Fixed Modifying the US Topsail Schooner

[Hylie Pistof]

I chose the US_Schooner47 and will not be spending much time on it as it is hopelessly trashed. It would take a modeler and Maya to repair this boat properly.

Done. This boat still has a bad bow wave and beep beeps. It also has fantasy rigging.
Dropbox - US_Schooner47.7z

 

[Pieter Boelen]

US Schooner beeps? I thought we should have all those issues sorted by now?
Doesn't she use a stock game hull? We should be able to redo her from that then, no?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

My personal opinion is that it is a hunk of junk and should be dropped from the game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

My personal opinion is that it is a hunk of junk and should be dropped from the game.

Do you have a screenshot of her? I can't remember what she looks like and can't check right now.

What I also can't remember is why she's in the game. I don't think she's got any specific quest use.
Maybe it was because her skin isn't actually too bad. But then we can just apply that to an ordinary schooner and be done with it?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I deleted all the screenies I had but can get new ones quickly. The hull is ok but the sails and yards are a complete fantasy and very poorly made in the first place. That combined with the beep beep says to deep six it.

EDIT: Pics. Note the bow wave. How is that square sail to be rigged? Look at how the flags are blowing one way and the yards and sails are blowing the other way. The whole ship is a mess and would take a lot of work to bring up to minimum standards. I'm not sure it can be done anyway.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I deleted all the screenies I had but can get new ones quickly. The hull is ok but the sails and yards are a complete fantasy and very poorly made in the first place. That combined with the beep beep says to deep six it.

If it is indeed the ship I think it is, with a stock PotC hull, we can HEX-edit another ship with different rigging and keep the texture while nixing the errors and fantasy rigging.

 

[pedrwyth]

If it is indeed the ship I think it is, with a stock PotC hull, we can HEX-edit another ship with different rigging and keep the texture while nixing the errors and fantasy rigging.

Already done that over schooner1 (same hull file.gm), here's what you get -
instead of

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Did you get any beeping and a bad bow wave?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Already done that over schooner1 (same hull file.gm), here's what you get -

Ah, she used to be the Topsail Schooner and now she isn't anymore, of course.
Was there anything actually different about her hull?

@Hylie Pistof: Topsail Schooners actually existed, didn't they? What makes her rigging fantasy then?
I suppose those sails look rather large. But if at all possible, I wouldn't mind keeping her as a Topsail Schooner of some kind.
Just for variety's sake....

 

[Hylie Pistof]

What is wrong to me is the second square sail. It has no lower yard meaning any ropes to it would have to go down to the hull through the gaff somehow. I also have a vague memory of working on either that ship or the other one and I had to give up on it because the gaff yards did not want to work out. Note how they go in the opposite direction that they are supposed to.

 

[pedrwyth]

Was there anything actually different about her hull?

I didn't check anything but file size (both the same) and the header in hex editor - only the texture file was different bortoutshoonrAM.tga instead of bortoutshoonr44.tga - so that's all I changed with my example.

Did you get any beeping and a bad bow wave?

Didn't hear any beeping (how obvious/intrusive is it? - I might even had had the sound off - I often don't bother with it when testing stuff that doesn't need it) and I didn't look at the bow wave (again I'm not sailing them).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Didn't hear any beeping (how obvious/intrusive is it? - I might even had had the sound off - I often don't bother with it when testing stuff that doesn't need it) and I didn't look at the bow wave (again I'm not sailing them).

That beeping is normally VERY intrusive and I think occurs even if sound is off.
I don't think it is an actual sound effect; it is more something scary....

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Would this be doable?
- Replace that Topsail Schooner hull GM with the HEX-edited stock game one @pedrwyth made
- Re-attach her custom rigging to that hull, that should be readable (I think?)
- Remove that second square sail so that she ends up looking like this:

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yes that is all doable. I would start by replacing the fore mast completely and starting over. It all depends on if the gaff on the rear mast can be made to behave. I know i tried and failed before with a similar ship, like a sloop or something.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I went back into the past, all the way to the earliest version of this ship I could find from Build 14 Beta 1.
This version does NOT beep. See attached.
This also returns her original deck texture(s) on the hull and masts to make her more unique.

So much for the good news. The bad is that yes, she DOES have bad rope data:

Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 2) (begin group=0, end group=0)
Begin pointer = 544556100? end pointer = 0
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 4) (begin group=0, end group=0)
Begin pointer = 544560140? end pointer = 0
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 5) (begin group=2, end group=0)
Begin pointer = 544556100? end pointer = 0
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 11) (begin group=-1, end group=0)
Begin pointer = 544557716? end pointer = 0
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 10) (begin group=-1, end group=0)
Begin pointer = 544557716? end pointer = 0
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 9) (begin group=-1, end group=0)
Begin pointer = 544557716? end pointer = 0
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 8) (begin group=0, end group=-1)
Begin pointer = 0? end pointer = 544557716
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 18) (begin group=0, end group=-1)
Begin pointer = 0? end pointer = 553322844
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 19) (begin group=0, end group=-1)
Begin pointer = 0? end pointer = 553322844
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 20) (begin group=0, end group=-1)
Begin pointer = 0? end pointer = 553322844
Bad rope data for rope: (rope num = 21) (begin group=0, end group=-1)
Begin pointer = 0? end pointer = 553322844

From my side, I happy enough if those logs could be removed.
But I wouldn't object to her rigging being further updated to match with that real photo posted above.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As a bonus, here's the US_Brig47 also with her original livery restored to make her more different.

 

[Armada]

That beeping is normally VERY intrusive and I think occurs even if sound is off.
I don't think it is an actual sound effect; it is more something scary....

I'm pretty sure it's a BIOS beep code that comes from the motherboard itself, not the speakers. Normally it's related to component faults or overheating, I think, but in this case it's probably just the PC's way of saying "something in this game is horribly messed-up".

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@pedrwyth or @Hylie Pistof: Any chance of some further work on this ship based on my above files?
A "quick fix" just to get rid of the log entries would be fine by me.

I'm pretty sure it's a BIOS beep code that comes from the motherboard itself, not the speakers. Normally it's related to component faults or overheating, I think, but in this case it's probably just the PC's way of saying "something in this game is horribly messed-up".

That matches quite nicely with what I always imaged as well.

 

[pedrwyth]

I should be able to take out the bad ropes and leave @Hylie Pistof to rebuild the sails and rigging to your specification at his leisure

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Thanks!

leave @Hylie Pistof to rebuild the sails and rigging to your specification at his leisure

That may be considered an optional wish. It would certainly be nice to NOT have fantasy rigging, but if Hylie doesn't want to work on her, that's also fine.

At least now with the restored old hull file, I'm hoping that it actually is possible to get her 'right'.