Nathaniel Hawk. But it's another whole lot to do...

Sincerely

pirate_kk
 
I finally undestood the working of scripts utilized by Storm Engine. I left the task of creating mainquests for a while. Since appearance of PostBuild ver. from 21 November 2005 I prepared following improvements:

1) possibility of using false flags: Nathaniel can use any flag, but there's a probability (changable in Buildsettings.h) that he will be recognized. The nations with which Nathaniel has LoM might be friendly independently of current flag or hostile if he uses flag of enemy nation.

2) French squadron near Oxbay, consisting of battleship Belette and frigates Cleopatre and Semillante might be boarded and captured/sunk. There's also option in BuildSettings.h if replacement ship should arrive during mission with Rabel Yverneau or not (if this option is turned on, the fleet blocking Oxbay during that mission will be a battleship and two frigates: the ship which was captured or sunk earlier will be replaced by identical but with different name and captain. If option above is turned off and all those ships was taken before, the Yverneau ship will be attacked only by fort and randomly generated enemies, i.e. Pirates).

3) Black Pearl is boardable.

4) two ships are named "Belette": one is French battleship and the second is Silehard manowar. I added an option in BuildSetting.h of renaming Silehard manowar and changed her name to "Sovereign of the Seas" - the name of British ship launched in 1632; the biggest and most powerful ship belonging to England in that time armed with 100 guns.

When developing flags I found out that bug from the latest relase (that when Nathaniel got LoM from every nation including Pirates) was caused by mod which was supposed to fix working of the HoistFlag command. It assigned the rmrelations to variables franciarel,..., etc, but because those variables was local, when procedure in BattleInterface.c was called during entering map, their values was 0, which meant obtaining LoM. I made a modification compatible with my flags mod and as I test it, it works.

I plan to make a reallistic Black Pearl, I mean it should be like in film: the cursed pirates should be immortal but Black Pearl was in particular destructable (she was holed and leaking; even after battle with "Interceptor" she was close to sinking). I plan to make modification that when fighting without artefact the amount of the crew will be constant and Black Pearl wiil get damage. If she sinks or is boarded without artefact 600 undead skeletons will attack Nathaniel ship and he together with his mortal bording party will be forced to die in fight with them. But, with the artefact, the undead will become mortal and it'll be possible to kill them with grapes or during boarding. The main problem in case of premature sinking of Black Pearl would be the problem of a deck of single ship - since Black Pearl went to bottom there's only one ship to fight on - but I hope I'll manage to addopt a Gamboa ship to this (but I didn't find out if this work).

If you like changes which I propose, I'd like to know where should I put it: to PA ftp or to i.e. Pieter Boelen - but in that case need an e-mail address. I made everything in the way which allows turning my changes on or off depending on individual preference.

Best Regards
pirate_kk
 
Sounds like some nice changes. You can put them on the FTP or send them to pieter_boelen@planet.nl . Doesn't matter which of the two you do; I'll get the changes anyway and implement them in the next modpack update. We figured out about the HoistFlag causing the LoM bug and I tried several attempted fixes already. None of them have worked so far. I hope your work will help getting rid of the bug. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
 
Welcome KK <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />

Looks like we worked on the same problem: I have just proposed a fix for the LOM bug in another forum section <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" /> (this forum just has too many subforums <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /> )

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><a href="http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php?showtopic=6280" target="_blank">http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php?showtopic=6280</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

This fix includes elements of the "false flag ruse-de-guere", but you can only switch between your real flag and JollyRoger. If your mod allows us to use ALL flags as disguise we should use yours. Have a look at my files and feel free to copy or change any code that may be of use for you.

Thanks a lot for your contributions, and keep it coming <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
 
Hey, this all sounds good.

A major bug fix on the way?

HUZZAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

<img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wavarr.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":warr" border="0" alt="wavarr.gif" />
 
Hello,

unfortunately, all thing will be delayed...

Just when I did one of the last tests (I must say that I hardly find time for creating mod and I have even less for testing - I have a work too) - I have found two bugs caused by my changes <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/modding.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":modding" border="0" alt="modding.gif" /> Because I don't want to publish something that I know is working bad, I decided to handle this problem.

I promise to share my work as soon as possible.

I'm very grateful for your support.

Thank you,
pirate_kk
 
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