A couple of questions

[mangaroca]

Hello,

What an amazing makeover! I played the PotC when it first came out in 2003 and was devastated with what "they" have done with my beloved Sea Dogs 2! Now, I can really enjoy this game! Thank you for your effort and devotion.

I know this is only BETA but I was curious if you could explain two things for me that I couldn't find in the manual. First of them is the ship birthing. I am not native English and I simply don't know what the purpose of this is. I translated the word as "a resting place" for a ship (???) but see no reason for such option in game. The second question is related to APPEARANCE option in Shipyard. I would have imagined this option to be generally eye-candy but I manged to change my War Pinnance (18 pound cannons max, 40 cannons max) into a Heavy War Pinnance (24 pound cannons and 42 of them) just by applying paint! I mean - that's wrong, right?! Not to mention she became a 1-rate ship after that (was a 3rd rate ship before) There are also a few "bugs" related to this feature: 1 - the descriptions are not finished but that's probably due to BETA; 2 - there are no pictures (at least for a 1st class 100 cannon ship of the line) so one cannot imagine what she would look like; 3 - repainting costs nothing.... unless it was meant to be free...

Please, excuse me for asking stupid questions but you're my only hope!
Thank you in advance!

Kind regards -
Darek

 

[Mere_Mortal]

Hello there.

Berthing (not birthing) means to moor the vessel in the dockyard.

Technically speaking you need to berth a vessel in order to disembark from it, but this action is automatic when you drop your anchor in the port. What is relevant here is the freeing of a ship slot and to do this you need to berth an active ship. Or you may decide that you don't want a particular ship to follow you out to sea so you'd need to remove it from an active slot. If you go to the ship tab on the main character screen you should see at the bottom the option for berthing (you need to be in the shipyard to access it). From there you can put the ship on shore leave or lay it up, in either scenario you will receive some text informing you about any consequences before you commit to the action.

 

[mangaroca]

Could anybody say something on the second thing I asked about - the Appearance?

Thank you!
Darek

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Well, it looks like you found a bug. All ships of a type are lumped together in the paint shop, so it looks like one can up and down grade their ship for free. The paint shop is free. This is a result of adding ships over the years methinks. There are now 233 ships in the game. Maybe more.

The descriptions are not finished. I don't know why not.

I assure you that every ship in the game has a picture. A bug was introduced a while back that doesn't let the player advance past class 3. That means that in the shipyard one will never see a clear picture of any class 1 or 2 ship because that ship is rated higher than you are. :j3 Unless you go into "options" and do some tinkering. :d: One of the many things you can change there is change it so that shipyards will sell you any ship you have the piastres for regardless of your rank. :j2 Then all ships in the shipyard will have their picture shown.

Onward thru the fog!

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I don't know how these got forgotten, but they did. There are two goodies that many people don't know about that help the game a bunch. They came out after patch 5.

The screen interface mod for shipyards, and the Christmas ship pack.

http://forum.piratesahoy.net/topic/16787-interface-screenshots-for-ships/ Go to post #107 for this.

http://forum.piratesahoy.net/topic/16951-christmas-ship-pack/ The Christmas ship pack can be gotten here.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Please let me know which ship you could upgrade for free through repainting and we can easily fix that.

Beta 2 will have screenshots for all ships instead, which will remove the use for the unfinished ship descriptions.
Not quite sure what to do with the descriptions then though.

 

[Mere_Mortal]

Any can be repainted for free, but some turn out to allow a bigger cannon. I've experienced this with many different ships, from a dinghy to a sail of the line.

 

[Scoundrel]

I mentioned this upgrading by repainting ship in other topic, but forgot about changing ships class.
But I thought It was only minor bug that had no actual influence on game itself. I think that after repainting ship into something with different class in shipyard, ship class shown in bottom left side of screen hadn't change and so was the level of encounters.
Is my thinking right: this seeming bug was actually only a picture problem?

Anyway, ships was in real mess at first, but installing Christmas Ship Pack really solves problems and improves wuality.

I don't know how these got forgotten, but they did

Did they? Maybe you should include it in next patch?

 

[Armada]

I don't know how these got forgotten, but they did. There are two goodies that many people don't know about that help the game a bunch. They came out after patch 5.

Probably my fault, for not advertising them enough.
Just for clarification, the Christmas Ship Pack actually includes the most up-to-date version of the Interface Screenshots Mod, so there's no need to download that separately.
And I suspect, like the Historical Ship Pack before it, that pack will be featured in the next full patch.

Is my thinking right: this seeming bug was actually only a picture problem?

As miklkit said, ships of a similar type (usually the same type, but different paint schemes) are grouped so that they can be repainted between one another.
In some cases, this was perhaps done without gameplay balancing in mind, and you can 'upgrade' your ship for free using the repaint function.
So all we need to do is re-think how some ships are grouped together.

Anyway, ships was in real mess at first, but installing Christmas Ship Pack really solves problems and improves wuality.

Nice to know!

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yeah, I forgot about them and had to search around to find them. So all I need is the Christmas Ship Pack? Good to know.

About ships lumped together in the same group.

The class 6 light fluyt group also contains a class 4 fluyt. I didn't paint it so don't know if it actually is a class 4, or a class 6 painted as a class 4.

The frigate group contains 2 heavy frigates. Still have a frigate, so will check that one out.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Forget about "suspect"; of COURSE it'll be in the next patch! :wacko:

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Repainting the frigate did not change its stats. There is one, the one on the right end of the line in the shipyard, that has no crew.

I got another fluyt, so will look into that. Also, I got a light frigate and will see what happens when it is repainted as a corvette.

 

[Armada]

The class 6 light fluyt group also contains a class 4 fluyt. I didn't paint it so don't know if it actually is a class 4, or a class 6 painted as a class 4.

I think all groups containing differently classes ships really need to be sorted out.
As this discussion has proved, it seems to be an unintentional exploit that should be stopped. :?
I reckon we should make a list of any 'class upgrade-able' model groups, and work from there.

Forget about "suspect"; of COURSE it'll be in the next patch! :wacko:

It's just as I 'suspected' then... :

Repainting the frigate did not change its stats. There is one, the one on the right end of the line in the shipyard, that has no crew.

Could you find out which one, please? Should be easy to fix.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Aye! Aye! When I get another frigate..... It was black and red with a Frenchman at the wheel. FR_Frigate?

But.....

This install is probably no good. None of the light frigates has a crew except for the corvette from AOP with the unicorn on the bow. Will make another install to verify things.

 

[Scoundrel]

Havent found anything wrong with frigates.
But this is what I have found:

Changing Light Fluyi to Fluyt (NL_Fleut50) changes max caliber from 6 to 9
I started calling it 'naval bug' cause every ship that had naval version has the same bug. Fo example
Bermuda Sloop (bermsloop163) -> Naval Bermuda Sloop (bermsloop 263)
Cutter (cutter3_18) -> Naval Cutter (Cutter1 and Cutter2)

Similar with Pinnace-of-War (Pinnaceofwar40g) - caliber 18, 3rd rate ship. When it changes into HMS_Indeflagable caliber changes to 24 and when you change it to Heavy Pinnace of War (NL_TwoDecker47) it changes into 1st rate ship (obviously to high rate in comparison with other 1st rate ships)
Pinnace-of-War shoudl be excluded from group.

FastGalleon1 has 9 caliber but both FastGalleon2 and PiratFastGal have 18 caliber.

Its little odd that some ships have prefixes in names that mean nothing: Eglish Galleon, Fast English War Galleon and Fast English Galleon differ only in name. I'd suspect that they're called 'fast', 'heavy', 'war' or whatever ships for a reason.

Also: repainting light frigate into corvette (Corvette1_47 results in one gun less for each burt (so from 32 to 30) BUT you'll loose them only after repairing ship. And HMS Greyhound has two guns less that its model.

Some ships have no images when you go into repaint option. Trade Brig for example (I forgot which else)

Thats all for now. I'll have my eyes open

 

[Armada]

It was black and red with a Frenchman at the wheel. FR_Frigate?

Sounds like FR_Frigate alright, but I don't recall that one not having crew...

This install is probably no good. None of the light frigates has a crew except for the corvette from AOP with the unicorn on the bow. Will make another install to verify things.

You have now officially confused me with the sheer number of installs you've had to re-install lately! :wacko:

Changing Light Fluyi to Fluyt (NL_Fleut50) changes max caliber from 6 to 9
I started calling it 'naval bug' cause every ship that had naval version has the same bug. Fo example
Bermuda Sloop (bermsloop163) -> Naval Bermuda Sloop (bermsloop 263)
Cutter (cutter3_18) -> Naval Cutter (Cutter1 and Cutter2)

Similar with Pinnace-of-War (Pinnaceofwar40g) - caliber 18, 3rd rate ship. When it changes into HMS_Indeflagable caliber changes to 24 and when you change it to Heavy Pinnace of War (NL_TwoDecker47) it changes into 1st rate ship (obviously to high rate in comparison with other 1st rate ships)
Pinnace-of-War shoudl be excluded from group.

FastGalleon1 has 9 caliber but both FastGalleon2 and PiratFastGal have 18 caliber.

Almost all of the above instances can be explained by the currently unclear class system, which I helped to improve a while ago.
Basically, all ships in the game fall into one of three main categories: Navy, Merchant or Balanced.
Navy and Merchant are self explanatory, and Balanced is a compromise between the two.
In some cases, this means some ships have multiple versions with different names/stats etc which are otherwise unexplained.
For example, the 'Navy' prefix on some ships represents a higher gun calibre/lower goods capacity than a merchant counterpart.
As it stands, the only way to tell which ships belong to which category (except in obvious cases) is if you have the Excel file with the full list.
However, it is definitely unclear in-game, and I really think it's about time we changed that!

Its little odd that some ships have prefixes in names that mean nothing: Eglish Galleon, Fast English War Galleon and Fast English Galleon differ only in name. I'd suspect that they're called 'fast', 'heavy', 'war' or whatever ships for a reason.

They are different through their stats (e.g. 'Fast' really does mean 'faster than the basic version'!)

Some ships have no images when you go into repaint option. Trade Brig for example (I forgot which else)

Now that doesn't sound right; I'm 99.9% sure all ships have working images as of the Xmas Ship Pack's update.
I did check every single one, so unless a piece of code is wrong, all images should be present. :?

 

[Scoundrel]

Basically, all ships in the game fall into one of three main categories: Navy, Merchant or Balanced.
Navy and Merchant are self explanatory, and Balanced is a compromise between the two.
In some cases, this means some ships have multiple versions with different names/stats etc which are otherwise unexplained.

But when you repaint your ship all stats that are unconstant - crew, hp, capacity, speed - do not change, and constant - guns caliber, types of sails and max/best attack angle - do change. So we can just buy some merchant ship to have lots of crew, capacity and hp and just repaint it to something that will increase guns number and caliber (or with latin sails - but this wont be any exploit if you just put some price on it)

They are different through their stats (e.g. 'Fast' really does mean 'faster than the basic version'!)

Oh, right. Didnt notice it because repainting doesn't affect theese stats, so only name changed.

I think that this shold be solved (in planned new ships upgrade system of couse) by making sure, that changing ship type affects all stats, not just caliber and performance, and that options of repaint are amond ships with the exact statistics.

I'm 99.9% sure all ships have working images as of the Xmas Ship Pack's update.
I did check every single one, so unless a piece of code is wrong, all images should be present. :?

So maybe its just mine issue. Im redownloading everything tonight anyway. And when I think of it I didnt notice any problems with images inChristmas Pack before. So youre most probably right.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Reinstalls? I have had nothing but trouble since patch 5 came out. So far today I deleted the install I've been playing. Did a new install from my latest dl's. It caused AVG antivirus and Windoze firewall to freak out. Deleted. Did another install and have been playing it. All is well so far. :nk The only thing I have noticed so far is that the Luggers (not the standard one) fire their cannons twice. :boom I've noticed this before but never mentioned it so it is probably true for others as well.

I CAN verify what Scoundrel is saying about the number and caliber of guns changing. Certain ships like the 2 class 4 fluyts and that one light frigate should stand alone like the Indiaman.

 

[Armada]

I think that this shold be solved (in planned new ships upgrade system of couse) by making sure, that changing ship type affects all stats, not just caliber and performance, and that options of repaint are amond ships with the exact statistics.

Of course, that's what I forgot to mention. We do need to balance out the repaint groups quite a bit.
Luckily it's only a matter of changing the 'refShip.Model' line in 'ships_init.c'. For every ship we want to change, we simply modify/remove that line.

The only thing I have noticed so far is that the Luggers (not the standard one) fire their cannons twice. :boom I've noticed this before but never mentioned it so it is probably true for others as well.

Huh?! Sounds like an attempt to make a two-gun version of the Flying Dutchman's 'triple guns'! :

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I noticed it first with the lugger with the two headed dog figurehead. Tried two others and they did it too. You start out with 180 rounds, and they can use that up pretty fast.