A few questions

[Pappnase]

Hey guys,

first of all, I have to mention I played GOF 1.2 and ERAS mod and simply love AOP2 with these mods and the age of sail. Now I tried POTC New Horizons and though it's very similar to AOP I have a few questions, some may also realated to AOP.

1. Ship diversity: I feel like in AOP GOF and ERAS is a greater ship diversity. In POTC the AI uses almost allways the same trade ship (I think the light merchant ship or however it is called). And I am lvl 21 sailing a Razee and have a Bellona in my group. I haven't seen yet any galleons or carracks. I also don't get it, that the Bellona is a french design...

2. Where do I get bombs for the cannons? In the internalsettings it says key 4 for bombs. So I suppose there are bombs ingame but no store offer them.

3. On the pirate settlement on Nevis at the town gates is a monk who gives me 1 of 2 items with the burden that I can't leave the archipelago. But how should I leave the archipelago even if I don't have these items? So the burden is useless?

4. If I ask any shopkeeper for a job he asks me to deliver goods, but always only to the pirate settlement on Nevis. Though I have to admit that I only ask british shopkeepers. Is that a bug.

5. I started the Master and Commander campaign. I always start at the american island eulythera...whatever it's called. What am I supposed to do if I can do something else than just leaving the island and start roaming around the Caribbean? If I remember right there's no storyline for MaC yet?

6. How can I increase Leadership?

7. As I am german and have no real clue about sailing, what abilities and skills do boatswains, quartermaster etc. need.

8. What exactly is supposed to happen if I press L?

Now AOP and POTC related questions:

9. I really enjoy it going ashore like a boss with my three master at arms and 5 fully armed britisch soldiers (of my own crew). It makes me feel like a badass . Now I realized that GOF 2.0 recently was released (I only played 1.2 and an earlier version). I am not going to ask here what's new. I just wonder, if it's possible to implement this feature into GOF? I also find storms much more interesting in new horizons (or does GOF use the same principle).

10. I think I've read that there is no need to look for ships on the internet. Nevertheless I really wonder, where I can find downloadable ships on the net for AOP 1/2 and POTC. I haven't found anything usefull yet.

I think that's all so far^^ Thanks for your help

Pappnase

 

[Pieter Boelen]

1. The ship selection depends on the time period of the storyline you're playing. You won't see Galleons in more modern times.
The total number of ships is 238 though, so there should be variety enough.
Which storyline are you playing and what are the ships you would like to be seeing?

2. They are in use for forts as realistically they were never used on ships.
However, as an Easter Egg, you can still steal some from a couple of forts or find them in abandoned hulks at sea.

3. He is referring about the "Save" option.

4. Depends on the nation relations. If England is hostile with all other nations, they can't send you to many different places.
The Pirate Settlement is used as a "default" if no other valid options can be found.

5. Indeed it is fully Free Play. What you do is up to you. There are a few available sidequests, but indeed none on the starting island.

6. "You can improve Leadership by talking with people in towns, completing quests and paying your crew regularly."
If you have a similar question about the other skills, ask Malcolm Hatcher during the tutorial in the Standard storyline.

7. Check PROGRAM\Officers.c for the exact overview.

8. Changes the amount of on-screen log messages you received.

9. A lot can be ported between AoP and PotC. Somebody has to do it though.

10. All worthwhile ships have already been included in the PotC Build Mod. When new ones are made, they are included in the next update.

I hope this helps.

 

[Pappnase]

Nice, thanks for your detailed answer.
For the timeperiod: Someone said in a thread, the ship appearance doesn't depend on the era. Well, I trust you. What's a good storyline? With MaC I missed a story and quests a little bit. I'll check other campaigns...

 

[Hylie Pistof]

mate! I will try to answer your questions.

1. If you have a Bellona that means you are playing in one of the later time periods when there are no galleons. The late periods have almost no merchant ships sadly. If you want to see more ship diversity then play in one of the early periods.

2. Bombs are rare and can not be bought. They can be found in floating hulks and also in forts if you are lucky enough to meet up with a certain civilian.

3. The way it works with the monk is if you let him give you an item the only way to get rid of said item is to meet a monk at a certain location. It is recommended to not do this.

4. Are you a pirate? The merchants only give jobs to colonies that they or you are friendly with. Try changing you flag and se what happens.

5. M&C is free play only. There is no storyline and never will be as it is for free play only.

6. Talk to people. Buy certain items from merchants. Complete tasks.

7. The officers need to be best at what they do. A quartermaster should be good at trading, and a gunner should be good with cannons and accuracy.

8. The "L" key toggles full logs on and off.

9. If that feature has not been implemented by now then I do not think it will be. And yes the POTC storms are a real adventure.

10. There are no ships for COAS or POTC except here.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For the timeperiod: Someone said in a thread, the ship appearance doesn't depend on the era.

Who said that? If the ship selection would be the same in all time periods, what would be the point in having the Periods Mod in the first place?
We do have an option for people who want a completely random assortment of ships (it is at the top of PROGRAM\Ships\ships_init.c), but that is turned OFF by default.

What's a good storyline? With MaC I missed a story and quests a little bit. I'll check other campaigns...

The Standard storyline is great for Free Play, but also has the biggest assortment of sidequests.
It has a great variety in opening scenes (try the Stormy Start!) plus the optional main quest.

But really, ALL storylines are worthwhile and unique
A few don't have much story available, but those are marked clearly in the Select Storyline interface.
Have a look at the Wiki for complete details: http://www.piratesahoy.net/wiki/new-horizon-quests/

And yes the POTC storms are a real adventure.

Sounds like my "Capsize" mod wasn't a waste of time then, eh?
I always did find it annoying how surviving a storm used to be "furl all sails and wait". That just made them booooring.

 

[Grey Roger]

Storms are not fun. You're supposed to turn the bow into the waves, except that the ship barely turns, and when you're just finally about pointing the right way, the wind changes.

But I did have one storm which was a bit more interesting than most. It happened while, as part of the "Horatio Hornblower" storyline, I was fighting the Temeraire and the weather suddenly turned into a storm. The captain of the Temeraire has never heard of turning into the waves. So it was the Temeraire which found out about the "Capsize" mod first hand.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Storms are not fun. You're supposed to turn the bow into the waves, except that the ship barely turns, and when you're just finally about pointing the right way, the wind changes.

Do you use full sails or half sails to turn your ship? I have always managed it.
Also when the wind direction changes, it only does so by a few degrees and shouldn't come from completely the opposite direction.
So that's.... odd.

But I did have one storm which was a bit more interesting than most. It happened while, as part of the "Horatio Hornblower" storyline, I was fighting the Temeraire and the weather suddenly turned into a storm. The captain of the Temeraire has never heard of turning into the waves. So it was the Temeraire which found out about the "Capsize" mod first hand.

That's odd. I'm pretty sure only the player ship is subjected to the Capsize mod for that exact reason.

 

[Grey Roger]

I use half sails to try to turn, then if I actually get pointing the right way I raise all sails. Of course, skills and perks don't go up as fast as they used to, and at this point I wasn't far into the "Hornblower" story, so I'm not as high level as someone who's completed a whole storyline and has high skills, lots of perks and lots of officers with their own perks.

The wind doesn't need to come from the opposite direction - in fact if it did, that would put me stern on to the waves, which is just as good. It's when the wind comes from the side that it's a problem. Even swinging round by 45 degrees is enough to undo all the work I've been doing.

The Temeraire had taken some hits from both the Justinian and Indefatigable but it still had plenty of damage left. At least, until it went onto its side.

All ships should be subject to the same rules - if I can capsize, everyone else ought to be able to do it as well. Especially since perks are now harder to get, even if you've disabled Locked Perks, which means even if the other captains don't have Storm Helmsman, quite likely neither do you.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I use half sails to try to turn, then if I actually get pointing the right way I raise all sails.

HOIST all sails in the middle of a storm? I wouldn't recommend that.

All ships should be subject to the same rules - if I can capsize, everyone else ought to be able to do it as well.

Logically speaking, yes they should. But the AI is unaware of the capsize danger, giving the player an unfair advantage.
Plus... it might lose you your fleet if you have multiple ships in a storm. Because the other captains just don't "get" it.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Early in the game with low skills the ship hardly turns at all and in fact the wind exert a greater turning force than the rudder. Left to its own the ship will turn sideways to the waves and sit there so I help it turn in the hope it will swing past the sideways point and then I can stop it when it is pointing with the wind.

Later with a big ship and good skills storms are much easier.

 

[Pappnase]

I have signed articles with my crew. Whatis the advantage of that? I just decided to do that because i have more than 1 mio. carry around. Also how do get acess to my wealth money? Right know my money 160.000 but my wealth is 600.000.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Signing articles allows the morale of your crew to get MUCH higher than with regular salary. That makes boardings easier, as long as you remain successful.
It also makes for a more interesting game, because you get to start over every 6 months or so.

You can donate your wealth to the crew if you want to use it. Otherwise, it is just a measure of "keeping score" on how successful a pirate you are.

 

[Grey Roger]

HOIST all sails in the middle of a storm? I wouldn't recommend that.

The sail hangs down from the yardarm. Therefore when you raise the sail, you're pulling it up towards the yardarm. Lowering all sails in the middle of a storm is a really bad idea.

Logically speaking, yes they should. But the AI is unaware of the capsize danger, giving the player an unfair advantage.
Plus... it might lose you your fleet if you have multiple ships in a storm. Because the other captains just don't "get" it.

As opposed to giving the player an unfair disadvantage because you can capsize and nobody else can. Perhaps make non-player ships safe from capsizing only if their captains have the "Storm helmsman" perk.

Besides, if I'm having trouble keeping a relatively agile ship like the Indefatigable pointing into the waves, a lumbering beast like the Temeraire should have even more of a problem.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Methinks the language is backwards as in "Raise them down.".

Anyone attempting to fight a battle in a storm deserves to get sunk. That is nuts. The other ships in my fleet all take more storm damage than mine does and usually it is one of them that gets sunk without capsizing.

Actually the better a ship turns the worse it does in a storm. My big slow merchant ships just plow through the waves just fine.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As opposed to giving the player an unfair disadvantage because you can capsize and nobody else can. Perhaps make non-player ships safe from capsizing only if their captains have the "Storm helmsman" perk.

Technically, yes it is a disadvantage to the player. Unfortunately we can't have it both ways.
The main reason for adding it was to make the storms a bit more interesting. Unlike in the stock game where you just furl all sails and wait.
Especially now that storms can last more than 60 seconds, that is just really boring.

 

[Grey Roger]

Anyone attempting to fight a battle in a storm deserves to get sunk. That is nuts.

You may not have much of a choice. Thanks to the changing weather mod, the storm may start after you've been fighting for a while, in which case you either quit and reload an earlier saved game, or you continue the battle and deserve to be sunk. In addition, even if there's no storm anywhere near you on the worldmap, sometimes you enter sailing mode and find yourself in a storm. That's two of the reasons why I generally save game just before entering sailing mode. In fact, in the above battle I'd probably have reached for the F1 button to reload if I hadn't spotted that the Temeraire was in worse shape than I was.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

When that happens I do reload as I save before setting sail and the aggravation of storms is not worth the bother. Plus the storms keep coming endlessly. And yes dropping out of the world map with clear weather showing into a storm often makes me reload too.