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Solved Increased random encounter chance

Nethaeru

Powder Monkey
Storm Modder
Hello Everyone!

I was wondering if there a way to increase the chances of encountering random ships (Sail Ho!) while sailing in Direct Sail?
I'm using Build mod 14 Beta 3.

Thanks in advance!
 
maybe increasing this value "#define MAX_SHIPS_ON_SEA" in internal settings might give you some result. Altough I'm not sure.
 
I had seen that option but was kinda hoping that would not be it, for it has a side not saying "DO NOT TOUCH THIS"
I increased the value and it crashed my game when i loaded up a save.

I hope there is another way..
 
Go to nk.c and go to row 2149. There you will find more directsail options.
 
You did it!
That is exactly what i was looking for, i changed some values and managed to get 3 Sail Ho's within just a few hours of gametime.

Thank you so much for your help! :onya
 
Please tell us which values you chose, maybe we can include it in the next modpack if they are better balanced.
 
Is there not something relevant also in CCCDirectSail.c? Or did I move ALL those values into NK.c? Can't remember now....
 
I changed DIRECTENCOUNTERCHANCE from 22% to 50%
and ENCOUNTERBREAK from 6.o to 3.0

Which makes it a 50% chance every 3 hours of sailing, I think it's a bit to much though. Think i'll go with something like 25% every 3 hours. But it's definitely an improvement over 22% every 6 hours, makes sailing much more exciting.

CCCDirectSail.c looks to be just the base code for the random encounters, nothing really customizable.
 
An encounter any 3 hours would be too many for me :aar

But I will be not the rule with my playing style. But when I have an encounter, I am busy with that much longer than 3 hours, so for me there would be no sense in having the next encounter before I'm done with the first.
 
An encounter any 3 hours would be too many for me :aar

But I will be not the rule with my playing style. But when I have an encounter, I am busy with that much longer than 3 hours, so for me there would be no sense in having the next encounter before I'm done with the first.
I wonder if a random encounter can happen if you're already in/near one, so far it hasn't happened to me yet. Seems like it only initiates if there are no other ships nearby (aside from friendlies).
 
Correct, because random encounters "erase" the ships that are already around.

So do we know some better values to use yet?
 
I think the numbers he is sugesting are better.
As far as I could see the "counter" starts after an encounter. So then a 50% chance in 3 hours would be nice. It would be a nice sailing experience. Maybe it should take note of the size of the worldmap. If you increase the worldmap size then I think the change or time should also increased by that (theoraticly it should be increased quadraticly).
 
Worldmap size changes between Open Sea Mod on/off. We could have the value calculated instead of defined though.
 
I think the best frequency of direct sail encounters is linked to the players style to ply.

I for example use direct sailing and direct sailing alone, nothing else. This means, it take half a day at least even to get close to one encounter. Much longer with bad winds. And if an encounter turns out toi become sort of a chase with equally fast ships, it can go for days. So for my playing style, another possible encounter after 3 hours would be completely useless.

If one uses fast travel after getting the 'sail ho' message, to quickly engage and capture the enemy, this may be of course different.
 
I'm currently using DIRECTENCOUNTERCHANCE = 25% and ENCOUNTERBREAK = 3

Like Skyworm i also only use direct sailing and the percentage is low enough to sail for half a day without anything happening, so you can go from island to island somewhat safely.
But on longer journeys you should definitely be prepared for a pirate or enemy encounter.

Also i don't think another encounter will happen whilst you're engaged in combat or still near the current encounter. I've been having a few skirmishes that lasted for an extended period of time and never has an other encounter interrupted the current one, though this might just be luck.. will need some further testing on that.

If you're using the original smaller world map i'd suggest going with the 50% every 3 hours.

But as Skyworm said; these settings are entirely up to the player, some like sailing and rather not fight whilst others just want to unleash hell every hour.
 
Like this then?
Code:
  }
   else
   {
     DIRECTENCOUNTERCHANCE =                 25;     // chance in percent that an encounter fleet appears every hour
     DIRECTENCOUNTERDISTANCE =               1000;   // distance from player at which random ships appear
     ISLANDSWITCHDISTANCE =                 5000.0; // for islandcell mode only: distance from island at which transfer to neighbour island starts
     ENCOUNTERBREAK =                   3.0;   // LDH - Changed to float, number is hours per encounter, directsail is called every 5 minutes occasionally
Isn't that going to vastly reduce the number of encounters?
25% chance instead of 50% and every three hours instead of every hour?

Also i don't think another encounter will happen whilst you're engaged in combat or still near the current encounter.
That is indeed deliberately coded that way. An encounter would erase the ships that are already around, so you don't want that happening in mid-battle. :no
 
Isn't that going to vastly reduce the number of encounters?25% chance instead of 50% and every three hours instead of every hour?

The original was 22% every 6 hours. i changed that to 50% every 3 hours, but i thought the 50% was a bit to much so i halved that to 25%. The 3 hour interval seems to work well in my opinion, the percentage should be up to the player.
I'm pretty pleased with the number of encounters i have now, I don't necessarily expect trouble when sailing between the islands but i sure am prepared for it.
With the original settings there was such a low chance of encountering anyone i could basically just exchange all my combat supplies with extra trade cargo, Wasn't like pirates were gonna show up :shrug
 
Is that WITH the Open Sea Mod/Iron Man Mode then? Because the values I had were 50% every one hour. :shock
 
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