The only way I get Atropos is from the "GiveShip2Character" line near the end of "quests_reaction.c". I have no savegame with Atropos already assigned.If it is for the player character, then after pressing F11, you have to use GiveShip2Character as well because ships already owned by characters in the game retain their stats even after reinitalization.
Nope. I always close the game and shut down the PC after finishing an evening's play session, and I always load up the same savegame when trying out my end game modifications. The results are consistent with "Old Friends - New Enemies.txt" not being read when "AddQuestRecord" is called.All code files are loaded when you start ENGINE.exe . There are some exceptions, but those are specifically coded to load when they are requested.
This applies mainly to dialogs and console.c (why do you think console is so awesome?). All other things pretty much require you to close the game and reopen it again.
New game is not required, though. Just make a save, close the game, start the game and load your save and you should be back in business.
I'm now close to the end of a more recent playthrough which was intended as a final check that other mods haven't fouled up "Hornblower", though I wrote my own mod while this playthrough was already in progress. But I've only just reached "Old Friends - New Enemies". So if the file is read when you start the quest then I should see the new line appear at the end of the closed quest. If it's only read when you start a whole new game then it will have to wait because I don't intend to start over yet again! There are other things awaiting my attention...
Which means, barring surprises during the final part of the playthrough or a sudden idea for something awesome and easy to do, that's it done. I've just posted a zip file with all my "Hornblower" updates" in the "List of Fixes" thread.
Other tweaks:
When you first meet Maria Mason, you stop and stare at her for quite a while. Two months, in fact. I found a section in "quests_reaction.c" titled "Two_months_later", so I added a "WaitDate" line to make it be two months later. The default viewing angle is, er, "interesting".

At first I thought Percy Buckland might another traitor, but in fact he's just an idiot.

