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PotC Community and PotC

A

Abysmal Gale

Guest
Greets! My first post, after lurking for some while.

You know, I'm one of those micro-managey types who usually looks for the details in games. Silent Hunter III was nice with its crew rotation, return to port, slow pace and so forth, but a far cry from what I've been looking for i.e a 3D <i>simulation</i> of being a Post-Captain or equivalent on a long voyage in an age of sail vessel, with perhaps a career mode on offer, amongst other options. Yes, something like a non-arcade Master and Commander licence or whatnot would be fantastic, as long as it managed to convey the era well, complete with micromanagement of crew, re-supply, orders from the Admiralty and so forth.

Back along, I got on well enough with Sea Dogs, and now have rediscovered PotC -and it's a genuine surprise to find a community that not only has improved the game, but rejuvenated it entirely. The work involved is not only welcomed and well-received, but what stands out the most is the professionalism of all who contributed. I'm running build 14.6 right here and I've had not <i>one</i> single CTD or other naughtiness, nor were there any in build 13, apart from a few warnings in runme.bat. Now, statistics notwithstanding, that's pretty damn amazing. Personally, I'm very happy with DirectSail, to choose one instance of outstanding work, even though the worldmap is demonstrably smaller than the 3D worldview, and therefore prone to a certain craziness, but the worldmap is hard-coded, right?

So congrats to all involved -superlative work, everybody.

Now, on to my two questions.

I've been searching around here for a complete list of PotC ships, their merits and de-merits -saw one somewhere and forgot to bookmark. Can anyone point me to any such? My trader character (I like to roleplay) has bought her second vessel -a barque, and would like some stats on this vessel and all the current others featured in-game.

Second up.

Would anyone object if I were to write up a PDF manual for this community effort? Kind of like an addendum to the Akella original, but with full illustrations and HOWTOs for buildsettings.h and internalsettings.h, to name but two examples. I'm rather fond of creating PDFs, and I think a concise manual for new users of these builds would prove very useful.

Any thoughts?

Best regards,

<i>Widow Moira </i>, Captain of the Abysmal Gale. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo(post=206920:date=Jul 11 2007, 01:47 PM:name=Abysmal Gale)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Abysmal Gale @ Jul 11 2007, 01:47 PM) [snapback]206920[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Now, on to my two questions.

I've been searching around here for a complete list of PotC ships, their merits and de-merits -saw one somewhere and forgot to bookmark. Can anyone point me to any such? My trader character (I like to roleplay) has bought her second vessel -a barque, and would like some stats on this vessel and all the current others featured in-game.

Second up.

Would anyone object if I were to write up a PDF manual for this community effort? Kind of like an addendum to the Akella original, but with full illustrations and HOWTOs for buildsettings.h and internalsettings.h, to name but two examples. I'm rather fond of creating PDFs, and I think a concise manual for new users of these builds would prove very useful.

Any thoughts?

Best regards,

<i>Widow Moira </i>, Captain of the Abysmal Gale. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Hi Widow Moira and welcome,

I think your PDF idea would be great - and would certainly turn into a project of it's own.
As a confessed "lurker" you will certainly have noticed the same questions on game play - "what do i do when I ..." and game settings - "where do you change ..." etc. etc. so a PDF of FAQ (frequently asked questions) would be great.
Also what is available in the various mod versions - "direct sails appears in mod version .." corpse looting in version ..." and so on.
A review of the story line, with side quests is probably overdue too, by now.

As to ship stats - you will find the complete list in: Pirates of the Caribbean\PROGRAM\Ships\ships_ini.c if I understand your question correctly.

All the best. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/keith.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":keith" border="0" alt="keith.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo(post=206920:date=Jul 11 2007, 07:47 PM:name=Abysmal Gale)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Abysmal Gale @ Jul 11 2007, 07:47 PM) [snapback]206920[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Greets! My first post, after lurking for some while.

You know, I'm one of those micro-managey types who usually looks for the details in games. Silent Hunter III was nice with its crew rotation, return to port, slow pace and so forth, but a far cry from what I've been looking for i.e a 3D <i>simulation</i> of being a Post-Captain or equivalent on a long voyage in an age of sail vessel, with perhaps a career mode on offer, amongst other options. Yes, something like a non-arcade Master and Commander licence or whatnot would be fantastic, as long as it managed to convey the era well, complete with micromanagement of crew, re-supply, orders from the Admiralty and so forth.

Back along, I got on well enough with Sea Dogs, and now have rediscovered PotC -and it's a genuine surprise to find a community that not only has improved the game, but rejuvenated it entirely. The work involved is not only welcomed and well-received, but what stands out the most is the professionalism of all who contributed. I'm running build 14.6 right here and I've had not <i>one</i> single CTD or other naughtiness, nor were there any in build 13, apart from a few warnings in runme.bat. Now, statistics notwithstanding, that's pretty damn amazing. Personally, I'm very happy with DirectSail, to choose one instance of outstanding work, even though the worldmap is demonstrably smaller than the 3D worldview, and therefore prone to a certain craziness, but the worldmap is hard-coded, right?

So congrats to all involved -superlative work, everybody.

Now, on to my two questions.

I've been searching around here for a complete list of PotC ships, their merits and de-merits -saw one somewhere and forgot to bookmark. Can anyone point me to any such? My trader character (I like to roleplay) has bought her second vessel -a barque, and would like some stats on this vessel and all the current others featured in-game.

Second up.

Would anyone object if I were to write up a PDF manual for this community effort? Kind of like an addendum to the Akella original, but with full illustrations and HOWTOs for buildsettings.h and internalsettings.h, to name but two examples. I'm rather fond of creating PDFs, and I think a concise manual for new users of these builds would prove very useful.

Any thoughts?

Best regards,

<i>Widow Moira </i>, Captain of the Abysmal Gale. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Silent hunter ...? pdf..? just get to the point or those two questions... not a life story... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/urgh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":urgh" border="0" alt="urgh.gif" />
 
Koleniko, if you are too lazy to read a long post just don't try and don't be so anoying. That's not the way we welcome newbies in this forum. That would better be something like that :

Welcome Widow Moira! Always good to have newcomers who've played to Seadogs and enjoyed it!
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/buds.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":drunk" border="0" alt="buds.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wavarr.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":warr" border="0" alt="wavarr.gif" />

I personnaly agree with your first idea about micromanagement, some month ago I remember we talked a lot about improving this aspect of the game (officers mostly) with alas few results ingame. I must say I too like to start different games with different type of main character - trader, pirate, smuggler, etc... I tried once to write down some piece of code in order to change of main character ingame, like having one of your officer becoming the captain or something like that but big bugs came with it and I gave up. (eventhough I have an other idea of how this could be coded that I'll try shortly)
 
For the swap character thing: Just swap the skills, name and character model of the characters. Don't try swapping the IDs. That should save you the bugs and it will appear to do the same (even though in reality you keep the previous character).

To Koleniko: That is indeed not the way we like to welcome people here. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

A post I wrote a while ago but somehow forgot to post until now:

The 3D worldmap is indeed hardcoded. It is rather odd that voyages in 3D sailing mode take much longer than on the 3D worldmap, but that's how it is. Perhaps something can be done about that somehow, but I don't know how. But do we really need to? People can just choose whichever voyage type they want to take.

One thing I do wonder about: Would it be a good idea to turn off the 3D worldmap (using a BuildSettings.h setting, of course)? Also to have islands and towns appear on th F2 > Map screen as the player discovers them. That way, when the player starts the game there is only one island with one town and he'll have to find the rest, either by buying maps showing parts of the Caribbean (which might or might not be accurate), by talking with people who might tell the player where to find certain towns or islands or just by sailing around at random, trying to find the land. Might make for interesting exploration gameplay. Especially with interesting events along the way, unexpected encounters, possible uncharted islands, etc. This same BuildSettings.h toggle should also completely turn off the "Sail To" functionality.

Having a PDF manual for the Build would be great. Several people have started work on such a thing, but nobody finished it so far. I don't remember who was working on it last time, but perhaps if somebody remembers, you can contact them and get what they did so far as a start. In any case: Be sure to check out the buildinfo subfolder in the PotC folder; there's a lot of documentation there. It would be great to have all that info rearranged, updated and improved to make for a complete gameplay manual for Build 14. I say Build 14, because that will be the next major release. It would be a shame if you went through all that trouble to make a manual for Build 13, only to have Build 14 released shortly after, making your manual outdated again.
 
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->For the swap character thing: Just swap the skills, name and character model of the characters. Don't try swapping the IDs. That should save you the bugs and it will appear to do the same (even though in reality you keep the previous character).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

You know, I did try this at the end, but there were some disaventages. By swaping of main character, each had their own quests running. That's not the case with your method. And my goal was in fact to verify if the game would support a main character with an id other than 'blaze'. The only buggy part with my method (at least the only problem I've discovered so far) is the officers, passangers and allies ; I don't quite understand how this part works - furthermore it looks like the officers code was deeply changed since stock PotC, in which I usually test my adds.
 
A lot of code was deeply changed. Basing your mods on the stock game will make compatibility with the modded game rather hard. Sometimes it might be easy, sometimes it might be virtually impossible to put stock game mods into the game.

Several times in the code, the following is used: if(char.id == "blaze"). This is used to determine if a character is the pchar. Of course this will cause trouble if the pchar.id is not "blaze". It is possible to use <b>something like</b> if(char == GetMainCharacter()) instead, but that isn't always used.
 
wooooo

I like Pieter's idea about the direct sail thing with the unexplored islands. I think this would add a lot to the gameplay and make for a more interesting experience. The only thing is if you have already gone far in a game and then want to do something new it may be a little bit of a hassle. Of course It shouldn't be too bad as you probably know your way around the carribean by then without the map. And having uncharted islands would definately be cool. This sounds like a sweet idea.

And I really agree about the micromanaging. It seems that a lot of things that are added in the build are really sweet but kind of die out. I still think just about everything done in the build is almost essential if you want to play potc, but after you go around and explore a little and do some quests and stuff, things just kind of stall after that. If we incorperated more micromanagement of the crew, I think the experience would last much longer. I mentioned this in a post before actually. I think it would be cool to add some new items that are required to sustain your crew like water and salted meats. I would also be cool to be able to dine with your officers and captains in your cabin and of course we would have to make this affect your game in some way (and perhaps you would need wine and some other kind of food). Also there could be livestock that you could choose to slaughter to improve the morale of the crew (they would have fresh meat for dinner instead of the old salted dry stuff and hardtac biscuits). And perhaps there could be random occurances with the crew (like quarrels and such) that may require you to take certain actions (like punish them or something). Some ideas that might improve the gameplay a descent amount. I hope I didn't get too off topic.
 
this is possibly the best idea I've ever heard! and it gave my an idea, I know that people are working on different story lines and they some pretty good and all but how about a sidequest based on been given a commision from a govener to take onboard of his officals and find uninhabited land/islands and then use the building mod to establish another colony with the offical then apointed as govener of that island (sailors should stick to the sea me thinks). you could also berewarded in a higher rank such as an admeral or recive the tittle of LORD and be given an amount of land or some thing. or if you are a pirate you go establish your own island and apoint an offica in charge! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/poet.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":hmm" border="0" alt="poet.gif" />

and do you think it possible to submerge some islands under the sea level and make deadly shoals and sand bars out at sea, and if you have a navigator in your crew he/she could mark them on your map so you can avoid them completly by sailing arond them using your map to give you something other than stroms and enemy ships to worry about <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/keith.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":keith" border="0" alt="keith.gif" />
 
i thought the towns already where uncharted until you visit them? at least, the town icon on the worldmap isn't there yet until you've visited the town.
 
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