Devlin Opera for the 65742th time

[BathtubPirate]

Unremovable officers are probably going to do the job. But is it "true" or "false" in that line to make them unremovable? Seems like a bit of a double negative.

You're right, it's Blaze without Bonnie and Beatrice (the latter briefly appearing as an NPC). Other officers you might have around can easily be overwritten, story-wise it doesn't make too much sense for them to be around anyway. But Lorena Lopez or anybody else could be useful in the other route of the quest, where you get to attack the pirate ship, so you can capture it if you want.

You get the three corsairs on a quest location ship, where a first fight against an enemy group happens. Next you go ashore with them, lead them through the jungle (with some precautions should you take the wrong way) and when you reach your destination, a second fight against an enemy group happens. Then you turn on the three corsairs: They're removed and put into yet another enemy group for you to kill. The captain has been immortal until now. The other two already might have died in the first or second fight, less work for you!

You're going to like this. The quest starts at a beach. If you choose to attack the pirate ship, you start from that beach and return to it again. If you choose the other route, you send Beatrice to Cumana to meet her there later and leave the island from there (so the corsairs don't notice your ship in the area and thus see through your infiltration plot). Now I need a line of code to check my relation with Spain. If I'm enemies with Spain, Beatrice would suggest not going to Cumana and instead sails off for a while and picks you up at the same beach later.

I also need to define the ship soon, I already thought a light fluyt would be suitable. In the route where you don't attack the ship, I still need to place it at a beach, so you can go aboard - meaning if you get near the boat locator you're transported to a quest location. This already works, but without a visible ship in the bay. There needs to be the mentioned light fluyt and a rowboat so it looks good.

The whole quest is probably very complicated without the bigger picture, but I hope it makes sense with all the dialog.

 

[Grey Roger]

Unremovable officers are probably going to do the job. But is it "true" or "false" in that line to make them unremovable? Seems like a bit of a double negative.

You're right, it should be 'false':

SetCharacterRemovable(CharacterFromID("Corsair1"), false);

That is a single negative - he is not removable.

You're right, it's Blaze without Bonnie and Beatrice (the latter briefly appearing as an NPC). Other officers you might have around can easily be overwritten, story-wise it doesn't make too much sense for them to be around anyway. But Lorena Lopez or anybody else could be useful in the other route of the quest, where you get to attack the pirate ship, so you can capture it if you want.

Here's a useful trick:

StorePassengers(PChar.id);

Remove all your officers and passengers. They're Beatrice's companions, not Blaze's. When you want to put them back:

RestorePassengers(PChar.id);

This is how you lose all your officers temporarily in various storylines, such as the storm in "Tales of a Sea Hawk" which dumps you at Bonaire, or when you're sent to prison in "Hornblower" and "Ardent". If you pick up some new officers in between, they're not lost when you get your original crew back, unless you had close to the limit of 32 before. You mentioned recruiting a new officer in each chapter; if Blaze recruits Annie during this one, she should still be there when you revert to being Beatrice - you should end up with Bonnie, Blaze, Lorena and anyone else you met in taverns, plus Annie.

Which means Blaze can start with no officers, and isn't getting any more unless he goes into Cumana tavern. Wait a minute - this is Blaze, of course he's going into the tavern! He has no money, though he can always mug some people and raise enough to pay for an officer. So:

Locations[FindLocation("Grand_Cayman_Tavern")].vcskip = true;

... blocks all random encounters, including officers for hire. Later:

DeleteAttribute(&Locations[FindLocation("Grand_Cayman_Tavern")],"vcskip");

... restores the tavern to normal.

And that means Blaze is free to take the three corsairs temporarily as officers.

You're going to like this. The quest starts at a beach. If you choose to attack the pirate ship, you start from that beach and return to it again. If you choose the other route, you send Beatrice to Cumana to meet her there later and leave the island from there (so the corsairs don't notice your ship in the area and thus see through your infiltration plot). Now I need a line of code to check my relation with Spain. If I'm enemies with Spain, Beatrice would suggest not going to Cumana and instead sails off for a while and picks you up at the same beach later.

This should check if you are hostile to Spain:

if (GetRMRelation(PChar, SPAIN) <= REL_WAR)

I also need to define the ship soon, I already thought a light fluyt would be suitable. In the route where you don't attack the ship, I still need to place it at a beach, so you can go aboard - meaning if you get near the boat locator you're transported to a quest location. This already works, but without a visible ship in the bay. There needs to be the mentioned light fluyt and a rowboat so it looks good.

The easiest way to put the ship there is to assign it to the captain, then:

SetCharacterShipLocation(characterFromID("pirate_captain"), "Cayman_shore_01");

... should put his ship near the beach. I'm not sure how to put the boat there except by temporarily giving you the fluyt and putting your ship back at the shore, in which case the boat locator would need to be disabled so that Blaze can't board "his" ship. Incidentally, a nice ship for the pirates might be "FleutWar2" - it's a pirate-specific light fluyt of war, you might meet one if you fight random pirates at sea.

 

[BathtubPirate]

if Blaze recruits Annie during this one, she should still be there when you revert to being Beatrice - you should end up with Bonnie, Blaze, Lorena and anyone else you met in taverns, plus Annie.

I'm actually contemplating to make it so he only tells Beatrice about her and you'd have to go back and recruit her seperately as Beatrice. This would make it easier to coordinate all the different outcomes, but I guess it would also make it less invitign to actually hire her.

Wait a minute - this is Blaze, of course he's going into the tavern!

He's just making a little detour into town to insult the local governor (quote: "Funny again, because so far, the only monkey I've seen on #sisland_Cayman# is wearing a wig and screaming around in the town hall.",) but I guess he could visit the tavern since he's conveniently close... Wait a minute, doesn't this mean he could also start a sidequest with Peter Blood's Spanish ancestor? vcskip wouldn't avoid that.

This should check if you are hostile to Spain:

I'm not sure how to put the boat there

Oh, you're right. Well, if the boat isn't there, it would be a bit weird in story-logic (as in: how does he get to the ship then?) but since I gave the locator quite a big radius which basically triggers as soon as you enter the water, it shouldn't be a problem.

Would setting the pirate's ship location also work with a quest location beach? Las Tortugas doesn't have two connected beaches and since I enlargened the jungle for my purposes anyway, I added the famous Cayman beach Rum Point (or in this case: Punta el Ron)

 

[Grey Roger]

I'm actually contemplating to make it so he only tells Beatrice about her and you'd have to go back and recruit her seperately as Beatrice. This would make it easier to coordinate all the different outcomes, but I guess it would also make it less invitign to actually hire her.

Presumably there will be a chat with Beatrice when Blaze returns to the ship. She could check if Annie is an officer and if so, say something about her.

He's just making a little detour into town to insult the local governor (quote: "Funny again, because so far, the only monkey I've seen on #sisland_Cayman# is wearing a wig and screaming around in the town hall.",) but I guess he could visit the tavern since he's conveniently close... Wait a minute, doesn't this mean he could also start a sidequest with Peter Blood's Spanish ancestor? vcskip wouldn't avoid that.

He could start it but he certainly won't be finishing it. He could also get a standard escort quest, fetch quest, or cargo delivery quest - and that's the one which could cause trouble if you give the pirate ship to Blaze so that the boat can show up at the beach, because the cargo will then go onto the pirate ship and be lost when you revert to Beatrice with your original ship. Beyond that, you can also pick up various sidequests as Blaze, Bonnie or Beatrice on Martinica. You can also start the "Crystal Skull" quest while you're in Santo Domingo - the researcher's house is very near to where Guille the Kid takes you to be mugged.

Oh, you're right. Well, if the boat isn't there, it would be a bit weird in story-logic (as in: how does he get to the ship then?) but since I gave the locator quite a big radius which basically triggers as soon as you enter the water, it shouldn't be a problem.

Would setting the pirate's ship location also work with a quest location beach? Las Tortugas doesn't have two connected beaches and since I enlargened the jungle for my purposes anyway, I added the famous Cayman beach Rum Point (or in this case: Punta el Ron)

Game logic: if friendly pirates are taking him to the ship then one of them could say "Wait for our boat to arrive", then fade to the ship. If not, there probably isn't a boat anyway, which means Blaze has some swimming to do. (I had to do something similar for Hornblower's special quest "The Natividad Incident". The Natividad is moored at a beach but there's no boat, so Hornblower tells his officers that they'll have to swim to it.)

Las Tortugas does not have two directly connected beaches. You can walk from Eden Point to Cumana, then from Cumana port to Cayman Kai. But don't have Beatrice take your ship there. There's a big bay with Cumana at one end, Cayman Kai at the other, and a narrow passage leading to the open sea. You're safe from the fort's guns while you're at Cayman Kai, but probably not while you're trying to get through that passage...

 

[BathtubPirate]

Yes but I wanted two beaches that were not separated by the town.

The Ardent storyline has the quest location Quest_Hold1, which is a cargo hold. In need of a cargo hold, I copied that into Devlin Opera's QuestLocations file, renamed it Devlin_Hold1, but teleporting there just brings me to the open sea (the character is literally standing in endless blue water - For some reason, this keyboard doesn't make screenshots but I'm sure you know the situation).

Spoiler: Location

//-------------------------------------------------------------- BONAMY CARGO HOLD
    //ID
    Locations[n].id = "Devlin_Hold1";
    locations[n].id.label = "Cargo hold";
    //Info
    Locations[n].filespath.models = "locations\decks\hold";
    Locations[n].image = "deck_hold.tga"; // KK
    //Sound
//    Locations[n].type = "ship";
    Locations[n].type = "deck";
//    Locations[n].camshuttle = 1;
//    Locations[n].fastreload = "ship";
//    Locations[n].monsters = 1; // KK

    //Models
    //Always
    Locations[n].models.always.locators = "hold_ld"; // KK
    Locations[n].models.always.l1 = "hold";
    //Day
    Locations[n].models.day.charactersPatch = "hold_p";
    Locations[n].models.day.fonar = "hold_fd";
    //Night
    Locations[n].models.night.charactersPatch = "hold_p";
    Locations[n].models.night.fonar = "hold_fn";
    //Environment
    Locations[n].environment.weather = "true";
    Locations[n].environment.sea = "true";
    Locations[n].environment.curse = "false"; // PB: Cursed Coins

    n = n + 1;

Spoiler: Quest case

        case "To_le_Hold":
            DoQuestReloadToLocation("Devlin_Hold1", "goto", "loc1", "To_le_Hold2");
        break;

        case "To_le_Hold2":

        break;

Spoiler: compile.log

Quest name To_le_Hold FOUND in QuestComplete
PauseAllSounds
ReloadStartFade
ItemLogic: On unload location
ReloadEndFade
** Whr: CreateWeatherEnvironment - iCurWeatherhour = 9, theHour = 9
ItemLogic: On load location Devlin_Hold1
ItemLogic: found 0 buttons
trying to spawn item: medical1 with rarity=0.10666 itemProb=0.96
trying to spawn item: jewelry9 with rarity=0.36642 itemProb=0.18
trying to spawn item: indian13 with rarity=0.6564 itemProb=0.12
trying to spawn item: indian6 with rarity=0.57175 itemProb=6.e-002
trying to spawn item: 250gp with rarity=0.87955 itemProb=0.24
trying to spawn item: indian10 with rarity=0.77585 itemProb=8.4e-002
trying to spawn item: bladeX3 with rarity=0.8793 itemProb=0.3
trying to spawn item: medical1 with rarity=0.41736 itemProb=0.96
trying to spawn item: 100gp with rarity=0.93933 itemProb=0.36
trying to spawn item: 500gp with rarity=0.48087 itemProb=0.12
trying to spawn item: medical1 with rarity=0.16559 itemProb=0.96
Quest name To_le_Hold2 FOUND in QuestComplete
SETTING MUSIC: music_abordage
SETTING MUSIC: music_abordage

 

[Grey Roger]

Teleporting to somewhere odd such as open sea probably means you're trying to teleport to a locator which does not exist.

"Quest_Hold1" is itself mostly a copy of "Hold1" from "PROGRAM\Locations\init\Ship.c". The location model and locator files are therefore exactly the same as those for the normal hold. Edit "InternalSettings.h", change VISIBLE_LOCATORS to 1, then go to your ship's hold and see what locators you can find. My first guess is that "loc1" isn't a "goto" locator.

 

[BathtubPirate]

You're right, they're "rld" locators. I have this lazy trick where I just open a locator file in a text editor to see a bunch of locators which do exist in the place, but the text is all over the place and I read the wrong category for them. I'm going to use a bunch of "prison" locators now, because with visible locators on, I can't make out how the "loc" ones are numbered because they're mostly covered by the "prison" locators.

 

[Grey Roger]

It's probably not much more work to open TOOL and read the locator file there. TOOL is also capable of creating an actual text file, though that's still harder to read than TOOL's view of the original locator file.

You may also find "hold_l_GR_agent.gm". As you'd guess, that's mine; as you might also guess, it's for my Agent FreePlay quest. It puts a new locator behind the crates. You are teleported there, in sitting mode, as you're meant to be hiding behind the crates when a guard comes to search the hold for you. Later you stand up and teleport to another locator in front of the crates so that you can move.

 

[BathtubPirate]

Things are moving slowly but steadily...

- Right now, I'm adding some little "precautions" when you go the wrong way
- Then I can wrap up this part of the quest
- Then I have to add variations depending on where your ship is and whether you hired Annie
- Then I have to do the whole other route of the quest, which should be much less code but involves a sea battle, which I have no experience with
- Then I could go back and do some work on the Lorena/Guille part of the previous quest as @Grey Roger suggested
- Then I could/should do some work on the maps, which are still not finished as items. Could be difficult because I won't renew my Adobe subcription this year
- Then I can move on to the next chapter - Of which I barely have a good idea yet...

 

[Grey Roger]

Talking of maps, "Map (Marcel Jauri)" has the same description as "Eugene Devlin's Treasure Map":

But... What is this? The Treasure Map shows three marked places all over the West Indies, each with a person's name next to it!

How many ships are involved in the sea battle? A few places you could look to see how battles have already been done:
. Meeting the Montanez and fighting two Satanist ships in "Strange Things Going On in the Caribbean": PROGRAM\QUESTS\quests_side.c, cases "prepare_for_barkue" and "to_greenford_for_montanez_complete";
. Final battle against the Mefisto: case "fight_with_mefisto";
. Hornblower's first battle against the Temeraire: PROGRAM\Storyline\Hornblower\quests\quests_reaction.c, case "French_Battle_Setup";
. Another Hornblower battle towards the end of the extension mission "Hunt the Traitors": case "French_patrol_setup";
. Or, since you've recently been playing "Ardent", you'll have fought the payroll ship Siroco: case "payroll_ship_setup". Which, since that was the first sea battle I wrote, was copied and modified from Hornblower's case "French_Battle_Setup".

As a free replacement for Adobe Photoshop, not quite as capable but probably good enough for doing things to maps and other PoTC textures:
GIMP

 

[BathtubPirate]

Talking of maps, "Map (Marcel Jauri)" has the same description as "Eugene Devlin's Treasure Map":

Yes, it's all very incomplete with these maps. The idea is still the same: Glue the map together after Santiago and it shows one with three names spread over the caribbean. Look for these three people and play a quest there each (one as Beatrice, one as Blaze, one as Bonnie). Each time you get another special archipelago map as a reward. Those three maps each show five or so marked landing places. Some places are marked once, some twice, but only one is marked on all three maps and then you'll know, this is where to go. It was originally supposed to be Dolphin Sands when it was still only used as a smugglers beach with no connection to the town. Since it has been expanded and connected due to the Cartagena silver sidequest, I thought about either a new beach in the main land, or an uninhabited island.

How many ships are involved in the sea battle?

Just one, the Pastenague (which means Stingray, even though it doesn't sound as badass as Stingray does). The tricky part will probably be to find a suitable sea locator where it can spawn and to set up the ship so a battle would be interesting but doable.

 

[Grey Roger]

Yes, it's all very incomplete with these maps. The idea is still the same: Glue the map together after Santiago and it shows one with three names spread over the caribbean. Look for these three people and play a quest there each (one as Beatrice, one as Blaze, one as Bonnie). Each time you get another special archipelago map as a reward. Those three maps each show five or so marked landing places. Some places are marked once, some twice, but only one is marked on all three maps and then you'll know, this is where to go. It was originally supposed to be Dolphin Sands when it was still only used as a smugglers beach with no connection to the town. Since it has been expanded and connected due to the Cartagena silver sidequest, I thought about either a new beach in the main land, or an uninhabited island.

At least change the description for "Map (Marcel Jauri)" - if it shows five places then the description should not say that it shows three.

About an alternative island: one possibility would be Isla Mona. The beach/port location currently assigned is intended for the "Assassin" storyline and is a copy of the Barbados lighthouse location, with a small tower and a warehouse added. But you could define your own beach as a quest location, then in "StartStoryline.c" it should be possible to change Isla Mona's reload to point at your beach instead of the regular one. Or there's Petit Tabac, though if you use that, it could conflict with the "Silver Train" sidequest.

Or perhaps you could use @Bartolomeu o Portugues' new beach on Camahogne/Grenada. That's intended for his "Family Story" FreePlay quest but could be used here, though the reload away from the beach would either need to be disabled or redirected to a new quest location - they lead to the ruins of a mansion which would not exist in the 16th century and which is definitely just for "Family Story". @Bartolomeu o Portugues: any objection to using Linda Praia for this, on condition that the player is not allowed access to "Bartolomeu_Mansion"?

As a last resort, there's always Cozumel, though again you might want to play with reloads unless you want the player to find the temple which is the endpoint to "Tales of a Sea Hawk".

Just one, the Pastenague (which means Stingray, even though it doesn't sound as badass as Stingray does). The tricky part will probably be to find a suitable sea locator where it can spawn and to set up the ship so a battle would be interesting but doable.

Is this ship supposed to attack the player, or does the player need to go looking for it? If the Pastenague is the one doing the attacking then it's trivially easy. If you send a ship to a locator which does not exist, it will spawn next to the player's ship, so all you need to do is give it a nonsense locator.

 

[BathtubPirate]

1) For the final landing place, I prefer a location that can be presented as remote and hidden, that's why I was drawn towards the main land, because in theory there's much more space there and it's easier to be remote and hidden. If you think a new quest beach isn't the best solution, then I would prefer Isla Mona over Grenada. Isla Mona has been used quite a bit in various storylines, but if I make my own quest locations there - so what.

2) Storywise it makes much more sense if the player has to look for the enemy ship instead of being attacked immediately. Maybe the locator of another beach would be suitable to spawn the enemy ship.

3) Take a look at this two quest cases. In the first, there are two lines that trigger another quest case: DoQuestReloadToLocation and Lai_ActorFollow. The top left corner of the screen always says it couldn't find the empty quest case in DoQuestReloadToLocation, but if I remove the empty quest case after goto7, the quest breaks. Can I put melde_Bonamy2 in both lines or can I just delete the Lai_ActorFollow line?

        case "melde_Bonamy":
            DoQuestReloadToLocation("Family_deck", "goto", "goto7", "");
            Pchar.quest.melde_Bonamy.over = "yes";
            ChangeCharacterAddressGroup(characterfromID("Godefroi Bonamy"),"Family_deck", "goto", "goto16");
            LAi_SetActorType(characterFromID("Godefroi Bonamy"));
            LAi_ActorWaitDialog(pchar, characterFromID("Godefroi Bonamy"));
            Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Godefroi Bonamy")].dialog.currentnode = "Le_Blaze_is_back";
            Lai_ActorFollow(characterFromID("Godefroi Bonamy"), pchar, "melde_Bonamy2", 0.0);
        break;

        case "melde_Bonamy2":
            LAi_ActorDialog(characterFromID("Godefroi Bonamy"), Pchar, "", 2.0, 0);
        break;

 

[Grey Roger]

1: Putting a new beach on the mainland is going to require adding at least one locator, a "reload" type which is where you'll moor to land there. If you can manage that, it won't be too hard to add a "quests_ships" locator somewhere near it where you can spawn the enemy ship.

2: In that case you'll definitely need to find another locator. If you're going to add new locators to the mainland then you can put a locator wherever you want. If you use Isla Mona, there is only one "reload", so you could use TOOL to find a locator somewhere nearby.

3: I'm not sure what will happen if you do a relocation while Godefroi Bonamy is trying to walk towards the player. The 'Lai_ActorFollow' line is unnecessary because 'LAi_ActorDialog' makes the character walk towards the player before starting the dialog.

You'll also probably want 'LAi_SetActorType(PChar)' before 'LAi_ActorWaitDialog(pchar, characterFromID("Godefroi Bonamy"));'. That nails the player to the ground so he can't run off before Godefroi Bonamy can approach the player for the dialog. Moreover, without it, that 'LAi_ActorWaitDialog' line won't do anything and you'll find a line in "compile.log" complaining that "blaze" is not an actor. (Not to be confused with character "Blaze Devlin"; for code purposes, the player is always "blaze".)

If you want to do a 'DoQuestReloadToLocation' without triggering a quest case, use "_", not "". It recognises "_" as a special case which means no quest. It doesn't recognise "" as special, tries to run quest case "", and reacts the same way as if you'd put any other non-existent case name there.

 

[BathtubPirate]

I think you're confusing 1) and 2). One of them concerns the ship battle that's about to come next in the Cayman chapter. The other one concerns the landing place at the end of the story, where the maps earned throughout the story lead you to. There's still a whole Bonnie chapter to be made between them, for which I have still not settled on an idea.

The relocation with Godefroi Bonamy always worked, save for the non-existing quest case it wanted to trigger. There's no real need to make the player ActorType, since there's nowhere to run off - You can't escape from Godefroi Bonamys dialogue. But you saved me two lines of code and there are probably still many more instances where I have unneccessary lines of LAi_ActorWaitDialog and Lai_ActorFollow.

 

[Grey Roger]

On arrival at Cayman, you moor at Eden Rock. The other beaches are Cayman Kai, which is uncomfortably close to the fort; and Sand Bluff. Use TOOL, look at "RESOURCE\Models\Islands\Cayman\Cayman_locators.gm", and find a locator whose co-ordinates are somewhere near "reload_3". Or just put the pirate ship on "reload", "reload3", which makes it look as though it's moored at that beach.
Bonnie likes her drinks. Has anyone ever told her that Cartagena is the only town in the game with two taverns?

 

[BathtubPirate]

Bonnie likes her drinks. Has anyone ever told her that Cartagena is the only town in the game with two taverns?

Hehe.

But Bonnie in a tavern in any quest that's only slightly longer than the Rocoso Balboa one would mean that Blaze couldn't help but show up there as well! Then again, could be fitting, considering Bonnie was originally supposed to join in on Blaze's Cayman quest as well. Glad I dropped that, it would have been even more complicated than it is now.

The original idea was always to do something with the Aruba Arawaks, if possible enlargen their world and bring in some culture and mythology. But I'm not that sold anymore, as I couldn't think of any interesting challenges yet, only get an image in my head that has already been covered in "Ardent" (a chief telling about the tribe's history etc.) and can't find a lot of interesting real-life history of Aruba at that time.

The other vague idea wold have more to do with Spanish nobility and high society, which has also already been covered quite a lot.

One other thing: What's a line that I can put into my console or the jump start to make Spain my enemy? So I can test the variation of the quest where Beatrice refuses to sail her ship to the port because "That's not a good idea! Our relationship with the Spanish hasn't been all that sunshiny as of late."

 

[AkrimalS]

The original idea was always to do something with the Aruba Arawaks, if possible enlargen their world and bring in some culture and mythology. But I'm not that sold anymore, as I couldn't think of any interesting challenges yet, only get an image in my head that has already been covered in "Ardent" (a chief telling about the tribe's history etc.) and can't find a lot of interesting real-life history of Aruba at that time.

A somewhat dubious folk legend tells of the daughter of an Indian chief who fell in love and was imprisoned in a cave because her lover was unacceptable to her father. Her lover was imprisoned nearby in the Khuliba Cave (Tunnel of Love), but both lovers managed to meet underground. Both reportedly died in a cave,
and their spirit ascended to heaven through holes in the roof of the cave.

Also about the Khuliba cave. The exit from the tunnel through a series of steps carved into the rock is quite dangerous. In one of the chambers, the Virgin Mary is carved into the natural rock. The legend mentions pirates inhabiting the cave to hide their treasures, although there is no evidence to support this.
Perhaps this can also be somehow beaten, that the pirates took these treasures from the Indians.

There is also a book: Fidler Arkady White jaguar - the leader of the Arawaks
Unfortunately, it is only in Russian and was released back in the USSR in 1990. You can watch it at the link, translating through a translator))) 222 pages ... Белый ягуар - вождь араваков. Трилогия - Фидлер Аркадий :: Читать онлайн в BooksCafe.Net But in short:
The book tells about the life and adventures of a descendant of Polish settlers who leaves North America to escape the arbitrariness of the English planters. However, the ship gets caught in a storm, and the hero finds himself on a small island in the Caribbean. There he meets two Indians - Arnak and Vagura.
Together with them, he tries to get out of the island to a large continent, where he becomes the leader of the South American Arawak tribe and leads their struggle against the conquering European colonizers.

 

[Grey Roger]

Hehe.

But Bonnie in a tavern in any quest that's only slightly longer than the Rocoso Balboa one would mean that Blaze couldn't help but show up there as well! Then again, could be fitting, considering Bonnie was originally supposed to join in on Blaze's Cayman quest as well. Glad I dropped that, it would have been even more complicated than it is now.

Make up some excuse for Blaze (and Beatrice) to be busy with something else so that Bonnie has to go by herself. You'll presumably need to do that anyway. On the other hand...

The original idea was always to do something with the Aruba Arawaks, if possible enlargen their world and bring in some culture and mythology. But I'm not that sold anymore, as I couldn't think of any interesting challenges yet, only get an image in my head that has already been covered in "Ardent" (a chief telling about the tribe's history etc.) and can't find a lot of interesting real-life history of Aruba at that time.

The history in "Ardent" is a mixture of genuine Isla Mona history, game history (acknowledging the "Assassin" storyline which was the first to use the island) and a bit of pure fiction. However, @AkrimalS has given a very interesting suggestion - more on that in a moment.

One other thing: What's a line that I can put into my console or the jump start to make Spain my enemy? So I can test the variation of the quest where Beatrice refuses to sail her ship to the port because "That's not a good idea! Our relationship with the Spanish hasn't been all that sunshiny as of late."

SetRMRelation(PChar, SPAIN, REL_WAR);

Now, about the Aruba Arawaks:

A somewhat dubious folk legend tells of the daughter of an Indian chief who fell in love and was imprisoned in a cave because her lover was unacceptable to her father. Her lover was imprisoned nearby in the Khuliba Cave (Tunnel of Love), but both lovers managed to meet underground. Both reportedly died in a cave,
and their spirit ascended to heaven through holes in the roof of the cave.

Also about the Khuliba cave. The exit from the tunnel through a series of steps carved into the rock is quite dangerous. In one of the chambers, the Virgin Mary is carved into the natural rock.

I'm not sure if we could have the steps, let alone an image of the Virgin Mary. But there's a standard cave model with a hole in the roof - one way to find such a cave is to go to Camahogne/Concepcion/La Grenade/Grenada (the island's name depends on the period in which you're playing), land at Leviathan Rock, swim round the corner and find the nearby cave. It should be possible to rearrange reloads on Aruba to insert a route to a cave - @BathtubPirate, you already did something similar to insert a route to your tavern near Santo Domingo.

 

[Grey Roger]

@Jack Rackham: can I use your "Cavern_blue", retextured so it doesn't look the same as the one in "Woodes Rogers"? Aruba currently has a link from its shore to something called "Arawak Burialground", which uses model "Dungeon_1\d01", which is a copy of the dungeon in Speightstown, which does not look like anything to do with Arawaks. Perhaps a not-blue "Cavern_blue" could be used instead? I'd use the original "cavern_l" locator file, not one of your modified versions, partly to not have anything story-related and partly because that one has a load of "monster" locators.

It works rather well as Khuliba. The entrance is down a sort of tunnel which, due to the texture, does look like crude steps. There are several chambers; the lovers of the legend could have been stuck in two of them, kept in place by whatever denizens spawn on the "monster" locators rather than by physical barriers. (It should be possible to spawn the same sort of mummies that show up in Cozumel temple.)