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Solved Salary, Divide the Plunder and Leadership Skill

I noticed that fairly early in the game and on salary mode, my crew ended up with Superior(!) morale without me doing much of anything.
That led me to investigate the Morale code and it looks like whatever it does do, it does NOT do what it is intended to!
So I'll be attempting to rewrite this.

End result is meant to be that on low level, you will just about be able to avoid mutiny, but that's about it.
This will actually put a POINT to Divide the Plunder and Doube Rum Rations again, I hope.
Because right now, whoever actually USES those? Especially the latter?
 
Right now it just seems to be that the crew is happy as long as they have enough food and rum, and get paid when necessary.
I always seem to have my crew hovering around High morale when I do this; they never seem to get any happier than that, but I don't mind.

Personally, if things were changed such that I fulfil these requirements and my crew is bloody miserable all the time, I'd be pretty annoyed.
I'd understand if their morale slowly dropped over a long period of time, but not if it were constantly low.
 
I don't think that was the original idea anyway. Normal morale should be 60 when on salary mode.
Shouldn't be going much higher. But the Divide the Plunder code somehow still used that value of 60.
And the skill modifiers were calculated wrong, resulting in MUCH smaller change values.
Or something. o_O
 
I believe that successfully completing missions and especially battles raises their morale.
 
Missions? Don't think so. Success in battle does work, I think.

Anyway, this system apparently hasn't worked right since at least Build 11 in 2004.
I rewrote part of it to be closer to what it should be and now it is worse. Much worse. So... still some further tweaking to do. :wp
 
How much do people like the "Captain, the crew is envious of the amount of money we have on board and wants to sign articles" function?
Hook originally put that in as a "hack" to convince players to switch to Divide the Plunder mode, then Sulan didn't like it and toned down the effect based on your reputation.
So now you hardly notice it doing anything, but still get the "clarifying log message".

However, I am now getting pretty close to the original system actually working like it should.
So that means that by default on salary mode, you would have a morale of 60.
If you have 10 Leadership + Iron Will, you can get up to 81. The only way to get higher is with double rum rations.
At game start, you'll end up maintaining a morale closer to 40 until you work up your skills.

So... any comments on such a renewed system?

---------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I remember people being confused on the number of days out shown on the worldmap.
Turns out there are TWO values for this, one calculating from the last time you made port and another calculating from the last time you divided the plunder.
The one calculating from port would display when you use DirectSail, but also only update when you're using DirectSail.
So if you swip and swap between WorldMap and DirectSail, things won't make sense anymore.

My suggestion: Show days since last port when on Salary Mode and show days since last Divide the Plunder on Articles Mode.
Anyone got any objections?
 
Testing Required!
HA! I think I got it! Please try attached files. Extract to your main game folder, no new game required.
Contains:
Code: 
- Bug Fixes:
  . Morale Code simplified and corrected to distinguish more clearly between Salary and Articles Mode by Pieter Boelen
  . Fixed discrepancies between amount of days out on Worldmap and during DirectSail by Pieter Boelen
  . Resume and Save buttons in Main Menu disabled when you confirm on Start New Game by Pieter Boelen
This should pretty much restore the whole Morale System to its original intent, which it never did do ever since at least 2004.
In other words, it:
- Makes it much harder to get a high morale on Salary Mode, though you will not get a low one either as long as you keep paying salary
- Therefore it gives a renewed purpose to Double Rum Rations
- Gives some proper incentive to switch to Divide the Plunder Mode, where it is much easier to get a high morale
- Personal preference: Luck is no longer a factor. It is based purely on Leadership Skill and the Iron Will ability

Let me know how this plays! It has the potential to alter game-play quite notably and hopefully makes things more interesting by giving you more choices.
 

Attachments

  • morale_fix.zip
    378.5 KB · Views: 156
Armada said:
Personally, if things were changed such that I fulfil these requirements and my crew is bloody miserable all the time, I'd be pretty annoyed.
I'd understand if their morale slowly dropped over a long period of time, but not if it were constantly low.
Click to expand...
It turned out not that bad at all. Just tested a low-level character and morale pretty much stayed around 45, which is where it starts out.
If you want it higher, you have to Sign Articles or switch to Double Rum Rations.
Once your Leadership increases, morale on Salary Mode will increase too. It is pretty stable as long as you keep paying. :yes
 
Pieter Boelen said:
It turned out not that bad at all. Just tested a low-level character and morale pretty much stayed around 45, which is where it starts out.
If you want it higher, you have to Sign Articles or switch to Double Rum Rations.
Once your Leadership increases, morale on Salary Mode will increase too. It is pretty stable as long as you keep paying. :yes
Click to expand...

That sounds OK to me, then. I was playing yesterday (before your changes) having reached a fairly high Leadership level, and my crew were constantly Superior, which did seem a bit much.
 
Cheers. Hopefully someone will be able to get round to testing soon. :doff
 
Really? Note that it takes a while to adjust. What is your Leadership Skill and do you have Iron Will? 72 is quite possible with good skills.
 
Level 11 and Leadership 6. No Iron Will. I have not missed a payroll in a while now.
 
At that value, you would have a 69 base value, which could be increased slightly by food or rum effects.
So 72 doesn't sound unreasonable. But don't expect it to get much higher without changing anything. :cheeky
 
Did you try it yet? Does it seem reasonable? As far as I could tell, it works quite well in the short test I did.
So hopefully there will now be a point in switching to Divide the Plunder or Double Rum Rations or so. :woot
 
yes i am currently restarting a new game (i tweaked again my personal boarding crew so i had to restart :p )

i really like the way it is made, nothing to say at the moment :D
 
Has anyone noticed any weird effects with this yet? Or been having any fun with Double Rum Rations or Divide the Plunder to increase morale?
I'd like to know how it plays. :dance
 
Cassadar said:
Morale on different settings after 30 days
New game for each entry, crew morale started at "normal". No "raise moral" used in the crew menu and no boardings.
I cheated for this, to get 50.000 P.; aye, shame on me.

Crewmembers for this test: 300.

UNCURSED
Settings: Leadership 5, food rations normal, rum rations normal
Salary: 56
Salary + Iron Will: 71
Signing articles: 50
Signing articles + Iron Will: 72

Settings: Leadership 5, food rations half, rum rations normal
Salary: 42
Salary + Iron Will: 54
Signing articles: 38
Signing articles + Iron Will: 54

Settings: Leadership 5, food rations normal, rum rations doubled
Salary: 54
Salary + Iron Will: 82
Signing articles: 56
Signing articles + Iron Will: 70

Settings: Leadership 5, food rations half, rum rations doubled
Salary: 41
Salary + Iron Will: 61
Signing articles: 42
Signing articles + Iron Will: 61

Settings: Leadership 10, food rations normal, rum rations normal
Salary: 72
Salary + Iron Will: 89
Signing articles: 72
Signing articles + Iron Will: 98

Settings: Leadership 10, food rations half, rum rations normal
Salary: 54
Salary + Iron Will: 66
Signing articles: 54
Signing articles + Iron Will: 79

Settings: Leadership 10, food rations normal, rum rations doubled
Salary: 76
Salary + Iron Will: 98
Signing articles: 79
Signing articles + Iron Will: 98

Settings: Leadership 10, food rations half, rum rations doubled
Salary: 61
Salary + Iron Will: 75
Signing articles: 61
Signing articles + Iron Will: 86

CURSED (No fleet)
Was tested after plundering the chest on Isla de Muerta.

Settings: Leadership 5 (starting morale: 76)
Salary: 51
Salary + Iron Will: 66
Signing articles: 44 (decreasing)
Signing articles + Iron Will: 66 (decreasing)

Settings: Leadership 10
Starting morale on salary: 72
Starting Morale on articles: 94
Salary: 66
Salary + Iron Will: 80 (what...)
Signing articles: 62
Signing articles + Iron Will: 96 (...)
Click to expand...
As far as I have been able to tell during my playing and based on Cassadar's comments, this appears to work quite reasonably now.
So "Solved" too.
 
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