Need Help Newbie Help - A short list of questions that I haven't found answers to, at least not in the FAQ.

[Hylie Pistof]

Dunno how it is for others, but for me it was all about time. Weeks of 12-18 hour days happened with great regularity. Any knowledge came from trial and error fumbling. My first assignment here was to take pics of every ship in the game for the shipyards. Methinks there were 278 back then and POTC was so unstable back then that I went through 3 POTC installs getting said pics. Not games, but installs. And it went downhill from there.............

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Dunno how it is for others, but for me it was all about time. Weeks of 12-18 hour days happened with great regularity. Any knowledge came from trial and error fumbling. My first assignment here was to take pics of every ship in the game for the shipyards. Methinks there were 278 back then and POTC was so unstable back then that I went through 3 POTC installs getting said pics. Not games, but installs. And it went downhill from there.............

I'm a bit confused.
What were you responding to there...?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

That was my way of saying that time and effort are mostly what is needed. Skill is also needed but is not the most important thing that is needed to mod. I believe it was Thomas Edison who said "Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

That's indeed true @Hylie Pistof!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That was my way of saying that time and effort are mostly what is needed. Skill is also needed but is not the most important thing that is needed to mod. I believe it was Thomas Edison who said "Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

Ah, gotcha! Now indeed I understand. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Grey Roger]

I've been able to determine its faction via the spyglass. It's also waving the Pirate faction flag model on top of the fort, and it also fires at me when I hoist any other flag aside from the Pirate flag. I've attached the save.

If I'm not mistaken, this is because the fort commander is defined in "PROGRAM\Characters\init\FortCommandants.c" to be PIRATE, but Turks Island's "smuggling_nation" - which determines the nationality of most ships in the vicinity - is set in "PROGRAM\ISLANDS\Islands_init.c" to be ENGLAND. In at least some periods, that "smuggling_nation" is overridden in "PROGRAM\Periods.c" to also be PIRATE. "Colonial Powers" is not one of those periods!

"smuggling_nation" also affects the flag you see if you right-click the island on the worldmap, which is why you'll see the British flag on Turks Island there. And it also affects some soldiers, which is why Isla Mona needs its "smuggling_nation" to be set again in some storylines - we can't have Spanish soldiers wandering around when the island is supposed to have been taken over by England in "Assassin", nor when it's a pirate hideout in "Ardent".

 

[Grey Roger]

By adding 'regular' quest coding you could, for example, add a sequence of events where some rumours start about a mounting expedition against a town,
then trigger a fleet in front of the fort there and if you don't get there in time the town changes hands (while on the worldmap).
But if you do get there and win the sea battle, it doesn't happen.

This probably wouldn't be the simplest feature to start out with, but I reckon I've got a fair handle on what code tweaks would be needed to make it happen.
I don't have the time to actually do it, but with your enthusiasm and my hints, I'd give this one a reasonable chance of success.

Good though to consider the potential for a 'whack a mole' effect on gameplay, which probably @Grey Roger and/or @Hylie Pistof can better describe than me.

This is exactly what the stock "Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales" did. You could see a tavern rumour about a town being under attack. If you got there in time, you could attack the attacking fleet. The fleet had already taken some damage from the fort, which meant you could help yourself to some 1st rate ships of the line relatively easily.

The main story required you to capture every town in the Caribbean. While you were off taking a town in the west, you could find a tavern rumour that one of your towns in the east was being attacked, so you had to go all the way back to save it, then find that your town in the west was being attacked. I played this story once just to see what happened when you finally succeeded, then never played it again. (You had the option to tell someone that they could go off and chase their wild dream, you didn't want any part of it, which shut down the storyline and let you continue in permanent freeplay.)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If I'm not mistaken, this is because the fort commander is defined in "PROGRAM\Characters\init\FortCommandants.c" to be PIRATE, but Turks Island's "smuggling_nation" - which determines the nationality of most ships in the vicinity - is set in "PROGRAM\ISLANDS\Islands_init.c" to be ENGLAND. In at least some periods, that "smuggling_nation" is overridden in "PROGRAM\Periods.c" to also be PIRATE. "Colonial Powers" is not one of those periods!

"smuggling_nation" also affects the flag you see if you right-click the island on the worldmap, which is why you'll see the British flag on Turks Island there. And it also affects some soldiers, which is why Isla Mona needs its "smuggling_nation" to be set again in some storylines - we can't have Spanish soldiers wandering around when the island is supposed to have been taken over by England in "Assassin", nor when it's a pirate hideout in "Ardent".

Sooo... does that mean anything should be changed for the game to make more sense?
The effect that @RLTYProds describes does not sound quite right to me.

This is exactly what the stock "Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales" did. You could see a tavern rumour about a town being under attack. If you got there in time, you could attack the attacking fleet. The fleet had already taken some damage from the fort, which meant you could help yourself to some 1st rate ships of the line relatively easily.

The main story required you to capture every town in the Caribbean. While you were off taking a town in the west, you could find a tavern rumour that one of your towns in the east was being attacked, so you had to go all the way back to save it, then find that your town in the west was being attacked. I played this story once just to see what happened when you finally succeeded, then never played it again. (You had the option to tell someone that they could go off and chase their wild dream, you didn't want any part of it, which shut down the storyline and let you continue in permanent freeplay.)

Thanks! That's indeed what I meant.
Since that makes for annoying gameplay, I think some more thinking would be required on how that feature could be implemented without it driving the player nuts.

 

[Grey Roger]

Sooo... does that mean anything should be changed for the game to make more sense?
The effect that @RLTYProds describes does not sound quite right to me.

It didn't sound quite right to me either:
Piracy at Turks Island

Thanks! That's indeed what I meant.
Since that makes for annoying gameplay, I think some more thinking would be required on how that feature could be implemented without it driving the player nuts.

It would also have to obey "DisableTownCapture", otherwise it's going to break storylines which require that certain towns are unable to change owner. And it would need to obey a toggle which is set by default to be off. That way, the only players who will be driven nuts would be the ones who want to be driven nuts.