Fixed Montanez can't join you if you have too many ships

[Grey Roger]

In the sidequest "Strange Things Going On in the Archipelago", you're supposed to sail to Barbados, where you meet the Montanez, commanded by Mergildo Hurtado. After defeating the two Animist ships which are attacking it, you teleport to Bridgetown tavern, where Mergildo Hurtado tries to join you with a 'SetCompanionIndex(pchar, -1, GetCharacterIndex(npchar.id))' command. If you ended the battle with a full fleet, e.g. you had at least one companion ship already and you captured the Animist ships, that won't work.

The reason it's never been reported is probably that it doesn't break the quest. Mergildo Hurtado's dialog also sets attribute "pchar.quest.ANIMISTS" to "to_barkue_complete". If the ship is sunk, "pchar.quest.ANIMISTS" is set to "barkue_drown". Padre Domingues' dialog checks "pchar.quest.ANIMISTS" for both these values and responds accordingly. So, the barque wasn't sunk during the battle, it wasn't sunk anywhere else because it never joined you, "pchar.quest.ANIMISTS" remains unchanged, and Padre Domingues rewards you for escorting the ship.

It's still a bit silly, though. So, a bit of extra dialog for Mergildo Hurtado and something in "quests_side.c" to make you stand up, and...


So you go away, sell the captured Animist ships, return to the tavern, and talk again to Mergildo Hurtado:


Originally I thought to lock the sea so you couldn't leave port until you've sold a ship and Mergildo Hurtado has joined you. But that can break "Tales of a Sea Hawk". It's possible that you've reached this point in "Strange Things Going On..." at the same time as you're escorting Ewan Glover's ship to Bridgetown.

Spoiler

This actually happened to me once - I'd started "Tales of a Sea Hawk" with a stormy start, which dumped me somewhere to the west - it might even have been Bonaire. In any case, I visited Bonaire and started "Strange Things Going On..." before I went to Barbados and started the main story. By the time I reached Port Royale, I already had enough reputation to do "Help the Church". The first part of the main story sent me back to Barbados, where I helped the church and then did the story stuff in Speightstown. Back at Port Royale, I got the mission to escort Ewan Glover and the letter for Padre Domingues. And so I ended up with Ewan Glover's ship and both Animist ships.

If it's night time, you can go from the tavern to the port, where you talk to Ewan and Wilfred, then you'd normally go to Grey Rock Bay - but you can't if Mergildo Hurtado locked the sea! However, Mergildo Hurtado will stay in the tavern until you're ready to escort him, so it doesn't matter if you sail away and come back - and in fact, if you've just escorted Ewan Glover, this is probably a good thing because your next job in the main story is to meet Tobias and sail Rabel Yverneau's frigate out of Speightstown. Any companion ship you have is teleported to Speightstown as well, and the Montanez won't live long in front of Speightstown fort and a French fleet. So you probably want to leave Mergildo Hurtado where he is until you've taken Rabel Yverneau to Port Royale!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Yet another good catch and solution, @Grey Roger!

And indeed having quests just go into a pressure-less 'pause' is a pretty good option as far as I'm concerned.
That gives more freedom to the players and I'm all for that.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

That's how it should have been from the start, thanks for fixing this oversight, @Grey Roger!!!