Fixed Sea Relations: Behaviour for Recognizing False Flags

[Pieter Boelen]

Companion ships are not being checked.

At the moment the false flag recognition chance is 100% for testing purposes, so no skills affect it right now.
But the normal formula that will be enabled once everything else is okay does factor in luck.

At the moment forts indeed do not forget. But once I add the forget upon promotion change, that should solve a lot of those issues, no?
We'll then have to check from testing if anything extra is needed as we don't know yet how much of an issue this would actually be.

I started a new game and learned my lesson the hard way. From now on I fly my personal flag ONLY. Nothing else ever.

Now what??? I've been working very hard towards getting this right for the better part of two weeks now, but we're still in a testing and development phase on it.
Unless you made the code change I suggested above, of course you WILL be recognised as you approach.
But there should be a valid reason for that this time round, which never used to be the case.
That might not seem like an improvement in playing right now, but it truly IS because it would mean we've finally got the control over this feature that we need!

If there are any specific instances where ships turn hostile when you think they really shouldn't, please post the log files and a save so I can check if it does follow the intended code or is still doing something unintentional.

It can only get better from here on, but don't expect it perfect right now. As I said, it is still deliberately imperfect at the moment as that makes for consistent testing.
That is a requirement to check our worst case scenarios, which is important because if we don't get this stage of testing right, it is never going to make sense going forward either.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

And just to be absolutely clear here, I am not even going to THINK about adding extra exceptions to fool the flag recognising system until we know for certain that we DO actually have control over it.
We never truly did in the past because there were all sorts of things interfering with it all over the place. But that should no longer be the case.

Now we need testing and feedback on what we DO actually have working now.
Otherwise we'll end up making yet another incomprehensible mess and I'm not going to agree to doing that.

Yes, at the moment all forts and ships of a hostile nation WILL recognise you as you approach.
That is intentional for the time being so we can test the current please as quickly and efficiently as possible.
This is, of course, not going to remain this way. Eventually in all instances where you now ARE being detected, you will have only a CHANCE of being detected.
Which will obviously need to be balanced when the time comes. But that is pointless when there are still ships recognising you from miles away as that would indicate there being a different and unrelated issue that would first need to be fixed.

So any further things that need to be clarified here? I am admittedly getting quite t
tired of basically repeating myself over and over.
You will have to bear with me for the time being as we need to get this right in stages. It is completely impossible to get the final version perfect without first doing intermediate tests on simplified stages.

So if you want to be able to use this feature properly in the future, please understand that we're in the development phase on it and not a gameplay phase yet.
To get this over as soon as possible, please post any and all details you might have on specific situations where you think you are being recognised when you shouldn't be.
WITH the knowledge that being recognised close to enemy ships and forts SHOULD happen.

Clear now?

 

[Grey Roger]

Forewarned that the current version was likely to be dodgy, I tried playing "Hornblower" in the hope that this storyline would be less severely affected since mostly you go where you're sent and do what you're told.

Wrong.

The first problem wasn't immediately apparent and I only found out when I put to sea. "Hornblower" makes you a naval officer and then removes your LoM so you can't get promotions from governors (you get them from the story when appropriate to the plot). When you lose your LoM you switch served nation to "Personal". Remember what I said I'd do if I was ever forced to hoist a "Personal" flag?

In fact, I didn't quite keep my word. I renamed the PoTC folder to mark it as a test version, then re-installed from CD and applied the 16th July Beta 3.5 installer plus 22nd July zip update, that being the last setup which was actually fun to play, and that will remain my primary installation unless several changes are undone. Meanwhile I'm continuing with the "Hornblower" game on the test version just to see how bad it has become. So...

At the briefing in Antigua naval HQ, Hew Dalrymple shows up as "Sir Hew Dalrymple" in dialog but as "Knight Hew Dalrymple" on the main screen if you get close enough just before or just after the dialog. (Then he disappears, so I didn't get a screenshot.) After that, I always go to the Cellar for a dungeon raid to earn some Melee skill points and get some extra cash and equipment. Problem 1 was getting into the cellar:

There used to be a row of doors in that building, one of which led to the cellar. Most have now gone. There's one door left and it's not the cellar one. Either the texture will need to be changed to add a door, or the locator for the cellar entrance needs to be moved a few feet to the right to match the remaining door. As for earning money and Melee skill:

Thanks to the new fouled up skill system, instead of earning a point or two of Melee skill, I only got a percentage point. For a while I didn't think I was getting anything. Also, everyone in the dungeon is flat broke so I didn't get any gold from them.

So then I put to sea and Unrecognised Keene addressed his officers:

(If I raise a false British flag before boarding ship then Keene gets a more suitable rank.) First mission was to deliver supplies to an agent on Guadeloupe, then head to Jamaica. On the way I met some Dutch ships. Britain isn't at war with Holland at this time so I saved game, then tried out the new system for what happens if you attack a friendly ship. This is what happened after I sank a Dutch frigate:

France and America objected strongly because they're allied to Holland. Holland objected because it's allied to itself. Pirates rewarded me with a mere +1 point for this act of gross piracy. And I didn't switch served nation to Pirate.

After reloading the savegame and letting the Dutch convoy proceed unharmed, I found a small pirate ship while I was on the way to Jamaica. After shooting it up a bit, the ship surrendered. The captain didn't. Possibly because, in contrast to the dungeon raid, sailing around and firing some cannon shots had sent my general skill level rocketing so I was now level 6 but still only Melee 1, the captain completely outclassed me and killed me with one swipe. However, because the ship had surrendered, I'd been able to save game before boarding. Reload, try again, get killed with one swipe. After several attempts, during some of which I got lucky and he needed two swipes to kill me, I figured this wasn't going to work. However, after I reloaded, the ship recognised me as hostile. It still showed up as surrendered through the spyglass and made no attempt to move or fire, but it showed up red on the compass and gunsight, which meant I could finish it off with cannonfire and not be penalised for sinking a surrendered ship.

So I finally got to Jamaica, transferred to the Indefatigable, put to sea and saw this:

Everything British is "HMS <insert name>", including the fort. (I noticed that at Antigua too but didn't get a screenshot at that time.)

I went to Charlestown, to Barbados to collect a couple of officers (and do another dungeon raid, which still didn't get me significant skill but did get me a decent sword), back to Charlestown, and then to Martinique in company with Justinian for the fight with Temeraire, which earned me several skill levels. I've now got all the melee perks (though not much actual skill) and most of the navigation perks. Then it was back to Charlestown for a showdown with Simpson (not as easy as normal due to my pathetic Melee skill), a promotion, and the whole business with Quelp and the tunnels. Final status so far:

Apparently I'm a Privateer Captain, which is a good trick as I have no LoM. That happened when I got the promotion to Junior Lieutenant, at which time Hornblower does indeed become captain of a vessel, even if it's only the jolly-boat.

Comclusion: the current version is a great steaming pile of monkey poo. I'll continue with "Hornblower" until either the storyline finishes, another zip update makes all the savegames useless, or the game breaks so thoroughly as to be impossible to continue. After that it's back to the 16th/22nd July re-install.

P.S. On the return trip to Charlestown I raided a Spanish convoy, plundering a merchant and sinking an Endymion class frigate. Those each earned me a +1 relation with Pirates, the same as if I'd sunk something friendly, so now Pirates are Wary.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Grey Roger: Sounds like I've got some more stuff to look into when I return later this week.
Most of that is most definitely not intentional and probable side effects of the work done recently.
Clearly needs further fine tuning, but that was to be expected.

Characters showing with Sir in dialog but Knight when facing is not a bug as that is indeed the way it is written now.
You get the full title when facing, but only the short address form in the dialog interface.
If you think that should be changed, please say how you would want that to behave.

Becoming personal Nation because of not having a LoM is quite odd.
I thought you should remain English! That is definitely what is intended to happen anyway.
Do you know when that changed? Possibly after a promotion? That might make sense....

For Unrecognised Keene, was he actually an officer or companion of yours? Perhaps he got set to personal Nation too, which probably would have triggered that.
Obviously wrong though and needs to be addressed.

Getting only +1 with the Pirates for a minor act of Piracy is intentional.
The points that you would normally get for a served nation are now being added to the Pirates.
You aren't intended to immediately be set to served nation Pirate unless you actively betrayed one of your friends.
So with minor acts of Piracy, you will eventually officially turn Pirate but it'll take a while.
Otherwise the game would become a bit too evil.
(Still to be added: DO make you immediately a pirate if you performed your minor act of piracy under a friendly flag.)

If you became privateer Captain, that means you somehow DID get a LoM. That shouldn't be happening for Hornblower either, so I'll have to see about putting something in place to prevent you losing your served nation and to stop you gaining a LoM on each promotion.

Did you say a surrendered ship turned hostile again? Can you give an exact sequence of events that triggered that?
I didn't specifically add code yet to prevent that yet, hoping it wouldn't happen. Sounds like it does.
I think I've got a fair idea how to solve that one, but more details might prove useful.

I definitely appreciate reports like these because it tells me the situations that aren't yet handled the way they should be.
The more crazy examples you can find, the better it is! Soon it will all start behaving itself for real.

 

[Grey Roger]

Characters showing with Sir in dialog but Knight when facing is not a bug as that is indeed the way out is written now.
You get the full title when facing, but only the short address form in the dialog interface.
If you think that should be changed, please say how you would want that to behave.

Most titles ought to be the same anyway. The exception is "Knight", who should always be addressed as "Sir".

Becoming personal Nation because of not having a LoM is quite odd.
I thought you should remain English! That is definitely what is intended to happen anyway.
Do you know when that changed?

Right at the start when I lost the LoM. I checked by starting a new game and looking at "Relations" right away.

For Unrecognised Keene, was he actually an officer or companion of yours? Perhaps he got set to personal Nation too, which probably would have triggered that.

Yes, at the start of the game Keene is set to be one of your companions. Since companions change flag when you do, my hoisting of a British flag before putting to sea could then have effectively turned him British so he got his British rank back.

Getting only +1 with the Pirates for a minor act of Piracy is intentional.
The points that you would normally get for a served nation are now being added to the Pirates.
You aren't intended to immediately be set to served nation Pirate unless you actively betrayed one of your friends.
So with minor acts of Piracy, you will eventually officially turn Pirate but it'll take a while.
Otherwise the game would become a bit too evil.
(Still to be added: DO make you immediately a pirate if you performed your minor act of piracy under a friendly flag.)

The problem may be the definition of "minor act of piracy". I thought firing at a neutral ship would count. Perhaps I'll get the full effect if I sink a British or Portuguese ship instead.

Did you say a surrendered ship turned hostile again? Can you give an exact sequence of events that triggered that?

I attacked a Pirate ship. After shooting it up a bit, it surrendered. As the battle was now over, I could save game. Not surprisingly due to the loused up skill system, I lost the duel with the captain. I reloaded the savegame.

A distinction needs to be drawn here, though. Effectively the ship was still surrendered - it still showed up as "Surrendered" when I looked at it through the spyglass, it didn't set sail and it didn't fire. But right after loading the savegame I got a screen message that it had recognised me as hostile due to the British flag, and it showed up red both on the compass and on the gunsight.

I definitely appreciate reports like these because it tells me the situations that aren't yet handled the way they should be.
The more crazy examples you can find, the better it is! Soon it will all start behaving itself for real.

Good, because I've just remembered another one. Attacking another pirate group, I got a message that the Susan had recognised me as hostile due to having a British flag. The Susan might have been in a previous encounter; it certainly wasn't in this one.

Which reminds me.... @Grey Roger, now that you're apparently a Privateer with Hornblower, did you do anything that should have cost you your commission?

Started the game as Hornblower, which cost me the LoM and set my served nation to Personal right at the start. Beyond that, no. The experiment with attacking neutral Dutch ships was after I'd saved game, and when I'd found out what happened I reloaded the savegame so that effectively it never happened. Anyway that wasn't when the change happened.

You fight the Temeraire in company with the Justinian, then return to Charlestown. Knight Edward Pellew - sorry, Sir Edward Pellew - talks to you about Simpson, then you both go to the Naval HQ, where there's the conversation about your promotion and Simpson's naughtiness, leading to the duel with Simpson and Pellew saying that the promotion was not part of the ruse to trick Simpson. You leave the HQ and that's when you actually get the promotion, the new uniform and the switch from Navigator to Privateer Captain.

And can you see which nation you've got your LoM with? If still with England, ate you gaining points with them?
And if so, does your rack name become Green at some point and can you gain promotions through ordinary governors?
That should be possible for privateers.

No idea. Right after that is the "Tunnel of Trouble" chapter which doesn't give you much chance to earn relation points with anyone. (It does end up with you capturing Le Reve but that's a scripted event with the boarding and combat handled by a video clip rather than actual fighting.) After that and some tunnel exploration accompanied by Sharpe and Harper, you escort Arthur Wellesley down the tunnel to the beach, meet Dreadnought Foster, and that's as far as I've got so far. But I can tell you that I haven't been anywhere near any governor.

Something that just occurred to me @Grey Roger about that ship that surrendered but turned hostile again afterwards:
Did you approach that ship under a flag friendly them while being hostile to them yourself?

No, I was under a British flag the whole time. It only turned hostile after I loaded a savegame which had been created after it had surrendered, and even then it still acted as a surrendered ship (didn't move, didn't shoot). Only the screen message right after loading the game and the red gunsight and compass icons marked it as hostile. And in addition, the fact that I didn't get penalised for sinking it.

Which reminds me. I did get penalised the first time I sank it, I got a -10 reputation hit which took me to "Rascal". I suspect that after a pounding, the ship surrendered again, only as it was already surrendered there was no message, and then firing on the re-surrendered ship cost me the -10. I reloaded again, bombarded it again, and this time didn't get a -10 reputation hit.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Clear as mud. I talk apples, you talk oranges.

When I first visit a port they recognize my flag and remember it. If I am flying a different flag the next time I go there they sink my ship. And they are friendly at all times.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Are you getting the "something something fort remembers you as <insert hostile nation>" messages then? If you indeed waved that hostile flag near that fort, it isn't technically a bug as it is written to do that.
There is still a missing feature to make them forget again at some point though. I'll be adding that when I'm back home.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For the display titles then, I should probably have I'd show full title OR Sir when facing and full name plus Sir in the dialog interface.
Full title may not fit, so that's probably better to skip there.

At the moment, a major act of Piracy is attacking your own nation or one of your allies. Attacking any other ships is currently a minor act of Piracy.
Firing on neutral ships and acting hostile while under a friendly flag are not yet factored in, but this will be added within a week or so.

So you went to personal Nation pretty much straight away? Possibly SetServedNation checks only LoMs while it should of course check also navy commissions.
That should be another relatively simple fix.

Then we need to make sure that SetRank does NOT give you a LoM if you don't already have one to prevent breaking Hornblower.
I thought it was already set up that way, but better check....

Be sure to post a savegame with your strange Hornblower state for testing purposes.
Possibly one involving Unknown Keene.

Do you happen to still have a save with that surrendered ship that turned half hostile again?
From your description, it indeed sounds like it is the new code that overrode is surrendered state.
However, if still possible, I'd like yo check that ship's relevant attributes to be sure of the situation.

Could that Susan have been a ship somewhere else in the 3D scene but outside visible range?
The game does check the flag state for ALL active ships.
If you enable the correct trace messages, you can get to see the distance to all those ships too.
However, that makes for a huge amount of screen clutter so I toned things down for the upload, if I recall.

So you approached the Pirate ship that surrendered under an English flag and you were friendly with England at the time but the Pirates obviously were not?
That means there should have been no false flag recognising as you were already hostile.
I figured that ships that are then set to NEUTRAL_NATION should remain neutral.
It could be that a "recognised" attribute might trigger her becoming hostile on the next refresh battle interface again though.
That is obviously wrong and should be prevented. But it also shouldn't happen if there was no recognising.
Unless ships also still get that attribute if you fire on them. They used to before the rewrite, so perhaps I forgot to remove the line for that.
That might explain the situation and hopefully points us towards the fix.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

There is no hostile there. We are friendly to each other. The fort sees a different flag and opens fire.

 

[pedrwyth]

Once a fort has seen you flying a hostile flag or recognised your false flag, it will NEVER forget!
That seems a bit excessive to me especially for forts of your own served nations.
How about resetting this for all forts of a nation when you're promoted?
That at least gives a logical reason for this to be done and also gives the player some influence on it.
Would only work for Pirates, navy officers and privateers. Honest merchants would remain screwed.
But then why should an honest merchant fly a hostile or false flag near a friendly fort???

In my opinion this would be better reset on change of ship (which comes with a promotion in some cases). It is really the ship they will be remembering not some small figure on its deck (or hidden in a cabin). I know there would be an exploit of just swapping ship (and even straight back) to reset the false flag detection BUT a player who does that is just showing they don't want to play a full-on "realistic" scenario (their choice) whilst for those who do want to stick with it a change of ship (not its name or paint job -perhaps ship.model and name) should bring some relief from instant recognition (unless perhaps they are flying their personal flag?). If you're nor flying your personal flag I see no reason you should be immediately spotted when you are on a different ship (except of course any companion ships may not have changed their ID)

There is no reason a merchant should be "honest" trading with the enemy could be very profitable and opportunistic (as long as you aren't caught) - the enemy is less likely to object than your served nation! It is certainly not piracy. I am sure other player types could have their reasons too

Store and shipyard all have a false flag detection chance too. So you might be able to fool them, but not always.
And when they don't believe your flag, they'll remember.

Is this still the case? How is this "stored" because this in contrast should not be wiped by change of ship/promotion - you're up close and personal. But should be wiped if you (or rather your served nation) become friendly to their nation (your attempted deceit was during times of hostilities and is wiped out by the peace settlement)?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

There is no hostile there. We are friendly to each other. The fort sees a different flag and opens fire.

How can you tell the fort is friendly? The only way I know is to see if they fire on me or not. Can't see it in the mini map as with ships.

You say the fort sees a different flag? Is that based on the on screen message saying "the something something fort remembers us as <insert hostile nation>"?
That is the only way to tell, so is that indeed it?
The only reason the fort should do that is because you actually did fly that nation flag close to them before that allowed them to spot that.
You should have had an onscreen and compile.log
note when that happened. Did you?
Perhaps it is time to post log files and a savegame?

At the moment I want to stick to a simple and consistent method for making the forts forget because that works better for testing.
More exceptions can be added later, but if we do that now, the system ends up becoming untransparent which is really confusing for me to work with.

Merchants and shipyards do still have a false flag recognition chance.
That is handled through the TradeCheck function in CharacterUtilite.c . This is mostly independent from the sea functionality, except the same function is used to determine the chance.
They do remember you personally and should already forget if you turn friendly to then again.

 

[Grey Roger]

At the moment, a major act of Piracy is attacking your own nation or one of your allies. Attacking any other ships is currently a minor act of Piracy.
Firing on neutral ships and acting hostile while under a friendly flag are not yet factored in, but this will be added within a week or so.

So attacking a British ship while flying a British flag ought to do it?

Apparently not. However, that does confirm that I had a British LoM until I lost it for sinking a British ship. Portugal objected more strongly than Britain to me sinking a British ship, Pirates only gave me 1 point, and I still didn't get Served Nation set to Pirate.

So you went to personal Nation pretty much straight away?

Yes, and then it appears that being promoted to Junior Lieutenant gave me the LoM back.

Then we need to make sure that SetRank does NOT give you a LoM if you don't already have one to prevent breaking Hornblower.
I thought it was already set up that way, but better check....

Be sure to post a savegame with your strange Hornblower state for testing purposes.
Possibly one involving Unknown Keene.

I don't have one handy from that early in the game, but all you need to do is start "Hornblower". If you want to see Unknown Keene, just go through the early part involving visiting the Naval Academy, the Naval HQ, the shipyard and then go to the ship. You could probably do it in less time than it would take you to download, unzip and copy a savegame from me. And you'd get to see Knight Hew Dalrymple while you're at it.

Do you happen to still have a save with that surrendered ship that turned half hostile again?
From your description, it indeed sounds like it is the new code that overrode is surrendered state.
However, if still possible, I'd like yo check that ship's relevant attributes to be sure of the situation.

Not now. It was a savegame created on open sea and I overwrote it next time I wanted to save while on open sea, which was just before attacking the British ship for the experiment in piracy. (I still have the savegame for that, if you're interested...)

Could that Susan have been a ship somewhere else in the 3D scene but outside visible range?

It wasn't present in that 3D scene. And here's another example:

The Sabina and Santa Isabela are in range, sort of, but not in any 3D scene. Last time I saw them, they were in the shipyard after I'd sold them. I captured them near Puerto Rico and brought them to Jamaica as prizes. And what's "Nueva Espana Flota"? That shouldn't even be a ship name. I recognise that name after reading the web page someone cited for the proposed Treasure Fleet - "Nueva Espana Flota" was one of the treasure fleets and certainly shouldn't be anywhere near Jamaica! Another oddity is that this time there's no report from the fort. Note that at this point I'm still Junior Lieutenant, Served Nation is Britain, the British flag is therefore genuine, and you can probably guess what's going to happen a few seconds after I go to worldmap by identifying the type of ship I'm sailing.

So you approached the Pirate ship that surrendered under an English flag and you were friendly with England at the time but the Pirates obviously were not?
That means there should have been no false flag recognising as you were already hostile.

At that time I was still Midshipman and Served Nation was Personal, so the British flag was effectively false. But yes, I was under a (false) British flag, was personally friendly to Britain, and Pirates hated Britain. Remember though, the ship only turned hostile after I reloaded a savegame, and even then it still behaved as surrendered.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Pieter, are you deliberately trying to misunderstand me? In that game I was French. The forts were French.
I was flying the French flag, and what I saw was cannonballs.
I also tried the Spanish flag and got cannonballs.
I also tried my personal flag and got cannonballs.

For the last time. I sailed my shot up Fluyt from Havana to Port au Prince, traded the Fluyt for a Hoy, and sailed away just fine.

The next time I showed up at Tortuga and got cannonballs. So went to Port au Prince and got cannonballs.

Dumped that game and started a new game and all is well as I ONLY fly my personal flag.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Attaching a British ship while being friendly with Britain should do it. The flag you're flying doesn't have anything to do with it yet.

Even if your served nation is personal and you're flying an English flag, it should only be seen as false if YOU are personally hostile to the ships you're approaching but England is not.

At the moment I use a list of ships and forts that are stored as player attributes and I think is maintained by the game engine together with distances included.
Possibly that list isn't always correct though. Would be annoying because that means I have to use a different and less efficient approach to this whole thing.

@Hylie Pistof: I am trying to link your comments to how the code is meant to work, trying to figure out if I can understand how that might happen and how to fix it.
But I have no access to my game for the next few days, so my hands are tied.

If the system works the way it should, the game should give you some sort of deliberate reason for each ship and fort being hostile that you encounter.
That is something I added so that we can find out if the new system is doing what it is supposed to.
That is why I am asking you if you did indeed get such a message about the forts.
Can't remember exactly which logs I enabled in the last zip, but I think a list of all forts and ships and how their relations are set should be written to compile.log whenever you enter 3D sailing mode.

Anyway, it is probably simplest if you upload a save with your Hispaniola issues so I can run some tests myself when I get back.
I'd like to get it solved so you'll be able to use the intended functionality normally but I need to know what is happening and why before I can figure out how to fix it.

 

[Grey Roger]

Attaching a British ship while being friendly with Britain should do it. The flag you're flying doesn't have anything to do with it yet.

As my experiment showed, it doesn't. I've been friendly to Britain throughout the whole game, whether as Personal after losing the LoM at the start (original relations were set as British and didn't change), or as British after getting a new LoM after promotion to Junior Lieutenant. Nevertheless, attacking a British ship while friendly to Britain didn't mark me as a pirate. Attached is a savegame in which I'm on open sea in sight of some British ships, so you can try it for yourself.

At the moment I use a list of ships and forts that are stored as player attributes and I think is maintained by the game engine together with distances included.
Possibly that list isn't always correct though.

Apparently not, since it seems to remember a ship which was sunk or captured in a previous battle. And here's another sighting after "The Devil and the Duchess", in which the Indefatigable has just left the beach near the prison fort.

The San Antonio, Nueva Espana Flota, Wassenaar and Sultan have all turned hostile because of my British flag. Those names are familiar. The same ships already objected to my flag when I left Kingston at the start of "The Devil and the Duchess" - see the picture attached to my previous post.

And there's still the oddity that a British fort which reports sighting me does so as "HMS <Insert Name> Fort".

 

[pedrwyth]

At the moment I want to stick to a simple and consistent method for making the forts forget because that works better for testing.
More exceptions can be added later, but if we do that now, the system ends up becoming untransparent which is really confusing for me to work with. .

Fine I have no qualms about simple functionality during testing/design, particularly since I have little experience of the earlier functionality to compare with, so don't expect to be jumping in at this stage. I am interested in the finished product intentions - and it is usually simpler to have an agreed destination than change midstream (.... if only you had said earlier....). Just thought if you started with change of ship as the reset trigger it would be easier in the long run if that is to be factored in due course. I am happy to await the outcome

Merchants and shipyards do still have a false flag recognition chance.
That is handled through the TradeCheck function in CharacterUtilite.c . This is mostly independent from the sea functionality, except the same function is used to determine the chance.
They do remember you personally and should already forget if you turn friendly to then again.

Fine. Again just checking here, sounds like this is already covered and not currently affected by the re-write.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@pedrwyth: A ship type check already used to be in there so should not be too hard to reintroduce later.

@Grey Roger: Did you lose a substantial number of points England when attacking those English ships at all?
If I recall, the number of points you lose with the nations on an act of Piracy are then added to the Pirates.
So if you had a low rank, perhaps your standing with the Pirates wouldn't go all the way.

Still.... Even going from 0 to -60 like you should would be a drop large enough to brand you a pirate.
Sounds like this has to be checked on too.
Thanks for the save! I'll try it soon.

Do you also have a save where you get those messages about ships that should not be there?
Perhaps the game remembers some old ships from large encounters and doesn't erase those afterwards.

As long as there aren't any ships that ARE around missing from the checks, that would at least count for something.
For any extra ones, I can probably build in a check to see if those ships are indeed in the current scene and, if not, skip them altogether.

The HMS fort messages are amusing but harmless. Probably forts are set as navy ships, which triggers that effect through the function I use to display the 'ship' name.
However, those logs are just there for testing purposes and I intend to remove them before the public release.
So whatever is apparently weird about them wint be there to be odd for much longer than they need to be.
And until then, just have a good 'ol chuckle.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Grey Roger: When you attacked those English ships, you did that under an English flag, didn't you?
Can you try again under a flag hostile to England?
I think I may know what happened there: The newly restored "firing on ships that are not hostile" functionality probably interfered with the "major act of Piracy" code because those are at the moment still completely independent.

Probably when you attacked those ships, you lost some reputation and remain points with England immediately, but if I recall not quite enough to turn hostile.
Then after your major act of Piracy, you only have a few points left to lose, so the effect is much less pronounced than it is meant to be.

Would it be an option to not remove nation relation points at all when firing on their ships while friendly?
Them the full penalty can be handled by the general function that is called later when you capture or Sink the ship.

 

[Grey Roger]

I did sink the ship. That's when I lost 1 point with Britain and 46 points with Portugal. I didn't see any messages about losing anything with Britain at the start of the attack. Anyway, I supplied a savegame so you can try attacking the British ships with whatever flag you like.

But I agree that no relation points should be lost for firing. That way you don't get penalised if you accidentally hit a friendly ship while you're trying to aim at an enemy.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So then I think only a reputation loss when firing on friendly ships to start with.
And they'll turn hostile too; I discovered the game engine handles that part so I couldn't even prevent it if I wanted.
Should be quite doable. Will be a substantially less harsh response for firing on ships then bit decidedly nastier for sinking or capturing.
Fair enough!