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Planned Feature Correctly Assign Weapons for Character Type

Pieter Boelen

Navigation Officer
Administrator
Storm Modder
Hearts of Oak Donator
@Grey Roger, @Levis, @Jack Rackham and anyone else who cares to comment:
What weapons do you think should and shouldn't be distributed in certain conditions?

I could imagine that:
- Ashore anything is fair game, though perhaps NOT musketoons
- In boardings for crew, soldiers can use the default soldier weapons, though this COULD make them use muskets which maybe should be replaced with musketoons (???)
- Captains probably should use guns and not something musket-like

Maybe some weapons should be marked for "soldiers" only? So they wouldn't get used by captains/sailors?
Then what about pirate crews? Could they use those? Or not?

Perhaps the best idea would be this:
- When distributing weapons, check the weapon attributes for any beginning with "is" (for example isSoldier, isSailor, isIndian, isCaptain)
- Then check the character attributes and ONLY distribute these random weapons if the character ALSO has that attribute

So "isSoldier" weapons would only be given to "isSoldier" characters.
This may get us past the whole "hardcoded assignment" that we've got now, which is really quite an ugly solution.
 
Pirates probably got their weapons second-hand, so to speak - I do. :g2 So they can probably use anything eligible for the time period.

I'd be careful about distributing musketoons too widely as they're area effect weapons and could end up killing lots of players' officers. (They also shouldn't appear in "Early Explorers" or "Spanish Main" as, according to "initItems.c", they should only exist from "Golden Age" onwards. But if they're going to be used at sea, why not on land as well? Soldiers wouldn't get them but thugs might. So might the occasional civilian. ("Hobo With a Shotgun"? xD)

Is it possible to restrict weapons by deck? Boarders on upper deck might have enough room to swing muskets around, but I wouldn't expect anyone to use muskets on lower decks. Captains should really only use pistols.
 
I'd be careful about distributing musketoons too widely as they're area effect weapons and could end up killing lots of players' officers.
From what I understand, the musketoon was specifically intended to be a multi damage weapon for boardings.
So the musket goes on shore and the musketoon is for sea use. Isn't that supposed to be the actual logic behind it?

Indeed I can imagine the multi damage causing some potential issues.
But we may be able to solve most of that by making the player crew start on their own ship and the enemy crew on the other one.
Then you won't immediately be locked in separate 1-vs-1 fights where you can accidentally hit characters behind you.
That feature should already exist, but I don't remember I've ever actually seen it working. Not sure why. o_O

Is it possible to restrict weapons by deck? Boarders on upper deck might have enough room to swing muskets around, but I wouldn't expect anyone to use muskets on lower decks.
In theory anything is possible. Or almost anyway.
It is more a question of whether it is simple/quick to accomplish and, if not, if it is worth spending the time and effort to make it happen.

If at all possible, I'd eventually like to have a solution that doesn't rely on hardcoding stuff and having extra exceptions in place to make it do different things in alternate circumstances.
But that may not always be possible. We just need to think this through in advance and hopefully we can at least reduce such coding.
 
I'd prefer it if both your boarding crew and the enemies boarding crew used the equip from locker function. So we would just need a function to fill the locker of the ship with sensible items.

As stated before the equipment code is due for a rewrite too but I prefer to wait with it untill after the public release, so for now I sugest just small fixes/hacks.
And I think we should make a topic in the brainstorm forum to discuss really well how the equipment should be handled because whatever we are going to do it will probably need some fundemental changes one way or another.
 
I'd prefer it if both your boarding crew and the enemies boarding crew used the equip from locker function. So we would just need a function to fill the locker of the ship with sensible items.
Interesting thought. Not sure if that would be quite required, but it could allow to remove some exceptions from the code, I suppose.

As stated before the equipment code is due for a rewrite too but I prefer to wait with it untill after the public release, so for now I sugest just small fixes/hacks.
For the time being, I am inclined to not fuss too much over "whether the weapon is correct for that type of character". As long as it works.

And I think we should make a topic in the brainstorm forum to discuss really well how the equipment should be handled because whatever we are going to do it will probably need some fundemental changes one way or another.
I was actually thinking of just moving THIS topic to the Brainstorming forum.
In fact, let me split the relevant posts and do that right now.
 
This issue renamed and marked as "Planned".

Feedback and suggestions PRIOR to this being done would be welcome. :doff
 
At the moment weapons are being assigned randomly based on nationality and character level.
There are some separate exceptions in place for soldiers and indians.
Eventually we should make a more general system to support this.
Then we can also give different weapons to "captains" and "boarding crews", etc.

What kind of weapon and character categories should we have?
Anyone got any ideas on how we would want this to work?
 
I'd say officers should only have pistols, not longarms such as muskets or musketoons; naval boarders should have some standard uniform national weapons worked out the same way as soldiers; everyone else should be pretty well random as non-military crews will have whatever they bought and pirates will have whatever they stole.
 
I'd say officers should only have pistols, not longarms such as muskets or musketoons
"Officers" as in "enemy captains" you mean, right?

naval boarders should have some standard uniform national weapons worked out the same way as soldiers
I did actually already have that in place once; if I find the correct line of code, I may be able to restore that.
The reason I disabled it again was because ALL national ships got soldier crews and uniform weapons at the time; even merchant ships.
But their outfits are now already different between navy and merchant ships.
 
"Officers" as in "enemy captains" you mean, right?
Yes. Your officers carry whatever you give them. :D

I don't know if any enemy boarders other than the captain are designated as officers; if so, perhaps limit them to pistols as well but give them better quality blades. Not necessarily different from other crew, just give them a better chance of having "Good" or "Fine" weapons. The same for the captain, of course.
 
I don't know if any enemy boarders other than the captain are designated as officers; if so, perhaps limit them to pistols as well but give them better quality blades. Not necessarily different from other crew, just give them a better chance of having "Good" or "Fine" weapons. The same for the captain, of course.
Enemy boarders are either crew or captain. No enemy ships ever have officers. :no

(I'm not saying that is GOOD, by the way. That is just the way it is. Giving enemy ships officers too would be a separate feature request altogether. But not something I care about seeing done.)
 
This is also fixed. Turns out the random names were set to match with the LOCATION.
And the location didn't have a nation, so it defaulted to PIRATE and you'd get names from all nations for all characters.

I now added some code so the player boarding crew gets names matching with the Served Nation.
And of course the enemies get nations matching with their captain's nation.

As a bonus, I restored "soldier weapons" in boardings, but ONLY for navy ships.
Is that a good idea? "Soldier weapons" is muskets, isn't it? Personal experience is that muskets are rubbish in boardings. You get one shot which might take out one enemy, after which you're stuck with musket + bayonet which is significantly inferior to the higher level swords. If my officers are equipped with muskets when I board a superior ship, they tend to take damage and even get killed, even though they have gold armour, good melee skill and perks, and a supply of medication. If I remove the muskets so they can use the nice swords I gave them, they take less damage. Of course, if the enemy are all using muskets then my officers carrying muskets will probably be safe, but it will mean that naval crews with muskets are going to be less dangerous than civilian crews with swept-hilt rapiers. :facepalm
 
I moved these posts to another thread, as it no longer relates to the original issue.

Is that a good idea?
I don't know. We'll find out! :cheeky

It is a single line that does it anyway, so it easy enough to get rid of it again.

"Soldier weapons" is muskets, isn't it?
In most periods, yes....

Personal experience is that muskets are rubbish in boardings. You get one shot which might take out one enemy, after which you're stuck with musket + bayonet which is significantly inferior to the higher level swords. If my officers are equipped with muskets when I board a superior ship, they tend to take damage and even get killed, even though they have gold armour, good melee skill and perks, and a supply of medication. If I remove the muskets so they can use the nice swords I gave them, they take less damage. Of course, if the enemy are all using muskets then my officers carrying muskets will probably be safe, but it will mean that naval crews with muskets are going to be less dangerous than civilian crews with swept-hilt rapiers. :facepalm
Hmm, that is indeed rather the opposite of what that change is meant to do....

Should soldiers not be tougher than citizens? Are those muskets really that useless? Why would they have used them in real life then?
One idea is to give different soldier weapons if you're boarding. For example a musketoon that doesn't replace their blade?

Maybe @Jack Rackham has some thoughts on this one too.
 
Hmm, that is indeed rather the opposite of what that change is meant to do....

Should soldiers not be tougher than citizens? Are those muskets really that useless? Why would they have used them in real life then?
Muskets were probably longer range than pistols, so you'd have musketeers up on crow's nests taking pot shots at enemies on deck - that's how Nelson was killed. They were not accurate. Standard land battle practice was to have all your troops lined up facing all the enemy's troops lined up, then everyone would fire and with that much lead flying in the enemy's general direction, some of it was bound to hit. Muskets were worthwhile in a long range battle which was going to be determined mostly by gunfire. They weren't much use in close quarters battle. Watch the video of Hornblower capturing Le Reve (if you don't want to play the "Hornblower" storyline, you can watch it directly at "RESOURCE\VIDEOS\Hornblower\Capture Le Reve.wmv") and see how many naval sailors on both sides aren't using muskets, preferring instead to use swords and the occasional pistol.
 
Musketoons have multidmg so maybe these are the better ones in a boarding situation?
Indeed I was thinking the same thing. If I recall, musketoons were meant specifically for boardings.

Multi damage might mean danger for all characters around though.
Might be time to change the boarding deck locator files so that everyone starts on their own side (with the player in FRONT!).
That way, at least the "multi damage" would generally go towards the enemy instead of causing collateral damage.

Muskets were probably longer range than pistols, so you'd have musketeers up on crow's nests taking pot shots at enemies on deck - that's how Nelson was killed. They were not accurate. Standard land battle practice was to have all your troops lined up facing all the enemy's troops lined up, then everyone would fire and with that much lead flying in the enemy's general direction, some of it was bound to hit. Muskets were worthwhile in a long range battle which was going to be determined mostly by gunfire. They weren't much use in close quarters battle. Watch the video of Hornblower capturing Le Reve (if you don't want to play the "Hornblower" storyline, you can watch it directly at "RESOURCE\VIDEOS\Hornblower\Capture Le Reve.wmv") and see how many naval sailors on both sides aren't using muskets, preferring instead to use swords and the occasional pistol.
Makes sense.
Does make me wonder though.... does it also make sense to have the town guards with muskets?
I do like that though, but mainly because it looks cool. :cheeky
 
Indeed I was thinking the same thing. If I recall, musketoons were meant specifically for boardings.

Multi damage might mean danger for all characters around though.
Might be time to change the boarding deck locator files so that everyone starts on their own side (with the player in FRONT!).
That way, at least the "multi damage" would generally go towards the enemy instead of causing collateral damage.
I like the idea of player being in front, it means I don't have to shove past all my crew to get into the action.

But musketoons for enemy crew is going to be amusing. The guys in the front probably aren't going to use them because, being at close quarters, they'll be using their swords. So it's the guys at the back who are going to pull out their musketoons, and the guys at the front aren't going to be happy about that. xD

Makes sense.
Does make me wonder though.... does it also make sense to have the town guards with muskets?
I do like that though, but mainly because it looks cool. :cheeky
Yes. Muskets are still pretty good against low level swords. They're outclassed when everyone is carrying swept-hilt rapiers or better. So against players early in the game (and against the town citizens), muskets with bayonets are pretty decent. And the town guards are the basic security types so they're only expected to take on lower level opponents. If you kill them then you're up against the reinforcements, and last time I did that, the reinforcements didn't seem to have muskets.
 
I like the idea of player being in front, it means I don't have to shove past all my crew to get into the action.
Exactly my reasoning. ;)

That is something that I've wanted to see changed for quite a while.
I think it should require only moving/renaming some of the boarding locators.
Big question: Would anyone be up to do that?

But musketoons for enemy crew is going to be amusing. The guys in the front probably aren't going to use them because, being at close quarters, they'll be using their swords. So it's the guys at the back who are going to pull out their musketoons, and the guys at the front aren't going to be happy about that. xD
:rofl

Other option would be to disable collateral damage in some way altogether.

If you kill them then you're up against the reinforcements, and last time I did that, the reinforcements didn't seem to have muskets.
Really? Hmm.... can't remember now if Soldier Reinforcements pass through the same "soldier weapons" function as other soldiers.
If not, I wonder if that should be changed so that they do....?
 
Other option would be to disable collateral damage in some way altogether.
The easiest way to do that is give them a weapon which doesn't do collateral damage. In "Spanish Main", that's the Short Musket, which takes 2x bullet and powder to fire. which doesn't bother crew and enemies who don't count ammo but does mean you don't want to use it without at least getting the powder flask and ammo pouch. In later periods it's the Horse Pistol. Please feel free to give good guns to enemy crew - they can only use the gun once, and then only if they're not at zero range, then I kill them and get the good guns for myself. Which is why Elting's weapons locker is stuffed with Short Muskets. :wp

Really? Hmm.... can't remember now if Soldier Reinforcements pass through the same "soldier weapons" function as other soldiers.
If not, I wonder if that should be changed so that they do....?
I'd advise against it. Remember, muskets are good against lower level swords but not good against better types. The reinforcements are there because you've just beaten at least some of the soldiers with muskets, so they're going to want decent swords of their own. Instead, would it be possible to give them armour? An armoured opponent is a whole new level of fun, as you find out if you play "Assassin", give Chico Cois some armour, and forget to take it off him again before you join Bartolomeu. You get to fight against Chico and he's still carrying whatever you gave him. :duel:
 
The easiest way to do that is give them a weapon which doesn't do collateral damage. In "Spanish Main", that's the Short Musket, which takes 2x bullet and powder to fire. which doesn't bother crew and enemies who don't count ammo but does mean you don't want to use it without at least getting the powder flask and ammo pouch. In later periods it's the Horse Pistol. Please feel free to give good guns to enemy crew - they can only use the gun once, and then only if they're not at zero range, then I kill them and get the good guns for myself. Which is why Elting's weapons locker is stuffed with Short Muskets. :wp
Just let me know some period-appropriate and nation-appropriate soldier boarding weapons and it should be possible to tweak the code to make them use those in boardings.

I'd advise against it. Remember, muskets are good against lower level swords but not good against better types. The reinforcements are there because you've just beaten at least some of the soldiers with muskets, so they're going to want decent swords of their own.
So basically the muskets are a disadvantage to the soldier? Hmm.... Interesting.
Leaving as-is should be OK then. :doff

Instead, would it be possible to give them armour?
Possible? Of course!

Dutch and Portuguese soldiers actually showed armour in the original game and in one of the early mods, they actually got armour items too so that actually worked.
The code for that is still in the game, but I don't think it quite works anymore. And certainly not for any character models that don't have separate armour defined in initItems.c .

Have you go any idea in which period and for which nation what types of armour might be appropriate?
Or would it be worth to stick to the original feature where each model that has armour embedded in the model to actually have its own type of armour?

An armoured opponent is a whole new level of fun, as you find out if you play "Assassin", give Chico Cois some armour, and forget to take it off him again before you join Bartolomeu. You get to fight against Chico and he's still carrying whatever you gave him. :duel:
:rofl
I remember a similar issue when players had Nigel Blythe with them as officer, enabled Godmode on him and then had to fight him.
That did not end well! :razz
 
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