K
Keith
Guest
Due to confusion, my ignorance of its popularity, and because im linking this from the main site, with any luck this should clear things up for the people trying to download it from now on. If anyone has some build specific additions in a screenshot it would be nice if they could put them up for the new guys to have a look at <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
II. Info and New Features
***************************
Please see the attached file FAQ.txt for a list of frequently asked questions and their answers.
Please see attached file Docs for Crew Morale - Divide the Plunder for documentation for that mod. Even if you're already familiar with it, please read that documentation!
Please see attached file Quests Added.txt for all the `re-enabled` quests and their walkthroughs.
Please see attached file Changelog.txt for a list of what's changed since the last build, and the current date of this build.
Note: Difficulty levels have now been implemented!
New Commands:
F2: The F2 menu has changed greatly. New options included are: donate personal wealth to the party fund (see below), `ship-to`-ship transfer to allow transfer goods/crew/officers on land.
C: Drink a potion
H: Activate Rush perk (if available)
L: Toggles various logs on/off (the `character-appear` logs, the XP logs, etc.)
K: Toggles Always Run on/off (you must change the area to "refresh" the always run state, i.e. walk somewhere and make the scene change, or enter/exit your cabin)
I: Reinitialize. You MUST do this at least once after adding items/ships/rumors, or changing prices/stats, i.e. if you're upgrading from a previous build. See the Changelog for more details.
N: Change your name. This resets your name to the name entered in the BuildSettings.h file in the PROGRAM folder in your POTC folder. You can edit it with notepad and change the name listed; then just load the game and press N, and your name will update. Please see the end of Section II.
T: Shows the name, fencing skill, and HP of the character in front of you.
R: Toggles 1x/3x time acceleration.
G: If time is 1x, sets to 10x; otherwise sets to 30x (press R to go back to 1x).
From the Quick Commands interface (press ENTER) at sea, you can choose to enter your ship's cabin. Once in the cabin, hit ENTER again and choose exit cabin to exit your cabin.
ALSO: If you attempt to board your ship from land, and the game crashes, reload and press T and then try again. If it still crashes, drop us a note at one of the forums.
Overview
------------
In general, the world of POTC is now more dynamic and fuller. You can vary the difficulty of the game between four presets: Apprentice, Journeyman, Adventurer, and Swashbuckler. Towns--and their garrisons, goods available, and gold--may grow and shrink over time; your relationship with the various nations can be anywhere from hostile through wary, neutral, friendly, or even ranked or titled. You may even, if very successful, be awarded estates in Europe, and have the chance to court and marry a relative of a local governor. You can turn colors easily in true swashbuckling style: you can buy amnesty from governors or agents, and raise or lower flags. The weapons you find may be of varying quality, and items may increase (or decrease!) your skills (or others, if you give them said items). You can now buy different clothes for yourself--and your officers--and even armor. You may even be able to survive `near-fatal` experiences, waking up days later or casting off in a lifeboat, and if you agree to playing without saves you may be granted great powers. If you or your officers succeed in hacking down an opponent, you are rewarded with his sword and pistol and perhaps some gold he was carrying. While doing your hacking, however, remember that you can't reload your pistol; doing so requires both hands (thus you must sheath your sword first). The streets of towns are filled with transients and even bandits; the waters around islands are likewise filled with the transients and bandits of the sea. Houses have residents, with whom you can gossip, trade, or even threaten; they may be able to help if you're wounded or hunted by the guards. Your crew now has daily needs in wheat and rum, and, if you've signed articles with them, their morale will be linked to how much gold your part has and how long it's been since you divided the plunder. You can knock over opponents' masts; your opponents' crews also have minds of their own; they may surrender, giving up their captain for ransom or execution. The longer you keep a captain prisoner, the higher the ransom; but he may escape...
In addition, a variety of quests have been enabled (which were included with the game but disabled); see Quests Added.txt for information and walkthroughs (if needed). Further, many quests (and other things!) included with the game have been fixed or enhanced.
Graphics have been enhanced as well, with a new weather system and new characters, ships, and items.
Relations Mod
------------------
The relations system from Pirates! Gold has been implemented. You can now buy Letters of Marque (if the nation is neutral or better towards you), buy amnesty if they're wary or worse, be promoted and gain land, renounce service, etc. Talk to a governor, and check your relations screen, for more. Note that merchants and shipwrights may not deal with you, depending on your relation with their nation and your reputation. When you leave the service of a nation / become hostile to a nation, your reputation is checked; if above a minimum, and you were in the service of that nation, your old rank is recorded and you can resume your career after buying amnesty and a Letter of Marque. If it's below the minimum, or if you attack a friendly ship with no warning / hoist the Jolly Roger near a friendly ship, land given to you by that country is confiscated and that country's soldiers will attack you. In addition, on leaving service, if your flag is that nation's, a new flag is chosen (the flag of the nation with whom you have the best relations; or, if you have wary or worse relations with every nation, pirate colors).
Your score is also displayed on the relations screen, at the bottom ("You are known as...")
Once you attain rank 3 or above, the governor may introduce you to certain relations of his, whom you can court and--if charming and famous enough--marry. But be warned: you may have to fight another of her suitors for her hand! And if you're particularly charming, she may not even care to go through all the bother of marriage first...
Much thanks to Sailor Al for the excellent dialogs
You now have the ability to raise and lower flags at will. Speak to a `tavern-hired` officer and choose to change your colors. Note that this will NOT change your relation with nations, just the flag your ship is flying.
Dynamic Towns
--------------------
Towns now have populations, which can increase or decrease over time, depending on the amount of food available. A chunk of the population is killed / leaves town, when you sack the town. Troops in forts, and crew available for hire in taverns, and goods available in stores, are based on town size. Goods' prices are based on the quantity of the good vs. the size of the town, and price updates for each unit of goods purchased. Note: goods price calculations take time--if your game looks like it's frozen up, give it a minute; it's just calculating cost. The town now also has a set amount of gold, which changes based on population size and in trading with the merchant and shipwright; if they don't have enough money, you can't sell...this gold is also used to find how much booty you take when you sack the town (and that gold is then subtracted from the town's gold). XP on sacking is based on number of troops; after sacking a town, population decreases (as does number of troops), and then slowly grows back.
Town gold is displayed on the right side of the "gold bar" when trading with merchants or shipwrights; your party's gold is on the left. When buying and selling goods, the current price to buy or sell a unit of that good is displayed in the center of the bar. The average price per unit is displayed in parentheses after the total price to buy/sell.
Ask a citizen in the streets about the colony; they'll tell you the population.
If town size or goods get screwed up, press I to reset towns to default population, goods, and gold.
Difficulty Level
-------------------
You can now change the difficulty level. Talk to a hired encounter officer (one you get from a tavern, not from a quest) and say you feel you don't fit in. Then choose your new difficulty level. The difficulty level defaults to Apprentice, the easiest. As the difficulty level increases:
1. Enemies get generated with higher ranks and /much/ more HP per rank (3 vs 12 or so).
2. Friends (at the moment, only officers and boarding crew count as "friends" for generation purposes) get lower ranks and /much/ less HP per rank.
3. Captains are more likely to have officers helping them, and are more likely to be higher level, above and beyond the normal increase to rank based on difficulty. At Swashbuckler level, captains' ranks are "uncapped" from ship class, so you'll see someone ranked higher than you even captaining a lugger.
4. Encountered ships start with less random damage.
5. Your crew gets mad faster and wants more gold if you've signed articles and thus give your crew shares; and salary is higher than normal, if you haven't. On the other hand, you get more gold too...
6. Characters are more likely to be generated with better equipment at higher difficulty levels. i.e. at Apprentice, minimum level required for swords is 2x normal, rarity for swords is normal, and guns are never given. At Swashbuckler, minimum level for swords is normal, swords are twice as likely to be given (i.e. 1/2 as rare); min level for guns is 1.33x normal, and they are 0.44x as rare.
7. The damage you do is increased at low levels, and damage done to you decreased; at high levels, damage done by you is decreased, and damage done to you is increased.
8. Less crew available for hire at taverns, and their morale is lower.
9. More troops in forts
You can also choose whether or not the classes of ships encountered are capped based on the class of your own ship. The officer will tell you whether that's on or off when he tells you your current difficulty level, and you can toggle it by choosing choice 5.
Crew Morale / Divide the Plunder Mod
-----------------------------------------------
You can change from being a normal captain to a privateer, and back again, the same way; choose the option "Let's sign articles" if you want to be a privateer and pay your crew shares of the plunder (and have share size increase/decrease morale); once you've done that you can change back again, but only on the same day you divide the plunder.
This also adds a distinction between wealth--your personal store of gold--and the party's money. You use the party's money for buying and selling ships, goods, etc. You can only gain wealth from your salary (if in salary mode) or by dividing the plunder (if in share mode), but you also get a bit of wealth each day from income from your lands (if you've been given any land). Wealth is one way to "keep score" in POTC, but it also helps determine your fame--and famous captains can recruit more sailors.
You can donate some, or all, of your personal wealth to the party if times are lean; just hit F2 then click donate and choose the amount. Note that once you donate, you can't get it back (at least until you're paid for that month, or you divide the plunder). Note that difficulty level, as above, increases the size of your salary or the size of your share, a small recompense for a harder game.
Each day, your crew's morale is modified based on wheat and rum available (if you run out of rum they'll become unhappy fast; if you run out of wheat, they'll start dieing of starvation), and, if you've signed articles, by the party's treasure and the time since you last divided the plunder.
You can change the rations for food and rum by talking to a quartermaster you've hired from a tavern. Doing so will also tell you how many days of food and rum are left at current rations. Choose "What's the status of our provisions?" Rations can be half or full for wheat (half decreases morale slightly but will eke out a small supply), and normal or double for rum (double rum rations can either make the crew very happy indeed...or lead to a drunken brawl and a sharp decrease in morale).
See the separate documentation for the CM/DP mod for more details.
Surrender Mod
------------------
When you board a ship, and each time you move to a new deck, there is a chance the enemy will surrender, based on a variety of factors. If they do, the captain surrenders to your custody. If you take a captain prisoner, you can ransom him; go to the Passengers view and scroll over to him, then click Release. You can also execute him, for XP but a hit to reputation. If you continue to hold him, the ransom will increase but he may escape...
Minimum Crew Enforced
-------------------------------
Minimum crew is now enforced for ships. This means that you cannot take a ship as a prize unless you give it sufficient crew first, and you can't swap ships unless you have enough crew to man your new one. Once you own a ship--whether your own, or a `newly-taken` prize, you can only reduce its crew to minimum by transferring crew, no more. If the conditions aren't met, you'll hear a knocking sound and a warning will flash. Just add more crew and then it should let you do whatever you want to do. The minimum crew for each ship is shown at the bottom of the transfer screen.
Laying up of Ships
-----------------------
You can now beach your ship temporarily and sail another; on land, talk to a `tavern-hired` officer. You can store your ship (if none is stored), or launch the stored one (if you have none currently) or swap (if you have both a current one and a stored one).
Tailor Mod
--------------
You can now buy new suits of clothes from tailors on the various islands. Once bought, you can put the clothes on or assign them to your officers. Note that you only need to buy one of each set of clothing. Also note that sets of clothing include heads and faces. If you want to wear armor (see below) you need a set of clothing with armor. Lastly, if you want to buy a uniform, you must either have a letter of marque for the soldier uniform, or be an officer of at least the correct rank for the officers' uniforms (currently only Britain has uniforms for each rank).
Armor
--------
You can now wear armor. Each suit of armor has five values: its coverage (the chance that a hit will be affected by armor), the chance a hit will be stopped by armor (for sword cuts and bullets) and the percent the damage will be reduced to if the hit is not stopped (for sword cuts and bullets). But be warned: some armor may be so heavy it will make you clumsy!
Weapons and Items Mod
------------------------------
Weapons come in varying qualities, and their stats are increased or decreased accordingly.
Items can now give bonuses (or penalties!) to skills. Two numbers are listed on your character sheet--your personal skill and the skill you have with items taken into account, in that order. The bonuses or penalties of each item are shown in its info tab.
Store Mod
-------------
Two new buttons are added to the store interface, Sell All and AutoBuy. Sell All sells all goods on the ship. AutoBuy sells all goods but ammunition, repair goods, and wheat and rum. It then either sells or buys, as necessary, to achieve the right quantity of those goods. (you can change these quantities; see editing BuildSettings.h, below).
Mods by CouchCaptain Charles
The "Survival" mod
-------------------------
Lets you (sometimes) survive the sinking of your ship in a "lifeboat" and after a lost swordfight you are sometimes "rescued by your shipmates and nursed to health again by a taverngirl". Sounds like a cheat, but isn't: you are still alive but face a new challenge because you are reduced to a `down-and`-out status. In the "sinking" case you loose your ship, and in the "swordfight" case you loose your weapons, 10% of your MAX healthpts and a random proportion of money, crew and hullpoints.
The chance of survival can be tweaked from always to never in the Build_Settings file.
The Vice City MOD
-------------------------
Turns the formerly peaceful POTC towns into settings for a 17th century "cloak and dagger" adventure. If you roam the towns now you will encounter not only the `always-the`-same citizens but an ever changing amount of friendly or hostile people. And you have the free choice how you deal with them. You can assume the role of a fighter or that of a sneaking thief.
NEW FEATURES
1. Cutthroats and hired assassins roam the streets and hunt you.
2. Drunken sailors may start tavernbrawls of the bloody sort.
3. Smugglers haunt caves and dungeons, and savages the jungles(instead of fantasyskeletons) .
4. Many formerly empty houses are now occupied by residents. These will stay permanent for some time so that you can visit them again. They offer several gameplay features so that they are really worth a visit (provided your reputation is not too low, they'll throw you out then):
- you can ask the resident to bribe the townguards in order to fix your relationship to them (if they are hostile to you or you want their protection)
- you can spend time till "dawn" or "dusk" with them and gain rumours and some EXP by that.
- they will heal your health and even increase your max HP. The price for that: you must stay a full 24hrs and there is a risk that your wounds may turn gangrenous. In that case you must act quickly and find the right remedy together with the resident, or sacrifice an antidote bottle.
- you may be offered a job as bodyguard: You'll have to guard the house overnight, and -depending on your luck and rank- one or more burglars may appear
- you can try to extort protectionmoney from the resident. Which may take some convincing, and MAY destroy your reputation.
5. In addition to the `always-the`-same local citizens a lot of travellers populate the streets. Some are vagabonds, others traders or wealthy people who offer real advice to you.
- they sometimes steal your money if you talk to them. Which is not as bad as it sounds: you'll get a veiled warning and you can recover your money by using the right arguments or threats. You may even gain ADDITIONAL money, items, EXP and REP points, so the theft may turn into a gain for you. It's a little gamble: the higher the risk you take the higher the possible gain. And if you loose you can still recover your money by killing the thief. (TWEAKABLE)
-sometimes YOU will get the tempting opportunity to do some pickpocketing. (TWEAKABLE) And you can always rob trevellers with brutal force.
6. Treasurechests are now "locked" and you may even hurt yourself when trying to pick the lock. Or they may be boobytrapped. If a resident is around he will become hostile and attack you if armed. (TWEAKABLE)
7. For the features `4-6` skills like leadership, defense and especially LUCK play a large role. Luck has somehow become a kind of "thieves" or "rouge" skill. So this skill has been renamed "Streetsmart" to underline its new role.
THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE TOWNGUARDS
"The townguards are nothing but a bunch of idlers and corrupt cowards. Only the worst scum of the European armies volunteers for service in these godforsaken colonies. They usually turn a blind eye if there is a fight, they only interfere if some influential citizen is being attacked. But if they feel threatened they strike back in blind fear, and attack anyone wielding a blade, often confusing friend and foe in their panic."
So don't be surprised if they do not support you initially. In their eyes you are only some unimportant foreign privateer. If you want their support you can bribe them. (see FEATURE 4.)
Coastraiders & Coasttraders
----------------------------------
I have always wondered why Akella left the beautiful sea around the beautiful islands totally devoid of shiptraffic. What a waste! Well, now you can sail around the islands and chase the local merchants into port, scout the coves for hidden pirates and lure them into the deadly fire of the forts.
"Coastraiders & Coasttraders" generates up to six ships around every island. A random function selects pirates or merchants, who have different behaviour and strenght. You can tweak the ratio between pirates and merchants.
The shiptypes vary widely to add some variety to the game. But your rank is taken into account, so you won't have to face a MOW with a lugger.
There are two options how the appearance of the Coastal ships is being triggered:
The "Autocreate" option creates the coastships every time you leave or approach an island, which is more like the random encounters. But unlike the random encounters there is more variety in shiptypes and AI tasks, and -most important to me- the shipgroups are positioned around the islands so that you can really SAIL around and scout the coves and cliffs before having an encounter.
If you disable Autocreate you must first "gather intelligence", i.e. talk to people ashore till someone tells you something about the local shiptraffic. That adds a little twist: if you want to raid the coastal shipping of a hostile island it is not enough just to sail there but you must also sneak ashore to spy.
This way hunting coastal traffic is more like a wellplanned privateer expediton. You have to gather intelligence, and the ships stay around the island until being sunk. So you can e.g. wage a campaign against a certain pirate group, sink some of them, return to port to resupply and hunt and sink the rest one by one.
And without Autocreate you can choose if and when you want ships around an island. You can retrigger this generation whenever you want, e.g. if all enemyships have been sunk or if you don't like the current set of ships anymore.
BuildSettings.h Tweaks
------------------
There are many changeable parameters in the file PROGRAM BuildSettings.h . Open it with notepad to edit it. All items have comments (the text following the //) by them that describe what they do and the default.
There are a number of things included, and all have comments near them that describe them:
You can change your name by editing the names given in that file, and then, during the game, pressing N, which will set your name to what you entered in that file. Other parameters in the file take effect either immediately or after a `re-init` (see above to reinitialize).
You can change the quantities used by Autobuy.
You can change the maximum class of ships used by pirates, coast guards, and escortable merchants.
You can change the scalars used by Arcade Mode.
You can change the chance of Fog.
You can tweak parameters used by the Vice City mod (setting probabilities to 0 will turn it off).
You can tweak the parameters of the Survival mod
You can tweak the parameters of the Coastraiders mod.
You can toggle on or off various mods, including:
Food and Rum
Cannot reload pistol while fighting
Loot from dead enemies
Pirates! Gold music (requires separate download)
Tailor Mod
No Save Mod
Weapons Mod
New Compass graphic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download from <a href="http://mods.piratesahoy.net/index.php?action=view&view=entry&entryid=73" target="_blank"><b>HERE</b></a>
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
II. Info and New Features
***************************
Please see the attached file FAQ.txt for a list of frequently asked questions and their answers.
Please see attached file Docs for Crew Morale - Divide the Plunder for documentation for that mod. Even if you're already familiar with it, please read that documentation!
Please see attached file Quests Added.txt for all the `re-enabled` quests and their walkthroughs.
Please see attached file Changelog.txt for a list of what's changed since the last build, and the current date of this build.
Note: Difficulty levels have now been implemented!
New Commands:
F2: The F2 menu has changed greatly. New options included are: donate personal wealth to the party fund (see below), `ship-to`-ship transfer to allow transfer goods/crew/officers on land.
C: Drink a potion
H: Activate Rush perk (if available)
L: Toggles various logs on/off (the `character-appear` logs, the XP logs, etc.)
K: Toggles Always Run on/off (you must change the area to "refresh" the always run state, i.e. walk somewhere and make the scene change, or enter/exit your cabin)
I: Reinitialize. You MUST do this at least once after adding items/ships/rumors, or changing prices/stats, i.e. if you're upgrading from a previous build. See the Changelog for more details.
N: Change your name. This resets your name to the name entered in the BuildSettings.h file in the PROGRAM folder in your POTC folder. You can edit it with notepad and change the name listed; then just load the game and press N, and your name will update. Please see the end of Section II.
T: Shows the name, fencing skill, and HP of the character in front of you.
R: Toggles 1x/3x time acceleration.
G: If time is 1x, sets to 10x; otherwise sets to 30x (press R to go back to 1x).
From the Quick Commands interface (press ENTER) at sea, you can choose to enter your ship's cabin. Once in the cabin, hit ENTER again and choose exit cabin to exit your cabin.
ALSO: If you attempt to board your ship from land, and the game crashes, reload and press T and then try again. If it still crashes, drop us a note at one of the forums.
Overview
------------
In general, the world of POTC is now more dynamic and fuller. You can vary the difficulty of the game between four presets: Apprentice, Journeyman, Adventurer, and Swashbuckler. Towns--and their garrisons, goods available, and gold--may grow and shrink over time; your relationship with the various nations can be anywhere from hostile through wary, neutral, friendly, or even ranked or titled. You may even, if very successful, be awarded estates in Europe, and have the chance to court and marry a relative of a local governor. You can turn colors easily in true swashbuckling style: you can buy amnesty from governors or agents, and raise or lower flags. The weapons you find may be of varying quality, and items may increase (or decrease!) your skills (or others, if you give them said items). You can now buy different clothes for yourself--and your officers--and even armor. You may even be able to survive `near-fatal` experiences, waking up days later or casting off in a lifeboat, and if you agree to playing without saves you may be granted great powers. If you or your officers succeed in hacking down an opponent, you are rewarded with his sword and pistol and perhaps some gold he was carrying. While doing your hacking, however, remember that you can't reload your pistol; doing so requires both hands (thus you must sheath your sword first). The streets of towns are filled with transients and even bandits; the waters around islands are likewise filled with the transients and bandits of the sea. Houses have residents, with whom you can gossip, trade, or even threaten; they may be able to help if you're wounded or hunted by the guards. Your crew now has daily needs in wheat and rum, and, if you've signed articles with them, their morale will be linked to how much gold your part has and how long it's been since you divided the plunder. You can knock over opponents' masts; your opponents' crews also have minds of their own; they may surrender, giving up their captain for ransom or execution. The longer you keep a captain prisoner, the higher the ransom; but he may escape...
In addition, a variety of quests have been enabled (which were included with the game but disabled); see Quests Added.txt for information and walkthroughs (if needed). Further, many quests (and other things!) included with the game have been fixed or enhanced.
Graphics have been enhanced as well, with a new weather system and new characters, ships, and items.
Relations Mod
------------------
The relations system from Pirates! Gold has been implemented. You can now buy Letters of Marque (if the nation is neutral or better towards you), buy amnesty if they're wary or worse, be promoted and gain land, renounce service, etc. Talk to a governor, and check your relations screen, for more. Note that merchants and shipwrights may not deal with you, depending on your relation with their nation and your reputation. When you leave the service of a nation / become hostile to a nation, your reputation is checked; if above a minimum, and you were in the service of that nation, your old rank is recorded and you can resume your career after buying amnesty and a Letter of Marque. If it's below the minimum, or if you attack a friendly ship with no warning / hoist the Jolly Roger near a friendly ship, land given to you by that country is confiscated and that country's soldiers will attack you. In addition, on leaving service, if your flag is that nation's, a new flag is chosen (the flag of the nation with whom you have the best relations; or, if you have wary or worse relations with every nation, pirate colors).
Your score is also displayed on the relations screen, at the bottom ("You are known as...")
Once you attain rank 3 or above, the governor may introduce you to certain relations of his, whom you can court and--if charming and famous enough--marry. But be warned: you may have to fight another of her suitors for her hand! And if you're particularly charming, she may not even care to go through all the bother of marriage first...
Much thanks to Sailor Al for the excellent dialogs
You now have the ability to raise and lower flags at will. Speak to a `tavern-hired` officer and choose to change your colors. Note that this will NOT change your relation with nations, just the flag your ship is flying.
Dynamic Towns
--------------------
Towns now have populations, which can increase or decrease over time, depending on the amount of food available. A chunk of the population is killed / leaves town, when you sack the town. Troops in forts, and crew available for hire in taverns, and goods available in stores, are based on town size. Goods' prices are based on the quantity of the good vs. the size of the town, and price updates for each unit of goods purchased. Note: goods price calculations take time--if your game looks like it's frozen up, give it a minute; it's just calculating cost. The town now also has a set amount of gold, which changes based on population size and in trading with the merchant and shipwright; if they don't have enough money, you can't sell...this gold is also used to find how much booty you take when you sack the town (and that gold is then subtracted from the town's gold). XP on sacking is based on number of troops; after sacking a town, population decreases (as does number of troops), and then slowly grows back.
Town gold is displayed on the right side of the "gold bar" when trading with merchants or shipwrights; your party's gold is on the left. When buying and selling goods, the current price to buy or sell a unit of that good is displayed in the center of the bar. The average price per unit is displayed in parentheses after the total price to buy/sell.
Ask a citizen in the streets about the colony; they'll tell you the population.
If town size or goods get screwed up, press I to reset towns to default population, goods, and gold.
Difficulty Level
-------------------
You can now change the difficulty level. Talk to a hired encounter officer (one you get from a tavern, not from a quest) and say you feel you don't fit in. Then choose your new difficulty level. The difficulty level defaults to Apprentice, the easiest. As the difficulty level increases:
1. Enemies get generated with higher ranks and /much/ more HP per rank (3 vs 12 or so).
2. Friends (at the moment, only officers and boarding crew count as "friends" for generation purposes) get lower ranks and /much/ less HP per rank.
3. Captains are more likely to have officers helping them, and are more likely to be higher level, above and beyond the normal increase to rank based on difficulty. At Swashbuckler level, captains' ranks are "uncapped" from ship class, so you'll see someone ranked higher than you even captaining a lugger.
4. Encountered ships start with less random damage.
5. Your crew gets mad faster and wants more gold if you've signed articles and thus give your crew shares; and salary is higher than normal, if you haven't. On the other hand, you get more gold too...
6. Characters are more likely to be generated with better equipment at higher difficulty levels. i.e. at Apprentice, minimum level required for swords is 2x normal, rarity for swords is normal, and guns are never given. At Swashbuckler, minimum level for swords is normal, swords are twice as likely to be given (i.e. 1/2 as rare); min level for guns is 1.33x normal, and they are 0.44x as rare.
7. The damage you do is increased at low levels, and damage done to you decreased; at high levels, damage done by you is decreased, and damage done to you is increased.
8. Less crew available for hire at taverns, and their morale is lower.
9. More troops in forts
You can also choose whether or not the classes of ships encountered are capped based on the class of your own ship. The officer will tell you whether that's on or off when he tells you your current difficulty level, and you can toggle it by choosing choice 5.
Crew Morale / Divide the Plunder Mod
-----------------------------------------------
You can change from being a normal captain to a privateer, and back again, the same way; choose the option "Let's sign articles" if you want to be a privateer and pay your crew shares of the plunder (and have share size increase/decrease morale); once you've done that you can change back again, but only on the same day you divide the plunder.
This also adds a distinction between wealth--your personal store of gold--and the party's money. You use the party's money for buying and selling ships, goods, etc. You can only gain wealth from your salary (if in salary mode) or by dividing the plunder (if in share mode), but you also get a bit of wealth each day from income from your lands (if you've been given any land). Wealth is one way to "keep score" in POTC, but it also helps determine your fame--and famous captains can recruit more sailors.
You can donate some, or all, of your personal wealth to the party if times are lean; just hit F2 then click donate and choose the amount. Note that once you donate, you can't get it back (at least until you're paid for that month, or you divide the plunder). Note that difficulty level, as above, increases the size of your salary or the size of your share, a small recompense for a harder game.
Each day, your crew's morale is modified based on wheat and rum available (if you run out of rum they'll become unhappy fast; if you run out of wheat, they'll start dieing of starvation), and, if you've signed articles, by the party's treasure and the time since you last divided the plunder.
You can change the rations for food and rum by talking to a quartermaster you've hired from a tavern. Doing so will also tell you how many days of food and rum are left at current rations. Choose "What's the status of our provisions?" Rations can be half or full for wheat (half decreases morale slightly but will eke out a small supply), and normal or double for rum (double rum rations can either make the crew very happy indeed...or lead to a drunken brawl and a sharp decrease in morale).
See the separate documentation for the CM/DP mod for more details.
Surrender Mod
------------------
When you board a ship, and each time you move to a new deck, there is a chance the enemy will surrender, based on a variety of factors. If they do, the captain surrenders to your custody. If you take a captain prisoner, you can ransom him; go to the Passengers view and scroll over to him, then click Release. You can also execute him, for XP but a hit to reputation. If you continue to hold him, the ransom will increase but he may escape...
Minimum Crew Enforced
-------------------------------
Minimum crew is now enforced for ships. This means that you cannot take a ship as a prize unless you give it sufficient crew first, and you can't swap ships unless you have enough crew to man your new one. Once you own a ship--whether your own, or a `newly-taken` prize, you can only reduce its crew to minimum by transferring crew, no more. If the conditions aren't met, you'll hear a knocking sound and a warning will flash. Just add more crew and then it should let you do whatever you want to do. The minimum crew for each ship is shown at the bottom of the transfer screen.
Laying up of Ships
-----------------------
You can now beach your ship temporarily and sail another; on land, talk to a `tavern-hired` officer. You can store your ship (if none is stored), or launch the stored one (if you have none currently) or swap (if you have both a current one and a stored one).
Tailor Mod
--------------
You can now buy new suits of clothes from tailors on the various islands. Once bought, you can put the clothes on or assign them to your officers. Note that you only need to buy one of each set of clothing. Also note that sets of clothing include heads and faces. If you want to wear armor (see below) you need a set of clothing with armor. Lastly, if you want to buy a uniform, you must either have a letter of marque for the soldier uniform, or be an officer of at least the correct rank for the officers' uniforms (currently only Britain has uniforms for each rank).
Armor
--------
You can now wear armor. Each suit of armor has five values: its coverage (the chance that a hit will be affected by armor), the chance a hit will be stopped by armor (for sword cuts and bullets) and the percent the damage will be reduced to if the hit is not stopped (for sword cuts and bullets). But be warned: some armor may be so heavy it will make you clumsy!
Weapons and Items Mod
------------------------------
Weapons come in varying qualities, and their stats are increased or decreased accordingly.
Items can now give bonuses (or penalties!) to skills. Two numbers are listed on your character sheet--your personal skill and the skill you have with items taken into account, in that order. The bonuses or penalties of each item are shown in its info tab.
Store Mod
-------------
Two new buttons are added to the store interface, Sell All and AutoBuy. Sell All sells all goods on the ship. AutoBuy sells all goods but ammunition, repair goods, and wheat and rum. It then either sells or buys, as necessary, to achieve the right quantity of those goods. (you can change these quantities; see editing BuildSettings.h, below).
Mods by CouchCaptain Charles
The "Survival" mod
-------------------------
Lets you (sometimes) survive the sinking of your ship in a "lifeboat" and after a lost swordfight you are sometimes "rescued by your shipmates and nursed to health again by a taverngirl". Sounds like a cheat, but isn't: you are still alive but face a new challenge because you are reduced to a `down-and`-out status. In the "sinking" case you loose your ship, and in the "swordfight" case you loose your weapons, 10% of your MAX healthpts and a random proportion of money, crew and hullpoints.
The chance of survival can be tweaked from always to never in the Build_Settings file.
The Vice City MOD
-------------------------
Turns the formerly peaceful POTC towns into settings for a 17th century "cloak and dagger" adventure. If you roam the towns now you will encounter not only the `always-the`-same citizens but an ever changing amount of friendly or hostile people. And you have the free choice how you deal with them. You can assume the role of a fighter or that of a sneaking thief.
NEW FEATURES
1. Cutthroats and hired assassins roam the streets and hunt you.
2. Drunken sailors may start tavernbrawls of the bloody sort.
3. Smugglers haunt caves and dungeons, and savages the jungles(instead of fantasyskeletons) .
4. Many formerly empty houses are now occupied by residents. These will stay permanent for some time so that you can visit them again. They offer several gameplay features so that they are really worth a visit (provided your reputation is not too low, they'll throw you out then):
- you can ask the resident to bribe the townguards in order to fix your relationship to them (if they are hostile to you or you want their protection)
- you can spend time till "dawn" or "dusk" with them and gain rumours and some EXP by that.
- they will heal your health and even increase your max HP. The price for that: you must stay a full 24hrs and there is a risk that your wounds may turn gangrenous. In that case you must act quickly and find the right remedy together with the resident, or sacrifice an antidote bottle.
- you may be offered a job as bodyguard: You'll have to guard the house overnight, and -depending on your luck and rank- one or more burglars may appear
- you can try to extort protectionmoney from the resident. Which may take some convincing, and MAY destroy your reputation.
5. In addition to the `always-the`-same local citizens a lot of travellers populate the streets. Some are vagabonds, others traders or wealthy people who offer real advice to you.
- they sometimes steal your money if you talk to them. Which is not as bad as it sounds: you'll get a veiled warning and you can recover your money by using the right arguments or threats. You may even gain ADDITIONAL money, items, EXP and REP points, so the theft may turn into a gain for you. It's a little gamble: the higher the risk you take the higher the possible gain. And if you loose you can still recover your money by killing the thief. (TWEAKABLE)
-sometimes YOU will get the tempting opportunity to do some pickpocketing. (TWEAKABLE) And you can always rob trevellers with brutal force.
6. Treasurechests are now "locked" and you may even hurt yourself when trying to pick the lock. Or they may be boobytrapped. If a resident is around he will become hostile and attack you if armed. (TWEAKABLE)
7. For the features `4-6` skills like leadership, defense and especially LUCK play a large role. Luck has somehow become a kind of "thieves" or "rouge" skill. So this skill has been renamed "Streetsmart" to underline its new role.
THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE TOWNGUARDS
"The townguards are nothing but a bunch of idlers and corrupt cowards. Only the worst scum of the European armies volunteers for service in these godforsaken colonies. They usually turn a blind eye if there is a fight, they only interfere if some influential citizen is being attacked. But if they feel threatened they strike back in blind fear, and attack anyone wielding a blade, often confusing friend and foe in their panic."
So don't be surprised if they do not support you initially. In their eyes you are only some unimportant foreign privateer. If you want their support you can bribe them. (see FEATURE 4.)
Coastraiders & Coasttraders
----------------------------------
I have always wondered why Akella left the beautiful sea around the beautiful islands totally devoid of shiptraffic. What a waste! Well, now you can sail around the islands and chase the local merchants into port, scout the coves for hidden pirates and lure them into the deadly fire of the forts.
"Coastraiders & Coasttraders" generates up to six ships around every island. A random function selects pirates or merchants, who have different behaviour and strenght. You can tweak the ratio between pirates and merchants.
The shiptypes vary widely to add some variety to the game. But your rank is taken into account, so you won't have to face a MOW with a lugger.
There are two options how the appearance of the Coastal ships is being triggered:
The "Autocreate" option creates the coastships every time you leave or approach an island, which is more like the random encounters. But unlike the random encounters there is more variety in shiptypes and AI tasks, and -most important to me- the shipgroups are positioned around the islands so that you can really SAIL around and scout the coves and cliffs before having an encounter.
If you disable Autocreate you must first "gather intelligence", i.e. talk to people ashore till someone tells you something about the local shiptraffic. That adds a little twist: if you want to raid the coastal shipping of a hostile island it is not enough just to sail there but you must also sneak ashore to spy.
This way hunting coastal traffic is more like a wellplanned privateer expediton. You have to gather intelligence, and the ships stay around the island until being sunk. So you can e.g. wage a campaign against a certain pirate group, sink some of them, return to port to resupply and hunt and sink the rest one by one.
And without Autocreate you can choose if and when you want ships around an island. You can retrigger this generation whenever you want, e.g. if all enemyships have been sunk or if you don't like the current set of ships anymore.
BuildSettings.h Tweaks
------------------
There are many changeable parameters in the file PROGRAM BuildSettings.h . Open it with notepad to edit it. All items have comments (the text following the //) by them that describe what they do and the default.
There are a number of things included, and all have comments near them that describe them:
You can change your name by editing the names given in that file, and then, during the game, pressing N, which will set your name to what you entered in that file. Other parameters in the file take effect either immediately or after a `re-init` (see above to reinitialize).
You can change the quantities used by Autobuy.
You can change the maximum class of ships used by pirates, coast guards, and escortable merchants.
You can change the scalars used by Arcade Mode.
You can change the chance of Fog.
You can tweak parameters used by the Vice City mod (setting probabilities to 0 will turn it off).
You can tweak the parameters of the Survival mod
You can tweak the parameters of the Coastraiders mod.
You can toggle on or off various mods, including:
Food and Rum
Cannot reload pistol while fighting
Loot from dead enemies
Pirates! Gold music (requires separate download)
Tailor Mod
No Save Mod
Weapons Mod
New Compass graphic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download from <a href="http://mods.piratesahoy.net/index.php?action=view&view=entry&entryid=73" target="_blank"><b>HERE</b></a>
" border="0" alt="me.gif" />
" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" /> 
