Need Help To much floating cargo in directsail

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok, now that the game is running ok again I want to mention something that is becoming a pet peeve.

There is too much junk floating around the Caribbean now. One can leave port with half full holds and arrive at the next port with full holds. This really distorts the whole trading system as one no longer has to think about what to buy. Just take off and collect the free loot floating around.
Methinks this will slow down personal advancement as well as making the merchants poorer and possibly unable to sell things like food and rum.

I know the intent is to make direct sailing more interesting, but this is just too much.

 

[DavyJack]

Is it really that much? hmmnn.. but many ships are sunk by then. Mostly merchants, I think, as they were like the colour(s)/prized target(s) during land battles.
But if its that too much as in every time you go out to sea and find floating cargo's/stuffs, then I must agree lessening it. Like 20-25% or 10-15% chance that you can luckily find cargo's/stuffs/sailors still floating around after a fresh sea battle.

RUNTIME ERROR - file: worldmap\worldmap_events.c; line: 114
process event stack error

I've been randomly seeing those on occasion as well. But when I tried to actually test them and fix them, it didn't happen.

I figured it out! http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/...ng-interface-screens.21352/page-3#post-468149

 

[jsv]

If I read CCCdirectsail.c correctly, directsail check in open sea is made every 15 minutes (near the land and in transition zones things are more complicated). Every time the check is made, there is either ship encounter or about 80% (18/22) chance of something else happening. And, currently, "something else" is always flotsam. So yes, there are tons of goods in excellent condition floating around. And by the way the better ship you have the bigger amounts of goods you find.

That 18/22 chance is easily adjustable (line 1193 of CCCdirectsail.c). But lessening flotsam frequency would mean less events during long travels and they are rather uneventful already. It would be like you sail, sail, sail and either you run into hostile ships or you don't.

 

[DavyJack]

Oh so the code is in general? I thought there is a separate code just for the floating cargo's. - if I understand your point correctly

 

[jsv]

Oh so the code is in general? I thought there is a separate code just for the floating cargo's. - if I understand your point correctly

When you are travelling using Directsail (that is, not using the World Map) there is a random chance you encounter some goods just floating around. We're arguing (I think ) that this chance is too big.
This is not related to sea battles and cargo from sunken ships. If directsail decides you've encountered flotsam, it materialize goods out of nowhere and place them near your ship, that's all.

 

[DavyJack]

But we can just say that those materialized out of nowhere stuffs are from sunken ships now, can't we?
And yes, the chance is too big. But if there's just a separate code that would just lessen the floating stuffs encountered, then it would satisfy Sir Hylie's suggestion. And I also support his suggestion. But ahhh..I'm not into directsail that much anyway..

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I am very much into direct sail. With the open sea mod you have to be, as even using the world map it drops you off well away from any land meaning you will be sailing along for some time before dropping anchor.

I just started a new game so am sailing a small ship (La Dilligente Tartane) and it is easy to fill the holds when direct sailing between two close islands. Sooner or later I will just start ignoring all that trash and only go after dismasted vessels and native rafts. Haven't seen any of those yet.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Possibly Open Sea Mod twists the results as well. Because voyages take longer, you have more chance to encounter stuff than without it.

The BEST way to "fix" this is to add some shipboard random crew events to the DirectSail encounter code.
I've always wanted to have something like that in the game; unfortunately I don't have time to work on it though.
Hopefully someone else might be interested.... Levis? jsv?

 

[Levis]

Split this from the main topic.

And what is said above is correct.
A simple fix is finding the folowing code in NK.c

        DIRECTENCOUNTERCHANCE =                                25;        // chance in percent that an encounter fleet appears every hour
        DIRECTENCOUNTERDISTANCE =                            2250;    // distance from player at which random ships appear 
        ISLANDSWITCHDISTANCE =                                30000.0;// for islandcell mode only: distance from island at which transfer to neighbour island starts
        ENCOUNTERBREAK =                                    3.0;    // LDH - Changed to float, number is hours per encounter, directsail is called every 5 minutes occasionally
        // so you can let the clock run faster (by increasing TIMESCALAR_SEA below), meaning longer voyagetimes, without getting too many encounters.

And change it to

        DIRECTENCOUNTERCHANCE =                                50;        // chance in percent that an encounter fleet appears every hour
        DIRECTENCOUNTERDISTANCE =                            2250;    // distance from player at which random ships appear 
        ISLANDSWITCHDISTANCE =                                30000.0;// for islandcell mode only: distance from island at which transfer to neighbour island starts
        ENCOUNTERBREAK =                                    6.0;    // LDH - Changed to float, number is hours per encounter, directsail is called every 5 minutes occasionally
        // so you can let the clock run faster (by increasing TIMESCALAR_SEA below), meaning longer voyagetimes, without getting too many encounters.

This will only generate cargo half the times and the other half it will generate a ship while the function is called less. So the change of finding a ship is kept the same but the change of finding cargo is less.

I think a other random encounter would be nice. For example a ghost ship sighting might be nice. There should be code for that already, just need to find it.
Other sugestions are welcome

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ghost ship sighting? We don't really have any specific ones of those. Except the actual quest ones, of course.
We can make any ship appear cursed, of course, but how would you make it not too obvious?

 

[Levis]

I mean the quest one, we could change that code maybe. Or maybe do a sighting of a famous ship (which you dont have your self). I believe we got quite a few in the game aready.

else I could also just add another percentage for the random event to actually work. but than its better to just change what I said in the params.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'd indeed rather have some additional random stuff added for more variety.
You could use the GenerateQuestShip function, I imagine. I rewrote it quite extensively to give it more uses.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I've been spending some time with these new settings. The amount of goods is about right for me, but the ship encounters seems too high. I'm just guessing but 35-40 might be ok. I mean here I am just outside of Havana harbor at the start of the game. It seems a bit excessive.

 

[Levis]

The ship encounter should be the same as it was before. Else you might make it this:

DIRECTENCOUNTERCHANCE =                                50;        // chance in percent that an encounter fleet appears every hour
        DIRECTENCOUNTERDISTANCE =                            2250;    // distance from player at which random ships appear 
        ISLANDSWITCHDISTANCE =                                30000.0;// for islandcell mode only: distance from island at which transfer to neighbour island starts
        ENCOUNTERBREAK =                                    8.0;    // LDH - Changed to float, number is hours per encounter, directsail is called every 5 minutes occasionally
        // so you can let the clock run faster (by increasing TIMESCALAR_SEA below), meaning longer voyagetimes, without getting too many encounters.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I have directencounterchance = 30 and there are still a lot of ships out there.

The funny thing is that when encountering floating things, they come in clumps. There will be nothing for a really long time and then suddenly there is stuff all over the place. Still, it is good as I never fill my hold anymore.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Note that balancing this for Open Sea Mod ON/OFF must be done separately.

The funny thing is that when encountering floating things, they come in clumps. There will be nothing for a really long time and then suddenly there is stuff all over the place.

That effect must be 100% random.

 

[Levis]

its logical the things come in chunks. thats how its coded at the moment.
I will take a look at this very soon to come up with a temporary fix.
But it logical also that they are grouped together right. thats where a ship probally sank.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The chance at floating goods should be randomly decided on each hour separatel.
I thought by "chunks", Hylie meant that for hours and hours there is nothing, until suddenly you get floating goods every hour.
That should not be the case. Just like losing the lottery time and again does not make you any more likely to win next time.

 

[Levis]

At the moment the code generates a ship OR cargo floating. and it generates it every X hours (depended on what you set in the settings).

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Since it usually takes several hours to get to any floating items having something happen every hour is too much. I was seeing 2-3 items around quite often before and now they are spaced out better and are less common in general.