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    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Personal and Pirate Flag Selection

The blank alpha channel flag is VERY important because that's the flag that's displayed when no flag should be displayed.
All masts display TWO flags: one ensign and one pennant. However, one of the two uses the alpha channel flag so you don't see it.

Using another row of flags won't work; we'd need the source code for that for sure, which we don't have.
That's why Pirate_KK made the mod use many different files instead. Which is already a HUGE achievement that I originally thought impossible.
I just loooove being proven wrong! :cheeky

There is a limit to the size the TX Converter will properly convert; I think it's at 2048 pixels or so.
We've tried before just extending it, but that won't work.

Basically, I'd suggest forgetting about adding MORE flags to the game; that isn't even remotely easy.

Feel free to change the pirate and personal flags available to a more interesting set.
Then give me the final list of descriptions for all flags and I'll see if I can get the dialog flag change code written.
Shouldn't be too difficult, that.
 
Well this is likely the list of Personal Flags we will end up sticking with(so to base any dialogue on):

0= Polish flag
1= Civil flag of Hamburg(the white castle on a red background, so a German flag)
2= Scotish flag(Blue/white diagonal cross)
3= Golden lion(passant, likely the 'Lion of England')
4= Ensign of the Russian navy
5= Pirates Ahoy! symbol(arm and sabre browser icon)
6= Russian Presidents flag

That's what we have currently, and likely to keep for a while as we can't increase the number. Still Pieter, one thing i'm thinking is that if all it takes is to change the line in standard.c:

sl.(sn).start.Flags.Personal =0;

So that the zero is a number from 0-6, then it sounds like quite a bit of work to program that into dialogue in the game? We can always make a note in the game instructions on this, and people can change that number before they play if they don't want the new default 'Pirates Ahoy!' Personal Flag?

Not meaing to take the wind out of sails and everything, but this is a pretty simple manual change that most people could do? On the Pirate flag issue, there seems to be more choice there(looking at all the pirate flag textures), and time periods etc, so for that it might make sense to have an in game crew dialogue option, for just 7 personal flags less so maybe?

Having said that looking at that range of personal flag types maybe we can get a better mix, one that might be a bit more 'historical' to the Caribbean and time period?

Scotland DID(yeah i know) have a seperate interest in the Caribbean over the English interest. Infact the first real banking institutions were created by the scots for their enterprise here, so i'd be in favour of keeping that flag as is for that historical aspect. Although i could come up with a general uk flag maybe to cover it all, even scotland(something like the royal coat of arms from the era that includes the unicorn to represent scotland etc).

The english golden lion is an important one, the Caribbean became a huge fulcrum for English power in the era.

The Pirates Ahoy! flag(no 5) is good to keep as the new default i'd say.

Russians made this game in the first place, and although i'm not aware of much historical data concerning their involvement in the Caribbean of this period, we should probably keep a 'russian flag' in the mix.

So that's four out of seven flags that should, imo, be in the choice.

Shame the EU didn't exist back then, as we could group a bunch of european flags under that ;) So we have three spaces that maybe can be used differently, although as pirate KK made this possible we should keep the Polish flag also. So what two other flags are worth swapping in? suggestions and idea's on all this?
 
Other flags? French and Dutch? Spanish and Portagee? :wp Or just some cool looking generic flags?


I tried this last night, and got the golden lion ok. But now I can't change it to anything else. Will keep trying.
 
Hylie Pistoff said:
Other flags? French and Dutch? Spanish and Portagee? :wp Or just some cool looking generic flags?

I tried this last night, and got the golden lion ok. But now I can't change it to anything else. Will keep trying.
Click to expand...

Well we have the Spanish/French/Dutch and Portugese as national flags(along with the union jack for England), so maybe some other euro nation could get a look in?

Danish? They were around in the Caribbean i think, in a very small capacity? But yeah i can see it staying as it is in general, the flags are cool looking enough for some variety. The time period is still too early for any kind of american flags, maybe an 'eagle' one would look cool though(the sea-eagle is an awesome bird!)?

Oh and you HAVE to start a new game to get the different flag, simply changing that code, and even using F11 will not change your personal flag, it requires a fresh restart of the game.
 
Black Bart said:
Oh and you HAVE to start a new game to get the different flag, simply changing that code, and even using F11 will not change your personal flag, it requires a fresh restart of the game.
Click to expand...
Wait a minute, wouldn't that mess up any kind of in-game selection dialogue? :?
 
hmm, yes for personal flags it may well!(and another reason not to bother trying!) Not sure how that works with the pirate flags as KK seems to have done special code for those(iiuc)?
 
You can change your flag ingame through console.c and F12; flag changes happen occasionally in the Jack Sparrow and Assassin quests too.

I don't want players to have to resort to making code changes. True, it's not difficult, but I'd prefer if they didn't have to.

We don't need the same personal flags in all time periods; they can be different.
Some are required for quest purposes, such as the Period 2 two Amsterdam flags, Period 4 English with sparrow,
sparrow on blue background and EITC flag, and Period 5 and 6 custom English flags.

The Period 6 different coloured British ensigns we should probably also keep,
because they can be used by different admirals in the Hornblower storyline.
The periods with Napoleonic France would do well to keep a French Royalist flag in there
in case anyone ever intends to write a storyline involving the two French parties.
Then the Period 2 white star on red background (isn't that the flag of Malta?) is used for a "mystery nation" ship.
 
Please try attached file; it will give you the dialog choices to change your personal and pirate flag.
Talk to any random crewmember on your ship's deck and see how it works.

I used the first set of descriptions for now. They are in RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\flag_descriptions.txt .
If you can improve on those, please do and post the modified file instead.
 
I'll fix the file tonight. I've been so busy trying to find a job and not be homeless.
dunno.gif
Sorry about that.
 
I can confirm it does work and the dialogs are funny. ;)

There were 2 words misspelled in the text LS. Other than that the descriptions are good and descriptive.

The blue flag with white cross pattern also gives the Union Jack to the pennants. But the fort didn't fire on me for being British.

Both of the flags with crosses look similar to certain French and Spanish flags.

edit: If you try to talk to an officer it ctds.
 
Confirmed! tested working so now when you talk to your crew you can change all your flags(Pirate and Personal), along with the other normal crew dialogue options! Awesome work on that Pieter :onya

I had a look through the flag_descriptions.txt file and apart from a few spelling mistakes and missing full stops it all seems good, although i added a change to personal flag number 5( "Pirates Ahoy!" arm wielding a sabre on red field.), as it seems appropriate?(look at the browser icon! look i say! ;) ) - and a bit of 'fun' for old and new players alike.

Ahem.....I'll attach a file below which includes corrected errors and added fullstops(yeah, i know....), and is basically the same content as your exe file, although in this one i've added that changed perflg3.tga.tx which replaces flag number 4(the Russian Ensign(white flag with blue diagonal cross))[in period2] with a dark green flag with a red dragon ;) I've also included the correct dialogue change for this flag. Everthing will be in the right folders, and has been tested etc.

@Hylie, i spoke to all my officers i could find on deck and tried the various dialogue options with them, no crashes to report. I even interupted my sail at sea to go onto the ships deck, so i wasn't in port or anything like that. All the crew dialogue(and added flags functionality) and all the officer dialogues look good. Did you try with different officers or just the one to get your CTD?
 

Attachments

  • ChooseFlags2.zip
    734.2 KB · Views: 96
I was at port and accidentally started talking to an officer. He gave me the usual officer stuff and I kept retrying looking for flag stuff and it freaked and ctd'ed. Now I go down to the crew quarters and have had no other troubles.
 
hmm maybe just a case of looking to much in the wrong place and the game didn't like it? The flag dialogues is only available through the 'crew', so not the officers - they all seem to have their own specific(and rather cool i must say) things you can ask them, e.g. if i speak to my QuarterMaster on deck i can get a financial summery of my outgoing running costs etc. But yeah just the regular crew have the flag change dialogue now. I like it, i really do and all my concerns about how much work it would be has gone - it's a really fun feature that works. :onya
 
Find attached my latest update; I fixed a small error in the dialog code file that would show the wrong flag text description for your current pirate flag.
I also changed the pirate flag selection a bit to hopefully be a bit funnier.
Additionally, it contains Black Bart's updated flag texture file and a combined Black Bart and Legendary Spider flag description text file with some changes of my own.
I now have the pirate flag descriptions using only the historical pirate names,
except in the period for the Jack Sparrow storyline, in which case you get only the fictional pirate names.

I can confirm it does work and the dialogs are funny.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you like them; a bit of humour in the game never goes amiss, right? :cheeky

The blue flag with white cross pattern also gives the Union Jack to the pennants. But the fort didn't fire on me for being British.
Click to expand...
Some personal flags have got national pennants going with them, but they remain your personal flags.
If England is not angry with you, they won't fire on you even if the pennants are English.

I like it, i really do and all my concerns about how much work it would be has gone - it's a really fun feature that works.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you like it. Didn't take me very long to code; maybe an hour or so.
And it should give the option to a lot of players who otherwise would be stuck with the default flags.
At least we now get to USE the different personal flags that are available.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
I now have the pirate flag descriptions using only the historical pirate names,
except in the period for the Jack Sparrow storyline, in which case you get only the fictional pirate names.
Click to expand...

I haven't gone through all the storylines yet, but one issue I discovered so far is the Master and Commander storyline has the fictional pirate names instead of the historical ones.
dunno.gif
 
Pieter Boelen said:
The blank alpha channel flag is VERY important because that's the flag that's displayed when no flag should be displayed.
All masts display TWO flags: one ensign and one pennant. However, one of the two uses the alpha channel flag so you don't see it.
Click to expand...

And that is the cause of the 'ghost flag' thing i've mentioned seeing. I might have a go at cleaning the alpha's a bit in my pirflag3 file, that might remove that ghosting? If that works i could have a go at the other flag types if there are any that people think have the same issue?
 
I think you mixed up the Master and Commander & Jack Sparrow storylines. The M&C one has the fictional pirate names while the Jack Sparrow one has the historical pirate names.
mybad.gif
 
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