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An updated mod of pure evil...

T

The Diamond

Landlubber
Storm Modder
Arr!

Gather round, me 'earties, for Cp'n Diamond has now produced v1.0 of the <b>Evil Stormy Start</b>, which can be downloaded from this thread.

No readme's or full change lists at this stage...they'll come shortly. Also, once I've been able to confirm that there are no bugs, I'll make its compatibility sections a bit more, uhm, elegant.

Attached to this thread is a zip file...simply download it and extract it into your POTC directory (you might want to make backups first...and please note that this is using the Build 13 base release, not any of the alphas...as a result, any alphas which have modified the following files will be overwritten:

characters_init.c
both_reaction.c
ships_init.c

You'll also need to add a short section to your BuildSettings.h file, as follows:

=========================================================

#define EVIL_STORMY_START 1
// 0: Off, stock POTC / CCC Stormy Start. Set CCC_STORMY to 1 if this is set to 0.
// 1: Enables a more difficult version of the Stormy Start

#define CCC_STORMY 0
// 0: Set to 0 if using EVIL_STORMY_START. This is needed for certain checking functions.
// 1: Returns CCC Stormy Start to its normal status. Set to 1 if Evil Stormy Start is set to 0.

=========================================================


For those sailors who were livin' under a rock when Cp'n Diamond last sailed through, the Evil Stormy Start (which is a darn sight easier to abbreviate than BWofaSS) is based heavily and shamelessly upon the excellent Stormy Start mod by Couch Cap'n Charles, as included in Build 13.

As ye might expect, the Evil Stormy Start leaves ye in even worse shape - no random gifts of blunderbusses, no decks chock-full o' contraband...just you, plus a leaky tartane wi' one or two bits of salvage and a couple o' crew, wi' no means ter defend yerself on land or sea and bein' prey to every other scurvy cur in the Caribbean.

Its not a mod fer the faint 'earted...but any true pirate should be willin' ter give it a go.
 
Nice! I'll be looking forward to this! Perhaps you could add a BuildSettings toggle on the mod? So nobody would need to download it; they'd just need to turn it on. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
 
Hopefully there will be a toggle on the mod, but last time around I had to carve up the way the gunpowder mod intervenes in character initialisation to make it work properly. Because of that, if you had both BWofaSS and the gunpowder mod turned on and you started a non-Stormy start then there would be no gunpowder in your hold and so you can't immediately fire your cannons / pistols, etc. until you buy some - people would probably view this as a fairly notable bug.

Alternatively, without carving up the gunpowder mod, you'd start BWofaSS with a ship packed to the brim with gunpowder...which is just odd.

My way around this before was to accept that my mod wasn't compatible with the gunpowder mod and allow people either to install it or not to install it.


However, this time around I'm going to attempt a more subtle workaround...provided it works, there's no reason why it can't have a toggle. When toggled, it would neatly replace CCC's original Stormy Start mod and (fingers crossed) there's no reason why it would conflict with other mods.

The 'provided it works' bit is the reason I haven't finished Evil Stormy Start yet. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
 
piece o' cake! bring it on! i once tried stormy start in a gunboat at swashbuckler level. 'bout the same experience. the only difference was that i HAD a weapon. do you start without cash as well? i'm going to regret saying that. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mybad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":facepalm" border="0" alt="mybad.gif" />
 
Pah! That means you had weapons, money, a supply of contraband and a boat with cannons (albeit a small one). That's at least four more advantages than I intend ter give ye.


This is the description taken from the original mod. The updated one will contain all of the following and will also be Build 13 compatible:

### Evil Stormy Start ###

Designed to directly replace the normal Stormy Start mod by CCC.

Ability to select bum skin and Tartane2 from the selection menu.
In fact, whatever ship you choose, you end up with a Tartane, you scurvy cur...what else did you want this mod for?
Starting goods: 2 wheat, 1 rum, 2 (contraband)
Starting equipment: Fists, (random number) stones, scratched spyglass
Starting money: 0 party, 0 personal
Starting skills: None, plus all stats set to 1
Damage to ship: Heavily damaged hull, heavily damaged sails
Number of crew: 0

Captain's Cabin no longer contains 1,000 gold, (random) potions and cracked spyglass (so no cheating!)

Other areas of the ship should also be stripped of their contents (although this doesn't always work...not sure why).

Gunboat and War Tartane values increased to prevent instant buying via a generous loanshark
Tartane values reduced to prevent trade-in bonuses for the above
Minimum crew for Tartane and Tartane2 set to 0, so now you can re-enact Jack Sparrow's infamous arrival, alone on a sailing boat slowly sinking underneath him...Arrr! (this also prevents stupid situations like being permanently stranded on your starting island)

CCC's Survival mod altered, to remove the infamous Tartane repair trick (as noted by Cp'n Diamond last year, although KK has since made it largely irrelevant) and to allow ships to be royally pranged. The automatic +50 hull and +5 crew after 'accidents' while you're recovering in a tavern no longer apply...its now possible to end up with a ship too damaged to sail, forcing the captain to find alternative ways to solve their money problems.
 
Sounds like a nice challenge <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="me.gif" />
 
there is no need to set the minimum crew to zero. you can now let the bandits join you as crew. you can also let them chop down some trees. i've used it quite often to get started. oh, and try starting in the conditions i mentioned. it's pretty tough.
 
Why thankee, Cp'n Charles...


To be honest, I set the crew requirement to 0 because there were quite a few times during testing when it was incredibly difficult to go further than a screen or two without being killed (bearing in mind that you're completely unarmed!) - and you don't always start at your ship. Sometimes the only way to sensibly get off the island alive was to take your chances at sea in a boat likely to sink at any moment.

It depends exactly what build settings and difficulty you use, though. If you don't allow yourself to be killed outright by gunfire then its much easier to run past bandits and get to a town, or explore until you find bandits that ask questions 'first' and shoot later.

I'd be happy to raise the minimum crew to 2...my only worry was that forcing the player to explore the first island long enough to a) find the ship and b) earn enough money to take on crew and pay them for your first voyage, would mean that too many players would die at the beginning and the mod would be too frustrating to play.


I've played Stormy Start on Swashbuckler - the difficult starting experience was one of the key inspirations for this mod. It was bloody tough, I'll grant you that, but it could easily have been much worse. Evil Stormy Start proves that. Trust me...its not easy when you can't defend yourself at all on land or sea.

There are only three things I can think of that would make Evil Stormy Start noticably harder. Firstly, stopping the loan sharks trading with you at the start of the game. Secondly, making you start out heavily in debt to a loanshark, but having lost / spent all your money at sea (I'm still considering including this one). Thirdly, removing all of the random loot that can be acquired 'safely' on the coast, jungle and town regions - such as the swords mysteriously left behind tree trunks (and if this was easy to do, I'd do it).
 
i don't mind it being horribly difficult, but it shouldn't become impossible. not being able to get money or items in any way possible makes it impossible to play. i'm just wondering how you get money without killing anyone which you are almost forced to do in that situation? having a sword helps A LOT. maybe you should just give the player a badly worn dagger or something. it would give him a small chance. if he manages to kill someone, he will doubtlessly have a better weapon, though it's likely that it's not much better, and a little money to pay the crew salary if he gets some. he would be able to improve from there, although REALLY slowly at first. maybe decrease the money you get from an enemy as well?
 
It isn't impossible to get items in the Evil Stormy Start, nor would I want it to be...and to be honest, a dagger isn't exactly a vast improvement over fists as you still can't block with it.

I don't think you're forced to kill people at all - quite the opposite. The trick of the Evil Stormy Start is that killing people is probably out of scope until you've got yourself a weapon. There are two or three ways you could do that, as there are a couple of alternatives:

You usually start with a couple of stones, so picking your moment to throw one and rob somebody is an obvious (if not entirely safe or predictable) route.

Getting to the town is another one. If done by foot, you can have a chat with a loanshark and get enough for a sword, or sell your spyglass and pick up a very cheap dagger (if you're lucky).

Finding your ship and sailing away is the third, as you do have two pieces of contraband. You could arrange to meet smugglers for a risky beginning, or sail somewhere safer with your weak rum and food rations and sell the goods legitimately and start out life as a very small-time trader until you have a slightly better float of money...of course, you have to avoid hostile ships like the plague.

Alternatively, you could wander around until you find a brand spanking new Schiavona casually discarded behind a tree (as you do...), or behind a rock on the beach where you start. You can see why I'd like to remove the sword and loot drops from the 'safe' zones, right?

I don't think those are unreasonable suggestions. Each one carries a different level of risk (unfortunately one carries almost none at all, and is virtually a bug in terms of this mod) and trying to climb too far up the piratical ladder too fast is difficult and very dangerous.

The only problem comes if you're on one side of a large and very hostile island with several bandits between you and your ship AND between you and the town. In those situations, you have to resort to mugging. If you have no stones or you waste your stones, you have to resort to running like hell. When things get that bad, there's often a very high risk of death (depending on your settings), but its still not impossible. You just have to accept that your chances in that situation are slim and prepare yourself accordingly.


I'm not sure about messing with loot drops, although my feeling is that killing your average peasant / bandit does give maybe a bit more loot than it should. I'd rather target the loansharks, as that's too easy a way to get a couple of hundred gold that you can easily make back in one or two trading routes (especially if you get a loan at your next port, and at the next, etc.), in addition to arming yourself and being able to afford a small crew and carry out a fair amount of repair work. I think that's verging on gamebreaking for the Evil Stormy Start.

I figure that the answer is to prevent moneylending until you've amassed a suitable amount of wealth...or cut the figures offered to paupers...and, maybe, start the player with a eye-watering loan hanging over their heads.

Basically, this mod is supposed to be a pain in the ass until you've earned enough to trade-in your devalued Tartane and buy a Gunboat at the very least. To be honest, the 'Evil' bit in the title kinda gives it away. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
 
i LIKE this! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/w00t.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":woot" border="0" alt="w00t.gif" /> if you decide using that loan, the player will have to know that somehow, and how big the loan is. the 'running away' "strategy" <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /> does work. i've used it many times in the stock game when i was at a low level when encountering bandits. bandits where VERY lethal back then.you just have to set yourself up before talking. it is also quite easy to simply walk around, so don't worry about that being to difficult. i know almost all the tricks in the book for this game, and i'd really like to put my inginuity to the test.
 
A quick development update for those who are interested:


Evil Stormy Start is now officially selectable via BuildSettings and is now compatible with the gunpowder mod.

<b>LoanSharks</b>

The Loansharks have now been edited to limit the amount offered to the player in the earlier stages of the game. They'll now be MUCH more miserly. This is on a sliding scale, based on Pchar.rank. Players at level 20 will see exactly the same loan offers as they would get in the standard Build 13. Players below level 20 will be offered less. Players above level 20 will be offered more.

For example (figures are Small, Medium and Large loan offers):

Level 1: 25, 75, 150
Level 5: 625, 1875, 3750
Level 10: 2500, 7500, 15000
Level 20: 10000, 30000, 60000 (as Build 13)
Level 30: 22500, 67500, 135000

This is mainly to remove the problem of loansharks making an early escape from Evil Stormy Start too easy. If people feel that the loansharks shouldn't offer larger sums of money to later-game characters (Level 40 would be x2 more than standard Build 13) then I'd be happy to introduce a cap.

<b>Currently working on:</b>

Removing the additional items spawned in the ship's deck & crew quarters.

Considering adding in a 10000 loan to the player at game start (whoops...those gambling debts do sneak up on you, don't they). I expect that this loan will be payable to a loanshark on a specific island and that the player will have (x) months to pay it back before the debtors start calling.

My top candidates for the loanshark you owe money to are Oxbay, Redmond or Quebradas Costillas.
 
i would vote for redmond. however, as this is supposed to be difficult, quebradas costillas would be the best choice, as you have to fight pirates so you can pay off your loan. the island is almost always guarded by pirate ships. oxbay is a bad choice, as i don't think that you can use the loanshark when it's still captured by the french. i'm not sure if QC actually has a loanshark though. i think you should check at how long it takes you or someone else to get the money together and getting out of his misery before setting a time. that way you can prevent a to short or to long time.
 
<!--quoteo(post=178408:date=Jan 7 2007, 04:44 PM:name=The Diamond)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The Diamond @ Jan 7 2007, 04:44 PM) [snapback]178408[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Evil Stormy Start is now officially selectable via BuildSettings and is now compatible with the gunpowder mod.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
EXCELLENT! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/w00t.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":woot" border="0" alt="w00t.gif" />

<!--quoteo(post=178408:date=Jan 7 2007, 04:44 PM:name=The Diamond)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The Diamond @ Jan 7 2007, 04:44 PM) [snapback]178408[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
If people feel that the loansharks shouldn't offer larger sums of money to later-game characters (Level 40 would be x2 more than standard Build 13) then I'd be happy to introduce a cap.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A cap would be a good idea, I think. Otherwise the loans could become a bit too much. How about the idea to use the square root of the pchar rank in the calculation? That way the loans increase quickly with the first couple of level-ups, but it goes slower and slower with each next level-up.

<!--quoteo(post=178408:date=Jan 7 2007, 04:44 PM:name=The Diamond)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The Diamond @ Jan 7 2007, 04:44 PM) [snapback]178408[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Removing the additional items spawned in the ship's deck & crew quarters.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In the Build 14 Alpha version the ship locations are depending on the ship itself. So large ships will have a captain's cabin, crew's quarters and several cargo holds and cannon decks. However, small ships don't have several cargo holds and cannon decks. And extremely small ships like the tartanes only have an exterior ship deck and no interior locations at all, not even a captain's cabin. This limits the amount of items spawned in these locations quite severely, because these locations are not accessible unless the player gets a bigger boat.
 
seems like this will be put into build 14 alpha 5. will it? (actually i'm looking for excuses to post, and pieter knows why <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /> )
 
That rather depends on whether it's finished, or at least released as alpha or beta before I release Alpha 5. At the moment I am waiting on Maximus to fix the Direct Sail weirdness in the current Alpha I'm having. And I'm, of course, also waiting until my download webspace is working again.
 
how much time is there left? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />
 
A month before I leave. I'll try to do what I can before that time.
 
<!--quoteo(post=178409:date=Jan 7 2007, 09:51 AM:name=morgan terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(morgan terror @ Jan 7 2007, 09:51 AM) [snapback]178409[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->oxbay is a bad choice, as i don't think that you can use the loanshark when it's still captured by the french. i'm not sure if QC actually has a loanshark though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've paid back loans at Oxbay when it was still in French hands. You have to be able to if you take out a loan there, otherwise it would never get paid back.

There's another reason to use QC to pay back the loan. A quick dungeon crawl in Oxbay will give you more than the amount you mention above. Or a few dungeon crawls, if you cut back the amount of loot you get from a dungeon. It would be pretty simple to go to Oxbay, make a trip or two through the dungeon, then pay back the loan right there on the spot. If you have to sail to QC to pay the loan it would be more difficult.

Hook
 
yes, definatly. maybe decrease the amount of money you get from looting characters?
 
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