Mod Release Open Sea Mod and Realism Settings

[Hylie Pistof]

If you want to see your ship speed on screen go to a store and buy yourself a good compass and chronometer.

Also, it might be possible to have the compass show all the time by settings in "advanced options".

 

[stljeffbb]

If you want to see your ship speed on screen go to a store and buy yourself a good compass and chronometer.

Also, it might be possible to have the compass show all the time by settings in "advanced options".

Hello Hylie Pistoff....thanks for the tips....yeah, I only have a cheap compass and have not seen a chronometer in the stores and shopfronts I have encountered...perhaps my era is too early (Blaze Devlin 16th c.)? I think I did set it to compass all the time...also sailing arcade mode just to make this easier to sail...

Regards,

Jeff

 

[Hylie Pistof]

One has to have reached a certain level before the good compass becomes available in stores. It should not take you long to reach that level, and then it will be in the larger colonies first. Good sailing!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The appearance of the navigation items is not period-dependent (even if perhaps historically it should be).

 

[stljeffbb]

OK, I have done some sailing between Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, and what I propose is not perfect, but might lead to better experiences:

The following settings got me from PR to SD in approximately ten hours sailing in arcade mode (so I could sail in a fairly straight line and see my speed)

In \Bethesda Softworks\Pirates of the Caribbean\PROGRAM InternalSettings.h find TIMESCALAR_SEA and change it to 20 (from 5)
In \Bethesda Softworks\Pirates of the Caribbean\PROGRAM\BATTLE_INTERFACE find LogInterface.c and change:

WaitDate("", 0, 0, 1, 0, 0);

to

WaitDate("", 0, 0, 0, 1, 11);

What this will do is change the "game clock" so that each real life second is worth twenty game seconds, and every hour, the clock will skip ahead roughly one hour. I had to put the extra minutes in because sometimes the clock does strange things (like only skip ahead, say, fifty-five minutes when it should skip ahead one hour [based on the code]...then, after skipping from say 21:00 to 21:57, it will skip again at 22:00 to some other time close to an hour)...the extra eleven minutes usually prevents double skipping.....

The largest problem I see this doing is, yes, with the weather and also the ambient phases. The original game did a good job of having things like the sun and moon in different positions of the sky based on time, but this code seems to mess with that a bit for some reason.

Also, I HIGHLY recommend tweaking the amount of XP that captains earn....the code looks like this:

					if (AUTO_SKILL_SYSTEM)
{
if (CheckAttribute(mchr, "SailingMinutes")) Exp = sti(mchr.SailingMinutes) * 35;
AddPartyExpChar(mchr, "Sailing", Exp);
}
else
{
//BB was * 35, now * 15 (Aim of this section of tweaks: reduction in XP given out during Direct Sailing) - 15July2011
if (CheckAttribute(mchr, "SailingMinutes")) Exp = sti(mchr.SailingMinutes) * 15;
AddPartyExp(mchr, Exp * 0.5); //BB added * 0.5
}
mchr.SailingMinutes = 0;

I recommend changing "35" to "3" and "15" to "2". This will result in a much more logical level up rate (actually seemingly similar to the "old" island hopping Directsail method)

In addition, you could also change the weather to result in less dramatic changes, however, as I alluded to, there are some massive weather changes (reminicient to Build 13 actually) when using the above mentioned changes...

If it is possible, it seems to me that, if there is this "coordinates" grid that exists, I wonder if it is posssible to simply expand it by four times...ha ha, if it were only that simple is my guess...where is that blasted SDK when we need it, lol...

Lastly, in real life, it takes sixteen hours to travel from Puerto Rico to Santo Domingo at a straight fourteen knots, so getting it to ten is better, but not totally perfect.

Back to more testing,

Jeff

EDIT: Another way to "add time" would be to circumvent the

WaitDate("", 0, 0, 0, 1, 11);

entirely make all zeros here while increasing TIMESCALAR_SEA to about sixty or so (maybe a little less)...using TIMESCALAR_SEA sixty does not wreck havoc upon the weather (as much), especially if you make it more of a smooth transition between types

 

[Pieter Boelen]

14 knots is really quite fast for a sailing boat.

I wonder if it's possible to take the regular worldmap coordinates and make a second copy of that, which is scaled and used for the calculations instead of the regular one.

 

[stljeffbb]

14 knots is really quite fast for a sailing boat.

I wonder if it's possible to take the regular worldmap coordinates and make a second copy of that, which is scaled and used for the calculations instead of the regular one.

Aye to the first part, although in arcade mode I tended to average I would say about ten knots (I really did have a bit over eleven knots much of the time)..I actually made the trip between PR and SD three times there-and-back total, and the times were similar...the speeds were too, with only the occasional "light breeze"...and of course I once ran into some big four ship pirate armada that sank me, lol

To the second part....absolutely! Pieter, do you know where that is in the code? I'm not a very good coder at all, only a hack as I mentioned, however, I do have a tiny bit experience in working with code, and I might be able to figure it out if I get a look at it...I have worked with hex editing (my "masterpiece" was figuring out how to clone objects for Silent Hunter III...thread is still around after six years at subsim.com), and I taught myself a bit of VB3 to work with the campaign manager mod for Red Baron 3d to make it a bit more like a RPG, among other small mods for more recent games like Oblivion, Civ 4, and Civ 4 Colonization, oh yeah, and I've been working on Crusader Kings lately (trying to improve combat in that game, but I've lost a bit of interest atm lol, and plus CK2 comes out in February)....basically, I want to make a game much more difficult than it is and then try to beat it....

Right now, I'm going to test taking TIMESCALAR_SEA to somehting like forty-five or sixty and see how it goes....

Jeff

 

[stljeffbb]

OK, I think I've arrived at a setting I like....

For me, I think it is best to disregard the "time skipping" in LogInterface.c completely and set TIMESCALAR_SEA to forty-seven...I have also made the following changes in the code:

// ======================================
// WEATHER CONTROLS - JL
// ======================================

#define MAX_WBALLAST					10		// INT - how far the weighting will swing in favor of current trend.. use positive integer between 0 and 50 - 0 is no swing - 50 is major swing.. this is for Windspeed orig 25
#define MAX_RBALLAST					10		// ^^DITTO for rain orig 25
#define MAX_FBALLAST					10		// ^^DITTO for fog orig 25
#define MAX_ABALLAST					10.0	// FLOAT - ^^DITTO for wind angle orig 25

#define MAX_WINDCHANGE					3		// INT - How much the wind CAN change in one hour - use positive integer between 0 and 20 orig 5
#define MAX_FOGCHANGE					3		// INT - ^^DITTO for fog orig 5
#define MAX_RAINCHANGE					3		// INT - ^^DITTO for rain orig 5
#define MAX_ANGLECHANGE					2.0		// FLOAT - ^^DITTO for wind angle orig 1

#define FREE_FOG						1		// BOOL - Allow fog during daylight hours 0 - false 1 - true

These weather changes are not so jarring, although it allows for somewhat more of a change in wind angle...

When changing TIMESCALAR_SEA to forty-seven, there is still some weirdness when the daylight scenery changes to dusk and dusk to night, etc. The clock goes back in time anywhere from ten to fourteen minutes, however, to me it is a minor issue (and wouldn't even be known without a clock and ringing of the bells)...

Times were very good....making two trips there and two trips back with quite favorable winds (again in arcade mode, and I should mention at the apprentice level) and TIMESCALAR_SEA at forty-seven, it took me twelve to fourteen hours...once I put "realism" back on, and I actually have to tack, my guess is it will take three to four game days to get from PR to SD, just about where the WorldMap puts travel between said places...this might work!

However, sailing skill is still way too juiced for my liking, so more a-tweaking I will do!

Jeff

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I will be interested in hearing your comments when you try sailing in realistic mode. My heavily laden merchant ships generally sail in the 2-4 knot range with top speeds with a 30 knot wind in the 8-9 knot range.

Black Bart's tweaks had many of us confused. I wish he was still around to explain it to you.

 

[stljeffbb]

I will be interested in hearing your comments when you try sailing in realistic mode. My heavily laden merchant ships generally sail in the 2-4 knot range with top speeds with a 30 knot wind in the 8-9 knot range.

Black Bart's tweaks had many of us confused. I wish he was still around to explain it to you.

Yes, I have logged some sailing in "realistic" mode.....yes, as I suspected, it takes longer when one has to tack (ha ha of course!)....I like the timescale now quite well, but I now notice some other things...

Here is what I would like to see...the ability to sail out into the wide open sea without instantly bumping into islands (it is a bit disconcerting to still have Puerto rico in sight to the rear when the Land Ho screen comes up and suddenly I'm by Isle Mona [or whatever])...in addition, I feel that the distances of "escape" from enemy ships allows for other ships to suddenly appear erasing your former enemy who might only have been 1100 meters behind you (just outside the current distance to be "in battle" in certain situations)...the way I see it, a ship should be out there up to 10000 meters away...admittedly, I was sailing between PR and Santo Domingo, and there are two islands in between, but it seems to me the perspective is a bit island heavy....

So with that said, I have found the file that seemingly holds the WorldMap coordinates (located in \Bethesda Softworks\Pirates of the Caribbean\PROGRAM\WorldMap in the file worldmap_init.c), but I will heavily assume it is not as simple as multiplying by four to increase distances...however, I just did find this little tidbit in the worldmap_globals.c file:

#define WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE	19.607843

I also see that it was originally sixty, so I wonder what this does, and I will find if it affects direct scale!

Jeff

EDIT: Well, I'll be a.....that little tidbit in worldmap_globals.c seemed to do the trick!

:will

It took me almost sixty-three hours to get from PR to SD (with TIMESCALAR_SEA set to 47), MUCH longer than normal (even with new settings)....at the end, I was chased by three pirate ships, and I could not find the island because of haze! Even on arcade setting, that was pretty cool! I will do some more testing to confirm this, however, I think we might have solved our map scale issue! This opens up the possibility of having a decent time scale now....probably could even go back to five or even less...



Jeff

EDIT TWO: If this does work, my next item will be to see historically how many ships were sailing in the Caribbean to try to determine if a fifty percent chance per hour of getting a "sail ho" is appropiate....

 

[stljeffbb]

OK, after some testing the WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE in worldmap_globals.c definitely does the trick, changing the scale of the coordinates of the Build 14 world! However, it also messes with the positions of landmasses on the overall "Caribbean Sea" map. Think of it this way: take each land mass and shrink it by three to six times and then try to sail to it! Using arcade mode, I can see my little ship icon on the map, but when it gets to where it should, I'm not really close....sometimes, I get lucky and the "Approaching Isle Luana" comes up to give me a general idea, however it is still quite a challenge to get there!

I should mention that above phenomena was most observed when I changed WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE to 120. The original was sixty, and my hunch the number was changed to 19.607843 to match the scale of said "Caribbean Sea" map.

So, as I see it:

1) The ability to change the scale of the map opens up the possibility of real time Directsail sailing! However, I'm brand new to community, and I can understand why a majority might NOT want this option.

2) A new static "Caribbean Sea" map would have to be made....I could probably use the current static map, open up my old PhotoDraw 2.0 and shrink the islands, but it would be rather tiny looking....realisticly speaking it would be correct! But uber-realism does not always make for a good game (didn't I read that somewhere?)

3) I'm sure a realistic alternative could be made....here are the rough "correct time" options:

WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE = 20 (almost the current value), TIMESCALAR_SEA = 45 (but 60 might work better to avoid strange time skipping)
WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE = 60 (former), TIMESCALAR_SEA = 15
WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE = 120, TIMESCALAR_SEA = 7.5 if float, otherwise 8 (but 10 might work better to avoid strange time skipping)

As can be seen there is an inverse relationship going on....this might require a bit of further tweaking, but the way I see it it might not have to be too exact but just allow for more "open sea" if this is desirable.

I mean, I know what I like, and perhaps at least this thread might help people find out how to edit some of these things in the code to acheive what they want....I did not set out to change what goes into Build 14, but, if this is what is liked, then why not?

Any thoughts?

Jeff

 

[Black Bart]

I will be interested in hearing your comments when you try sailing in realistic mode. My heavily laden merchant ships generally sail in the 2-4 knot range with top speeds with a 30 knot wind in the 8-9 knot range.

Black Bart's tweaks had many of us confused. I wish he was still around to explain it to you.

I wrote great swathes of info on why XP given during the direct sailing section was borked(as in over powered), especially if you used the default game progression system(in the rpg progression system XP never relates directly to char skill improvement, so it wasn't such an issue here, but still not balanced that well imho). I'll see if i can find my threads about all that:

http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php/topic/17751-black-barts-tweaks-and-balancing/

Have a look through that Jeff and see if any helps you, and welcome to modding the build mod - lots of fun and frustration(in equal measure) await you!

none of the stuff in that link is 'final' in any way, it was all in the 'tweaking and balancing' stage of testing values out etc, so feel free to experiment and see what you come up with

 

[stljeffbb]

I will be interested in hearing your comments when you try sailing in realistic mode. My heavily laden merchant ships generally sail in the 2-4 knot range with top speeds with a 30 knot wind in the 8-9 knot range.

Black Bart's tweaks had many of us confused. I wish he was still around to explain it to you.

I wrote great swathes of info on why XP given during the direct sailing section was borked(as in over powered), especially if you used the default game progression system(in the rpg progression system XP never relates directly to char skill improvement, so it wasn't such an issue here, but still not balanced that well imho). I'll see if i can find my threads about all that:

http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php/topic/17751-black-barts-tweaks-and-balancing/

Have a look through that Jeff and see if any helps you, and welcome to modding the build mod - lots of fun and frustration(in equal measure) await you!

none of the stuff in that link is 'final' in any way, it was all in the 'tweaking and balancing' stage of testing values out etc, so feel free to experiment and see what you come up with

Hello Black Bart! I totally agree about the XP thing....I currently have (what I believe to be) the following XP and skills modifier set to 0.8:

					if (AUTO_SKILL_SYSTEM)
{
if (CheckAttribute(mchr, "SailingMinutes")) Exp = sti(mchr.SailingMinutes) * 0.8;
AddPartyExpChar(mchr, "Sailing", Exp);
}
else
{
//BB was * 35, now * 15 (Aim of this section of tweaks: reduction in XP given out during Direct Sailing) - 15July2011
if (CheckAttribute(mchr, "SailingMinutes")) Exp = sti(mchr.SailingMinutes) * 0.8;
AddPartyExp(mchr, Exp * 0.5); //BB added * 0.5
}

It seems to work, giving only intermittent upgrades...yes I agree balancing is very important to gameplay....(WARNING: "war story") in Oblivion, because I was tired of being way too powerful right off the bat and not having a challenge, I made a character mod (mostly on pencil and paper, how quaint!) that took all of the skills and attributes including majors down to no higher than ten, with most minors being around two or three...I then changed how quickly the skills leveled up, and then (using an online random number generator and pencil/paper) I randomly selected my race, birthsign, and starting place in the world. Lastly, no cheating! When I was killed, start the whole process over....I must admit it was very fulfilling! We have some elements of this here, and while perhaps not as developed as Oblivion, it can still be a great experience....

....the biggest XP/skills thorn, for me, was the sailing levels, and it seems the above spot in the code deals nicely with that...for now, based on my limited game play, everything else seems OK...

Thanks for the link, however, it seems to go to an error code.....I would very much like to see what you swathe about!

Regards,

Jeff

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The link Black Bart provided goes to the modders forum. You are not a modder yet, so you get an error.

If you are using the same XP system as Black Bart, then you might understand what he was doing. I use the auto system and had no ideer what he was talking about as I got wildly different results.

The XP system has been recently tweaked some more and I feel it is pretty challenging if you try the harder settings like swashbuckler.

About the time scaling, this is very interesting and I'm sure some changes will be made. The map changes are very intriguing. It would make navigation much more difficult. We will have to test this and see how it works out.

There is also the fact that some day we will be trying to integrate the POTC map and the COAS map, so this is good work.

 

[stljeffbb]

The link Black Bart provided goes to the modders forum. You are not a modder yet, so you get an error.

If you are using the same XP system as Black Bart, then you might understand what he was doing. I use the auto system and had no ideer what he was talking about as I got wildly different results.

The XP system has been recently tweaked some more and I feel it is pretty challenging if you try the harder settings like swashbuckler.

About the time scaling, this is very interesting and I'm sure some changes will be made. The map changes are very intriguing. It would make navigation much more difficult. We will have to test this and see how it works out.

There is also the fact that some day we will be trying to integrate the POTC map and the COAS map, so this is good work.

@ Hylie Pistoff....thanks! I'm glad you think the map changes are interesting....here are some pics to whet your appetite:

The above was a quick hack job...I reduced the size of the islands by three (reflecting a WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE = 60 as opposed to 19.607843

Here is a pic in game...ha ha, when I first loaded it, the map was upside down for some reason...a quick 180 rotate fixed that lol...

The larger the WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE is, the smaller the islands likely need to be, although **I have not tested this in game yet to see if the islands are roughly in the right place...I have to go to work

Thoughts? Are the islands too small even at WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE=60?

Jeff

 

[Thagarr]

Fantastic work on the timescales mate, well done!

Hylie is correct, a lot of this will be invaluable whne we actually start merging POTC and COAS!

I am all for a more accurate and realistic map, perhaps if you shrunk the legends a bit you could increase the scale to make the islands more visible?

I really wish they had stuck with the old Sea Dogs chart navigation, in my opinion that was far superior to the cartoonish console pandering world map we got in POTC.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sea Dogs chart navigation? How did that work?

 

[Thagarr]

You can see glimpses of it in this trailer :

I'll look around and see if I can find a better video.

 

[stljeffbb]

Ahh yes, good ole' Sea Dogs....as mentioned spent many an hour in that universe...

@Thagarr...yes, I will look into the legends for things like font size (if it exists)...also, when one looks at a real map of the Caribbean, things are actually fairly close to one another (based on map scale)...I feel that whoever worked on the maps (Build 13 and 14 as I have not seen anything earlier) did a great job! Also, the Build 14 map looks more proportionally correct to the real life Caribbean map, however, the map ideas I'm working on are, perhaps, more correct to the Directsail method and for those who use arcade mode, their little ship icon will be correct in the map (in other words, when you mess with the WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE, you mess with where the little ship icon shows up, and already plenty of times in my testing the map will say I'm on land when I have not yet made sight of said land in Directsail)...lastly, even though the map looks "less correct" in proportion, to me the important thing is that it allows for a "more realistic" time frame (fifteen game seconds to one real second in the WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE = 60 setting) and, even more important, more open sea sailing and thusly more chances to be out in the middle of nowheres attacked by a quicker pirate boat than your old barque....no forts to help you (even though that is a comical residue I have noticed from my tests in arcade mode...my spyglass gives me the info of the pirate ship 500 yards and closing, but it has also given me the info of the nearest Spanish fort 12000 yards (!) and fading!!!

Regards,

Jeff

 

[stljeffbb]

I've done some more testing.....a few things:

1) With WDM_MAP_TO_SEA_SCALE = 60 and TIMESCALAR_SEA = 15, the islands spots are sometimes correct, sometimes slightly off, and with Cuba, quite a bit off....good news is, this can be eyeballed and can be fixed fairly easily with taking screen shots of the actual ports and then moving the islands on the map to fit the places...Cuba might be a bit off, either Santiago (de Cuba) or Havana...but with smaller islands, it might not be as big of a deal...

2) However, Tortuga for some reason has not shown up at all....in other words, when I get the "land" icon in the WorldMap sailing mode (near what seems is Tortuga [although it has no label in my Worldmap saling mode version of the game]), I can not find it....I will do some more testing with this to see if I can find it

3) Speaking of sailing near Tortuga / San Salvador...when I sailed into San Salvador using the Worldmap method, when the static map said I was close, I went back to the Worldmap and the computer had put me a fair bit north of said San Salvador....not a super huge deal, but those who use things like Arcade mode and Worldmap sailing will have to be told to use the "sail to" command once they get near a port, because chances are the port will not readily appear until using the automatic "sail to" command...in previous testing, I did manage to find Hispanola using Directsail from Puerto Rico after being told "Land ho" and sailing towards where I thought it was, however, I felt like it was a bit of luck...in other words, I do believe the scalar functions also mess with where one is teleported in Directsail once a new island cell is entered....of course, others might see this as a challange! :ty

So, with some more testing, screenshots, and tweaking, I should be able to get a proper static map that when the little ship icon is shown, everywhere will be correct or close to it....of course, if the gods of the Build mod deem it satisfactory (and I'm not assuming that will happen...ha ha, I might be the only one playing with my map!), then of course someone will have to clean up the map and make it pretty again....I will most certainly defer to those who have thusly created the current maps and offer my help if needed....if asked I probably could do this (as in "make it pretty") but it would take me a bit of time to do so...not too much actually, and especailly if I have the pixel coordinates for the current map and the size (which I will have both), but I also do not want to take away any credit from those who have worked so hard....I know these things can take a lot of time and effort, and I greatly appreciate those efforts!



Jeff