• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

Direct, continuous sailing

Well, the time adjustment will probably always be a problem. While it is nice to sail in 3D to another island if it takes a few hours it will probably be boring if it takes too long. Too few encounters are boring, too many are too repetetive, which is another form of boring.

I agree with Morgan that a time scalar of ten is probably the best setting.

What I could do in the short run is a variant of Pieters idea: when the teleport to another island takes place I'll add some days depending on shipspeed and distance. That would sort of diminish the illusion of "continuous sailing", but that wasn't such a grand illusion anyway <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

Another thing I could add is a tweakable counter so that not EVERY weatherchange triggers a directsail event. That way timespeed/weatherchanges and encouterfrequency can be tweaked independent of each other.

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Another idea I really like is too add more possible events during a Direct Sail update than just ships appearing. How about hurricanes (like storms on the worldmap), no wind (increases the voyage length), unhappy crewmembers (needs to be dealt with by the player), diseases aboard the ships, etc. This would add a lot of interest to sailing around in Direct Sail mode.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The upcoming update will already have some variation in the events: instead of ships you'll sometimes sight salvage (a maritime variant of bonus items <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ), lifeboats and mines. The mines can sink your ship, but you'll also be able to use mines against other ships. (great weapon if you are chased by superior forces) The lifeboats contain for the time being only the usual survivors, whose rescue increases your crew and reputation.
For the future I plan to add special lifeboat passengers who trigger events or quests, and also shiplife events like Pieter suggested.
Storms can possibly be triggered like normal weather changes, but so far i have no idea how the weather updates work.
 
somebody agreed with me! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/piratesing.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shock" border="0" alt="piratesing.gif" />

did they really have mines back then? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo(post=178501:date=Jan 8 2007, 12:32 PM:name=morgan terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(morgan terror @ Jan 8 2007, 12:32 PM) [snapback]178501[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
somebody agreed with me! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/piratesing.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shock" border="0" alt="piratesing.gif" />
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Quite a shock, eh ? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
did they really have mines back then? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not really. But it's great fun. (The anarchist in me just LOOVES anything that explodes or poisons or traps <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/boom.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":boom" border="0" alt="boom.gif" /> )
Let's pretend they are powderbarrels with some ingenious fuse...
 
i like tem, but i'm sure that there will be some complaints about it not being realistic. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" />
 
You are... OMG!!! .... right for the THIRD time !!!!


...remember that mortal thou are ... ...remember that mortal thou are ...
 
hmm...don't give me ideas you. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
 
There were mines during the period. Check this out!

The <i>Turtle</i> was a submarine invented in Connecticut in 1775 by David Bushnell. It was created as a means of attaching explosive charges to ships in a harbor.

Named for its shape, <i>Turtle</i> resembled a large clam as much as a turtle; it was 7.5 feet (2.3 m) long, 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, and about 3 feet (0.9 m) wide, consisting of two wooden shells covered with tar. It submerged by allowing water into the hull and ascended by pushing water out through a hand pump, similarly to the use of ballast tanks in modern submarines, and was propelled vertically and horizontally by hand-cranked propellers, the first recorded use of the screw propeller for ships. It was manned and operated by only one person.

The submarine was designed as a naval weapon, and it was meant to drill into a ship's hull and plant a keg of powder, which would be detonated by a time fuse. Much testing was done by the inventor's brother, Ezra Bushnell, in the waters of the Connecticut River. After Bushnell pondered the problem of lighting the inside of the ship and after learning that using a candle would hasten the use of the limited oxygen supply of the air inside, he solicited the help of Benjamin Franklin who cleverly hit upon the idea of using bioluminescent foxfire to provide illumination for the compass and depth meter. The light given by the material was said to be sufficient, though likely dimmer than expected, because the ship was cooled by the surrounding sea water and the metabolic rate of poikilothermic, heterotrophic organisms is temperature-dependent.

On September 7, 1776, <i>Turtle</i>, under the guidance of Army volunteer Sergeant Ezra Lee, attacked HMS <i>Eagle</i>, which was moored off what is today called Liberty Island, but it could not manage to bore through the hull. When he attempted another spot in the hull, he lost the ship, and eventually abandoned the attempt.
 
Heh...methinks 1775 is stretching the historic period slightly. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

I suppose there'd be nothing technically stopping an inventive ship's captain from dropping a powder keg overboard with some kind of fuse attached - although stopping the fuse from going out and the gunpowder from getting wet would be interesting logistical issues best pondered from a safe distance...

Presumably mines are on a par with four-barreled pistols that fire separately, though...so I don't think its too extreme for POTC. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
 
one question: ever imagined how incredibly impossible it would be to maneuver past those mines with a manowar, or at 40 knots with a schooner? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
 
Its cool that there were mines 200+ years ago, but mines in the game? Mabey for a quest, but not everyday random stuff. Mines weren't common. So I'd impliment them into a quest in the future, but not for spawning in this direct sailing mod. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Oh, hey, I finished writing my book. I'll put more details about it in the general talk section. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":))" border="0" alt="smile2.gif" />
 
It might not be overly realistic, but that shouldn't stop us from adding them as long as they're fun. I suppose it will be possible to change the chance of encountering mines, so you can set them to really uncommon and hardly ever encounter them.
 
I think that a dutchmen had invented the submarine in the 1600. not sure who, or that im right?

1620 - Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutchman, conceived and built an oared submersible. Drebbels' submarine design was the first to address the problem of air replenishment while submerged.

This man, but it didnt worked good enough.
 
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/poet.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":hmm" border="0" alt="poet.gif" /> They use mines in the tortuga two tressures demo!
.......But thats not a good game! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistling.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wp" border="0" alt="whistling.gif" />
 
I just put a major update on the PA FTP:

DIRECTSAIL 1.1

---------------
Important hints
---------------
-Directsail works only if you are in a sealocation that contains an island. If you are at "open sea" it doesn't work cause that location is the same no matter where on the worldmap you enter it, so it is impossible to determine the data on neighbouring islands that directsail needs.
To get back into Directsail mode enter the worldmap and sail to some island.

-The "Invasion of Oxbay" part of the mainquest is triggered only if you enter the worldmap once, after leaving Oxbay the first time. After that you can play the rest of the game in Directsail mode if you want.(added a hint to the questbook)

-Directsail changes your worldmap coords everytime you are directly teleported to another island, so that your position is APROXIMATELY correct if you enter the worldmap.
Though that correction takes effect immediately after the teleport to another island only. If you sail for some time in 3D shipview the disparity between shipview and map position will increase with every minute because the 3D movement and the map simply do not match. But that is an old problem that already existed before Directsail, only that it wasn't noticed cause you had no reason for longer 3D sailing.

So the best time to switch from Directsail to the worldmap is immediately after an islandtransfer.

--------------
Changed in 1.1
--------------
SCREWFACE'S POSITION CHECKING METHOD
------------------------------------
Screwface wrote some code that converts your ship's position in 3D seaview into the coordinates that the worldmap uses. Based on those mapcoords the program checks whether you are near some island, and reloads you to that island.
That code works and makes really accurate navigation possible. You will be reloded to the exact position where your course intersects with the radius of the "islandzone".
However, due to the rather confined PotC map the voyage times are rather short, and you will appear rather close to an island. Sometimes you'll even appear INSIDE the coast(use "Sail to" to get out of that trap)
That spoils a bit the sailing experience that I hope for: seeing one island disapper behind me, sailing some time out of sight of the land and hoping that some day later my destination will appear at the horizon.
Therefore I'll leave my inaccurate "islandcell" method in the mod as an option. There is a switch setting at the beginning of program\directsail.c:
#define ACCURATE_NAVIGATION 1 will switch on the exact "map coord" navigation, 0 will use the long voyage "islandcell" method.


FIXES AND TOGGLES
-----------------
1. Several checks added to prevent encountercreation or island teleports when the could interfere with the game. They won't take place if..

- neutral ships are within 1000m (though the game doesn't always recognize those ships)

- you are near (aproximately 1500m) an islandcoast

- you are below decks (thanks to Maximus for that fix)

- if you use the "Sail to" option from the interface

2. You will also be able to toggle Directsail any time during the game, by means of the "0" key. So whenever you are not in the mood for encounters or reloads you can avoid them.

3. Occasional CTDs have been reported after encountercreation or island teleports. Those seem to happen only if a weatherchange takes place at the same time. I assume both events happening simultanuously "overtax" the game. To prevent that I inserted a short delay between weatherchange and directsail code.

4. Charactermodels added to the encountercaptains, so that you can fight and talk with them. (thanks again to Maximus)


NEW FEATURES
------------
5. For more variation: the random encounters don't appear at EVERY hourchange, and they are not always dead ahead of you.

6. You will encounter not only ships but also flotsam, wreckage, lifeboats with shipwreck survivors, abandoned vessels and native rafts. Some of that is of value, some is outright dangerous, like the new mines:

7. Yes, mines have been introduced as new naval weapon: by means of the "9" key you can drop one of your powderbarrels overboard. Any ship that hits one of those will explode. A very effective weapon if you are being chased by superior ships. But stray mines will destroy your ship as well, so keep a good lookout.
You can distinguish mines from usual floating barrels by a ring of fuses that protude from a mine.

8. Key allocation:
- 0 will toggle the Directsail mod completely
- 9 will launch a mine (which consumes a powderbarrel from your stores)
- 8 will display your position coords in relation to the next island

9. Yet another tweak setting (yes, I know, this mod is about to become a confusing dogpile of code;) But it is impossible to define default settings that will suit everyone's playstyle, so I want to give users as many options as possible )
E.g. the balancing of voyagelength, frequency of weatherchanges and shipencounters will probably always be a problem. While it is nice to sail in 3D to another island if it takes a few hours it will probably be boring if it takes too long. Too few encounters are boring, too many are too repetetive, which is another form of boring.
To make that balancing easier I seperated the hourly weatherchange from the shipencounters by means of a tweak:

#define ENCOUNTERBREAK 2 will trigger the flotsam/shipencounters only every second hour (3 every third...). That way you can let the clock run faster (by increasing #define TIMESCALAR_SEA 10 in internalSettings.h ), meaning longer voyagetimes, without getting too many encounters.


Code structure and interferences
--------------------------------
Though I usually try not to change existing code code I think that two "plug in" lines in seadogs.c make sense. The one

#include "CCCdirectsail.c" // ccc Jan07, directsail code

includes the Directsail code into the program, the other

ProcessCCCkeys(ControlName); // ccc Jan07, for Directsail and mines

plugs the Directsail keys into the main program.

Apart from that I only added the code for the mine feature to sea_ai\AISeaGoods.c . Therefore it should be easy to include this update into B14, evan though it is based on B13.


Installing
----------
Download Directsail.zip from the ccc folder on the Piratesahoy FTP. Unzip it into your PotC folder.
The mod was written for Build13, Update2. No new game or initialization is required.
 
...please can someone put that "Directsail.zip" on "rapidshare" or somewhere ?? ...cause FTP sux!

grazias mui!!!!
 
This is GREAT, CCC! I'll check it out as soon as I can. And I'll add it into the Build 14 Alpha version, of course. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/danse1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":dance" border="0" alt="danse1.gif" />
 
well, apart from my question about mines, here's another:

if i understand this correctly, it means that you can't sail to another island across the large piece of open ocean, such as from conceciao to isla muelle, unless you do some island hopping, right?
 
Why can you end up INSIDE an island using Screwface's code? I would like to use accurate navigation, of course, but ending up inside an island would spoil it a bit for me... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />
 
i ended up inside an island once by using CCC's system. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" /> the strange thing was, it happened when i went below decks in port! i had somehow moved without collision detection. stupid navigator. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="<_<" border="0" alt="dry.gif" /> i leave him alone with my ship for a few moments and he sails it inside an island!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top