Flag Locators Repair Project

[Hylie Pistof]

I've gone as far as I can with the frigates. Not being able to edit the main GM is a severe handicap. For instance the crew are all too small but i can not lower the camera. Also, while it no longer gives GA the flags go wonky. I have a theory on how to fix this but can not work on the main GM to test the theory. This screenie shows how the front pennant turns into a flag, the mizzen mast has nothing at all, and the flagpole has both flag and pennant flying. The pinnace has the same problem, and probably other ships with a flagpole.

Any ideas on this?

 

[Armada]

Didn't I tell you to skip the frigates anyway, because of Jack Harrison's new model? They're not worth the effort if his new version will replace them.

What's your theory for fixing the problem? If you want, I can re-export some of the ships for you to test with.
As for the pinnaces, I'll have to get the upgraded version uploaded so you can use that.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Based on past experience it will take 6 to 12 months to get those frigates into POTC and I'm not going to wait that long. They were causing GA and had to be worked on anyway. Now it is just a matter of copying the repaired rigging into all of the other ones.

My theory is that the flagpoles are attached to mast 4 and in ships.init.c they are listed as mast 4 flag 2. That works for spanker flags, but these ships have issues. I was thinking of instead attaching them to the hull and calling them mast 5 flag1.

New pinnaces? What? Where? When? How? Who?

I'm trying to talk myself into learning how to install a dual boot system. But XP is so insecure..........

 

[Armada]

Hmm, fair point. There's no telling when Jack will have the model finished and uploaded.

Your theory sounds about right, so I'll see about re-exporting the frigate hulls.

New pinnaces? What? Where? When? How? Who?

Oh, I dunno...

Oh, I'm sure more of that can be arranged. Especially considering I have more models like those upgraded corvettes lying around.
In fact, what I've got includes upgrades for Battleship1, Battleship3, three fluyts, three pinnaces, the AoP manowar, and even a xebec!
Craiggo gave them to me ages ago, but I haven't done anything with them yet. Most of them need checking for reverse lighting, and tidying up here and there.

 

[Baste]

All right, thanks.

The ships don't have the same value in the "camera" locator in "position Y". How can I determine what it would be appropriate to set them to? Trial and error? Any general guidelines?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

If re-exporting the hulls lets me work on them and it works, sure. Hmm. I'm done with all of the frigates except the satanist frigate and 2 heavy frigates. They are too rare to bother with.

Aha! All of the big pinnaces are already set up like this, so I just need to go get one and knock a mast off, and see what happens.

Baste: Trial and error works. I go in and out of the game a LOT. Have you gotten my repaired Luggers from the FTP? I dropped the camera on them 0.2. Some ships have a sloping deck and what works on one end looks bad on the other end. Then the deck on the Brigs is too low. You have to be a giant to see over the side. After a while you can get a feel for where the camera should be just by looking at it in GMViewer.

 

[Black Bart]

Baste: Trial and error works. I go in and out of the game a LOT. Have you gotten my repaired Luggers from the FTP? I dropped the camera on them 0.2. Some ships have a sloping deck and what works on one end looks bad on the other end. Then the deck on the Brigs is too low. You have to be a giant to see over the side. After a while you can get a feel for where the camera should be just by looking at it in GMViewer.

Just to echo this, it really is a case of try each one and find the sweet spot as the depth of hull from top deck varies so much from model to model(the berm sloops have pretty poor visibility, and that is even with the current settings that make you about as twice as tall as the deck hands!!). At some point either these kind of models could go or get re-modeled to reduce their hull-over-deck height(hmm..does that have a name)?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

While playing movie music I wandered over to Port Royale. There was a battle there and I got medium GA. This install has all of the updated ships in it too. Anyway, I checked out the possible culprits, the Gaff schooner, xebec, and light brig, and could find nothing wrong with them.

Maybe it is time to start taking a good look at the forts.

Does anyone have any ships that are giving them problems?

 

[morgan terror]

the fast war galleon, but i think you've looked at that one already.

 

[Black Bart]

While playing movie music I wandered over to Port Royale. There was a battle there and I got medium GA. This install has all of the updated ships in it too. Anyway, I checked out the possible culprits, the Gaff schooner, xebec, and light brig, and could find nothing wrong with them.

Maybe it is time to start taking a good look at the forts.

Did you do this bit in that particular build Hylie?

..............
As for the forts, I'm eager to know if Pieter's suggestion would work, as follows:
Find the 'FORT' entry at the bottom of ships_init.c, and then find this section:

refShip.CanEncounter	= false;
SHIP_TYPES_QUANTITY_WITH_FORT = SHIP_FORT+1;

Replace with:

refShip.Flags.NoPennants = true; // GA fix?
refShip.CanEncounter	= false;
SHIP_TYPES_QUANTITY_WITH_FORT = SHIP_FORT+1;

Now, press F11 in-game, and see if it helps. If it does, then that has to be the easiest fix yet.

I went with starting a new game from scratch(as sometimes F11 is just not enough), and so far no GA to report(but then i'd been seeing less for a while anyways).

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Morgan Terror: The Spanish Fast Galleons? I can never catch them. They shoot me up and then sail away. They have messed up masts too. I'm trying to get to the higher classes of ships as the lower classes seem to be much better now.

I know the Mordaunt has a problem but have been unable to acquire one for testing to destruction. Mostly all I see out there are those damnable VCO ships.


Black Bart: No I did not. I should go back to the first install and continue there. The install I've been in with LS's music has much worse GA than the lab rat install.
edit: Both installs have the same ships.init.c, so the fort fix is there in both of them.

Onward through the fog!

 

[Baste]

I've looked at Hylie Pistoff's luggers and have changed the deck camera parameters in "AICameras" back to the original values and have changed the camera locator on several stock ships, but I'm having a problem with the sloops. It seems I can't move their camera locator very much, and can't place it at a good height. I tried placing it high above the ship just to see what would happen but it didn't make any difference in the game.

TOOL also seems to be a little buggy. Sometimes it doesn't show the model after opening one, and it crashes if I minimize it. Also some of the functions seem to make it crash.

Is anyone else having these problems with the sloops and/or other ships and/or TOOL?

 

[Armada]

TOOL also seems to be a little buggy. Sometimes it doesn't show the model after opening one, and it crashes if I minimize it. Also some of the functions seem to make it crash.

TOOL has always been like that, unfortunately. Minimising is something to avoid at all costs, as you mentioned.
It also fails to open some files which have become 'corrupt' because of TOOL saving it incorrectly before. Not much we can do about that.

About the forts, can anyone else confirm the fix is working? I'm hoping it will so that we don't have to bother giving forts pennant locators...

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I found an island with nice overhanging cliffs and no fort. Went there in pinnaceofwar40g. Those cliffs work too good as most of the time they would clean off all of the masts including the flagpole. When I did manage to get away with some masts, the flags stayed good! But the ship had heavy GA.......... TOOL says the main GM and deck.GM can't be read. This probably applies to the NL_twodecker and the SP_pinnace50 as well. The heavylineship 1 and 2 do not have flagpoles and they can be read by my TOOL. Gotta get one for testing.
Can anyone else read the frigate GM in TOOL?


Baste: My TOOL will not read sloop 1&2 GM so I'm dead in the water with them. Their flags look ok tho. Sloop 3 can be read but I don't see a camera locator at all.

Armada: If a new game is required then I have only tested it in the movie music install. I'm off the map in uncharted waters with this lab rat game. I have never had a game last anywhere near this long before.

 

[Armada]

Can anyone else read the frigate GM in TOOL?

My TOOL can read all the frigates' hulls just fine, including the Satanist one. It has to, anyway, or I wouldn't be able to fully re-export them with Maya.

If a new game is required then I have only tested it in the movie music install.

I don't think a new game should be required, but I might be wrong. Have you still experienced fort-related GA?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I did some testing last night in three different locations with two different ships. The class 5 pinnace ( pinnace1 ) and the class 3 pinnaceofwar40g. The masts on the class 5 pinnace are laid out just like the frigate while the class 3 pinnace of war is laid out like I want to change the frigate to.

As far as the flags are concerned, both pinnaces had no problems at all. Since these ships share some of the same masts, why the frigate has problems is confusing.

As far as GA goes, San Juan anchorage had mild GA, the island south of San Juan with the cliffs had heavy GA, and St. Pierre anchorage had almost no GA. The next step is to somehow demast them at sea. More testing is needed. Also more testers!

I managed do do some testing at sea with discouraging results. The flags stayed good on all ships but there was a lot of GA, mostly because of the pinnace of war. It only lost its bowsprit too.


Armada: My TOOL can read them as well. But if I "apply changes" and then "save GM" the size drops from 453kb to 195kb. Meaning I can do nothing to them.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Armada's fort pennant code change wouldn't require a new game, but at least WOULD require a reinit (F11) to be performed.
New game can't hurt though.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok, then I've been testing the fort code all along. The forts that did not have flags still do not have flags.



I can now say that the frigate, pinnace, and the Spanish War Galleon all use the same method for their flagpoles. The frigate and the galleon don't give GA but have messed up flags when they lose their main mast. The pinnace seems to still give GA for some reason. Anyway, I'm going to call the frigate and galleon good. They will be moved to the FTP soon.

Also, the Mordaunt got tested and is good. It was bad, I made one little change and it is now good and is on the FTP. It was a nice battle with all big ships. Three of them lost masts and there was no GA. The only bummer was that my hard drive was running continuously. This program just will not use ram.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The frigates are on the FTP. Note that this does not include the heavy frigates.

Galeon1 has a bad main GM. I took the GM from Galeonw and put a hex on it. We shall see how that works out. These are the Spanish War Galleons.


edit: It figgers....... :j1 I just acquired a heavy frigate ( FrigateNKSup ) . We knocked two masts off and it gave absolutely no GA in the open sea. This is especially surprising because when I looked into it later I found it is loaded with fal's. Those usually cause bad rope error reports. Anyway, maybe the heavy frigates are good as is.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I have been unable to test the Spanish War Galleons but since they all now have the same masts, sails, rigging, and flags as the one I tested they should all be ok. Would anyone be willing to test them?

The class 2 East Indiaman ( Jamaicaship1 ) is good as is. I can save its main GM without corrupting it, so am working on the flagpole problem.

The pinnaces are a mystery. There is nothing wrong with them except that they give GA! :j3 In the last battle 2 of my pinnaces lost a mast and there was GA. No other ships lost a mast. But when the enemy pinnace was sunk the GA stopped. I'm not confused. Nope, not me, not one little bit. Someone started a vicious rumour that there are new pinnaces coming. Maybe they will help. :will