• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

This or TEHO?

I'm not sure where "not a real-life programmer" came from. He did a good job in any case.
It came from my memory.
As far as I recall, he was as much self-thought as me.
But I could be misremembering there; it's been a long time.
Either way, a good job he did!

I'm not sure how POTC/NH handles the passage of time (and related weather changes, if any), but I've been thinking about implementing something like this for CT from the start (I'm a big real-time sailing fan, too). @Grey Roger gave me an idea perchance based on @CouchcaptainCharles's work on how I could make it work in CT.
The clock does keep ticking at sea; at least in PotC it does.
The first version of DirectSail triggered an update every hour, which included a full weather reset.
Eventually the weather was rewritten so the transitions were smoother.
And then there was the scale issue between 3D Sailing and the WorldMap, which was solved by adding one day every hour.

In any case, it's definitely possible to do a weather update without a full scene reload.
It'll still jump a bit, but it's not too bad if the change is relatively small.
 
Hey look, I found the original DirectSail archive so you can all see how @CouchcaptainCharles did it!
Contains a fairly comprehensive readme in the "buildinfo" folder too.
 

Attachments

  • Directsail_jan25.zip
    2.5 MB · Views: 145
As far as I recall, he was as much self-thought as me.

Pieter, you know the only difference between us is that I had a two month class in COBOL in the beginning. Everything else was self-taught.

Of course I did program for a living for a lot of years, and learned a bunch of techniques that most people will pick up from a bit of online research anyway or just by following the community's conventions. You probably had fewer problems learning the scripting language the game uses than I did, because I kept expecting it to work the same as C, and it doesn't in many cases.

As programmers, we are all basically equal, differing mostly in the amount of experience we have.

In the professional world, two years of education is worth one year of experience. Which means after 8 years of experience, I could apply for a job that required a degree with a specific grade point average, and no one ever asked about my education. Those limitations were only for people first starting out. (I don't have a degree.)

And y'know what? @kb31 is working miracles even as an amateur. He's doing things I'm not sure I could do myself. I would never say he was not a real-life programmer. I'm not sure what ChezJfrey's background is, but it doesn't matter, as he obviously can do the job.

How many actual professional programmers have worked on New Horizons? There is me, and IncredibleHat that I know of, and it was more due to our years of experience than anything else that allowed us to fix so many bugs. That and probably the mindset that bugs needed to be fixed and the willingness to fix them. :)

We're *all* real-life programmers here. The only measurement that needs to be considered is what we produce. And we all started off in the same place. Being a professional programmer doesn't matter.

Hook
 
Pieter, you know the only difference between us is that I had a two month class in COBOL in the beginning. Everything else was self-taught.
I never knew that; impressive! :bow

How many actual professional programmers have worked on New Horizons? There is me, and IncredibleHat that I know of
Also @konradk and @Maximus, I think. But indeed it's been mostly people who learned by doing and started pretty from scratch.

We're *all* real-life programmers here. The only measurement that needs to be considered is what we produce. And we all started off in the same place. Being a professional programmer doesn't matter.
That was exactly my point as well. Indeed it really doesn't matter what background anyone brings to the table; all that matters is what we produce.
And it has been my privilege to see the most unlikely people accomplish the most incredible things! :woot
 
Hm. Maximus was pretty good at the end, but at the beginning... not so much. I know he eventually produced some really good stuff.

The life of a professional programmer: US Army programmer school, then the Pentagon. They sent all of us in that class there. In addition to my normal work I wrote some small stuff, a biorhythm generator in COBOL to print out the entire 28/38?? year cycle. I picked up a self teaching book on FORTRAN and wrote a blackjack program to teach myself that language. Your tax dollars at work. Many other similar goodies. I used to stay after hours to get some free computer time. My best project was a program to generate and submit computer jobs normally done with card decks. A 36 month database recreation was done with one command, and when one month was finished it submitted the job for the next month. All I had to do to find out the status of the whole run was call the operator's desk from home (it ran overnight) and ask what job was running and what error codes might have been produced. If necessary I could tell them to resubmit it, and the job number was a code for which month is was. They wanted to adopt this as an agency standard, but I don't know where that went. It was called The Living Program. :)

Hook
 
"The actual DirectSail mod he released for Build 13 was the best example of that."

Indeed direct sail in Build 13 works very well. Build 14 broke pretty much everything except the Willemstad Builders Trials and had to be completely rebuilt. The screenie I posted is from April 6, 2010 when direct sail did not work. It wasn't until 2011-2012 after a concerted effort by many talented people that it started working reliably again. Some things like flags/masts are still broken.
 
Build 14 broke pretty much everything except the Willemstad Builders Trials and had to be completely rebuilt. The screenie I posted is from April 6, 2010 when direct sail did not work. It wasn't until 2011-2012 after a concerted effort by many talented people that it started working reliably again.
There were some rough years indeed. Thankfully we managed to recover!

Some things like flags/masts are still broken.
I still don't quite know what exactly is up with those. I tried to fix it and I think I may have reduced the issues, but it's still not right and I never understood why.
Maybe it is simply because that whole mod was also "hacked" into the game by (ab)using the game engine in ways it was never intended to...
 
Passion and the experience of doing account for much more than schooled knowledge when it comes to programming, however, there are some foundational things that need to learned from a book to improve your knowledge/awareness, form, and discipline -- but that's not to say that you can't pick that book up yourself and study it.

To me, a "professional" programmer is someone who has spent many years writing and editing code, no matter their schooling.

Hey look, I found the original DirectSail archive so you can all see how @CouchcaptainCharles did it!
Contains a fairly comprehensive readme in the "buildinfo" folder too.

Wow, thank you!! There are many structural differences between POTC and CT, but this will definitely help give me an idea of what's possible and how to go about it.

It seems to me that @CouchcaptainCharles and anyone who has worked on DirectSail in the past has spent a LOT of energy and time into making this happen. Kudos to their bravery, vision, persistence, and endurance, and gratitude for their sharing with the community.
 
Last edited:
If it doesn't crap irreparably out on you, that is. ;)
Who has ever heard of such a thing?! Idle fantasies... :rolleyes: :monkeydance

But, in all honesty, some the best games are loaded with bugs (especially when they are pushing for new ground). :p Take The Sims 1 for example. :modding Makes you bang your head against the screen when the game crashes, maids get stuck in the shower and save files get corrupted, and yet still one of the best games of its kind ever made, and still stands its ground against the newer releases in the franchise.
 
Last edited:
Indeed. I'm obsessing on Subnautica now and people with potato puters are having problems with falling through the ground and such while waiting for it to load in data on the fly instead of using loading screens. When the modders here transitioned POTC from loading screens to loading on the fly it went much smoother.
 
The Sims 1

I just noticed this! I barely remember Sims 1, but played it a lot at the time. The main thing I remember was that the ambient sounds if you bought a house in Magic Town were creepy as anything, and I had to keep the TV running to drown them out. I was just getting tired of Sims 1 when Sims 2 was released.

If you spent any time on the Sims 2 BBS, you'll recognize my name. Along with Pinstar1161 and SimMasterMoira. I worked a lot with Pescado on his mods, and even did a few of my own.

I preferred Sims 3 in a lot of ways. Pescado went off in a different direction with his mods for this version, so I was using someone else's.

The Sims communities were the best I've ever been in online.

Remember the Sims movie that was always rumored? It was eventually released, with no mention made of The Sims but it was obvious from some visuals (green plumbobs at one point). Just knowing this was a Sims movie before watching it is a major spoiler. Let me know if you need the title.

Hook
 
The main thing I remember was that the ambient sounds if you bought a house in Magic Town were creepy as anything, and I had to keep the TV running to drown them out.

I was initially hyped about getting them, but I'm not too happy with Unleashed, Superstar, and Makin' Magic. They are fun, but they detract from the original gameplay experience of The Sims -- in ways quite obnoxiously...

Unleashed introduces stray pets in hundreds on your lawn, making a mess and creating unnecessary additional work in an already busy schedule -- that's without even owning your own pet! Superstar introduces an alternative career path that is quite distinct in the way it works from other jobs, and it introduces a separate newpaper for a fame-zine (again, taking additional time from your sims' daily schedule), which is loaded with pop-ups when your sims read it for fun and quite obnoxious if you're not interested in playing a celebrity. Makin' Magic is best balanced out of the three, by separating Magic Town from the main game, and only giving you the option to go that direction if you're interested, but the world it creates is, naturally, quite distinct from the original world of The Sims.

I feel that they leave much to be desired in terms of design and programming (balancing). The developers seem to have lost their vision somewhat as the expansion packs rolled on and The Sims became a sensation. Vacation onwards is fun to play, but if you're looking for the core Sims experience, The Sims, House Party, Hot Date, and Vacation are the way to go. The other expansions jazz up the game, but IMHO don't really add anything meaningful content and gameplay elements to the original gameplay -- unless you intend to play The Sims in the Harry Potter universe, are looking to play a celebrity, or looking to turn your game into a pet management sim.

Livin' Large doesn't even deserve a mention -- unless you find the original Sims too boring and are looking to add goofiness (strange and world-of-fiction events) to your game. I feel their first expansion pack was a huge misstep, and is responsible for the later mess.

Remember the Sims movie that was always rumored? It was eventually released, with no mention made of The Sims but it was obvious from some visuals (green plumbobs at one point). Just knowing this was a Sims movie before watching it is a major spoiler. Let me know if you need the title.

I do. I have never actually seen it, but that sounds highly amusing! I gave my Sims collection to my sister, who was an even bigger fan of it than I was. It took me over a decade to build up my own collection again. Now I'm super-hyped about The Sims. So much has happened in the community since the release of Vacation/On Holiday -- which is the last expansion pack I played in the original before giving my copies away. I especially love all the official pop/rock artists made Simlish songs! xD I've downloaded the best of them, and I'm going to add them to the radio stations (music genres for stereos/HI-FIs) in The Sims 1, so that when my sims turn on their radio, I can enjoy it, too! :yes

P.S. The Sims was one of my very first experiences modding. :3
 
Last edited:
I didn't have all the Sims 1 expansions. I think Makin' Magic was given to me as a gift, and I don't know if I ever got any others. The entire time I played it I only grew up one child after we got the ability to do so in Magic.

Soon-soon!

Hook
 
I can't resist, I have to share:

Here's a full playlist (just one of many).

xD

The entire time I played it I only grew up one child after we got the ability to do so in Magic.

Yeah, time did not pass in The Sims 1. You were essentially caught in a neverending day-loop at home -- and only throwing parties, going out, or going on a vacation added variety (kind of like real life). That time passing and generations of sims feature was introduced in The Sims 2, and it changed gameplay drastically.

I was lucky to buy The Sims and House Party in a (pirated) bundle. Later I spent money on the two expansions that followed, buying them from an official store. I remember Hot Date being the very first game I had spent a "lot of" money on (AU $40). :rolleyes:

It all ended up with my sister. Interesting to note, The Sims was one of the things that inspired my sister to study and take on architecture as a profession. As for me, it made me a(n organised) slacker... :rofl
 
Last edited:
Back
Top