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

[Lonious]

From the Wikipedia article on the Spanish Treasure Fleet, specifically the section dealing with changes to the treasure fleet system introduced by the Bourbon kings after the War of Spanish Succession:It's entirely possible that Centurion was one of these. So "SP_Pinnace50" would work, and not be overpowered as a starting ship. Alternatively, "FleutWar2" is valid for "Colonial Powers", has 34 guns of 12lb, and with 204 crew it's tier 5, also not too overpowered for a starting ship.

The "Villanueva" model is supposed to depict the character from the PoTC films. That puts him into "Colonial Powers" period. You can, of course, choose any Spanish character (including "Villanueva"), change the start date to something in "Golden Age", and then use cheat mode to give yourself any ship you like, including a fast war galleon.

The 44 gun specification is from a game involving cardboard models and is not necessarily Villanueva's ship in "At the World's End". Anyway, the fast war galleon doesn't have 44 guns either.


Ask @Bartolomeu o Portugues, he's the author of this quest.

I did consider changing the name and appearance of the "Will Turner" and "Elizabeth Swann" characters if you're playing Will Turner, but their dialogs would also need to change and so would "Will Turner's House" where you meet them. Much easier simply to disable this quest if you're Will Turner.


Challenges for FreePlay mode are the point of the Trophy Quests:
Trophies in the Free Play mode
Or there are character-specific quests such as "The Natividad Incident" for Hornblower, or "A Family Story" and "A French Companion" for José Joaquím Almeida. And any FreePlay character is free to make up additional goals, such as achieving a specific rank - that's the main point of FreePlay, set your own objectives and try to achieve them.

I did have one idea for "Barbossa2". Barbossa kills Blackbeard in "On Stranger Tides", not by attacking his ship but by duelling him on land. So, remove character "Blackbeard". "Barbossa2" starts off by default as a privateer in the service of Britain. When you reach a high enough rank, a governor can tell you to go after Blackbeard. (Any governor, or specifically the one at Port Royale?) Blackbeard is placed on his usual spot, you go to Isla de Muerte and duel him, and when he dies you get a self-dialog matching Barbossa's speech as he claims Blackbeard's sword and ship. You then get the Queen Anne's Revenge. And at that point, you leave the service of Britain and become a pirate because that's when Barbossa rips up his LoM in the film.

Trophies - was this ever actually implemented?

Barbossa2 - what about going on with my initial idea of a ship to ship battle? Just dueling him in Isla de Muerta feels...I dunno...just too ordinary.

I think the best option is a ship to ship encounter, then perhaps set some sort of duel in the cabin by default if you board the QAR. That way you get to fight him both on sea and "land".

 

[Grey Roger]

Trophies - have a look at the thread. Agent, Engineer and Gambler all have special quests.

Barbossa2: if he's supposed to be based on the film character then he never fights Queen Anne's Revenge. If he's not supposed to be based on the film character then he doesn't need anything special, players can do whatever they like with him. Possibly hide the Aztec compass somewhere so Barbossa2 has to find it - he shouldn't be getting it from Joshamee Gibbs.

 

[Grey Roger]

Here's Villanueva's cabin officer:


Option 1: get a Spanish LoM though your served nation is Pirate. Spain is friendly, pirates are neutral, everyone else is hostile. (Be careful not to fight French ships as France is probably allied to Spain and attacking a French ship will probably cost you that LoM.)
Option 2: all-out pirate. If you somehow had a Spanish LoM before the briefing, you don't have it now. Pirates are friendly, everyone else is hostile.
Option 3: loyal Spanish privateer. Relations set the same as Spain's.

Options 1 and 2 have you start at Nevis Pirate Settlement, perfectly placed if you want to join the Brotherhood and begin your rise to piratical fame. Option 3 starts at San Juan.

 

[Grey Roger]

I tried changing Villanueva's skills using @Lonious' code:

            PChar.skill.Fencing = 6;
            PChar.skill.Leadership = 5;
            PChar.skill.Sailing = 2;
            PChar.skill.Accuracy = 3;
            PChar.skill.Cannons = 5;
            PChar.skill.Grappling = 5;

The problem is the never-to-be-sufficiently-cursed levelling system, the result of which was this:


By comparison, this is Villanueva without the changed skills, using what is assigned normally for a corsair:


Unless someone can tell me how to change skills properly under the new system, we'll need to forget assigning skills to special characters and just let levelling plus a "model.minlevel" line in "initModels.c" take care of level and skills.

 

[Lonious]

Here's Villanueva's cabin officer:
View attachment 40467

Option 1: get a Spanish LoM though your served nation is Pirate. Spain is friendly, pirates are neutral, everyone else is hostile. (Be careful not to fight French ships as France is probably allied to Spain and attacking a French ship will probably cost you that LoM.)
Option 2: all-out pirate. If you somehow had a Spanish LoM before the briefing, you don't have it now. Pirates are friendly, everyone else is hostile.
Option 3: loyal Spanish privateer. Relations set the same as Spain's.

Options 1 and 2 have you start at Nevis Pirate Settlement, perfectly placed if you want to join the Brotherhood and begin your rise to piratical fame. Option 3 starts at San Juan.

Cool.

I'm thinking of putting the "Peter Blood" model to use with "slave" models for the crew. What sort of ship do you have in mind for him? For a long time I assumed "Crimson Blood" was his ship, since iirc he had a frigate in the movie (?).

I actually tried to make him start out at Bridgetown/Greenford as per the plot, then pretend the fort "detected" them. However, I can't seem to put the ship anywhere but adjacent to the castle, so the immediate result is always getting killed. I might just decide to make him start at Nevis instead.

 

[Grey Roger]

Peter Blood is a pirate. He should not have restricted crew models, he would recruit anyone who wants to join him. But once again, you're trying to use a model designed specifically by one of our modders for a reason - in this case, the two "Peter Blood" sidequests. Best to leave him alone, then anyone who wants to play that model can do whatever they want in their games, otherwise he remains the primary character in his sidequests.

Meanwhile, I've been looking at your work on the other Pirate Lords. In the absence of any way to adjust skills in a way that isn't wrecked by the levelling system, I have to leave out the skill assignments. Ability assignments are already out so that they don't give abilities which should not be available due to being locked or being disabled by the player's choice of realism setting. So the customisation for the Pirate Lords is basically a different sword from what a corsair normally gets, a flintlock pistol instead of the default short pistol, and some of them get a custom briefing officer dialog through "Robert Fletcher_dialog.c". There's also some storyline text in "initModels.c". I've rearranged their entries in "initModels.c" to group them all together, so that when you're choosing characters, you'll find the Pirate Lords in quick succession as you scroll through the list during character selection. Renaming the governor and blacksmith in Port Royale is now done simply by calling quest case "rename_PoTC".

Where did you get the name "Marcel" for Capitaine Chevalle? I can't find any reference to such a name - both the Disney wiki and the PoTC Wiki simply call him "Capitaine Chevalle".

 

[Grey Roger]

Next problem: Capitain Chevalle and Sri Sumbhajee have nothing in "Robert Fletcher_dialog.c", so they can't trigger custom code in "both_reaction.c". This isn't much of a problem - skills can't be set unless someone tells me how to get round the levelling system, abilities don't need to be set because the higher value ones may be either locked or disabled by choice of realism setting, and renaming of Port Royale governor and blacksmith is now handled by quest case "rename_PoTC" which can be triggered in quest case "StartAdventure". Weapons are given in "characters_init.c" and pretty much everything else is handled in "StartStoryline.c". And since neither Capitaine Chevalle, Sri Sumbhajee or any of the other pirate lords are ever seen at Tortuga, they don't need to be set to start there.

Edward Teague does have dialog in "Robert Fletcher_dialog.c". His cabin officer is set to be Jack Sparrow and the dialog reflects that. As far as I know, he had very little to do with young Jack - in "Hoist the Colours", Jack starts off trying to be an honest merchant, wanting nothing to do with pirates or piracy, so he certainly wouldn't be an officer on Teague's ship!

Sao Feng also has an entry in "Robert Fletcher_dialog.c", using the same dialog text as Edward Teague, which means you address the cabin officer as Jack when you're actually talking to Lian. I modified the line to remove the references to Lawrence Norrington and Jack, instead referring simply to an unnamed captain who tried to chase you, and inserting the first name of the cabin officer whoever he/she is.

 

[Lonious]

Next problem: Capitain Chevalle and Sri Sumbhajee have nothing in "Robert Fletcher_dialog.c", so they can't trigger custom code in "both_reaction.c". This isn't much of a problem - skills can't be set unless someone tells me how to get round the levelling system, abilities don't need to be set because the higher value ones may be either locked or disabled by choice of realism setting, and renaming of Port Royale governor and blacksmith is now handled by quest case "rename_PoTC" which can be triggered in quest case "StartAdventure". Weapons are given in "characters_init.c" and pretty much everything else is handled in "StartStoryline.c". And since neither Capitaine Chevalle, Sri Sumbhajee or any of the other pirate lords are ever seen at Tortuga, they don't need to be set to start there.

Edward Teague does have dialog in "Robert Fletcher_dialog.c". His cabin officer is set to be Jack Sparrow and the dialog reflects that. As far as I know, he had very little to do with young Jack - in "Hoist the Colours", Jack starts off trying to be an honest merchant, wanting nothing to do with pirates or piracy, so he certainly wouldn't be an officer on Teague's ship!

Sao Feng also has an entry in "Robert Fletcher_dialog.c", using the same dialog text as Edward Teague, which means you address the cabin officer as Jack when you're actually talking to Lian. I modified the line to remove the references to Lawrence Norrington and Jack, instead referring simply to an unnamed captain who tried to chase you, and inserting the first name of the cabin officer whoever he/she is.

Damn, actually these dialogs were supposed to work...I may have failed to send the proper files.

I'll try to look into it. Or you can always just fix these ahead...

 

[Grey Roger]

I'll leave you to provide dialog for Capitaine Chevalle and Sri Sumbhajee. Meanwhile, I've got Cutler Beckett Senior working, including a line in "PROGRAM\INTERFACE\select_storyline.c" to show his start port as Port Royale in the storyline selection screen.

Almost all officers are now being handled by 'CreateOfficer_Cheat', the same function used in "NK.c" to assign free officers to naval characters upon promotion. This doesn't allow for precise control of skills but does mean there aren't a huge load of characters being defined, potentially overloading the system. The exceptions are Ralph Fawn for Danielle and the two Dark officers for Dark Teacher, who do get full character definitions.

You've set many of the cabin officers to be the same as one of the character's officers. This means "Malcolm Hatcher" has to be removed so that you don't meet your officer's twin in a tavern, which is not good because the reason for putting "Malcolm Hatcher" in the tavern is to give further advice to novice players. I've removed him for the Pirate Lords which I've already included and which have free officers. Cutler Beckett's "Malcolm Hatcher" is now Lieutenant Bligh, for no reason other than Bligh appears in "Hoist the Colours" as another of Beckett's accomplices.

Have a look at the Wikipedia article on Black Caesar. According to that, he was a big man, which means he'll need a large size model. Fortunately, that's easy - "33_Ronald" is suitably big and is also identical to the smaller "Napitan" apart from the texture, which means the texture for "Napitan" should work on "33_Ronald". Changing the colours of the clothes and adding a different face should make him distinctive enough from "Napitan". Also according to the article, Black Caesar made friends with one of the crew and when the slave ship on which he was being transported ran into a hurricane, the sailor released Caesar and they took off in the ship's longboat. So he doesn't need an all-black crew and should start off as a castaway with one officer to represent that sailor - who will also need to be "Malcom Hatcher" and therefore made to disappear, but anyone who chooses a "Castaway" start shouldn't need advice from "Malcolm Hatcher" anyway.

If you want a pirate with an all-black crew, perhaps consider Gentleman Jocard. Originally a slave named Gombo, he killed his owner and took his name and ship. A version of this is depicted in "Hoist the Colours" - the original Gentleman Jocard is white and owns the plantation on Eleuthera along with the slaves there.

 

[Grey Roger]

Have a look at the Wikipedia article on Black Caesar. According to that, he was a big man, which means he'll need a large size model. Fortunately, that's easy - "33_Ronald" is suitably big and is also identical to the smaller "Napitan" apart from the texture, which means the texture for "Napitan" should work on "33_Ronald". Changing the colours of the clothes and adding a different face should make him distinctive enough from "Napitan".

... like this.

The face is a mixture of "Napitan" and "Bocman17", mainly to get the head tattoos from the latter. The red shirt and grey trousers of "Napitan" become beige and dull blue respectively. And he's certainly big; here he is next to Artois Voysey.


Now I just need to give him a friend at the start of the game. There's probably no point in giving him custom weapons because the "Castaway" start takes away your weapons anyway, leaving you armed with your fists and some rocks - you lost all your equipment when you were washed ashore. But Black Caesar can certainly have the sailor who released him as an officer, who will also be unarmed so you can't re-arm yourself by simply taking his stuff. You're already getting a free officer which makes this an easier "Castaway" start than normal, no need to make it even easier by giving you free weapons!

 

[Lonious]

... like this.
View attachment 40500
The face is a mixture of "Napitan" and "Bocman17", mainly to get the head tattoos from the latter. The red shirt and grey trousers of "Napitan" become beige and dull blue respectively. And he's certainly big; here he is next to Artois Voysey.
View attachment 40501

Now I just need to give him a friend at the start of the game. There's probably no point in giving him custom weapons because the "Castaway" start takes away your weapons anyway, leaving you armed with your fists and some rocks - you lost all your equipment when you were washed ashore. But Black Caesar can certainly have the sailor who released him as an officer, who will also be unarmed so you can't re-arm yourself by simply taking his stuff. You're already getting a free officer which makes this an easier "Castaway" start than normal, no need to make it even easier by giving you free weapons!

Not bad at all! Perhaps the model could even work as Bosun, Barbossa's boatswain in the first film.

 

[Grey Roger]

He's nothing to do with Barbossa. But he could be used for Blackbeard, either as "Malcolm Hatcher" in the cabin, or as a free officer. Anyway, Barbossa already has enough free officers with Pintel, Ragetti, Twigg and Koehler.

 

[Lonious]

He's nothing to do with Barbossa. But he could be used for Blackbeard, either as "Malcolm Hatcher" in the cabin, or as a free officer. Anyway, Barbossa already has enough free officers with Pintel, Ragetti, Twigg and Koehler.

Remember Bosun? The African pirate in COTBP?

 

[Grey Roger]

I don't remember him but I looked him up here:
https://pirates.fandom.com/wiki/Bo'sun_(pirate)

According to that, he could be either boatswain or first mate. He does seem to be a large man with tattoos. So Barbossa could get Ragetti, Pintel and Bo'sun as officers, and "Malcolm Hatcher" could be set up as Twigg (for no reason other than Twigg appears briefly in one scene in "Hoist the Colours", though he's a cursed skeleton at that point).

Incidentally, that explains why there's a black man named Bo'sun in "Hoist the Colours". He's not associated with Barbossa, he shows up as an escaped slave in the "Gombo the Slave" sidequest. I may change him to use the new "BlackCaesar" model as well.

 

[Lonious]

I don't remember him but I looked him up here:
https://pirates.fandom.com/wiki/Bo'sun_(pirate)

According to that, he could be either boatswain or first mate. He does seem to be a large man with tattoos. So Barbossa could get Ragetti, Pintel and Bo'sun as officers, and "Malcolm Hatcher" could be set up as Twigg (for no reason other than Twigg appears briefly in one scene in "Hoist the Colours", though he's a cursed skeleton at that point).

Incidentally, that explains why there's a black man named Bo'sun in "Hoist the Colours". He's not associated with Barbossa, he shows up as an escaped slave in the "Gombo the Slave" sidequest. I may change him to use the new "BlackCaesar" model as well.

Alright, so I may try to resume doing this soon. Should I download the latest update of the mod?

By the way, that Black Caesar / Ronald model is huge! Blender gives him 2 metres in height.

 

[Sebrian]

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.

Maybe make crew immortal as well ? And add a good sword for Jones, something special to him, as i tried his freeplay and didn't quite enjoy it as boardng ships is impossible at the start with the crappy weapon, and crew gets demolished faster than you can replace it... i know it most likely has been brought up before, just my two cents.

 

[Lonious]

Maybe make crew immortal as well ? And add a good sword for Jones, something special to him, as i tried his freeplay and didn't quite enjoy it as boardng ships is impossible at the start with the crappy weapon, and crew gets demolished faster than you can replace it... i know it most likely has been brought up before, just my two cents.

Yep I made the crew are effectively immortal and the maxed out skills / abilities should give him a huge edge over enemies. He's Davy Jones after all.

Although, are the crew actually immortal in the movies?

 

[Sebrian]

Yep I made the crew are effectively immortal and the maxed out skills / abilities should give him a huge edge over enemies. He's Davy Jones after all.

Although, are the crew actually immortal in the movies?

Well no, it is actually shown several times in the movie that the crew is not immortal, but otherwise Davey Jones freeplay is just not doable.

 

[Grey Roger]

Alright, so I may try to resume doing this soon. Should I download the latest update of the mod?

By the way, that Black Caesar / Ronald model is huge! Blender gives him 2 metres in height.

You should certainly download the latest update as you'll see what I've done for some of the FreePlay additions. But don't bother adding even more - I haven't finished with the ones you've already done, and probably won't - there are other projects requiring my attention as well. (Including yours, @Sebrian. )

Instead, how about writing some quests to truly make FreePlay more interesting? Either trophy quests for any character of a particular type, or character-specific quests for one particular character. For example, at present Raoul Rheims is just another generic character with a free officer and some other boosts. If he's supposed to be on the run from Silehard, perhaps arrange an unpleasant surprise if he's stupid enough to walk into Port Royale town hall. Perhaps make the port area dangerous too, though not immediately fatal because the player may have taken an escort quest for a merchant wanting to go to Port Royale.

As for Black Caesar, have a look at that entry for Bo'sun on pirates.fandom, which says that he's played by Isaac C. Singleton Jr. Then look up Isaac C. Singleton Jr. on IMDB:
Isaac C. Singleton Jr. - IMDb
According to that, his height is 6' 5", or 1.96m. The retextured "Ronald" is therefore the correct height!

 

[Sebrian]

nstead, how about writing some quests to truly make FreePlay more interesting? Either trophy quests for any character of a particular type, or character-specific quests for one particular character. For example, at present Raoul Rheims is just another generic character with a free officer and some other boosts. If he's supposed to be on the run from Silehard, perhaps arrange an unpleasant surprise if he's stupid enough to walk into Port Royale town hall. Perhaps make the port area dangerous too, though not immediately fatal because the player may have taken an escort quest for a merchant wanting to go to Port Royale.

Actually that could be really interesting! For example make something like "Early days of Cutler Beckett" where you have to work up your ranks in the navy and explore some of the characters background, doesn't have to be long, but it would make player work for the Dauntless and all the wealth he has, same could go for Barbossa or Davey Jones and other characters, as we don't really know much about them before they are introduced.

I have mentioned before that when you have the best ships and a lot of gold gameplay get's quite dull after a while, just my opinion.