Poll Idea: modifying certain freeplay characters to make them more unique

[Lonious]

So, lately I've been trying to expand on certain freeplay characters - particularly the main characters in the stock game and those from the POTC films, by giving them unique starting conditions. This has been done with help from @Grey Roger .

The idea is this: if I'm going to select "Cutler Beckett" as my starting character, for instance, I want to feel really powerful and wealthy. That's the point - the Cutler Beckett we saw in the films is now playable in-game, with his model and ship replicated to the detail. So, why not start with conditions that would, to a certain degree, make one feel like he's in the shoes of the leader of the East India Trading Company?

That would mean starting off with a lot of money, say, 500 000 gold, and a rather high level - think 30 at least. Because the Beckett we saw from the movies was a highly experienced manipulator, merchant, and explorer, so to me it made sense if that translated to the game, even from the beginning - because that's the Beckett you're choosing in the start.

However - the player always has the option to disable it, by misspelling the character's name in the starting menu. This will prevent the special starting conditions from triggering. For example, if you want to play Cutler Beckett but not start out with insanely high money, re-write his name to "Cuttler Beckett".

That's just one example.

Here are some changes I did for a few others, so far:

Dark Teacher, "animists1" - starts in the Isla Muelle cave shore, has the Mefisto as his starting frigate, starts around level 20-30 complete with katana and red robed crewmen. Bloody Terror, hostile to all nations.

Robert Christopher Silehard, "huber_eng" - the fabled corrupt villain in the stock game starts out with all three colonies - Jamaica, Speighstown, and Bridgetown as his own. He also receives two bodyguards at the start. If he betrays England, he loses his colonies, of course.

Jack Sparrow, "jack" - starts out in Tortuga instead of Nevis. He's just got the Pearl from Davy Jones after it got burned by Beckett, so he has no crew. Starts at Level 20. Weatherby Swann replaces the standard governor of Jamaica, and Will Turner replaces the standard blacksmith there. Mullroy and Murtogg are the names given to the port guards.

Will Turner, "will" - instead of using the Uncursed Dutchman, this Will looks more like the Will from the first film, so I decided to give him a different arc. He gets a simple xebec at the start, and several fully-polished swords (he's a blacksmith).

Cursed Barbossa - the crewmen and boarders have all been replaced by skeletons. Barbossa is given a 1 million HP bonus instead of 300 (he's supposed to be immortal). He also has several officers from the start - Pintel, Ragetti, Bo'sun, Jacoby, etc. He also starts in Isla de Muerta instead of in a random port.

Privateer Barbossa - this is a very experienced Barbossa from the fourth film so he starts out Level 30, with a special starting quest - hunt down Blackbeard and his Queen Anne's Revenge, which waits for 12 days in Cozumel, for a reward from the Jamaica governor. He receives Theodore Groves, Andrew Gillette, and Joshamee Gibbs as officers from the start.

Davy Jones - now starts with maxed out skill points. He also has seaweed skeletons as the default crew and boarders courtesy of Grey Roger. Additionally, I've put in Hadras, Maccus, Palafico, and Penrod as starting officers. Reputation Horror of the High Seas.

Some sample shots:

Spoiler

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These are all the characters I've pretty much completed so far, but I plan to do a few more: Commodore & Lieutenant Norrington, Cutler Beckett, Blackbeard, as well as certain stock game characters like Nathaniel Hawk himself, Danielle Greene, Raoul Rheims, Clement Aurentius, etc.

However, Grey Roger believes that most players would prefer all freeplay characters basically start out from the beginning, with no enhacements to level, rank, money, perks/skills, items, etc.

So, my goal is this - should I continue on and try to finish this project, with hopes of it getting included in some future update, or does the community prefer things to stay the way they are?

 

[Jack Rackham]

I asked one of my student once: what's the best thing with playing computer games? He thought for a while and answered: to make progress!
So I would certainly prefer to start very low on every thing possible. (even marooned sometimes )

If there is a small adventure (challenge/task/sidequest) waiting for you - that's another thing.

 

[Grey Roger]

However, Grey Roger believes that most players would prefer all freeplay characters basically start out from the beginning, with no enhacements to level, rank, money, perks/skills, items, etc.

That is not quite true. However, I do believe that "Free" Play should mean that - you shouldn't have to mistype your character name if you don't want to start insanely high level. Normal FreePlay starts at level 5 with skills and free ability points to match your chosen character type, so you don't start out completely from the beginning.

Several of these characters are starting at level 20-30. By comparison, at present, a full admiral starts at level 16. The FreePlay Dark Teacher here starts out at level 20-30, the one you meet at the end of the sidequest is probably level 10.

A lot of this can be achieved by cheatmode. If you want cursed Barbossa to be immortal, just use cheatmode and be immortal. If you want to start off at level 30, just use cheatmode and zap yourself up to level 30. If you want lots of free money at the start, just use cheatmode and give it to yourself. And, of course, with cheatmode you can start off with any ship you like.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

I'm in agreement with @Grey Roger and @Jack Rackham. I play primarily in Freeplay and have never felt unduly restricted by the game's mechanics in roughly fifteen years of play. The fun is in the close victories, the narrow escapes, the dodgy alliances, the desperate risks.

It's good that you have a clear vision of how you would prefer an Age of Fighting Sail game to work. However, it's not a game I would find at all appealing.

 

[Homo eructus]

I don't mind some of the more cosmetic changes. It's a nice touch that the Dark Teacher starts with animist crew, I'll give you that, but not so overlevelled.

 

[Lonious]

I don't mind some of the more cosmetic changes. It's a nice touch that the Dark Teacher starts with animist crew, I'll give you that, but not so overlevelled.

You prefer them to start from the beginning? How do you feel about the other changes, like the extra officers, added weapons, or owning colonies from the start? Or the hunt Blackbeard quest?

I want to get a grasp on how much other people like these characters modified.

 

[Hammie]

I like the idea of having more varied starting situation in FreePlay. Don't want them to be OP starts though (except maybe a very few).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The idea is this: if I'm going to select "Cutler Beckett" as my starting character, for instance, I want to feel really powerful and wealthy. That's the point - the Cutler Beckett we saw in the films is now playable in-game, with his model and ship replicated to the detail. So, why not start with conditions that would, to a certain degree, make one feel like he's in the shoes of the leader of the East India Trading Company?

That would mean starting off with a lot of money, say, 500 000 gold, and a rather high level - think 30 at least. Because the Beckett we saw from the movies was a highly experienced manipulator, merchant, and explorer, so to me it made sense if that translated to the game, even from the beginning - because that's the Beckett you're choosing in the start.

I definitely like and support your idea!

And certainly the "HIGH starting level" concept is nothing new.
Just choose a generic ADMIRAL outfit as your starting character model and see what happens.
You get bumped all the way to level 16 right at the start (as per the model.minlevel line in initModels.c)!

That said, for Cutler Beckett it was kind-of intentional on my part to not give him a high level.
He's clearly no great sailor; and I really enjoyed the idea of the twat struggling like all hell trying to handle that big, loggin' Endeavour of his all by himself at the start of the game.

I figured that'd make for quite the unique challenge for him; but an appropriate one.
Gets insurmountably worse, of course, considering the upkeep of the bloody ship; and that you can't pay for it.
In other words: the big ship is more a hindrance than a help in the grand scheme of things.
Which I thought was nicely evilly designed on our part.

Part of this is also "revenge" of mine on those players who always just want the BEST BIGGEST THING!
You want a Manowar at the start? Suuure! Here you go. See how well you fare!
(Or, to put it more nicely, this might serve to educate people on how big ships don't come for free. And why pirates didn't use 'em.
They're not actually as all-round-awesome as a simple landlubber might like to believe.)

Note also that there's TWO Beckett's.
There's a young variation on him also.
Perhaps a third could be added who IS truly successful right from the start?
But have only the EVIL FUN one as "Specific" character (so part of the initial character model selection).
For the others, you'd have to dive through the filters a bit more.

I want to get a grasp on how much other people like these characters modified.

What I would be curious of is how many players would actually be affected.
I honestly haven't the foggiest how many people still stay up-to-date with the mod; and regularly choose a new Free Play character.

A lot of this can be achieved by cheatmode. If you want cursed Barbossa to be immortal, just use cheatmode and be immortal. If you want to start off at level 30, just use cheatmode and zap yourself up to level 30. If you want lots of free money at the start, just use cheatmode and give it to yourself. And, of course, with cheatmode you can start off with any ship you like.

Very valid point.
I agree.

How do you feel about the other changes, like the extra officers, added weapons, or owning colonies from the start? Or the hunt Blackbeard quest?

Certainly adding more quests is always a good idea.

And handing out some appropriate officers/weapons is no issue either.
Some characters already have that; such as the default Julian McAllister; and the various naval officers.

Already owning colonies is also an interesting concept if it makes sense for the character.
Having someone start in his/her OWN colony is pretty cool, I'd say.
Wouldn't need to own half the Caribbean straight away.
But some already could be interesting.

 

[Grey Roger]

The poll seems to be strongly in favour of customised FreePlay starts, but most comments seem to be opposed to starting them at higher level.

@Lonious: if you can upload files with custom FreePlay starts which mostly still begin the game at the normal level 5, it can go into the next update. I'm planning on releasing that next week - it's already a bit overdue!

 

[Lonious]

The poll seems to be strongly in favour of customised FreePlay starts, but most comments seem to be opposed to starting them at higher level.

@Lonious: if you can upload files with custom FreePlay starts which mostly still begin the game at the normal level 5, it can go into the next update. I'm planning on releasing that next week - it's already a bit overdue!

Don't worry, I won't give them high levels anymore.

I might be able to do most of them within a few days, but I won't be putting quests first. Setting up the special starts is relatively easy for me.

 

[Grey Roger]

Excellent!

That's why I'm holding off a bit longer. If you can get at least some done by the time the Easter holiday is over, they can probably go in. But I don't want to wait much longer for this month's update. You can always add more, maybe write a quest or two, to go into the next update, or the next next one, etc...

 

[Lonious]

Excellent!

That's why I'm holding off a bit longer. If you can get at least some done by the time the Easter holiday is over, they can probably go in. But I don't want to wait much longer for this month's update. You can always add more, maybe write a quest or two, to go into the next update, or the next next one, etc...

Alright, I intend to update you tomorrow (Saturday) about the status of my edits, since there are a few issues that I believe you'd be able to address. I should be able to send them by Sunday for inclusion into the update.

 

[Lonious]

Excellent!

That's why I'm holding off a bit longer. If you can get at least some done by the time the Easter holiday is over, they can probably go in. But I don't want to wait much longer for this month's update. You can always add more, maybe write a quest or two, to go into the next update, or the next next one, etc...

On second thought, maybe I'll post these problems here now for you to comment on:

- I tried to take over Redmond as Conorrongtion but when I started talking to Weatherby Swann, the dialog was stuck in some sort of loop.
- Barbossa: I made the crew skeletons. However, I don't know of a way to reverse their models after the coins are returned.
- Is there a way to remove Anamaria from Tortuga? It'd be weird if I played as Anamaria and encountered "myself".
- Despite setting up my rank in both_reaction.c, and it showing up properly in the Relations tab, I still don't earn from my estates.

I want to send them by Saturday or Sunday. I probably don't have enough time to do all the changes I want for now, since there are still several models left. So maybe the rest of those could wait for the next update if people are still interested...

EDIT:

Two more issues:
- what type of item should I add to make the pistolbow work? I tried adding "quiver" and "arrows2" but they don't seem to activate it.
- I still fail at setting the boarding models to the correct one. Here's what I put:

pchar.boardingmodels = "Soldiers";
pchar.boardingmodels.nation = iNation;

This sets them to English troops no matter what flag I choose. If I put "DeleteAttribute", they become "blaze". So annoying...

I attached the changes I've done so far.

A list of other characters I fooled around with:
- Blackbeard: Gets "Black Caesar" as first mate, low rep, hostile to all nations, starts in Isla de Muerta.
- Lts. Groves and Gillette get different starting ships from Lt. Norrington for variety.
- Young_Beckett gets the Lindesfarne. He and CutlerBeckett are assigned EITC models for their crew and boarders. The latter gets "Ian Mercer" (badV) as a guard.
- Other POTC models: Gibbs (bocman5, now a Sailor); Anamaria (now a Smuggler), Sao Feng (gets his female guards Lian and Park as well as Tai Huang (mongol) as officers), Edward Teague (gets PiratCorvette "Troubadour" as starting ship as well as 9Ja and Rufus/pirat3 as officers); lizswann is now Rebel; 47_Norrington_Pirate (Army Veteran); conorrington gets "Norrington's sword", an item I made based on Dutch Admiralty Sword (but slightly stronger) - these guys mostly start at Tortuga.
- Stock game models: Nathaniel Hawk (blaze) and Danielle Greene start with Malcolm Hatcher (bocman3) and Ralph Fawn as immortal boatswains, respectively (out of nostalgia); Raoul Rheims is now "Explorer" and with a Grand Schooner as a starting ship, lands on Conceicao Smugglers + hostile to England; Desmond Ray Beltrop (owns Conceicao smugglers and gets "33_Ronal2" as guard); Isenbrandt Jurcksen (Corsair) starts with PiratFrigatSup "Dud" and owns Quebradas Costillas.
- Four other models I tampered with: "Napitan" (Black Caesar) gets "black" crew and "black" officer models, "Indian3" gets "native" crew and officer models; saofeng_guard is "Ching Shih" (Mistress Ching) with "Asian" crew models like Sao Feng (basically just mongol and fatman). Jack Aubrey gets a "Hunt Acheron" (FR_BattleFrigate) starting sidequest.

Other models I feel like doing in the future:
- POTC: Sri Sumbhajee, Villanueva, Chevalle (corsairs), Tia Dalma (physician?), Armando Salazar (??? what model - to give CouronnePirat maybe)
- Stock game: Clement Aurentius (physician), Lucas da Saldanha (naval officer/army veteran?), Jaoquin de Masse (swordmaster), waulter tomlison (naval officer), Amerigo vieira (swordmaster), Mateus Santos (agent? army veteran? rogue?), Claire Larrouse (Adventurer)
- Extra: Salvadore Benavides rename to "Hernan Cortes" (with galleon "Mariana"); bmunky (cursed?), avergorex, etc.

If you have any ideas, I'd be happy to read them here...

 

[Grey Roger]

This will certainly need to wait for a future update as there is a lot needing to be done. For a start, all text must be made translatable - we currently have Spanish, Russian and Polish translations in progress. New character names will need to be added to "RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\Storyline\FreePlay\characters_names.txt". Character names and story texts from "initModels.c" need to go into "RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\Storyline\storyline_strings.txt". 'Logit' commands such as 'logit("Your Text");' need to change to 'logit(TranslateString("Your Text", ""));' and "Your Text" needs to go into "RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\interface_strings.txt".

Governor FreePlay does not work. The game is incapable of detailed colony administration which is the governor's job. A governor would not sail off around the Caribbean except for very special reasons, such as needing to meet another governor in person rather than sending an envoy. Also, if you haven't changed the colony's "gov" attribute to "Blaze" (the player's ID is always "Blaze") then the rest of the game still thinks the original governor is in charge. If you have changed the colony's "gov" attribute to "Blaze" then it will probably break the game. Either way is liable to cause trouble, and it won't be immediately or easily apparent. Therefore, forget about Governor Silehard.

Don't assign abilities. A lot of players play with locked perks, which means the character shouldn't get those abilities until he's completed the tasks necessary to unlock them. By default FreePlay starts at level 5, which means the player starts with 5 ability points he can allocate as he likes. Some special characters can have a 'model.minlevel' in their entries in "initModels.c", which will zap the character up to that level - for example, Jack Aubrey has 'model.minlevel = 10' which means he starts at level 10 and therefore has 10 points to spend on abilities. The player can either spend them at once on abilities which aren't locked, or save some until he's done some unlocking.

Don't set Port Royale soldiers to be Murtogg and Mulroy. Those two only appear in specific scenes such as guarding the Interceptor, they're not regular guards. In later films they're not at Port Royale at all, they're on board ships.

Will Turner should not get a xebec. For one thing, though xebecs are tolerated in the game, they operated in the Mediterranean. Will Turner has probably never heard of one, and being a blacksmith's apprentice, certainly couldn't afford one. Neither could John Brown, if he's supposed to give a ship to Will as a parting gift. Give him something basic like a lugger or sloop.

Now onto specific questions:

- I tried to take over Redmond as Conorrongtion but when I started talking to Weatherby Swann, the dialog was stuck in some sort of loop.

Add this into "console.c", directly below the 'int limit;' line:

DumpAttributes(CharacterFromID("John Clifford Brin"));

Try taking over Port Royale again, press F12 to run "console.c", then post your "compile.log", "system.log", and "error.log" if it exists.

- Barbossa: I made the crew skeletons. However, I don't know of a way to reverse their models after the coins are returned.

At some time I'll try to change the crew to skeletons for any character under the curse of Cortes, not just Barbossa - it should be a result of the curse. And I'll try to change them back when the curse is lifted.

- Is there a way to remove Anamaria from Tortuga? It'd be weird if I played as Anamaria and encountered "myself".

Yes, I've figured out how to do this and it will be in this week's update.

Two more issues:
- what type of item should I add to make the pistolbow work? I tried adding "quiver" and "arrows2" but they don't seem to activate it.

That's presumably for "Indian3". Don't give him a blowgun, that weapon exists only for a couple of storylines. No regular Indian ever carries one. So you won't need "arrows2" as they're for the blowgun. The ammunition for "pistolbow" is "bladearrows".

Also, don't tie this character to the East India Company. The player can assign him any nation and in any period, so he'll be rebelling against whichever nation attacked his tribe. That might not be Britain, and even if it is, Cutler Beckett doesn't exist in the default starting year of 1682.

- Lts. Groves and Gillette get different starting ships from Lt. Norrington for variety.

Lt. Groves gets a cutter, Lt. Gillette gets a navy ketch. By comparison, "NK.c" assigns those sorts of ships to midshipmen! A lieutenant (rank 3) could get "BrigRoyal", "RN_Brig", or something else in the tier 5-6 range.

- Young_Beckett gets the Lindesfarne. He and CutlerBeckett are assigned EITC models for their crew and boarders. The latter gets "Ian Mercer" (badV) as a guard.

Mercer would probably be better as an officer. (Why is he getting a big HP bonus?)

- Other POTC models: Gibbs (bocman5, now a Sailor); Anamaria (now a Smuggler), Sao Feng (gets his female guards Lian and Park as well as Tai Huang (mongol) as officers), Edward Teague (gets PiratCorvette "Troubadour" as starting ship as well as 9Ja and Rufus/pirat3 as officers); lizswann is now Rebel; 47_Norrington_Pirate (Army Veteran); conorrington gets "Norrington's sword", an item I made based on Dutch Admiralty Sword (but slightly stronger) - these guys mostly start at Tortuga.

I'll get back to Anamaria and Elizabeth Swann in a moment. There does not seem to be a version of "RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\ItemsDescribe.txt" with lines for Norrington's sword. (The zip file does include "ItemsDescribe.txt" but it looks more like a copy of "RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\Storyline\FreePlay\ItemsDescribe.txt".)

- Stock game models: Nathaniel Hawk (blaze) and Danielle Greene start with Malcolm Hatcher (bocman3) and Ralph Fawn as immortal boatswains, respectively (out of nostalgia); Raoul Rheims is now "Explorer" and with a Grand Schooner as a starting ship, lands on Conceicao Smugglers + hostile to England; Desmond Ray Beltrop (owns Conceicao smugglers and gets "33_Ronal2" as guard); Isenbrandt Jurcksen (Corsair) starts with PiratFrigatSup "Dud" and owns Quebradas Costillas.

Nathaniel Hawk is already correctly set up. He should not start with Malcolm Hatcher as Hatcher's dialog tells you he's about to retire. You'll see him in the tavern in case you want more advice from him. Danielle Greene can have Ralph Fawn but he should not be immortal - I know well how powerful a temporarily immortal officer can be, from experience playing "Hornblower" and writing "Ardent", and a permanent immortal officer is definitely overpowered! It's up to the player to keep him alive.

Raoul Rheims is friendly to the smuggler leader so he's probably a smuggler, not an explorer. Give him a navigator named Giraldo Figuiera. The character already exists though you'd need to remove his ship because at present he's given a frigate. (The original game authors seemed a bit confused about this character, who gets another Mefisto in the stock game files! There was also intent to allow the player to choose to play as either Nathaniel or Danielle. Very little appears to have been done for Danielle's story but there are fragments of dialog. They mention Giraldo Figuiera as Rheims' navigator. There are also hints that Ralph Fawn would have been a major character in this story, which is why it's fitting that he appears as Danielle's officer in FreePlay.)

Desmond Ray Beltrop and Isenbrandt Jurcksen fall foul of the same problems as Silehard - governor freeplay doesn't work.

You could perhaps set up Silehard as a social climber, then the player can explore his rise to power by various devious means. And you could also set up Isenbrandt Jucksen's early life. You'd need to replace Ines Diaz as tavern keeper in Pirate Settlement, change character "Isenbrandt Jucksen" to have a new name and face as the previous pirate boss, then possibly assign a younger Ines Diaz as Jurcksen's officer. (Go and talk to Ines Diaz about her earlier life for some hints for this...)

- Four other models I tampered with: "Napitan" (Black Caesar) gets "black" crew and "black" officer models, "Indian3" gets "native" crew and officer models; saofeng_guard is "Ching Shih" (Mistress Ching) with "Asian" crew models like Sao Feng (basically just mongol and fatman). Jack Aubrey gets a "Hunt Acheron" (FR_BattleFrigate) starting sidequest.

Black Caesar is fair enough. Don't bother with Ching Shih, she has nothing to do with the Caribbean. Jack Aubrey should not have the Acheron as a starting quest! The hunt for the Acheron is the entire plot of the film "Master and Commander" - turning into a quick starting quest makes about as much sense as starting Jack Sparrow with a quest based on the end of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl". If it's going to be done at all, it should be at least a character-specific sidequest similar to Hornblower's "Natividad Incident", or preferably a full storyline.

Other models I feel like doing in the future:
- POTC: Sri Sumbhajee, Villanueva, Chevalle (corsairs), Tia Dalma (physician?), Armando Salazar (??? what model - to give CouronnePirat maybe)
- Stock game: Clement Aurentius (physician), Lucas da Saldanha (naval officer/army veteran?), Jaoquin de Masse (swordmaster), waulter tomlison (naval officer), Amerigo vieira (swordmaster), Mateus Santos (agent? army veteran? rogue?), Claire Larrouse (Adventurer)
- Extra: Salvadore Benavides rename to "Hernan Cortes" (with galleon "Mariana"); bmunky (cursed?), avergorex, etc.

If you have any ideas, I'd be happy to read them here...

Sri Sumbhajee, Villanueva and Chevalle are reasonable enough as they were Pirate Lords.

Salvadore Benavides, both character and model, are the work of @Bartolomeu o Portugues for his storylines. "Mariana" is the work of @GhostOfDeath91 and used for his own character, Ricardo Orellana. Avergorex is the work of @Jacob and already set up the way he wants. And Anamaria and Elizabeth Swann are mine. You are now treading on other people's work. Please remove Anamaria and Elizabeth Swann from your modifications, and make no move on these other characters without first consulting their authors.

 

[Lonious]

Governor FreePlay does not work. The game is incapable of detailed colony administration which is the governor's job. A governor would not sail off around the Caribbean except for very special reasons, such as needing to meet another governor in person rather than sending an envoy. Also, if you haven't changed the colony's "gov" attribute to "Blaze" (the player's ID is always "Blaze") then the rest of the game still thinks the original governor is in charge. If you have changed the colony's "gov" attribute to "Blaze" then it will probably break the game. Either way is liable to cause trouble, and it won't be immediately or easily apparent. Therefore, forget about Governor Silehard.

Forget about him? Why? He's an important character in the original game. Why not imagine his staff taking his place instead, like what happens when you assign someone to rule over the town? After all, I placed a butler in the residence.

It would be sad to see him go.

Don't assign abilities. A lot of players play with locked perks, which means the character shouldn't get those abilities until he's completed the tasks necessary to unlock them. By default FreePlay starts at level 5, which means the player starts with 5 ability points he can allocate as he likes. Some special characters can have a 'model.minlevel' in their entries in "initModels.c", which will zap the character up to that level - for example, Jack Aubrey has 'model.minlevel = 10' which means he starts at level 10 and therefore has 10 points to spend on abilities. The player can either spend them at once on abilities which aren't locked, or save some until he's done some unlocking.

What about assigning some abilities but only to the extent of the level I assigned them to? For example, if the guy starts at level 10, then he would have 10 ability points. The game still starts out with 5 free points, so what about automatically giving 5 points worth of perks?

Now onto specific questions:

Add this into "console.c", directly below the 'int limit;' line:

DumpAttributes(CharacterFromID("John Clifford Brin"));

Try taking over Port Royale again, press F12 to run "console.c", then post your "compile.log", "system.log", and "error.log" if it exists.

Will try.

Also, don't tie this character to the East India Company. The player can assign him any nation and in any period, so he'll be rebelling against whichever nation attacked his tribe. That might not be Britain, and even if it is, Cutler Beckett doesn't exist in the default starting year of 1682.

He isn't tied to EITC. He's just a Rebel without any particular nation assigned.

I thought I set 1740 to be his year.

Mercer would probably be better as an officer. (Why is he getting a big HP bonus?)

He's an officer indeed. You don't like the HP bonuses? I thought it could make things interesting, but ok, I wouldn't really object to removing that...

Nathaniel Hawk is already correctly set up. He should not start with Malcolm Hatcher as Hatcher's dialog tells you he's about to retire. You'll see him in the tavern in case you want more advice from him. Danielle Greene can have Ralph Fawn but he should not be immortal - I know well how powerful a temporarily immortal officer can be, from experience playing "Hornblower" and writing "Ardent", and a permanent immortal officer is definitely overpowered! It's up to the player to keep him alive.

Doesn't the Bartolomeu storyline give you an immortal boatswain? I kind of want to make them officers, for nostalgia reasons...

Raoul Rheims is friendly to the smuggler leader so he's probably a smuggler, not an explorer. Give him a navigator named Giraldo Figuiera. The character already exists though you'd need to remove his ship because at present he's given a frigate. (The original game authors seemed a bit confused about this character, who gets another Mefisto in the stock game files!

I did give him Giraldo Figuiera. I believe that Mefisto line was a mistake on their part.

He gets a Grand Schooner instead. But I wouldn't want to make him a Smuggler, that's not really what he was. He was just in the smugglers' colony because Machado was the only one willing to protect him from Silehard's assassins. Then he left shortly after for his house in Douwesen, remember?

Desmond Ray Beltrop and Isenbrandt Jurcksen fall foul of the same problems as Silehard - governor freeplay doesn't work.

But that's sorely disappointing. @Pieter Boelen thinks giving colonies at the start is fine. I love the idea myself, it would be a letdown if none of the characters don't have this to spice things up.

You could perhaps set up Silehard as a social climber, then the player can explore his rise to power by various devious means. And you could also set up Isenbrandt Jucksen's early life. You'd need to replace Ines Diaz as tavern keeper in Pirate Settlement, change character "Isenbrandt Jucksen" to have a new name and face as the previous pirate boss, then possibly assign a younger Ines Diaz as Jurcksen's officer. (Go and talk to Ines Diaz about her earlier life for some hints for this...)

? But the model I changed was unique to the Isenbrandt Jurcksen character, and it shows a rather aged-looking Isenbrandt. The point is to make the character's starting conditions match what the model represents.

For example, there's a reason why Blackbeard isn't given a basic lugger but the QAR. Because he's obviously based on the POTC 4 Blackbeard, who's older than even the historical one - his beard is gray, not black. So it's an experienced Blackbeard, not a beginner one.

If I were to make Isenbrandt Jurcksen the way he was when he was young, then I might as well use another model for him instead. But that wasn't my intent...

Don't bother with Ching Shih, she has nothing to do with the Caribbean.

?? But so many characters have NOTHING to do with the Caribbean; Jack Aubrey, Horatio Nelson, Milady de Winter, basically every 1st rate ship of the line, the East India Trading Company, etc. etc. etc....there are just too many to name.

Besides, Mistress Ching WAS in the movies. Maybe she wasn't the exact same person as the real one, but this one was I based the "Ching Shih" character on. That's why I set her in the late 1600's, not the early 1800's.

Jack Aubrey should not have the Acheron as a starting quest! The hunt for the Acheron is the entire plot of the film "Master and Commander" - turning into a quick starting quest makes about as much sense as starting Jack Sparrow with a quest based on the end of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl". If it's going to be done at all, it should be at least a character-specific sidequest similar to Hornblower's "Natividad Incident", or preferably a full storyline.

Are you sure about that? That would make it very boring. I could remove it if you really want, but that's another great loss, don't you think?

Salvadore Benavides, both character and model, are the work of @Bartolomeu o Portugues for his storylines. "Mariana" is the work of @GhostOfDeath91 and used for his own character, Ricardo Orellana. Avergorex is the work of @Jacob and already set up the way he wants. And Anamaria and Elizabeth Swann are mine. You are now treading on other people's work. Please remove Anamaria and Elizabeth Swann from your modifications, and make no move on these other characters without first consulting their authors.

I don't quite understand this. I mean, nothing is changed, really. They're simply used. Why would we even use any of the characters, ships, or locations at all if we wanted to make our own sidequests? Does this mean we have to consult their authors every single time we think they could be used in any modification? I don't quite get the logic here, honestly.

Besides, I've already edited tons of models. Why are you singling out these particular models as that which I shouldn't change? Are you suggesting I should have contacted every single author of every model I edited?

It looks like we have differing ideas on what should and shouldn't be. Is it you who has the right to refuse or accept proposed additions or changes to the Build Mod? I' m not well-versed on the rules here. How is this supposed to be settled? Should it be put to vote again?

EDIT: On second thought, forget it. I'll do what I want with the models, submit whatever I can accomplish here, then let the rest of this forum decide what they want to do with those.

 

[Grey Roger]

Forget about him? Why? He's an important character in the original game. Why not imagine his staff taking his place instead, like what happens when you assign someone to rule over the town? After all, I placed a butler in the residence.

The governor is the person assigned by the king to rule this town! His staff can run errands for him which is why he doesn't need to leave the island. The butler can serve dinner but he doesn't run the town.

What about assigning some abilities but only to the extent of the level I assigned them to? For example, if the guy starts at level 10, then he would have 10 ability points. The game still starts out with 5 free points, so what about automatically giving 5 points worth of perks?

Once again: a lot of abilities are locked. The player should not get these without doing whatever is necessary to unlock them. That means they can't be assigned free at the start.

He isn't tied to EITC. He's just a Rebel without any particular nation assigned.

From his ship's log entry in "characters_init.c":

I suppose I should call Lord Beckett's onslaught on my village to be my baptism of fire. I see this not as an event of tragedy, but of great transformation for me and my people. A man can be a slave only if he allows it - and now as ruler, I declare before the gods that none may take our freedom again!

Setting the year does not necessarily mean the player will stick to that year. This is FreePlay. Granted, the player could equally change the start year for any other character and play Francis Drake in Napoleonic times, for example. But changing the start year for a non-historical Indian character is more reasonable, so expect players to do so.

He's an officer indeed. You don't like the HP bonuses? I thought it could make things interesting, but ok, I wouldn't really object to removing that...

Doesn't the Bartolomeu storyline give you an immortal boatswain? I kind of want to make them officers, for nostalgia reasons...

Several storylines make characters immortal because they are critical to the story. If Emilio Soares dies, the storyline will break when he is needed for a quest scene. FreePlay has no such constraints. There is no need for any officer to be immortal or even extra tough.

He gets a Grand Schooner instead. But I wouldn't want to make him a Smuggler, that's not really what he was. He was just in the smugglers' colony because Machado was the only one willing to protect him from Silehard's assassins. Then he left shortly after for his house in Douwesen, remember?

Why would Machado (or Beltrop in the mod) give Rheims any protection if he's not a smuggler? There seems to be very little clue about Rheims' background other than he was friends with the leader of the smugglers and he was after the Inca treasure.

But that's sorely disappointing. Pieter Boelen thinks giving colonies at the start is fine. I love the idea myself, it would be a letdown if none of the characters don't have this to spice things up.

Giving colonies at game start is one thing. Trying to play at being governor of them is another. Remember, if you take a colony for yourself, you're not the new governor, you assign one of your officers to the job.

? But the model I changed was unique to the Isenbrandt Jurcksen character, and it shows a rather aged-looking Isenbrandt. The point is to make the character's starting conditions match what the model represents.

For example, there's a reason why Blackbeard isn't given a basic lugger but the QAR. Because he's obviously based on the POTC 4 Blackbeard, who's older than even the historical one - his beard is gray, not black. So it's an experienced Blackbeard, not a beginner one.

The reason Blackbeard is given the QAR is to give players a quick way to play with QAR.

?? But so many characters have NOTHING to do with the Caribbean; Jack Aubrey, Horatio Nelson, Milady de Winter, basically every 1st rate ship of the line, the East India Trading Company, etc. etc. etc....there are just too many to name.

The only reason the EITC is in the game is because it's in the PoTC films. Horatio Nelson did in fact operate in the Caribbean, in command of HMS Badger, which is why he starts off as captain of that ship.

Besides, Mistress Ching WAS in the movies. Maybe she wasn't the exact same person as the real one, but this one was I based the "Ching Shih" character on. That's why I set her in the late 1600's, not the early 1800's.

Are you planning to make settings for every last minor character in the films?

You objected to the current Will Turner model being used for the uncursed Flying Dutchman because he does not look correct. Likewise, "SaoFeng_Guard" does not look like Mistress Ching.

Are you sure about that? That would make it very boring. I could remove it if you really want, but that's another great loss, don't you think?

It's no loss to remove something that shouldn't be there. The fight against Acheron isn't something for a starting quest, it's something for a long quest or a storyline.

Incidentally, Jack Aubrey starts at level 10. That means he should have 20 points' worth of skills. You've given him 30 points' worth, which is what a level 15 character would have.

I don't quite understand this. I mean, nothing is changed, really. They're simply used. Why would we even use any of the characters, ships, or locations at all if we wanted to make our own sidequests? Does this mean we have to consult their authors every single time we think they could be used in any modification? I don't quite get the logic here, honestly.

When the authors are still active and have their own plans for their models, yes, you should ask before using their work.

Besides, I've already edited tons of models. Why are you singling out these particular models as that which I shouldn't change?

Because those were the ones you listed in your post. I have not yet had time to see what else you've done.

It looks like we have differing ideas on what should and shouldn't be. Is it you who has the right to refuse or accept proposed additions or changes to the Build Mod? I' m not well-versed on the rules here.

It is I who maintains the updates. In so doing, I try to include other people's work where it will not adversely affect general gameplay. In figuring out what will do that, I rely on 5 years' experience of doing the updates and several years before that of playing the game.

If someone else wants to volunteer to take over, I'm willing to let them. This whole affair is starting to put me right off continuing with the duty.

 

[Lonious]

The governor is the person assigned by the king to rule this town! His staff can run errands for him which is why he doesn't need to leave the island. The butler can serve dinner but he doesn't run the town.


Once again: a lot of abilities are locked. The player should not get these without doing whatever is necessary to unlock them. That means they can't be assigned free at the start.


From his ship's log entry in "characters_init.c":

Setting the year does not necessarily mean the player will stick to that year. This is FreePlay. Granted, the player could equally change the start year for any other character and play Francis Drake in Napoleonic times, for example. But changing the start year for a non-historical Indian character is more reasonable, so expect players to do so.


Several storylines make characters immortal because they are critical to the story. If Emilio Soares dies, the storyline will break when he is needed for a quest scene. FreePlay has no such constraints. There is no need for any officer to be immortal or even extra tough.


Why would Machado (or Beltrop in the mod) give Rheims any protection if he's not a smuggler? There seems to be very little clue about Rheims' background other than he was friends with the leader of the smugglers and he was after the Inca treasure.


Giving colonies at game start is one thing. Trying to play at being governor of them is another. Remember, if you take a colony for yourself, you're not the new governor, you assign one of your officers to the job.


The reason Blackbeard is given the QAR is to give players a quick way to play with QAR.


The only reason the EITC is in the game is because it's in the PoTC films. Horatio Nelson did in fact operate in the Caribbean, in command of HMS Badger, which is why he starts off as captain of that ship.


Are you planning to make settings for every last minor character in the films?

You objected to the current Will Turner model being used for the uncursed Flying Dutchman because he does not look correct. Likewise, "SaoFeng_Guard" does not look like Mistress Ching.


It's no loss to remove something that shouldn't be there. The fight against Acheron isn't something for a starting quest, it's something for a long quest or a storyline.

Incidentally, Jack Aubrey starts at level 10. That means he should have 20 points' worth of skills. You've given him 30 points' worth, which is what a level 15 character would have.


When the authors are still active and have their own plans for their models, yes, you should ask before using their work.


Because those were the ones you listed in your post. I have not yet had time to see what else you've done.


It is I who maintains the updates. In so doing, I try to include other people's work where it will not adversely affect general gameplay. In figuring out what will do that, I rely on 5 years' experience of doing the updates and several years before that of playing the game.

If someone else wants to volunteer to take over, I'm willing to let them. This whole affair is starting to put me right off continuing with the duty.

So, I'll let others decide what they want to do with whatever I propose here. I personally enjoy editing the characters, since I feel that this enriches the game. I'll try to defend my changes, but I won't care anymore what the outcome is. I wish at least some would ultimately be included, though, if that's in any way possible, and if people want them.

I'll probably continue submitting or proposing stuff here if people are interested, but I won't honestly bother if they want to change or reject them.

 

[Lonious]

Why would Machado (or Beltrop in the mod) give Rheims any protection if he's not a smuggler? There seems to be very little clue about Rheims' background other than he was friends with the leader of the smugglers and he was after the Inca treasure.

Maybe he told Machado some information about the treasure in return for his protection.

I believe Explorer fits him better because that's what he did. Explored the island. He's an explorer, more than a smuggler.

Once again: a lot of abilities are locked. The player should not get these without doing whatever is necessary to unlock them. That means they can't be assigned free at the start.

I've set most of them to level 10 in both_reaction.c. But they start out with only 5 free ability points. You have alternatives in mind?

Giving colonies at game start is one thing. Trying to play at being governor of them is another. Remember, if you take a colony for yourself, you're not the new governor, you assign one of your officers to the job.

What about giving a different starting setting for Silehard? Maybe he got out of prison with the help of some lackeys. So, I could set him to hostile to England.

Are you planning to make settings for every last minor character in the films?

Why not? I've actually done most of them already at this point.

You objected to the current Will Turner model being used for the uncursed Flying Dutchman because he does not look correct. Likewise, "SaoFeng_Guard" does not look like Mistress Ching.

She looks like what Mistress Ching would look like in her younger years.

It's no loss to remove something that shouldn't be there. The fight against Acheron isn't something for a starting quest, it's something for a long quest or a storyline.

I'll let you remove that one if you really dislike the idea.

When the authors are still active and have their own plans for their models, yes, you should ask before using their work.

Do they have any future plans for those models? Currently they're just generic models. Why not put them to use?

 

[Grey Roger]

I've set most of them to level 10 in both_reaction.c. But they start out with only 5 free ability points. You have alternatives in mind?

Don't set levels in "both_reaction.c". Put a "model.minlevel" line in the character's entry in "initModels.c". That starts the character correctly at the chosen level, including the right number of ability points. What it doesn't do is target skills precisely enough at the primary skills for the character type. For example, I tried giving Cutler Beckett a "model.minlevel" of 10. Then I tried again with 15. It didn't make much difference to his "Commerce" skill, it just distributed the extra skills as partial raises to everything else. But he did start with 10 (or 15) ability points.

What about giving a different starting setting for Silehard? Maybe he got out of prison with the help of some lackeys. So, I could set him to hostile to England.

There's at least an even chance that he never made it to prison. Nathaniel Hawk might simply have given him the chop. In fact, for a long time that's all he could do because the code to allow him to hand Silehard over to Governor Brin didn't work. So even if you had Silehard as a prisoner, Brin would still say "Well, His Majesty will be sorry not to have Silehard in the Tower. But this was just as final." I always took that as Brin hinting that he wanted you to execute Silehard without explicitly ordering it.

Meanwhile, I've been considering Anamaria. According to the PoTC Wiki, she was indeed a smuggler, the youngest of five sisters who ran a smuggling business led by their mother. So I've followed your lead in turning her into a smuggler, but I've gone further and had her mother appear as the briefing officer at the start of the game. Mother gets some custom dialog and Anamaria gets a custom ship log entry.

Snag 1 is that if you start in a ship with no cabin, such as Anamaria's dinghy, the briefing is in the cabin of a larger ship and the officer is the captain of that ship, which means that the game ignores whatever model you tried to assign to the officer and uses "corsair5" instead. I managed to fix that by setting an attribute in Anamaria's section of "StartStoryline.c", then only switching to "corsair5" if the attribute is not set.

Snag 2 is that if you start as a smuggler, you're sent to a port belonging to a random nation friendly to your chosen flag. If you chose to be Pirate, the only friendly nation is Pirate, so you always start at Nevis Pirate Settlement, where you can't smuggle because pirate colonies don't have smuggling agents. For now I've done a dirty hack to send Anamaria to somewhere friendly to Britain because that Wiki article says her gang is based at Port Royale. Later I'll want to deal with this properly for anyone who chooses to be a pirate smuggler.

Snag 3 is that I start with no cargo. The code to remove your random starting cargo and replace it with contraband suitable for the starting town doesn't work properly. The bug doesn't affect ships with plenty of free space, which is pretty much anything bigger than a tartane, which is why the bug has never been noticed before. I've debugged the code and now Anamaria's dinghy gets a small amount of contraband. (For good measure, I then tried starting as a more conventional smuggler to check that I hadn't broken anything in the process. It worked as normal.)

Incidentally, the suggested method of avoiding these custom starts by changing the character's name doesn't work because the checks are on 'GetMyOldSimpleName'. That's because checks using 'GetMySimpleName' don't work with the Russian translation. Anamaria's "SimpleName" in Russian isn't "Anamaria", it's the equivalent in the Cyrillic alphabet, which means any check to match 'GetMySimpleName' will fail and anyone playing in Russian can never get any special starts. But the character's "Old.name" attributes do not change when you type in a new name, and so when I picked the "Anamaria" model and changed my name to "Anna Maria", the custom start still kicked in.

 

[Lonious]

Don't set levels in "both_reaction.c". Put a "model.minlevel" line in the character's entry in "initModels.c". That starts the character correctly at the chosen level, including the right number of ability points. What it doesn't do is target skills precisely enough at the primary skills for the character type. For example, I tried giving Cutler Beckett a "model.minlevel" of 10. Then I tried again with 15. It didn't make much difference to his "Commerce" skill, it just distributed the extra skills as partial raises to everything else. But he did start with 10 (or 15) ability points.

Why not just go ahead with the preset perks? They don't matter that much anyway. The player is likely to go ahead and hire officers at the start which will basically compensate for all of that. Really, the only truly important abilities and perks are those that deal with melee. And that's especially true for this mod, because hiring officers is far easier - in fact, far too easy in my opinion, compared to the original game. By the time you're around level 12, every officer you hire has 10 in his skills already!

There's at least an even chance that he never made it to prison. Nathaniel Hawk might simply have given him the chop. In fact, for a long time that's all he could do because the code to allow him to hand Silehard over to Governor Brin didn't work. So even if you had Silehard as a prisoner, Brin would still say "Well, His Majesty will be sorry not to have Silehard in the Tower. But this was just as final." I always took that as Brin hinting that he wanted you to execute Silehard without explicitly ordering it.

I mean, I'm guessing the Silehard model should have some sort of custom start. My idea is to try to leave no "special" models without any custom starts, especially major characters like him. If you have any ideas for him I'd be interested to know.

I already thought the "governor" freeplay which you so adamantly reject was one of the coolest possible aspects of these modifications. I want to get the chance to play powerful characters from the start. I don't quite have the patience to slug it out all the time to the top, especially because there's no major storyline to follow anyway. And cheating wouldn't give me those colonies, just give me money and a high level. Choosing a rich-looking character but starting out with nothing is so boring.

Incidentally, the suggested method of avoiding these custom starts by changing the character's name doesn't work because the checks are on 'GetMyOldSimpleName'. That's because checks using 'GetMySimpleName' don't work with the Russian translation. Anamaria's "SimpleName" in Russian isn't "Anamaria", it's the equivalent in the Cyrillic alphabet, which means any check to match 'GetMySimpleName' will fail and anyone playing in Russian can never get any special starts. But the character's "Old.name" attributes do not change when you type in a new name, and so when I picked the "Anamaria" model and changed my name to "Anna Maria", the custom start still kicked in.

I don't get what you mean. I am able to avoid the custom starts when I change their spelling in the menu. And I used "GetMySimpleOldName" for all the models I edited.