Check the Rigging

[jbrick]

Greetings,

I’ve been lurking here for some time now. I stumbled on to this board awhile back when I was attempting to find if anyone ever patched the boxed game. It was some time shortly before Build 13 final. I was blown away by all the work you all have done. And continue to this day. This is by far the best game ever with your mod. And being a 41 year old lifetime gamer, I have witnessed the entire evolution of video games from Pong on a Radio Shack ‘console’ to Tank and Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 to Star Raiders, Flight Simulator 1.0, Larry Bird vs Dr J One-on-One on the Atari 800 Home Computer, and I could go on forever about the Atari 800 (the Internet in 1980’s, BBS’s, using a coupler modem). I witnessed Dragon’s Lair in the Arcade, first LaserDisc game. Sid Meier’s Pirates for Win 3.1 was the ultimate game until you guys took this and put it on steroids. But I must say, “Those were the days.” And will I ever forgive my mother for selling my 800 at a garage sale when I went into the Army?

Anyway I wanted to share some observations and ideas (which may have been discussed)

Check the Rigging (F4). I realized late that you could save at sea. I found that if I command my men to “Check the Rigging” (F4) twice a day at sea, after course changes, Chance encounters, sightings of Land, that it prevents my sails from being pulled right off the ship and me being left stranded to die (CTD’s) 90% of the time. I found this to be the case more in 14 build 4 than build 5. But all the same, since I scribble position, and course on message and float it in a bottle I am often not losing more than a half day before being rescued by a ship with an extra set of sails (load quick save game) in the rare event the sails do go flying (CTD). I am just not as likely to crash at sea if I quick save often. Could there be an Autosave routine to execute every half day as the bell rings and XP is calculated? On map changes on land?

Officer dialogues. Could you add role-specific dialogues? Examples:
Quartermaster – Which colony pays the highest price for x?
Navigator – How many days approximately to y colony if winds are z?
Surgeon – Could you hire men for boat a?
Carpenter – How many planks are needed to repair (10, 20 , 40) % damage to hull on boat c?
Boatswain – Status on gunpowder and ammo for crew weapons?
Cannoneer – How much gun powder do we need for a standard loadout for boat b?


Stuff like that.

Time
Can time to transfer cargo, repair/upgrade ship at shipyard, repair weapon, be changed to be like repairing a ship at sea. Forcing you to occupy your time by going to the brothel or explore the island, or just go to tavern and pay for x days it will take. I really get into the submersive role-playing aspects of this game and I think I would be more compelled to visit more places and explore if I were stuck waiting for my ship to get loaded. Repairing could go faster the emptier the ship is. Just some ideas, I don’t know if the engine makes them possible, but I could expand on them further if interested.

Weather. Are there seasonal influences?

I also have Storyline based on Neal Stephen’s Baroque Cycle. Highly recommended read for those of you who have an interest in the 17th – 18th Century.

Theatres. Is it possible to incorporate a method of transition zones and theatres for world map effect like Empire Total War does?

That’s probably good for now. I really appreciate your efforts and look forward to your replies.

Half-Cocked Jack

My portable man cave –

Dell Laptop M1730 XPS
Intel Core2 Duo 2.4GHz
3GB RAM
Dual Nvidia GeForce 8700M GT (bridged)
Dual Boot for XP/Vista

 

[Hylie Pistof]

:gday

Ah, the good ol' days. Pong was Atari's first game if I remember correctly. Circa 1976. I bought my first computer, a Commodore 64, in 1983.

I save often too, although I rarely save at sea. If I get the chance I will save before a battle because of the odd boarding ctd. Check the rigging every time one sets foot on a dock is a good idea.

More dialogs? A chatty crew is a happy crew.

More realistic time passage has been discussed before, but no one has done anything about it. Too many other things being worked on.

Fair winds to ya!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I definitely like your ideas and I'd like to have them included in the game,
but unfortunately we don't have anyone who could work on it at the moment.
We're rather struggling to stay afloat these days, it appears.

We do have some measure of seasonal influences in the weatther encountered in DirectSail mode.

Thanks for your kind comments.

 

[jbrick]

I definitely like your ideas and I'd like to have them included in the game,
but unfortunately we don't have anyone who could work on it at the moment.
We're rather struggling to stay afloat these days, it appears.

We do have some measure of seasonal influences in the weatther encountered in DirectSail mode.

Thanks for your kind comments.

I realize everyone is already pretty busy. My first question is do you think these ideas are possible? If so, what do I need know to know how to start working on it? Are the tools available for free? What's the learning curve? I might be interested in being a contributing member if I can get a little direction and support, but I have never modded before. I am a network systems engineer, so I have a good idea how computers think, but I haven't done any programming since BASIC, Pascal, DbaseIII in the late 80's, early 90's.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Possible? Certainly. Tools? Notepad will do. The code is in the PROGRAM folder and the files are regular text files.
Have a look through them and see if anything makes any sense to you. Let us know if you've got any questions.

 

[jbrick]

Possible? Certainly. Tools? Notepad will do. The code is in the PROGRAM folder and the files are regular text files.
Have a look through them and see if anything makes any sense to you. Let us know if you've got any questions.

Once again, what skill set is needed, ie..would it help to go buy a book on Visual C++ or something. If I have no idea what language this is in, how can I begin to understand it. Surely there must be some kind of documentation that oulines how everything works. I'm starting from scratch here. What commands are useable, proper context, etc..

Really, Pieter, your response doesn't seem to invite any help at all. I may be too far behind the curve to help, and perhaps that's your point, but I have a lot of ideas along with the mechanics of how to implement them most efficiently, but I don't have the specific language skill set, or documentation on how it all ties together. I'm certainly not meaning to disrespect the amount of work and effort on everyone's part that has made this so good thus far. I just wish I could help in some way. It seems to me that Bethesda or whoever owns the rights to the original PoTC should look into hiring you guys to finsih this off and re-relase as an expansion similar to Mount and Blade:Warband, or Rome Total War; Barbarian Invasion.

 

[Talisman]

There is a manual on the code and how to create mods

In your Pirates of the caribbean game folder , there should be a sub-folder called Documentation.

In the Documentation folder there are 3 pdf documents,

1) A gameplay guide - to give you a feel of what the game is like to play

2) A Ship recognition guide - which tells you about some of the ships

3) A Tutorial & History - this gives various tutorials & examples on how to mod the game - written by various modders, past and present, and a history of the build mod ( this is probably what you are looking for - or it is the closest thing we have at the moment ).
So have a look at it and if you think you need to ( or want to ) then you can buy a book on C++ or not.

The tools you need to change the code - notepad ( or better still Notepad+ from the download section of this site )

To view and modify the models - GM Viewer & TOOL ( again both from the download section ) and for advanced modelling the Maya program.

Hope this helps

 

[morgan terror]

is this 'check the rigging' feature something new since i last played? i've never heard of it.

 

[Talisman]

is this 'check the rigging' feature something new since i last played? i've never heard of it.

Think it is a pirate euphemism for " save your game " or "quicksave (F4)" before you do anything risky.

As in check the rigging before you pick a fight with that ship of the line.

 

[morgan terror]

oh. i never use that.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm sorry about my reply being a little bit useless. I'm quite willing to help a bit more,
but I just plain don't have the time to write up anything more extensive and helpful for the next three months.

 

[jbrick]

There is a manual on the code and how to create mods

In your Pirates of the caribbean game folder , there should be a sub-folder called Documentation.

In the Documentation folder there are 3 pdf documents,

1) A gameplay guide - to give you a feel of what the game is like to play

2) A Ship recognition guide - which tells you about some of the ships

3) A Tutorial & History - this gives various tutorials & examples on how to mod the game - written by various modders, past and present, and a history of the build mod ( this is probably what you are looking for - or it is the closest thing we have at the moment ).
So have a look at it and if you think you need to ( or want to ) then you can buy a book on C++ or not.

The tools you need to change the code - notepad ( or better still Notepad+ from the download section of this site )

To view and modify the models - GM Viewer & TOOL ( again both from the download section ) and for advanced modelling the Maya program.

Hope this helps

Thank you. You are right. This is precisely what I am looking for, at least in the right direction. I don't know why I didn't open it before. I guess I thought it was a tutorial on how to play the game.

 

[zorglub]

You know, for a lot of us PotC was our first modding experience. We learned everything just by looking at the files, that's the reason why Pieter gave you this advice. This game is really user-friendly and most of the code is just here, uncompiled and uncompressed, in C language, sometimes with commentaries (half in Russian..). You shouldn't have to buy a book on C++ to start understanding how it works, and modding. As a start, being curious and looking at the files are enough!

Some very good aspects of this game are the console (which we added), and the error system. Using the console you can apply whatever code you want whenever you want in game, by writting your code in PROGRAM\console.c and order to execute it by pressing a simple key. When you make a mistake while editing/writing something, the error files generated will very often be enough to find out what went wrong, by giving you what lines in what files it didn't like.

I personaly used Microsoft Visual Basics C++ ver.6 to open and edit files, because I had it already installed on my computer, and because it had a powerfull search engine.


So don't have it wrong - you are welcomed on this forum, Pieter was never looking down at you, and we will help you if you need!
...and, you wrote some fairly good ideas up there. Apart from the theatre thing I didn't understand, I'd say all of them are doable.

Finaly, there is a tutorial section in this forum : here

 

[jbrick]

You know, for a lot of us PotC was our first modding experience. We learned everything just by looking at the files, that's the reason why Pieter gave you this advice. This game is really user-friendly and most of the code is just here, uncompiled and uncompressed, in C language, sometimes with commentaries (half in Russian..). You shouldn't have to buy a book on C++ to start understanding how it works, and modding. As a start, being curious and looking at the files are enough!

Some very good aspects of this game are the console (which we added), and the error system. Using the console you can apply whatever code you want whenever you want in game, by writting your code in PROGRAM\console.c and order to execute it by pressing a simple key. When you make a mistake while editing/writing something, the error files generated will very often be enough to find out what went wrong, by giving you what lines in what files it didn't like.

I personaly used Microsoft Visual Basics C++ ver.6 to open and edit files, because I had it already installed on my computer, and because it had a powerfull search engine.


So don't have it wrong - you are welcomed on this forum, Pieter was never looking down at you, and we will help you if you need!
...and, you wrote some fairly good ideas up there. Apart from the theatre thing I didn't understand, I'd say all of them are doable.

Finaly, there is a tutorial section in this forum : here

The current "World Map" of the Caribbean would be considered a 'Theatre'. Used like Iraq and Aghanistan are different 'theatres'. I envision creating a "North Sea", "Mediterranean", "Ivory Coast", "Indian Ocean", North American East Coast", and "South Pacific" theatres. Transfer from one theatre to another could be done through a dialogue with the "smuggler" or similar character in the Tavern. The historical background for this could be the invention of Insurance, which I believe originated late 17th century out of the Netherlands. As sea travel was very risky from weather and pirates, businessmen decided to send several ships with the same cargo figuring that some of them would not make it. If they determined only 1 in 3 ships are expected to complete a journey, they might send 6 ships just to be sure. I envision that a dialogue could be used to transfer between the different areas and the Player would be required to have enough cargo space for Food, Rum, and 'Mission Cargo', as he would be part of the fleet, for the journey. No DirectSail between theatres. This gives us the oppourtunity to create a "World" feel without a cumbersome huge "World Map". There could be risk for the player that he might not make it that gets lessened by higher 'Leadership' and 'Sailing' skills.

 

[zorglub]

I see... Pirate_kk once said that it would be possible for PotC engine to load different worldmaps... (here)

However, creating new worldmap is a problem, and populating new places with locations & characters would be a hell lot of work. At some point we do wanted to add European harbors. See this topic for example.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Indeed we did talk about it once, but if possible, it'd be a huge task.
We never even finished filling and finishing the current islands with interesting stuff.
For example, there's no citizens in the newly added towns like in the old ones.

And know that I never learned any programming through books, teachers or otherwise;
everything I know (admittedly not all that much) was self-taught. And look where I am now.
(I don't understand it either. :wacko: )

 

[jbrick]

is this 'check the rigging' feature something new since i last played? i've never heard of it.

Think it is a pirate euphemism for " save your game " or "quicksave (F4)" before you do anything risky.

As in check the rigging before you pick a fight with that ship of the line.

It's more than that. In my experience, when I haven't played in awhile, the first time I get back to it, I forget to Save. And lo and behold, often, after 2 days at sea without saving (sometimes longer, often at 'Land Ho!', sometimes sooner), CTD. Then I load it up and go through my "Check the Rigging" routine of Quick saving often, and I don't get a CTD. I noticed that when I am at sea, there is no hard drive activity. It may be my quick saves that keep the hard drive active enough that it prevents it from crashing. My main frustration with this game from POTC original has been satbility. So much, I would stop playing altogether. Your builds brought stability, but I would still get CTDs until I learned to save at sea. I just wanted share that with anyone else who seem to have stability issues. To remind myself to keep saving, I renamed that function to "Check the Rigging" and the routine goes as follows:

(F4)
a) 2 minutes before the top of the hour
b) 1 minute after weather update
c) 1 minute after bottom of the hour
d) 1 minute after "Sail Ho!", "Land Ho!", or random encounter
e) imediately after changing course

Now I hardly ever CTD while at sea anymore. I probably only occasionally CTD inspecting the ship before going into port.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

That is a lot of ctd's. :?

I used to get a lot of ctd's. A dozen a day. :j3 Now I sometimes get one a day, and I almost never save at sea.

I bought this puter in 2007. It was about as good as they got then outside of Alienware. Then I upgraded it over time with a sound card, more ram, another hard drive, and a new video card. A year ago PotC was crash city, and sometimes other programs hiccuped too. Technically, my power pack was adequate, but I replaced it anyway. That pretty much ended my ctd's. That and going back to the old 186.18 drivers for my nvidia video card.

Anyway, that is my long winded way of saying that PotC is a fragile program that is easily knocked out if something isn't quite right.