Discussion A few questions

[Vlaxie]

I apologize if some of these have been answered elsewhere, I searched around for a bit but decided to just put up a thread in the end

1. What's the best way to improve my reputation with all the nations? I started out as a pirate and every nation hates my guts but I wish to improve that, all of them are at -119 or close to it; I tried talking to some of the governors but they told me to go away, how I've harmed their country etc, the diplomat pirate guy wants me to pay 13-14 million per country to improve my reputation which isn't happening so I'm a little stuck on that

2. Do ships turn faster depending on their sail setting and speed?

3. After getting a few million the game tells me I need to sign articles with the crew to avoid morale drop but what exactly does that mean; aka what do I need to do to keep them happy after signing articles?

4. I've noticed that certain ships have very big hitboxes making it harder to get close in for boarding without bouncing away, is this normal (Merchant Pinnace is one of the ships that has this issue iirc)?

5. Does disabling directsail mode using the 0 button work and prevent the game from loading new environments while you're sailing around and fighting?

All answers appreciated, I'll probably have a couple more questions soon but these are all the ones I can think of right now

 

[Grey Roger]

1: You've already found the ways to improve your standing with nations - pay a diplomat or pay a governor. It is supposed to be expensive. That way you won't plunder the nation's ships, pay a portion of the proceeds to get your good name back, then do it again. As far as the governor is concerned, crime is not supposed to pay!

2: Yes. Switching to "battle sails" should reduce your speed and improve your turning circle.

3: F2 interface -> Ship -> Crew pay. For preference, do this in town because some of your crew will desert, so you'll want to recruit replacements from the tavern.

4: Yes, it's normal for some ships. It won't be fixed unless someone skilled with ship modelling figures out how to do it.

5: Yes, and it also stops the day from advancing every hour.

 

[Vlaxie]

F2 interface -> Ship -> Crew pay. For preference, do this in town because some of your crew will desert, so you'll want to recruit replacements from the tavern.

I signed articles with my crew but as soon as I did my 4 heavily undercrewed fleet ships got a boost in crew numbers to about 90% of their max capacity instead of dropping, is this a glitch? I saved just before I tried it and reloaded again later to check if it would happen again and it did

I thank you for your responses

 

[Pieter Boelen]

aka what do I need to do to keep them happy after signing articles?

Make sure you keep the loot coming in!
When you make good money, morale will improve much faster and higher after signing articles.
On the other hand, if the loot doesn't come in, morale also drops faster and lower; potentially leading to mutiny.
In other words: Be a good pirate captain.

Also, don't forget to Divide the Plunder every once in a while.
For the first 90-odd days of the expedition, your crew will keep getting excited for new battles.
But eventually they'll start getting grumpy and will want to spend their "well"-earned cash on shore.
If you wait long enough even with the PLENTY loot coming in, you could still get a mutiny on your hand.

So after signing articles: higher risks, higher rewards, more piratin'.

I signed articles with my crew but as soon as I did my 4 heavily undercrewed fleet ships got a boost in crew numbers to about 90% of their max capacity instead of dropping, is this a glitch?

Huh? Sounds like it.
Ghost pirates...

I apologize if some of these have been answered elsewhere, I searched around for a bit but decided to just put up a thread in the end

No worries there.
Questions shake up the monotony.
And that's no bad thing.

I'll probably have a couple more questions soon but these are all the ones I can think of right now

You may fire when ready.

 

[Grey Roger]

About switching payment between salary and division of plunder:

The reason is this, in "PROGRAM\INTERFACE\kam_articles.c", specifically in function "ProcessCommandExecute":

               if(CheckAttribute(PChar, "articles") && sti(PChar.articles))
               {
                   SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio(PChar, 0.2 * (1 + makefloat(CalcCharacterSkill(PChar, SKILL_LEADERSHIP))/3.0));
                   ResetAllLengths(PChar);           // LDH 14Mar09
                   PChar.articles = false;
                   KAM_UpdateDisplay();
               }
               else
               {
                   SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio(PChar, 0.2 * (1 + makefloat(CalcCharacterSkill(PChar, SKILL_LEADERSHIP))/3.0));
                   ResetAllLengths(PChar);           // LDH 14Mar09
                   PChar.articles = true;
                   DeleteAttribute(PChar, "repeat_salary_payment"); // PB
                   KAM_UpdateDisplay();
               }

@Pieter Boelen: is there a reason why it's using "SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio" instead of "SetSquadronCrewQuantityRatio"? The former sets the crew to a percentage of the ship's maximum crew; the latter sets it to a percentage of the ship's current crew. So the obvious fix is to change "SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio" to "SetSquadronCrewQuantityRatio", but would that break anything else?

If I do fix it here, it also needs to be fixed in several dialog files. "Enc Officer_dialog.c" allows you to talk to an officer to switch payment mode. "Fred Bob_dialog.c" and "danielle_dialog.c" do the same, these being special officers who never switch to standard dialog, so they have copies of some of the standard dialog code including the part to switch payment.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

is there a reason why it's using "SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio" instead of "SetSquadronCrewQuantityRatio"?

Honestly wouldn't know.
That code was written before I was involved.

would that break anything else?

If I think about it now, shouldn't the crew ratios reduced on a ship-by-ship basis?
So a ship with a large crew ends up losing more than a small one in your fleet?

 

[Grey Roger]

If I think about it now, shouldn't the crew ratios reduced on a ship-by-ship basis?
So a ship with a large crew ends up losing more than a small one in your fleet?

Both "SetSquadronCrewQuantityRatio" and "SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio" do exactly that - they go through each of your companions and multiply each ship's own crew size by the ratio.

The same ratio is used for each ship, though. You're the fleet commander, you're the one setting the payment method, so it's your leadership which determines the proportion of crew who desert. So, if you command a ship of the line and have a frigate as a companion, the ship of the line will lose more crew than the frigate but they'll both lose the same percentage.

 

[Vlaxie]

And if I leave all my money with a loanshark, will that prevent the crew from getting envious? I've also been wondering whether ships in this mod reach their top speed when they're exactly on the downwind or when the wind is somewhere on the rear quarter as was the case with square rigged ships in reality

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Both "SetSquadronCrewQuantityRatio" and "SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio" do exactly that - they go through each of your companions and multiply each ship's own crew size by the ratio.

Ah! Good.

The same ratio is used for each ship, though. You're the fleet commander, you're the one setting the payment method, so it's your leadership which determines the proportion of crew who desert. So, if you command a ship of the line and have a frigate as a companion, the ship of the line will lose more crew than the frigate but they'll both lose the same percentage.

Sounds pretty perfect to me.

And if I leave all my money with a loanshark, will that prevent the crew from getting envious?

What kind of bloody pirate are you?!?

I've also been wondering whether ships in this mod reach their top speed when they're exactly on the downwind or when the wind is somewhere on the rear quarter as was the case with square rigged ships in reality

Different ships have different best points of sail.
The Flying Dutchman, for example, is fastest sailing close hauled.
But that's an extreme case.

 

[Grey Roger]

In the absence of any indication that it will break something, I'll change "kam_articles.c" plus the various dialog files to use "SetSquadronCrewQuantityRatio" instead of "SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio". "Enc Officer_dialog.c" probably uses the wrong one because whoever wrote it copied that bit from "kam_articles.c", while "Fred Bob_dialog.c" and "danielle_dialog.c" probably use the wrong one because they copied the code from "Enc Officer_dialog.c". As far as I can tell from Windows Search, those are all the files which need to be corrected.

 

[Grey Roger]

And if I leave all my money with a loanshark, will that prevent the crew from getting envious?

What kind of bloody pirate are you?!?

The kind who can't use his crew to rob a bank because there's nothing in the game for it, so he uses the bank to rob his crew instead.

If you take out a big loan from a loanshark, and don't pay it back, does he still send a fleet of ships after you? Or to put it another way, can you steal his money, then steal his ships as well?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you take out a big loan from a loanshark, and don't pay it back, does he still send a fleet of ships after you? Or to put it another way, can you steal his money, then steal his ships as well?

Did that ever work?
I know I've seen code for it.
I don't recall ever hearing of it being functional.

 

[Vlaxie]

What kind of bloody pirate are you?!?

I'm no pirate sir! I'm only trying to keep my nation alive, a nation that was entirely built upon thievery, murder and cowardice but that was before.

I'm curious about the passage of time in this mod, when I did Free Play, 1 minute in game was ~15 real life seconds but in the Horatio Hornblower questline it seems to be 1 minute per 4 real life seconds, where does that difference come from?

In the absence of any indication that it will break something, I'll change "kam_articles.c" plus the various dialog files to use "SetSquadronCrewQuantityRatio" instead of "SetSquadronCrewQuantityTotalRatio". "Enc Officer_dialog.c" probably uses the wrong one because whoever wrote it copied that bit from "kam_articles.c", while "Fred Bob_dialog.c" and "danielle_dialog.c" probably use the wrong one because they copied the code from "Enc Officer_dialog.c". As far as I can tell from Windows Search, those are all the files which need to be corrected.

Did this change anything with the amount of crew that deserted?

 

[Grey Roger]

I'm curious about the passage of time in this mod, when I did Free Play, 1 minute in game was ~15 real life seconds but in the Horatio Hornblower questline it seems to be 1 minute per 4 real life seconds, where does that difference come from?

As far as I know, there is nothing in the storyline which affects time. (Except for a few places in which several weeks pass in as many seconds! You'll know when that happens, it's for obvious story reasons.)

Where do you notice this timing?

Did this change anything with the amount of crew that deserted?

Yes, I tried an experiment with a saved game in an advanced campaign in which I had already signed articles. I captured a prize ship, which therefore had very few crew, while my own ship had a full crew. After dividing plunder, I switched to payment by salary, which uses an exact copy of the same code. Before the change, my fully crew ship lost some while the minimally crewed prize ship gained some. Then I changed "kam_articles.c" as described, did the same again, and this time both my fully crewed ship and the minimally crewed prize ship lost crew. I'm hoping to upload a new update soon and the revised code for crew desertion will be included.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm curious about the passage of time in this mod, when I did Free Play, 1 minute in game was ~15 real life seconds but in the Horatio Hornblower questline it seems to be 1 minute per 4 real life seconds, where does that difference come from?

That sounds weird.
Did you change Realism settings in the meantime?
Or disable DirectSail or something?

 

[Vlaxie]

That sounds weird.
Did you change Realism settings in the meantime?
Or disable DirectSail or something?

Ooh right I actually did free play on Sea Dog/Realism Mode and Hornblower on Swashbuckler/Iron Man, I assume the faster passage of time on higher difficulties is to have the player be more cautious with time management? Direct Sail was on at all times, I used the map at first but then decided to sail in real-time without time compression In the Hornblower storyline I sailed the Bellona from Guadeloupe to Isla Mona in about 3.5hrs at ~6kts avg speed, fun times I always thought it'd be cool to be able to walk around on deck while the ship sailing simulation is running in the background towards your destination while you interact with the crew like practice fencing to raise your melee or play card games or other things to pass the time, though the game/mod already conveys a great feeling of immersion with the realistic sailing physics and distances and that's one of the reasons I love it so much and it's all thanks to you guys

Yes, I tried an experiment with a saved game in an advanced campaign in which I had already signed articles. I captured a prize ship, which therefore had very few crew, while my own ship had a full crew. After dividing plunder, I switched to payment by salary, which uses an exact copy of the same code. Before the change, my fully crew ship lost some while the minimally crewed prize ship gained some. Then I changed "kam_articles.c" as described, did the same again, and this time both my fully crewed ship and the minimally crewed prize ship lost crew. I'm hoping to upload a new update soon and the revised code for crew desertion will be included.

Ah I'm glad to hear it, it will be in the post 25th of May updates once it comes out right? Also do those updates require a fresh install of the game and the mod or can we just overwrite the previous revision which is something I've always done?

 

[Grey Roger]

Ooh right I actually did free play on Sea Dog/Realism Mode and Hornblower on Swashbuckler/Iron Man, I assume the faster passage of time on higher difficulties is to have the player be more cautious with time management?

Perhaps it is indeed "Swashbuckler" difficulty, "Iron Man" mode, or some combination of them that causes time to pass more rapidly at sea. It also increases the distance between islands precisely so that you take longer to sail between them. You might be less keen on a slower passage of time if you had to wait a day or two to get to the nearest island, and probably longer to get to the next part of the story! (One of the first events in the story is Clayton's duel with Simpson, after which you have to sail from Guadeloupe to Jamaica. Try doing that with increased distances between islands and 1 minute of game taking 15 seconds of real time...)

Ah I'm glad to hear it, it will be in the post 25th of May updates once it comes out right? Also do those updates require a fresh install of the game and the mod or can we just overwrite the previous revision which is something I've always done?

Yes, the revision to crew desertion after changing payment will be in the next update. There won't be all that much in the new one unless you're playing "Woodes Rogers", so you should be able to continue your existing game. In particular, the change to crew desertion should work in an existing game - that's how I tested it!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I assume the faster passage of time on higher difficulties is to have the player be more cautious with time management?

It's not related to Difficulty, but to Realism Mode.
Iron Man Mode contains the "Open Sea Mod", which changes the scale of the worldmap to get the travel times in DirectSail mostly in line with the worldmap.
This allows doing away with the "add 1 day for every hour passed at sea", but changing scale also changes the progression of time.

Perhaps it is indeed "Swashbuckler" difficulty, "Iron Man" mode, or some combination of them that causes time to pass more rapidly at sea.

It's just the Iron Man.
From PROGRAM\NK.c:

// stljeffbb Jan 15 2012 -->
void InitOpenSeaMod()
{
   ref PChar = GetMainCharacter();
   if(iRealismMode>1 || OPEN_SEA_MOD)
   {
       [...]
       TIMESCALAR_SEA =                                   15;       // INT - how many seconds of gametime one second of realtime is at sea
       [...]
   }
   else
   {
       [...]
       TIMESCALAR_SEA =                                    5;       // INT - how many seconds of gametime one second of realtime is at sea

 

[Vlaxie]

I don't know why I didn't think of that myself, what is the scale of the in-game map compared to the real world in Iron Man mode

 

[MrMister]

You can also play with the larger DirectSail map (and the slowed down passage of days) in Realism (or even Arcade) mode if you manually set

#define OPEN_SEA_MOD                1        // BOOL - 1=ON - Worldmap enlarged for realistic DirectSail

in InternalSettings.h

Note that with DirectSail but without OPEN_SEA_MOD on, you may have trouble getting to the smaller island in I think Granada - IIRC, whenever I tried sailing close to it it'd trigger the transition to the northern island of the archipelago, despawning Granada (including the small island I was trying to get to), and if I tried to turn back, I'd transition to a point near Granada that was again too much south of the smaller island.[/code]

I don't know why I didn't think of that myself, what is the scale of the in-game map compared to the real world in Iron Man mode

To add onto that question - assuming we installed with the Widescreen Patch, are the proportions of the map accurate (as in, I could help myself with a protractor over a screen) when playing in a 16:9 resolution, or is the slightly horizontally-stretched compass rose what we should base our cardinal directions on?