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Included in Build Distinguish between different playstyles

Uh ohh. I often play LaCroix as a gambler and would like to join the pirates too. Never could make a good living at it before, Maybe now..........:nerbz
 
I made a fix already. Will post it soon.
In the meantime, the console trick will do the same.
 
"Pirate" is now supported as a play style by joining them. This can be easily done by when you are not hostile to the pirates.
It unlocks the pirate leaders to give "ship hunting" missions and promotions and makes the Nevis blacksmith more useful.
You may also notice that it changes the official name of "Pirates" to "Brotherhood of the Coast" in the Nation Relation interface after joining.

The "Rebel" play style now starts you hostile to your chosen nation and friendly to the pirates.
 
To distinguish between play styles further, your ship type will now influence the "unlimited loot" functionality.
Merchant ships will always allow it and navy ships commanded by players that are not navy officers will never.
Versatile ships allow it as long as you don't have a LoM.
Pirate players never allow it.

Hopefully this brings a bit more logic into that behaviour as ideally I would want to get rid of that global toggle altogether.
 
Would it not make more sense to enable or disable "unlimited loot" by character, regardless of ship type? Never mind what ship you have; "unlimited loot" should be disabled if:
. You're a pirate (first time you hoist Pirate flag, if you visit a Pirate governor and join the Brotherhood, possibly also if you commit a piratical act such as attack a non-hostile ship);
. You have a LoM, so you're a privateer;
. You've done at least one smuggling run, so you're a smuggler.

The distinction between merchant ship and warship is a bit hazy, with some ships acting as both - I've seen treasure galleons, Manila galleons and fast galleons all acting as both merchant and warship. (Hint: if you're attacking a Spanish ship, look at its flag. If it's blue with a white cross, the ship is a merchant and will have plenty of cargo and fewer crew. If it's white with a red cross, the ship is a warship and will have less cargo and more crew to fight. This makes a big difference when the ship in question is a treasure galleon. :rpirate)
 
This is the function I wrote for now:
Code: 
bool AllowUnlimitedLoot()
{
   ref PChar = GetMainCharacter();
//   if (UNLIMITEDLOOT)                             return true;             // Global override
   if (CheckAttribute(PChar, "professionalnavy"))               return true;             // LDH add test for navy character if available - 16Apr09
   if (CheckAttribute(PChar, "isnotcaptain"))                 return true;             // Crew doesn't mind, because you're not the captain anyway
   if (GetServedNation() == PIRATE)                     return false;             // Pirates will always be envious of captains with a lot of money
   ref rShip = GetShipByType(GetCharacterShipType(PChar));
   aref arShip; makearef(arShip, PChar.Ship);
   if (sti(GetLocalShipAttrib(arShip, rShip, "Type.War")) == true)                         // Navy or Versatile Ship
   {
     if (sti(GetLocalShipAttrib(arShip, rShip, "Type.Trade")) == false)   return false;             // Navy Ship: You're not a commissioned officer, so the crew will ALWAYS be envious
     else                                 return !HaveAnyLetterOfMarque();   // Versatile Ship: Crew is OK with your money as long as you're not a privateer
   }
   return true;                                                 // Merchant Ship: Merchant crews are accustomed to salary
}
This is of course open for modification later.

GetServedNation will be pirate if you have deliberately joined them.
I do want to take up your suggestion of having the act of raising certain flags have an impact,
but that has to wait until I've finished the other modifications that have been started on but not yet completed.

The LoM check is also in there, but I disabled it for merchant ships mainly because I know @Hylie Pistof does a lot of trading but also gets a LoM.

You are right that there are "Versatile" ships in the game as well which can serve both as merchant and navy ship.
You have a keen eye; indeed their flags are deliberately different. :yes
 
Merchant ships will always allow unlimited loot. And now I've finally found a reason to like the Santiago. It's a merchant ship, which doesn't stop it from being used as a pirate ship in the "Bartolomeu o Portugues" storyline. So this is a pirate ship which never needs to switch to dividing plunder provided you haven't formally joined the pirates. xD
 
True, that. There's a bright side to everything! :cheeky

I do wonder why some people are so opposed to "divide the plunder" mode though. It's not such a bad feature, is it?
Quite piratey!

@Bartolomeu o Portugues, do you want the Santiago to be a pure merchant ship?
And would you want the player to use "divide the plunder" mode or not?
 
:shrug Is there any way to unsign articles after they have been signed? Is there any way to set some money aside so that it stays with the ship and the crew will not get it? I need a rainy day fund.
 
Hylie Pistof said:
:shrug Is there any way to unsign articles after they have been signed?
Click to expand...
Yes, there is. If I recall, you can switch to Salary Mode right after you have Divided the Plunder.

Hylie Pistof said:
Is there any way to set some money aside so that it stays with the ship and the crew will not get it? I need a rainy day fund.
Click to expand...
When you Divide the Plunder, you keep 10% of the total amount to prepare for your next expedition. You also keep a captain's share in your personal wealth, of course.
As long as you do well on this mode, your crew will have a higher morale than with Salary, therefore making it easier to capture enemy ships.
If you really feel the need, you can always hide some extra money prior to sharing.
However, higher loot to be divided gives you a higher total crew share ratio resulting in more fame and happier crew even on your next expedition.

It probably does become harder to amass a huge amount of money, specifically because this feature partly exists to prevent that.
After all, the game becomes boring when you have too much money and this could potentially keep the game interesting for much longer.
If you never tried it yet, give it a shot. You can always make a save prior to switching, so you can return to normal if you decide you truly don't like it.

Anyway, all that is an aside because I put some code in place to stop merchant crews from complaining if you have a lot of money.
After all, they should know they're on a merchant ship and merchants always pay salary.
Of course that only works if you really do use a "merchant only" ship, but at least there is an exception now. :wp
 
So there is no need for this anyway. I do not want any fame and my crews already have 93% morale. That is more than enough.
 
With all leadership perks and skills, you indeed get pretty close to maximum Morale.
Perhaps that should be reduced a bit too make the difference greater.

Anyway, weren't you saying that you get too much money and the game becomes boring because of that?
This might provide a solution. If you truly never tried it, I really do think you should.
At least then you know what it's like. With the amount you play the game, you should be able to try just about everything, right?

If you don't want fame, you can donate your wealth back to the crew.
That will give you more money to play with and keep your came level down.

Might I am why you don't want fame?
That was basically introduced to keep score in the game.
Might be interesting if players start trying to maximise that and post their top scores on the forum.
Then at least people would get something to aim for.
 
How do you accumulate personal wealth, and therefore fame, as a commissioned officer who never divides plunder? (Several of Hornblower's dialogs refer to people knowing all about his dashing exploits but his actual fame is still somewhere near the bottom of the scale by the time the story ends.)

I'd actually like to see more use made of personal money. If you pay by salary, you should get a salary too. If you sell a prize ship, some of the money ought to go into your personal money. (In reality prize money was shared between captain, officers and crew, providing a very nice bonus to the regular salary.) Equipment purchases should be paid out of personal money, as should tavern bills.
 
While it is fun early in the game when I'm in a small weak ship and struggling just to make the payroll and living on the edge, later in the game it gets boring because it is repetitive. I'm just sailing around doing the same things over and over. Then it is time for a new game. I am wary of dividing the plunder because there are lean times and fat times. There are times when I am losing money and times when suddenly I have more than I could ever spend. Those treasure quests are rich and are actually where I get most of my money.

About fame, I don't want it because outside of the occasional pirate ship and fat merchantman I mostly do not do any fighting, so do not deserve to be famous. Also, why would a smuggler want to be well known? I just tried that and it reduced me from scourge of the archipelago to dread pirate. Then I got a promotion and it went up again.
 
Grey Roger said:
How do you accumulate personal wealth, and therefore fame, as a commissioned officer who never divides plunder? (Several of Hornblower's dialogs refer to people knowing all about his dashing exploits but his actual fame is still somewhere near the bottom of the scale by the time the story ends.)
Click to expand...
After reaching the rank of Commodore, you start receiving land for each promotion.
Land gives you a steady supply of personal wealth. It probably does take longer than playing as a privateer because there you get land starting at your first promotion.
But then.... Low-ranking navy officers wouldn't generally be all that famous, would they?

Grey Roger said:
If you pay by salary, you should get a salary too.
Click to expand...
There is already code in place to do that. I remember seeing it.
Whether that actually works in the game is a different story though; I've always doubted that worked properly, but never bothered to properly check.
Could you check if you DO get wealth upon paying salary? If not, a Bug Tracker entry would be in order. :yes

Grey Roger said:
I'd actually like to see more use made of personal money. If you sell a prize ship, some of the money ought to go into your personal money. (In reality prize money was shared between captain, officers and crew, providing a very nice bonus to the regular salary.) Equipment purchases should be paid out of personal money, as should tavern bills.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't mind something like that either. Would be a lot of work, though.
At some point I had blacksmith repairs paid out of personal wealth, but I undid that change again.

When you talk about selling a prize ship, I imagine that you mean doing so as a naval officer, right?
If you do that as a privateer, the money goes into the crew fund and you get a share of that if and when you divide the plunder.

I've thought about making all item purchases taken out of personal wealth.
But how to distinguish between a sword purchased for yourself and ones bought for the crew and to be stored in the weaponslocker?
I couldn't think of a simple solution, so figured that the best thing to do is to keep that as-is
 
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