Trig's general git shop

[Triglav]

Ahoy mateys.

A bit of an intro first.
Late to the table, as always, but since I do most my game shopping through Steam and POTC is somehow not available there, it took a wee while to even find it. In fact I only learned about the game by hearing of the mod first on ModDb.
Used to be a big fan of Sid Meier's Pirates even back in C64 times and then later fro PC, so I was very happy to find this worthy successor.

So to the praise part. As a modder myself (for OFP and M&B most notably), I am well impressed by all the detail, variety, historic accuracy, fun, humour, cameos, quotes, and all other hard work that was put into this mod. It is very enjoyable to play and in spite of warnings, I get surprisingly few crashes. Been playing for a few weeks now, B 14 - 2.1, and it's very immersive and sleep pattern disrupting.

Haven't encountered any major gamebreaking issues yet, except one rather minor bug.
Went about building my own settlement. While most buildigs seem to do what they say, the HQ lady mentions some diplomacy bit but there's no answer option to learn more about that.
And the houses are bugged. Dialogue does not initiate in regular house or trader house. Looked through b_house.h but didn't spot any obvious error, if I renamed b_farm.h to house, the guy in the house would give normal farm dialogue. So I recken there is some silly error in b_house.h that prevents the dialogue from happening, btu since I am no coder, I couldn't spot it.

Also questions
Do game settings change according to scenario? Like rank progressiona and costs? Playing on Journeyman as Hawk I seemed to progress in rank faster than as Croix, or is it cause I serve 3 powers as Croix and only 1 as Hawk?
Also, captured captains that join me as officers are meant to have wages 0 or is that a bug?

If I encounter more bugs I'll be posting them here.

Haven't looked at the mod files yet closely, but if some help is needed with models/textures, I could be of some help.

 

[agentad]

settings must be same in all storyline, you gain more XP in fight if you spent more skill points in melee etc...

make your own building still not fixed if i remember good (as fort/city siege)

the mod really have much things, and before next version we are hunting each bugs we get (much works still to do)


{out of subject: which mod of M&B ? i personnally was one of the first tester of assassin hunt and fantasy persistent world, and play a lot as regular player}

 

[Hylie Pistof]

:gday mate!


I can't help you with the buildings. Others can.

I believe the other quests are more difficult than the standard Sea Hawk one, so it is no surprise that you are advancing faster there. Also, the amount of combat has a direct impact on rank advancement.

The captured Captains sometimes have wages of zero. This will change as you advance. Some of them are quite expensive.

Enjoy!

 

[Triglav]

Cheers, much obliged for the answers.

{out of subject: which mod of M&B ? i personnally was one of the first tester of assassin hunt and fantasy persistent world, and play a lot as regular player}

Ah grand. I didn't try those, even though I wanted the Fantasy one, but then just didn't have the time. Done most scene work and a good deal of items and armours for The Last Days though (http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,199243.0.html)

 

[agentad]

TLD the most awesome mod (im fieldmarshall_adrien_xbow on forum i posted a lot and waited and followed this mod during 5 years =) awesome works [still having much TLD main link in favorite with some minimod like teh warband imported animation ]

 

[Triglav]

TLD the most awesome mod (im fieldmarshall_adrien_xbow on forum i posted a lot and waited and followed this mod during 5 years =) awesome works [still having much TLD main link in favorite with some minimod like teh warband imported animation ]

Thanks mate

Seems I can't stay away from mods and modding.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Welcome to the forum, mate! I'm glad you like our work!

Do you get any error messages on the house dialog file? I could look at it at some point, but at the moment still have too much real-life work to do.

Different storylines have different default difficulty levels and different default character types set so that could make a difference. Nathaniel Hawk is set for the easiest difficulty.
You can override the default settings in the Select Storyline interface though.

The salary thing sounds like a bug. Or perhaps something that never was written.
I wonder if I can figure out how to add that; I know there's a quest.officerprice attribute for characters that might be related.

 

[Thagarr]

Ahoy Triglav, welcome aboard mate!

Indeed, our modders have done a fantastic job over the years, they have done things with the game engine that even the original developers said were impossible! it's feedback such as yours that helps inspire us as a community to keep doing what we do!

 

[Triglav]

Welcome to the forum, mate! I'm glad you like our work!

Do you get any error messages on the house dialog file? I could look at it at some point, but at the moment still have too much real-life work to do.

Different storylines have different default difficulty levels and different default character types set so that could make a difference. Nathaniel Hawk is set for the easiest difficulty.
You can override the default settings in the Select Storyline interface though.

The salary thing sounds like a bug. Or perhaps something that never was written.
I wonder if I can figure out how to add that; I know there's a quest.officerprice attribute for characters that might be related.

Thank you for the answers and the welcome.

On built houses: No error message. When trying to talk to the guy, just nothing happens. He twitches for a microsecond, but no dialogue opens up. Done a bit more testing, if I copied full b_farm.h code into h_house.h, and tried talking, the man works fine, but naturally, gives the farm dialogue. If I copy only the first chunk of b_house.h in there from void ProcessDialogEvent() to break; // end of case "your_dialog2", leaving the rest of the code as in Farm, it again doesn't work. So I guess this pretty much narrows it down where the bug is hidden.

On difficulty: Yes I figured Nathaniel was easiest, why I moved to the French fellow, and also cause I wanted an earlier period.

On salaries: Currently it makes little sense for me to hire expensive officers, because I can just keep surrendered ones, most are level 10 and above and still cost 0. I can justify the bug though that if I spared their life, they've got to serve for free. Bit of a Davy Jones attitude lol. The option to capture and lock him up is also a bit hard to find after several convos. I'd reckon it should be right up there with offering him a job.

Ahoy Triglav, welcome aboard mate!

Indeed, our modders have done a fantastic job over the years, they have done things with the game engine that even the original developers said were impossible! it's feedback such as yours that helps inspire us as a community to keep doing what we do!

Cheers! I know the feeling. With out mod it was also over 5 years of work traded for smiles on a bunch of people, and the way I figure, it was well worth it.
Course it's much easier to praise a mod that deserves it. And this one certainly does.

Bit of a period subquestion.
It is great to see the soldiers uniforms change with the time period of each scenario. But, are all weapons available in these different periods in accordance to actual historic availability of those weapons? Not a huge expert on swords myself, but playing the 1660's and the uniformed soldiers all look like musketeers, but wear mainly sabres. I'd more associate rapiers with them, and sabres closer to the Napoleonic era, so past 1750's.

A ship surrender question.
How does this actually work? I was in a pimped up snow brig with 88 men, fighting a spanish sloop and light frigate. Sunk the sloop and hammered the frigate, but she'd not surrender and I really wrecked it...then I circled around and peppered her with grape to try to convince her into surrender, but after a while, she rather exploded and sunk. Then I tried reloading same engagement with different "ship surrender" settings, and even on 0.30 or 0.35, there was still no way to get her to surrender. On the other hand on setting 0.10 I still in the snow-brig once spotted a fluyt-of-war and headed towards it, but saw two allied smallest ships also spotted her from afar, we all raced to engage, but being downwind they closed first, fired two broadsides at her and while still being in nearly mint condition, right away she struck her colours. So, what determines how fast a ship will surrender? How smashed she is, or just how dangerous she perceives the enemy?

Governors question.
Are they meant to be in all towns and it's a bug where there are none, or is it ok that they're missing in some places?

And another probable bug.
I noticed the features list for 2.1 says muskets are carried on the back now, but I still see many on soldiers and random guys worn at the belt.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The period weapons mod is still being worked on. Methinks the soldiers "need" the sabre for now.

The chance of a ship surrendering are very random. One ship will surrender at the first shots and the one next to it might fight to the death. A ship might not surrender until it is boarded also. True, the size of the enemy fleet has a bearing on the chance of surrender.

If I remember correctly, the only island without a Governor is Barbados.

The musket mod is new and is not quite perfect yet. Keep a musket for yourself. Then when you see muskets being carried on the hip, equip yourself with one and draw and then sheath your sword. Then walk through a gate or door. They should be on the shoulders again.

 

[agentad]

im working on the period mod, nearly all things are done, but not officially for the current version, still some bugs happenning and in need to hunt at the moment (im searching with other modders ) the weapons can be changed after more players will test it (perhaps it wont be as accurate as you say but i can try after we have hunted the minor errors)


at the moment with my code (which will be added to next version): the soldier of each faction wear one of his faction sword + brace of small pistol before golden age of piracy, and another faction sword + musket from golden age of piracy to all the later period (choosen with the period and faction attribute of iteminit weapons)

 

[Triglav]

The period weapons mod is still being worked on. Methinks the soldiers "need" the sabre for now.

The chance of a ship surrendering are very random. One ship will surrender at the first shots and the one next to it might fight to the death. A ship might not surrender until it is boarded also. True, the size of the enemy fleet has a bearing on the chance of surrender.

If I remember correctly, the only island without a Governor is Barbados.

The musket mod is new and is not quite perfect yet. Keep a musket for yourself. Then when you see muskets being carried on the hip, equip yourself with one and draw and then sheath your sword. Then walk through a gate or door. They should be on the shoulders again.

Thank you for the explanations.

im working on the period mod, nearly all things are done, but not officially for the current version, still some bugs happenning and in need to hunt at the moment (im searching with other modders ) the weapons can be changed after more players will test it (perhaps it wont be as accurate as you say but i can try after we have hunted the minor errors)


at the moment with my code (which will be added to next version): the soldier of each faction wear one of his faction sword + brace of small pistol before golden age of piracy, and another faction sword + musket from golden age of piracy to all the later period (choosen with the period and faction attribute of iteminit weapons)

Ah, good stuff. Looking forward to it.
If you need any help with that, let me know.

Just for the purpose of this discussion I went into the local bookshop and bought this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Illustrated-Encyclopedia-Swords-Sabers/dp/0754818519

256 pages of everything I should need to know on this weaponry.

At first glance it's very encouraging to spot many weapons I saw in game presented and explained in the book.

 

[agentad]

awesome book i already read and look it in university "library" i always forgot to buy it, i think i must do it

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For the house dialog files, can you enable error logging as per the FAQ (see link in my signature) and see if anything is generated in error.log?
If that doesn't work, please remind me in a month. Then I should be back at home with time to check it myself.

We should be able to get those soldier weapons sorted out for the next Patch, which I'll probably release shortly after I get home next month.
In the meantime, you could test agentad's preliminary code; it already makes quite a difference and I haven't seen any errors caused by it myself yet at the moment.
I suspect the errors the two of us do have in our game version are caused by something else.

Any island that has a governor's mansion should have a governor in it. However, islands like Barbados don't have any of that.
I can't quite remember if there's any other governor-less islands around at the moment.

 

[Triglav]

For the house dialog files, can you enable error logging as per the FAQ (see link in my signature) and see if anything is generated in error.log?
If that doesn't work, please remind me in a month. Then I should be back at home with time to check it myself.

We should be able to get those soldier weapons sorted out for the next Patch, which I'll probably release shortly after I get home next month.
In the meantime, you could test agentad's preliminary code; it already makes quite a difference and I haven't seen any errors caused by it myself yet at the moment.
I suspect the errors the two of us do have in our game version are caused by something else.

Ok, I enabled error logging, will see if anything shows up.

Can test agentad's code, certainement, but, will a new game be required for that or can I finish my current campaign with it?

Apologies, if these have already been reported, but here's some more bugs, funnies and issues I've spotted:
1. outfit model gener_fra_16 shows normal in game, but the animated head doesn't have a texture when you talk to a guy wearing it, just a grey alien blob...not saying there are no grey alien blob pirates, just maybe you didn't intend one in the game so soon.
2. Crew in battle and their outfits. I started out with random piratey looking fellows, then as I gained some rank from Holland, England or France they automatically switched to their army uniform, but now, when I've progressed even a bit further up the ranks, they all must have gooten hold of Ahoy! magazine with all them pirate celebrities in it and all of a sudden all trimmed their beards and ordered the same clothes on-(ship of the)line to all look like exact clones of Nathaniel Hawk. I'm sure they also shave their armpits and the ship reeks of perfume, bloody pansies. I'm confined to my cabin, depressed, with a casket of rum under my pillow. Any way to implement selecting a dress-set for your crew?
3. I'm sure the ship designers are aware of the magic masts, no? Like, you lose a mast, or two, or three, and as soon as you sail into the next land-ho zone, they're re-erected...Also on captured ships, and upon reload...
4. Graphical glitch after a few minutes into battle. Flickering polies stretching all over the screen. Maybe some graphics memory leak, as the problem progresses with time spent in one scene and usually occurs when several ships and smoke are present...?
5. Ship trade. If I sell a captured ship I'm offered, say 20K for it. If I sell cannons separately, I get like 10-15K for the cannons and then another 25K or more for the cannonless ship. While expensive ship modifications don't factor in at all :/ Bit messed up, no? I do also think new sails shouldn't be more expensive than the whole ship. If I get all the modifications, I spend 1 million on a ship worth 100K initially and that's also a bit silly. Though it's easy enough to get a million selling ships&cannons separately.
6. No travel slowdown with broken ships in tow. I capture a mastless ship, only able to row its way to port I suppose, and leave it there, then directsail to nearest port, and upon land-ho she's right next to me, with fresh sails and no delay, ready for sale & making me a fine profit.
7. Storm lightning. Practically at every storm I get hit by lightning. I know lightning does strike ships, but that often? Any way to decrease the frequency of strikes to make it rather a very rare but more terrible experience?

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

but if some help is needed with models/textures, I could be of some help.

This is the kind of thing I like reading in the forum.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Dunno about Agentad's code. Try hitting F11. It might work.

1. It looks like another one got missed. When found they are generally fixed pretty quickly.

2. That can be buggy. It never did get properly fixed. Have you found "internalsettings.h" yet? It is in POTC--->program. Just scroll down to it. You can choose your boarders there among many other things. I use "corsairs" with no problems and am currently at level 45.

3. The masts resetting themselves is known.

4. Ahhh, the Graphical Anomalies. They were introduced along with the flags mod. We are working on that with limited success, although they are less common than they used to be.

5. That part of the economy has always been off. But, cannons and sails have always been quite expensive.

6. That is kinda sorta necessary. Someday you will get caught in multiple storms that leave you with no masts or sails. That feature will represent the difference between making port and starving to death.

7. I'm sure there is a way to adjust it. A coder can tell you where to look.

 

[Triglav]

2. That can be buggy. It never did get properly fixed. Have you found "internalsettings.h" yet? It is in POTC--->program. Just scroll down to it. You can choose your boarders there among many other things. I use "corsairs" with no problems and am currently at level 45.

Ah, will ye look at that...
Thanks!

More questions.

Are custom sails limited by ship type?
I seem to have seen the selection of a Che Guevarra sails when I had some ship, I think it was a fast galleon, but it's not available for a corvette.
I replaced the texture for that one with a cutom one, but now can't get to use it...
I also made a few additional custom sails and increased the number as instructed in InternalSettings, but they don't show up...

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Custom sails depend on the size of your ship. A frigate is too small. You need to get yourself a large ship like a class 3 or better, then get your sails.

Then when you are ready to change ships, get your new one first. All ships in your fleet will then show your sails. Now you can get rid of the old ship and your new ship will keep your sails. Voila!

 

[Triglav]

Custom sails depend on the size of your ship. A frigate is too small. You need to get yourself a large ship like a class 3 or better, then get your sails.

Then when you are ready to change ships, get your new one first. All ships in your fleet will then show your sails. Now you can get rid of the old ship and your new ship will keep your sails. Voila!

Hmm...sounds complicated, I'll see what gives. Maybe I'll just repaint the plain pure white, didn't see many others use that

Edit:
I think I got the desired effect.
Presenting the Light Frigate "Carniola", paid for by the good burghers of the city of Laibach, to explore the distant lands, seek riches and bring glory to the Dutchy of Carniola.