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Fixed Sea Relations: Behaviour for Recognizing False Flags

How should enemy forts treat players sailing into port under a false flag?

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Extract attached to PROGRAM\SEA_AI and see if that helps anything.
While I thought Ship_FireAction was executed ONLY for friendly ships, perhaps that is not actually the case.
The attached file contains a check on the relation much earlier and will prevent all calls to AttackFriendlyShip unless you're truly not hostile to the target ship.

The first time this happened, the enemy ship wasn't flying a pirate flag, or any other flag for that matter, because several salvoes of chainshot meant it didn't have anything left to fly the flag from. I thought perhaps that's why it was counting as having surrendered, though it still showed up hostile on compass and gunsight and fired at me when I moved into arc.
Indeed a visible flag is just graphical; doesn't affect the gameplay in any way. :no
 

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My experience with flag recognition: Playing BFF in the 8/13 version I approach Jamaica change flag to English and enter the harbor and moor no problem. I then go to the cargo hold and ransom a captain and as soon as that is completed I am recognized by the fort and two English ships in the harbor. I flee under fire taking extensive damage and lose half my crew. So is that the way it is intended to work? I thought once you were recognized you were good until you changed your flag back.
 
England is hostile to you then, right? Of course it is for Brave Black Flag.
The "remembers you as" is in case you sail past the fort with a hostile flag and pass then later with a friendly flag they'll remember that you weren't actually friendly.
It does not mean you would be safe from being recognised at all. In fact, with the 100% flag detection chance, you're guaranteed to not be safe.
Even once we have moved part that to a dynamic chance, you can always be detected when flying a false flag.
What changes though is the chance. But excepting some quest situations, that chance will never be 0% when you're close to ships or forts that have reason to mistrust you.
 
Ok thanks. In game sense that is going to make it hard on captives if there is no way to ransom them in hostile port.
 
Ok thanks. In game sense that is going to make it hard on captives if there is no way to ransom them in hostile port.
You can ransom them in ports of their own nation, ports of a nation allied to him, neutral nations AND pirate ports. So there are plenty of options.
But the ones with higher risk also give you the largest reward. In the early game, the detection chance should be pretty low.

The detection chance will logically get higher as you become more famous, but that is yet to be balanced, of course.
 
I haven't touched the code related to this for a week now, so there should have been some chance for testing.

Have any of you guys been doing any testing with false flags? Have you ever had ships turn hostile to you without them having a proper reason for it?
That was always the main underlying problem with this feature and, as far as I'm concerned, that part should be working properly with the rewritten code.
If we can confirm that actually no longer happens, we'll finally be able to move ahead with this one and work towards it becoming a properly playable feature at last.
 
Time to balance the false flag detection chance and get this feature fully functional at long last!

Original formula (without difficulty influence) is now re-enabled as per this update: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-4-internal-wip-for-testing.25696/

THOROUGH testing through the early AND late games will be very much required.
If it works well, you will hardly ever be recognized at the beginning, but this should occur more easily as your fame level increases.
 
As I am currently playing a Free Play in which I joined the Pirate Brothethood, I will look further on this to see anything weird about it.
Ah, if you're a pirate, you're probably hostile to everyone else, right? That means that ANY non-pirate flag is a false flag, so you'll have plenty of opportunity for testing indeed!
Thanks in advance. :bow
 
As far as I remember playing that Free Play, the false flag detection system didn't cause me problems, working as it should be. I was on the lowest rank possible on the Pirate Brotherhood though. I have to test it with Freebooter now.
 
As far as I remember playing that Free Play, the false flag detection system didn't cause me problems, working as it should be. I was on the lowest rank possible on the Pirate Brotherhood though. I have to test it with Freebooter now.
So you used false flags, but haven't yet been recognized? Any idea how often you used a false flag?
And indeed it would be interesting to notice at what "Player is recognized as..." level in the Nations Relations interface, you start having trouble getting close to ships/forts of hostile nations.
 
I don't usually use false flags onto the islands, as I feel more confident if I don't get close to those forts (Nothing to be with this problem; it is just I like being around the pirates). Last time I remember using a false flag was on Antigua, to do a smuggler quest.
Well, if you feel courageous, try to use a false flag as often as possible.
That could give us the feedback we need to establish if this feature now finally actually can be used.

Of course being recognized by a fort is now also possible and that could be the last thing that ever happens to you.
It is often much safer to find a shore and go into town through the jungle.

It might be worth the risk if you have a prisoner on board whom you want to ransom at a town of his own nation.
That gives you the most reward, but is obviously dangerous as usually you have to come in right under the fort's guns.
To make this at a bit more doable, I could add a line of code to ensure that your false flag won't be recognized after the transaction.
You could imagine that as you agreeing with the governor that you get the random AND free passage. Seems like a reasonable thing to ask, after all. ;)

Also, one question: The Smuggler's Lair on Sao Jorge appears on the colonies as Pirate, but its relations are like a city from Portugal. Is this intended? Because once I tried to sell my goods there, the store keeper refused to trade with me (I didn't have bad reputation).
It could be that the location nation doesn't get through properly.
Do you have a savegame in the Smugglers' Lair Store?
 
As mentioned earlier: I really, really, REALLY want some good feedback on this!
This has been a pretty nasty long-standing bug for a long time and I want to confirm it is now FIXED at long last!!! :whipa
 
Did I mention yet I truly do want feedback on this? Are you ever recognized now at all? How about in the later game when you've gained some Fame?
 
I would like to give my two cents with this bug, but I haven't go further on this problem because I still was changing constantly from a storyline to another. I will give it a try and see if all is correct. Besides that, I haven't noticed anything strange.
 
I would like to give my two cents with this bug, but I haven't go further on this problem because I still was changing constantly from a storyline to another. I will give it a try and see if all is correct. Besides that, I haven't noticed anything strange.
Hopefully some time soon you'll have a chance for a more prolonged play.
That is probably the only way to really find out if this now works as intended at long last. :facepalm
 
If we only had more hands to test all these things... At least THAT is not very difficult, not?
Indeed for all the good testers we've got, it seems to just not quite be enough.
If only we could get the current game version to a state where it is generally playable, I might just release it as-is just so people will PLAY with it.
We're not too far off as it is, but large-scale testing is required to find all sorts of unintentional side-effects.
 
Until Beta 3.4, there have been some pretty nasty errors with Sea Relations that caused False Flags to be apparently recognized when they really shouldn't be.
As per the Beta 3.5 WIP and in every Beta 4 WIP release, I have included a complete rewrite of everything related to that functionality.

From I understand, unintentionally being recognized indeed no longer occurs.
What I want to know next is if players ever DO get recognized at all? And how often does that happen?
While it may seem OK if you're never recognized, it really ISN'T because that renders the feature pretty much risk-free and therefore boring and useless. :facepalm
 
I remember once in a Beta 4 WIP 7th september version that I was on an English Bark and I was a pirate captain, but with the rank of Unknown Freebooter or so (The lowest rank possible on the Pirate's Brotherhood). I appeared as Unrecognised and I didn't sank or capture any portuguese ship. While hosting a false flag (Portuguese) to dock on Sao Jorge, the fort discovered me and started shooting at me, sinking me in less than 3 seconds. I tired several times to dock with the false flag, but in every case, the fort discovered me and sank me. I don't know if that can help you @Pieter Boelen , But that is the only annoying thing I had for a long time.
 
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