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Need Help I think that Boarding doesn't work

L

Larper

Landlubber
For the record I have Master of Boarding ability and my boarding skill is 4. So I've attacked some pirates and noticed they have a really nice ship. I wanted to board it, so I've literally passed 1 meter away from them and there was no Boarding option, nor in ENTER menu nor as quick-action F3.

Does anyone know anything?
 
What ship are you sailing in relation to that ship? By this I mean what is its crew numbers and also do you know what their morale is? You must have had about the same crew numbers and morale when you attempted to board them. That is why no boarding was attempted. If their crew was larger than yours they would have boarded you!
 
I don't know their morale and crew numbers. My crew number is 24 and their morale is excellent. The ship I'm fighting (at the moment) is that ship that carries ammunition to Speightstown. But if that is game mechanics then I must say that's utterly retarded.

For starters the stock game didn't have that mechanic so how am I suppose to know that the mod changed that game mechanic. One would presume it would say something in the official documentation. Seventy eight pages and nothing about new boarding mechanics... Oh well, let's read the FAQ. Nope, nothing about new boarding mechanics. Ingame help, lot's of useful information but nothing about new boarding mechanics. Actually that's not the only thing that irritated me, I am really disappointed that there's no comprehensive list of changes of what New Horizons does to the stock game. There really should be that kind of list either on these forums along with FAQ or in ingame help since some changes are explained there.

Now let me say why I think new boarding mechanic is bad. Before I do let me say what I presume (since I don't really know how it works) based on your response. You either can or can't board an enemy vessel based on several variables. Either your crew's morale is lower than theirs or they have more crew members than you or both. If you can't board them there's a chance when you get close that the enemy will board your ship. Now let's list the reasons why that's a bad game mechanic:

1) I AM THE CAPTAIN AND WHEN I SAY BOARD THE ENEMY VESSEL YOU DO AS I SAY!!!
-I suppose I don't need to explain further :p

2) You are limiting people's choice on how to play the game. If someone likes boarding strategies they can't play the game as a boarder unless they grind gold and buy a better ship that has more crew members. If you have the worst ship with least crew you can't board anyone, if you have the best ship, with the most crew ingame, you can board everyone.

3) The player isn't informed when he can board. I simply don't know how many crew members the enemy vessel has nor their morale. I presume by acquiring a better spyglass I would see their crew numbers and morale so that just leads us to 2) again.

4) This point is more or less implied in 1) but I think I should point it out. It's not realistic. Why shouldn't you be able to board it? You aren't being held back physically by anything. You have your ship, you have your boarding plank, you have your boarding hooks. The only thing that's stopping you are the rules which come from the game code. This point gets even more emphasized if you play in IronMan mode because the point of this mode is "realism".

5) I personally think it's more fun when you can board everyone. I don't really get the idea why you should limit it. I don't see any good coming from new mechanics.

Before I get to the end of this reply I must say that I like the fact you can be boarded. It adds to the realism that there's a chance to be boarded. So if you decide to change the game mechanics I encourage you to leave that.

OK that's it, sorry for the long post but as a veteran player who completed stock game several times and loves the boarding strategy the most , I had to share my thoughts. I look forward to your reply and I would like to know your reasons for putting the new game mechanics into the game.
 
Ok, you are in a Lugger and are attempting to board a European Barque. It is a bigger ship with more crew, but their morale probably is not that good. You are outmanned and outgunned but you think you can do whatever you want anyway. That other crew is probably laughing at you as they throw your hooks and planks back at you and continue blowing holes in your ship.

If you want a real boarding battle go attack a big ship like a galleon and see what happens. :guns:
 
Larper said:
For starters the stock game didn't have that mechanic so how am I suppose to know that the mod changed that game mechanic. One would presume it would say something in the official documentation. Seventy eight pages and nothing about new boarding mechanics... Oh well, let's read the FAQ. Nope, nothing about new boarding mechanics. Ingame help, lot's of useful information but nothing about new boarding mechanics. Actually that's not the only thing that irritated me, I am really disappointed that there's no comprehensive list of changes of what New Horizons does to the stock game. There really should be that kind of list either on these forums along with FAQ or in ingame help since some changes are explained there.
Click to expand...
I assume you haven't looked through "Build Info.txt" in your main game folder yet. That contains a changelog detailing every modification we have made since Build 14 Alpha 8.5 a few years ago.
It may not be a complete list of everything the Build Mod does to the stock game, but you must understand some of the difficulties we face:

1) This year is the Build Mod's TENTH anniversary, having been started shortly after the release of PotC in 2003, so that's a LOT of content to document.
2) Over the years, many people have left the modding effort, often without leaving proper documentation of their work, which makes it very hard for newer members to figure out exactly what was changed. This is why we have next to no documentation for the very early Build versions.
3) The official New Horizons documentation supplied with the mod is not up-to-date because the main person responsible for it left us back in 2010, and because it's all in PDF format, no-one has been able to update it since. And redoing it all with more up-to-date information would be a huge task.


Now, onto this strange mechanic itself: I can't find any mention of it in the changelog, so I can only assume it was added in an earlier Build version, making it very hard to track down.
I do agree that it doesn't make much sense to prevent you from boarding whichever vessel you please, so it probably should be changed at some point.
 
I sure did open BuildInfo.txt but it's hard to pinpoint changes from stock game because 90% of documented changes are some minor fixes. I get your point, but in my opinion, I think some proper document where changes from the stock game are transparently listed, needs to get made, doesn't matter if it's not complete, as much as you can and know.

I'd be glad to help you in any kind of way, I'm an aspiring game programmer / developer so this would be a really good practice :)
 
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